A ReBate On Funding?

Derek Ackroyd has lived in Rotorua on and off since 1980 ... the 75-year-old blames the hydrogen sulphide in the city for the aches he has in his elbows and knees, and for his breathing difficulties.Mr Ackroyd is convinced even low levels have an adverse effect on human health, saying the gas has a hugely corrosive effect on appliances and vehicles. "We've been there [by the geothermal area] five years and we're on our third fridge. Eighteen months for a fridge in our area and you're doing well." ... it does that. It's also phytotoxic to many broadleaf plants in low concentrations.

Professor Crane (one of the researchers), of the University of Otago's Wellington School of Medicine, expected that if any effect was found, it would be subtle ... and this was stated at a public meeting. However, (perhaps he realised his faux pas) he was quick to point out that others disagreed and said that earlier research had shown increased risk of nerve, respiratory and eye disorders among people exposed to low-level hydrogen sulphide.

Now I would have thought someone from the Otago Medical School would have known just a tad about demand characteristics, about the use of 'double blind' procedures in drug evaluation ... but obviously not.

New Zealander Michael Bates, now at the University of California, Berkeley, is the principal researcher ... presumably he employs Julian Crane ... he has done previous work in to the effects of hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide and sulphuric(ous) acid in Rotorua ... it is very corrosive.

In a retrospective epidemiologic study using cancer registry data from 1981 to 1990, Bates et al. (1998) evaluated the risk of cancer to known target organ systems of hydrogen sulfide toxicity in residents of Rotorua, a New Zealand city that uses geothermal energy for industrial and domestic heating purposes. No information on hydrogen sulfide levels was presented in this report, but the authors indicate concerns that exposures to hydrogen sulfide and/or mercury from geothermal sources could have health impacts.
In their previous work, it was indicated that the most reliable monitoring information for hydrogen sulfide in the area came from a monitoring exercise in 1978 that found a median concentration of hydrogen sulfide of 20 μg/m3, with 35% of the measurements over 70 μg/m3 and 10% over 400 μg/m3 (Bates et al. 1997). Based on the cancer registry information, these workers found a significantly increased risk of nasal cancers (SIR=3.17; p=0.01) among Rotorua residents as compared to the rest of the population of New Zealand. However, since this is a rare cancer, this finding is based on only four cancers. Because the population of Rotorua has a higher percentage of Maoris than the rest of New Zealand, these researchers also examined their data stratified by ethnicity and sex and found a significantly increased risk of cancers of the trachea, bronchus, and lung (SIR=1.48; p=0.02) among female Maoris in Rotorua as compared to female Maoris in the rest of New Zealand. Differences in smoking history between these two populations were not sufficient to explain the observed differences in risk. The authors concluded that the lack of adequate exposure information did not permit findings of causal relationships between hydrogen sulfide and cancer incidence. The potential co-exposure to mercury also confounds the interpretation of these results.

This is a subject that requires robust investigation, not only in respect to Rotorua, but also certain industries, and organic pip fruit orcharding where acid rain is seen as the preferred alternative to pesticide residue on fruit ... so what if 10% of the population develop a hypersensitivity to it.