|
medpundit |
||
 |
 |
|
Monday, May 12, 2003Robert Thornell says that five years ago an invisible swirling poison invaded his family farm and the house he had built with his hands. It robbed him of his memory, his balance and his ability to work. It left him with mood swings, a stutter and fistfuls of pills. He went from doctor to doctor, unable to understand what was happening to him. The 14th doctor finally said he knew the source of the maladies: cesspools the size of football fields belonging to the industrial hog farm a half-mile from the Thornell home. "I never related it to the hogs at all," said Mr. Thornell, who is now 55. Clearly, something has gone wrong with Mr. Thornell neurologically. And believe me, there’s no worse smell in the world than hog manure. But whether or not hog manure vapors cause neurological problems is open to debate, despite what the doctor says: Dr. Kilburn, who runs a business diagnosing neurological disorders, said that over the last three years he had seen about 50 patients, including Mr. Thornell and his wife, Diane, who had suffered neurological damage he judged to be a result of hydrogen sulfide poisoning from industrial farms. The Thornells are considering a lawsuit based on his work. "The coincidence of people showing a pattern of impairment and being exposed to hydrogen sulfide arising from lagoons where hog manure is stored and then sprayed on fields or sprayed into the air" makes a connection "practically undeniable," Dr. Kilburn said in an interview. There are some other factors the doctor may not be considering. The location of the wells these families use, for example. Farmers sometimes have their wells smack dab in the middle of a corn or soybean field, which makes their drinking water vulnerable to run-off of the nitrates and pesticides they use on their crops. Also, collecting sick people from around the country who happen to live down the road from a hog farm isn’t compelling evidence for causation. Now, if everyone (or at least a substantial majority) within a certain radius of a hog farm suffered the same sorts of health problems, that would be a hog of a different color. posted by Sydney on 5/12/2003 07:23:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
|
