Don’t Blame God

 “Has Audrey been to England in the past 20 years”? “No”, I replied. “Well that rules out B.S.E.” (Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis). This was 12 years ago and the questioner was a Psycho-Geriatrician endeavouring to find a reason for my wife’s “Lewey Body” dementia. “Well then, did she have much to do with farm chemicals whilst you were farming and grazing?” “She certainly did” I replied. “Audrey was always assisting me as we attended to the needs of the animals using chemicals to prevent fly-strike, lice, internal parasites and weeds”. “Well then that is what would have caused it.” She replied. In the past 12 years that have elapsed since that interview neither the questioner nor anyone else has even been interested enough to find out what chemicals might have been involved, and yet there are 340,000 people with dementia in Australia and the number is increasing by one every 6 minutes, (over 1700 per week) and the next one might be you or me. In my 40,000 hours spent as a carer in the Nursing Home I have seen scores of dementia cases; people from all walks of life, so the question arises: what sort of chemicals did they come in contact with that affected them? (If chemicals are the cause as the Geriatrician claimed). We should be pushing our Governments for more scientific research. “Shortage of money” they say. Rubbish; they have just got their priorities wrong! Why, recently I heard a local member say that the Government was offering a Shire a million dollars if they agree to unite with an adjoining shire and he suggested they could build a new sport’s oval or such. We need another sports oval like we need a hole in our head; let us put that money, and other moneys that are being allocated to debatable projects, into Scientific Dementia research. There are several types of dementia; Alzheimer’s is the most common, but Lewey Body, which Audrey has, accounts for about 15%, or 255 people each week.  I have heard some people say: “How could a caring God allow such a debilitating illness to turn an active person into a cripple like that?” Well if chemicals are the cause we could well ask: “How could a Federal department of health allow the registration of chemicals for use in our food chain or such without the necessary testing to ascertain if they have any side affects?” Or they could at least find out what my wife has in common with all the other “Lewey Body” dementia sufferers that might have caused it. Actually the Government has banned the use of a lot of chemicals like D.D.T. Aldrin, Dieldrin, and Diazinon etc fearing they cause cancer and placed withholding periods on lots of others which is good, but I went into Woolworths recently and their “Select” brand of frozen vegetables is packed in China and I know that lots of caterers use this cheap product in the meals they prepare. I will guarantee the growers there don’t have the same restrictions on the chemicals they use. Aldi sell the “Farm Fresh” brand of frozen vegies and they are packed in Belgium from local and imported products. So there again we haven’t got a clue as to what chemicals may have been used on them.

As we don’t know what is responsible for the 1700 people being diagnosed with dementia in Australia each week then it is time we found out. We are all different you know; for example I eat peanuts daily and enjoy them whilst some people would be dead in 24 hours if they copied me. We all know about the allergic reaction some people have to things like peanuts; so what chemical affects you may have no affect on me. Couldn’t we find out what caused Audrey to lose her mental ability so quickly? We will never know unless there is more research and there will never be more research unless we pay researchers. (Currently we just build more nursing Homes to house people, Dubbo has 5 homes and another 90 bed one is under construction and the Governments subsidy for just one of those homes is $12 million annually). Very knowledgeable people are being removed from the work force prematurely by dementia, and it is costing families and the nation very dearly. We don’t blame God if some person doesn’t fence their swimming pool and a child drowns! We rightly blame the owner of the pool for not fencing it. Similarly we must not blame God for Dementia but blame ourselves for our lack of research in this field; we need to pressure our Government representatives to arrange that extra research. Meanwhile we must stop importing food that we cannot guarantee as “chemical free”: Free trade is no excuse.      Best wishes. Tom.