Owen Paterson is a British politician. He played a crucial role in spreading Ragwort hysteria in parliament as I will discuss below giving you all my honest opinions as usual.
He has been in the news lately because of his sleazy behaviour. He had been accused of breaking the rules on paid lobbying as an MP. There is no real question about this. Despite the fuss he made and his claims of unfairness, he was obviously guilty. This article in The Guardian explains it well. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/03/owen-paterson-his-claims-and-how-they-stack-up-in-analysis
Boris Johnson tried to change the rules. There was a vote in parliament which he won narrowly, and then the opposition killed it, by refusing to take part in the new disciplinary process and Johnson had to back down. Paterson then resigned.
Now we have to go back to 2000 when Paterson held a debate on ragwort and made a speech which was full of nonsense!
I'll give you some excerpts which I'll debunk.
Ragwort is in fact a vile and highly poisonous weed, causing more damage to animals in this country than all other poisonous plants put together.
How can he know this? There aren't statistics kept. In fact it has been shown that a lot of cases that might be labeled ragwort poisoning aren't. It is difficult to test for since toxins in mouldy feed have identical biochemical effects.
Seeds can lie dormant for 20 year
This is highly unlikely in most soils and even in the worst case over 90% of the seeds would be gone. It is normal for seeds to last in soil.
each plant can produce 150, 000 to 200, 000 seeds,
An advert quoting just the lower of these figures was banned by the Advertising Standards Authority. They are of course false exaggerations.
which travel in the wind for miles.
The best study shows that seeds travelled hardly further than 40 yards. Of course exceptional events may occur but this is a common plant so they are insignificant.
These seeds land with a 70 per cent. germination rate.
WRONG! That is what happens in the laboratory it is not what happens in the wild. On average each of these native plants produces one offspring. If this figure were true that would mean in a few generations the offspring of one plant would equal the weight of the earth.
Then he quotes Derek Knottenbelt, This is the man who claimed ragwort was poisoning the cinnabar moth, which actually requires it as a food, and that it was a serious problem in South Africa where the plant has actually never been recorded.
Finally, the risk to human health should not be underestimated. Dr. Knottenbelt said:
There is mounting evidence to suggest that ragwort is poisonous also to humans. The poison is almost certainly absorbed through skin. It is unknown whether it is safe to eat meat from animals that have eaten the plant but the alkaloid appears to remain stable in blood and organs.
I am baffled by this. It sounds complete nonsense to me. Everything I have seen in the literature says that the alkaloid is either destroyed quickly or excreted. The idea that it is absorbes through the skin and is therefore dangerous was debunked years ago by some Dutch experts one of whom actually has a PhD on ragwort! It is known that it doesn't make meat poisonous.
This is a quote from a real expert. It is by by Dr Peter Cheeke of Animal Sciences Department Oregon State University a leading researcher into Ragwort. In the USA ragwort has become a problem because like many species released into a foreign ecology it is not controlled by its natural predators and diseases. This is not the case in the UK where it is a native and natural part of the ecosystem. He is speaking about sheep but the same applies to other animals and their meat. The biochemistry is clear.
The PA [ pyrrolizidine alkaloids] are not accumulated in the tissues; it is the damage that is cumulative. The damage is confined to the liver, which in an animal with ragwort toxicity would be shrunken and fibrotic. The carcass would likely be condemned because of the liver damage. In sheep which had consumed ragwort but did not show obvious liver damage, there would be no residues of PA in the meat. The PA are metabolized in the liver, and excreted as conjugates in the urine. Small amounts of pyrrole bound to DNA in the liver would not be measurable. Thus in my judgement there is no concern whatsoever about possible human toxicity from consumption of meat from sheep which had consumed ragwort.
I am not sorry that sleazy Mr Paterson is gone from parliament.
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