The secretary of health in the Philippines is generally presumed to be the foremost authority on matters concerning the state of health of all Filipinos. As in other countries, he is regarded as the “doctor of all doctors” or the “medic of all medics” in the land. His pronouncements or stand on any raging health issue, therefore, is generally presumed to have solid scientific basis—if not the distillation of the wisdom of the ages.

I bring this point up because something potentially embarrassing to Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III occurred very recently over the issue of whether or not aerial spraying or crop dusting in banana plantations should be banned.

Secretay Duque has taken the official stand backing the demands of a number of nongovernment organizations (NGOs) that this method of crop protection should be outlawed to protect the health and well-being of workers residents in the now-thriving and prosperous banana plantations of the South (particularly in Davao, Bukidnon, South Cotabato and Maguindanao).

It seems that the results of the “scientific” study commissioned by the Department of Health (DOH) more than three years back—which the NGOs have used as their basis for their campaign to prod Congress to act—was recently found by the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva to be “inconclusive, full of loopholes and inadequate.” This was the world body’s verdict after participating in a teleconference presided over by Dr. Soe Nyunt-U, WHO representative in the Philippines, with local health officials in the WHO office in Manila only three weeks ago.

The teleconference included members of the Inter-Agency Committee on Environmental Health (IACEH), which is composed of different government agencies including Duque as chairman. IACEH panel members included the heads of the University of the Philippines’ National Poison Management and Control Center, the Philippine Society of Clinical and Occupational Toxicology, Occupational Safety and Health Center of the Department of Labor and Employment, as well as representatives of the Fertilizer and Pesticides Authority, Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Department of Agriculture and the DOH. Also present in the teleconference were Dr. David Coggon of the United Kingdom and Dr. Brian Priestly of Australia—WHO toxicology experts and “peer reviewers.”

Over the past several months, handfuls of placard-bearing members of the NGOs have been marching through the streets and hoarsely demanding that aerial spraying in the banana plantations be banned forever. They have been claiming that the deadly mists of poison periodically released by plantation owners were systematically killing and maiming workers in the plantations and the unsuspecting residents of surrounding villages.

The teleconference in effect conducted a “peer review” of the DOH-commissioned study findings that sought to show aerial spraying was almost as deadly as the Black Plague. The two WHO peer-experts—Cogon and Priestly—zeroed in on the DOH-commissioned study entitled, “Health and Environmental Assessment of Sitio Camocaan in Hagonoy, Davao del Sur.”

The study that the WHO experts found to be full of holes, inconclusive and inadequate was actually produced by Dr. Alan Dionisio of the UP Poison Management Center. Among other things, Dr. Dionisio’s findings were fatally flawed because of the following:

Unacceptable “statistical randomization”—where the numbers fall short of the acceptable standards of randomness. This resulted in a “systemic bias” and many lapses in the health assessment and environmental study. WHO experts got direct information that supposed victims volunteered to play along because they were made to understand they would get free medical treatment for sicknesses that they got elsewhere and from other causes.

Dr. Dionisio’s peers ruled that “given the manner by which the respondents were engaged in the study…it is to nobody’s benefit to cover it up with an air of infallibility.”

Incidentally, the people of Camocaan themselves were shocked by Dr. Dionisio’s findings that aerial spraying had made all of them sick. (Dr. Dionisio could not cite actual cases of individuals downed by aerial spraying—despite repeated calls for him to name names.)

Dr. Dionisio’s controversial findings came under review by his local peers right in the UP National Poison Management and Control Center. The peer review was conducted months before the WHO peer review was held. The findings of that review, strangely, were not made public as they would have an adverse effect on Dr. Dionisio’s professional reputation, according to a member of the IACEH.

I’m not surprised that such findings would be suppressed by his colleagues, but what’s strange is that despite this earlier finding, Health Secretary Duque attempted to get the members of the IACEH to sign a resolution that would effectively preempt Congress and officially ban the use of the technology that aerial spraying represents. The good news is that the Department of Agriculture, the DENR and other key agencies couldn’t be persuaded to approve the resolution.

The WHO experts’ findings and verdict during the teleconferencing should be the last nail on the coffin of this now-dead issue. It’s about time this controversy is laid to its final rest.

This controversy has only succeeded in blighting the reputation of Secretary Duque.

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