APLASTIC ANAEMIA – LINDANE - ONE CASE WHERE THERE WAS PROOF OF A CAUSE AND EFFECT AND COMPENSATION WAS PAID.

Written 1990 – updated in 2005

This is the case of aplastic anaemia in a 13 year old boy living in a house treated with lindane insecticide.

Before lindane was banned in the U.K. exposure caused countless numbers of cases of aplastic anaemia, leukaemia's, and cancers in those living in the treated houses and sometimes in the operators spraying the houses. To obtain a mortgage it was necessary to have a certificate that any timbers affect by woodworm or rot had been treated and were guaranteed protected for up to 30 years.

The following are just 3 of the 100’s of references in medical papers and textbooks  linking aplastic anaemia, a precursor condition to leukaemia and other cancers, and organochlorine insecticides like lindane and DDT.

The Martindale Extra Pharmacopoeia 29^th Edition Page 1344. “Chlorinated Pesticides – including DDT  and lindane. Adverse Effects include agranulocytosis and aplastic anaemia. They are stored in body fats and not readily excreted except in breast milk and possibly through the placenta”

Bowman and Rand – Pharmacology  “Aplastic Anaemia – Most cases are induced by drugs and chemicals.  Ionization radiations have the same effects.” On the same page included in a list of drugs and chemicals known to cause aplastic anaemia is “lindane gamma benzene hexachloride”. (lindane has a 30 year half-life so its effects will take 100’s of years to reduce to safe levels after being banned).

University of Texas – Houston Medical 1997.  “Aplastic anaemia Answer Book. What are the causes of aplastic anaemia?   Aplastic anaemia has been clearly linked to radiation, environmental toxins, insecticides, and drugs in much the same fashion that cancer has been linked to these agents.”

In the case which is being examined here the house of a 13 year old boy was heavily treated with lindane insecticide by a national wood treatment company including  liberal amounts on the bare wood floor in the boys bedroom infested with woodworm. Not only did the boy breath the fumes in but he also lay  for long hours on the freshly treated floorboards in front of a radiator. A few weeks later he became ill with symptoms of bruising (thromboocytopenia due to low platelets) and out of breath (due to very low red cell counts and was diagnosed as having aplastic anaemia (destruction of the bone marrow). He required regular platelet and whole blood transfusions to keep him alive for months whilst a suitable match for a bone marrow transplant was sought. No investigation was made into the cause of his illness but with other recent cases reported his parents did try to claim the cause was his exposure to lindane but all his doctors dismissed this. One consultant did suggest he try drinking bottled spring water (the chlorine and fluorine in tap water can combine with organic chemicals to produce organochlorine compounds like lindane).

Because his parents had little idea of the causes he was bought lots of models to make glued together with solvent glue. His condition not surprising deteriorated. Solvent abuse and people exposed to the benzene related chemicals in the glues for model making are  documented in medical papers to develop aplastic anaemia.

A gas chromatography/mass spectrometry analysis of the level of lindane in the boys body fat was obtained from his hospital. This showed huge levels of lindane in his body fats compared with the very low levels found in the fats of a health control patient. ( a copy of this is attached ). Note: medical papers and textbooks state quite clearly that it is vital to remove aplastic anaemia patients from causative agents as they may have become highly sensitised to future exposures. This was clearly not done in this or any other case I have investigated.

An article in the Haematology Digest 1990 by The Haematology Department at Royal Liverpool Hospital reports that they had found 3 patients with aplastic anaemia who had extremely high levels of lindane in their body fats. My own investigations showed that hospitals throughout the U.K. at that time had countless patients with aplastic anaemia, leukaemia and cancers resulting from exposure to lindane. I found them in the hospitals I attended as an aplastic anaemia patient in Leeds, Halifax and London and there were other cases I was in touch with at other hospitals.

I have a letter from a London firm of lawyers dated 17^th July, 1991 requesting information I had on lindane causing aplastic anaemia and the T.V. Programme “Earthdwellers Guide” were in touch and I gave them some information and names of victims. This T.V. programme was voted the best investigative programme on T.V. winning many awards when it was taken off air just after the programme in which it reported on lindane causing aplastic anaemia, cancers and birth defects.

A suitable donor for a transplant was found for the boy but he did not survive it dying at the age of 15 after nearly two years of terrible suffering. His family were paid out-of-court compensation.

With nearly all cases of aplastic anaemia and related conditions there are many related things happening surrounding each case and this case was no exceptions.

The boy’s local consultant said he had had his house treated and he and his wife were still O.K. so lindane could not cause aplastic anaemia, leukaemia and cancers. A few  months later his wife was diagnosed with leukaemia. ( it does not seem to matter how many papers are written and how many victims there are the medical profession are always prepared to support the drug and chemical industries and are even prepared to argue black is white to defend them.)

The family moved out of the house when they realised the dangers, they were actually advised to get out by one friendly doctor because they had another son and before anyone else was affected but not to tell anyone he had warned them. They warned the family buying their house and moving in as they had a baby but they did not believe them. The baby died a year later of a brain tumour. Lindane is documented to cause brain tumours and I have come across other cases of brain tumours following exposure to lindane. In another case I had contact with two out of three sons were died of leukaemia in one house which was treated with lindane.  They received anonymous threats after media publicity.

The man treating the house with lindane for the national company in this case being discussed developed  a abdominal tumour, he too was paid compensation by the company.

At the funeral of the boy the hospital rang to say the other son had Hodgkin's, lymphatic cancer which can also be caused by lindane. With this shock news the grandmother collapsed and died at the funeral. Later the hospital rang again to say there has been an error the other boy did not have Hodgkin's after all. In 1986 I was sent home from Leeds General Infirmary to die as I was told in addition to severe aplastic anaemia I was riddled with cancer,  this was totally untrue.

Lindane was quietly banned and other safer chemicals, which had been available for many years, were substituted. When lindane was banned in Israel the levels of breast cancer dropped dramatically. When the widely used antibiotic chloramphenicol, which is documented to cause aplastic anaemia and leukaemia, was used much less in the USA after it was noticed the serious adverse effects the total number of aplastic anaemia cases reduced. There are many other dangerous chemicals in use today which are either unnecessary or have safer alternatives, nothing will be done until there are so many obvious victims the effects can no longer be overlooked.

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