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Dose response

I thought about this after my last posting, I'm sure you will all
appreciate it after this latest thread

When I first joined the Department about 13 years ago, we were put
through an induction course on the proper handling and storage of
pesticides.

One of the case histories on HOW NOT TO still sticks in my mind.

In the early days of market gardens in Western Australia when
organophosphate and organochloride pesticides were widely used the
majority of market gardeners were from southern or eastern european
origin and consequently had little usable english  (especially in
reading) 
As they couldn't read the labels they just added insecticide untill they
had a VISIBLE effect.
What was this visible effect?  Nosebleeds, nausea etc....  if they
didn't come home from the garden with this then they considered they
hadn't done a good enough job!

Times have changed, or have they, the old market gardeners were
europeans, we now have many Vietnamese moving into maket gardens,
especially tomatoes and strawberries.  I haven't heard of similiar
stories for the Viets, hopefully better labelling and use of Protective
clothing and handling icons etc have alleviated this.

Cheers, Rod
Rod Randall
Weed Risk Assessment
Weed Science Group, Agriculture Western Australia
Home Page  http://www.agric.wa.gov.au/progserv/plants/weeds/Weedsci.htm

             "I weed..."
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