GALWAY for a SAFE ENVIRONMENT
press your back button to return PRESS RELEASE
Tuesday, July 11th , 2000
Galway for a Safe Environment (GSE) Residents for a Responsible Waste Management Policy Tuesday, July 11th , 2000 MC O’Sullivan “Not Qualified” To Assess Health Risk of Incinerator GSE to Get International Expert to Review Report Dioxins Cause 11% of Cancer Deaths in USA Incineration Major Source of Dioxins Waste consultants, MC O’Sullivan are not qualified to assess the health risk to the people of Galway City and County from an incinerator or other thermal treatment plant, according to Galway for a Safe Environment. It emerged at last night’s meeting of Galway Corporation that the report presented to Galway Councillors, entitled “Thermal Treatment and Public Health”, was in fact authored by the engineering consultants, MC O’Sullivan, and not by any qualified health professional. “In fact, no health professional would stand over the type of conclusions drawn in the MC O’Sullivan health report, which purports to show that thermal treatment, including incineration and gassification, was safe”, said GSE spokesman, Dr. Conchúr Ó Brádaigh. The group also disclosed that they had sent a copy of the report to an international health expert, and were expecting a reply shortly. “We can say that the expert’s initial reaction to the report was one of serious concern, about the manner in which the report dealt with the epidemiological evidence of a connection between incinerators and many health problems in humans, including cancers, respiratory diseases, hormone disruption, incidences of cleft-lip and behavioural problems in children born near incinerators, particularly in Britain”. GSE also presented health information about incinerators that had emerged recently, including the USEPA Draft Report on dioxins, which concluded that 11% of all cancer in the US are due to dioxins, and that Municipal Solid Waste Incinerators are the major source of dioxins. Dr. Ó Brádaigh also presented information from a recent United Nations Environment Programme to the effect that Municipal Solid Waste Incineration is the primary cause of environmental dioxins in eight of nine countries surveyed by the United Nations. “Why would we in Ireland jeopardise our status of having the most dioxin-free food in the world, by building these discredited facilities instead of recycling and reducing our waste ?”, asked Dr. Ó Brádaigh. GSE also noted that an incinerator being discussed for the Isle of Man had been postponed indefinitely last month, following comments from the Manx Director of Public Health, Dr. Ian Maclain that he had serious concerns about the inability of existing measurement devices to accurately measure the amounts of dioxins being produced by modern incinerators (see presentation for full text of Manx Radio interview) Confirmation: Conchúr Ó Brádaigh, 091-799223 / 087-2830452 Áine Suttle, 091-581047 <!-- HTML Markup endspan --> </td> </tr> </table> <a name=bottom></a> </body> </html>