Slothing around the house today (in between long sessions on the computer) I caught the tail-end of a repeat episode of a documentary called Something in the Water - another great Australian Story.Apparently in 2000, a local Tassie GP called Dr. Alison Bleaney 'began noticing a rising rate of rare and unusual cancers amongst her patients at her practice in St. Helens on the North East coast'.
Local oyster farmers were also concerned about the 'deformities suddenly appearing in their oysters'. A Sydney marine ecologist was sent by the Tasmanian Government to investigate.
The long and short of it is that these two got together for obvious reasons to compare notes, convinced that there was a connection between the human/oyster 'deformities' and aerial spraying by the forestry industry. Needless to say their concerns were dismissed as 'scientific quackery' but, in league with concerned oyster farmers, they persevered and sank tens of thousands of their own money into some scientific testing.
This lady doctor has apparently stepped in front of the firing line before. The Australian Story site says that she had previously been 'thrust into the role of defacto Hospital Administrator during the Falklands War' and as a result 'was revered as a local heroine for helping facilitate an Argentine surrender'.
