Team to study deaths of timber workers

By REBECCA WALSH

A study to determine whether timber workers exposed to pentachlorophenols (PCPs) are dying earlier and suffering more chronic health problems is about to be launched by Massey University researchers.

The project was initiated after continuing concerns raised by former timber workers about a range of chronic health problems they experienced, including fatigue, nausea, headaches, depression and cancer.

The $520,000 project has been welcomed by members of the Sawmill Workers Against Poisons Group.

Professor Neil Pearce said the study, financed by the Government and administered by the Health Research Council, would compare timber workers' death rates with national rates and estimate the size of any risks attributable to PCPs.

A survey of the health problems among a random sample of former timber workers would also be completed.

"Because of uncertainty over whether these health problems could be attributed to past PCP exposure, the Government has made funding available to commission research aimed at clarifying the issue," he said.

In 2001, a medical study of 62 former sawmill workers found PCPs were a probable cause of health problems in about a third. Many had breathing difficulties, their clothes rotted and their bodies stank.

Professor Pearce said blood samples would be taken from a random sample of former timber workers to confirm exposure to PCPs.

PCPs were banned in New Zealand in 1991, but between the 1950s and late 1980s timber workers were routinely exposed to PCPs through their use as an anti-sapstain fungicide.

The surface of virtually all freshly sawn radiata pine was treated to prevent sapstain fungi. Workers involved in wood treatment processes or handling treated timber were exposed to PCPs, known to have contained contaminants and byproducts including types of dioxin.

Joe Harawira, a spokesman for Sawmill Workers Against Poisons (Swap), said it was great the research was finally being done after years of lobbying by former timber workers.

But Mr Harawira, who worked at the Whakatane and Tasman sawmills, said the study had been a long time coming - the Government had been aware of research demonstrating a link between ill health and exposure to PCPs since the early 1990s.

Two years ago Swap recommended that the Ministry of Health set up a clinic in the Bay of Plenty.