ME/CFS South Australia Inc: MCS Public Health Rally update

ME/CFS SOUTH AUSTRALIA INC

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ME/CFS South Australia Inc supports the needs of sufferers of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and related illnesses. We do this by providing services and information to members.

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MCS Public Health Rally update

Saturday 24 February 2007

Peter Evans, Convenor of the South Australian Task Force on Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, has an update on the MCS Public Health Rally to be held on Thursday 1 March 2007:

Port Adelaide Enfield Council still wants to ignore MCS and the herbicide problem.

An update on the March 1 MCS rally from Peter Evans, Convenor of the SA Task Force on MCS

What does it take for local Councils to start paying attention to the health problems associated with the herbicides they use for weed control? Recently, every one of the 18 elected Port Adelaide Enfield Councillors was e-mailed inviting them to attend the MCS public health rally on March 1. Not one single Councillor has bothered to respond to accept the invitation or to apologise for being unable to attend. The Council CEO and the new Mayor have also been e-mailed asking them for a few minutes to discuss the herbicide problem but neither have replied.

In a Messenger press article about the resident with MCS who was recently forced out of her home by herbicide, a Council representative was reported to have said that “the Council would not stop using Roundup”. The representative also seems to be oblivious to the numerous times Council’s No-Spray Register has regularly failed to notify MCS residents of herbicide spray activity. You can read the full article here (Peter, please add a link to the Messenger article, which is attached.)

And this indifference to the herbicide problem goes right to the top of the local government structure. The MCS Reference Group recommended by the Parliamentary Inquiry into MCS is supposed to be responsible for developing No-Spray Registers so that local Councils can identify people with MCS in the community. But the MCS Reference Group can’t be properly formed because the Local Government Association has continually failed to nominate representatives to the Group. Correspondence on this matter from the Task Force on MCS to the President of the Local Government Association has simply been ignored.

Council’s hypocrisy on this environmental public health issue is astounding. Recently Port Adelaide Enfield Councillors strongly criticised the state’s Environment Protection Agency for not properly monitoring industrial pollution in the Council area. They have also proposed a ban on smoking at bus stops. And this is all good stuff. But when it comes to looking in their own back yard about the serious public health problems they are causing with herbicides they seem to have their heads firmly stuck in the sand.

Let’s see if we can start changing this attitude of indifference at local Councils with a good crowd turning up at the MCS public health rally, which will be held on Thursday 1st March between 12 pm and 1 pm at Port Adelaide Enfield Civic Centre, 163 St Vincent Street, Port Adelaide. There is plenty of parking at the rear of the building.

If we don’t get out and make our voices heard on this issue we will simply continue to be ignored.

A flier for the rally is here:

MCS Public Health Rally: 1 March 2007 (PDF, 118KB)