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SCIENCE ADVOCACY FOR HUMAN & ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH ... IN SERVICE OF THE PUBLIC'S RIGHT TO BE INDEPENDENTLY INFORMED.

Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility (PSGR) work to produce transparent, high quality science information to educate and inform the public. You might not know us - but we've been working on these issues for 20 years!

PSGR places the public interest, and the obligation to protect future generations at the centre of all research and decision-making.

We respond to consultations on new policy and legislation, produce reports on individual topics, and we're interviewing scientists and doctors whose work draws attention to complex scientific issues that are not easily inserted into policy.

[1] Fluoridation of drinking water is a current concern. This new video is a must watch. We've recently presented to councils, and interviewed Professor Philippe Grandjean on his latest fluoride research:

Currently our trustees are presenting to local and regional councils to support councils who are faced with extraordinarily large fines if they don't comply with the Ministry of Health's instructions to fluoridate drinking water. PSGR's paper emphasised the potential neurotoxicity of daily exposures to fluoride at endocrinologically relevant levels. The government's 2021 Select Committee report shut out discussion on health risk (which an earlier Select Committee did back in 2017, too). The Prime Minister's Chief Science Adviser barely touched on the issue. There certainly hasn't been a single expert in endocrinology, particularly, neurodevelopmental or paediatric endocrinology consulted - rather it was experts in dental and oral health that were consulted. Why hasn't the government ensured that there can be an environment of informed debate and discussion on the neuro-tox issue? New Zealand councils are now faced with a $200,000 fine if they don't put the non-nutrient in their water, and another $10,000 weekly until they do. FluorideFree.org is 'ground zero' for civil society information.

But epidemiological evidence and data on the neurotoxicity of fluoride keeps being released. Why won't the Ministry of Health recognise hormone level risk to babies and children? It's starting to seem like there is a degree of predetermination in the governments' position.

[2] PSGR join a delegation asking our government to take a closer look at WHO IHR amendments and not let timetables for decision-making get shortened.

We are concerned about United Nations & World Health Organisation Pandemic Treaties & their effect on human rights, particular the human right to health. Historically, the risk relating to an infectious disease event is highly contingent upon the extent to which an infectious agent presents a risk of hospitalisation and death to local populations, and in particular, to vulnerable sub-populations. The extent to which an infectious agent moves from being a driver of death and disease is geographically and temporally dependent as well as dependent on the age, economic and health status of local populations. Viral mutations can swiftly down-regulate the potential for the infectious agent to drive hospitalisation and death. As such interventions must be highly sensitive to local factors. If you wonder why PSGR might be a little bit sceptical about the WHO these days, please take a look at Part 10 of our Therapeutic Products Bill report, which reviews funding relationships between the WHO and biotech and pharmaceutical industry NGO arms.

[3] ... and we've just published a major paper on science and propaganda.

If the scientific and technical information that provides the justificatory information for release of tech onto the market can never be challenged by public data - should we simply call it ... propaganda?

[4] Should herbicide mixtures (not just glyphosate) be sprayed down your local roads?

We've produced an informational video and published a handout to help illustrate how the NZ EPA has 'got it wrong' in claiming safety - using regulatory processes that downplay or ignore inconvenient and contradictory scientific information. Without looking at greater mixture toxicity local councils cannot claim that the formulations are safe. Remember, NZ EPA has never undertaken a formal risk assessment of glyphosate, let alone the other mixtures that are included in these sprays to try to deal with herbicide resistance.

PSGR's strategic direction is underpinned by legal principles and/or fields of law (including particularly public law) that support decision-making in the public interest so that future generations may be protected.

There is a substantial volume of legal literature that underpins and support scientific decision-making in the public interest, these include the precautionary principle, administrative principles of law and the emerging field of earth jurisprudence.

These principles support and reinforce complex decision-making to protect and sustain human and environmental health and the biological integrity of the land, water, food and technology that we depend on.

Our research and educational role focuses on drawing public attention to both human health and ecosystem risks from unanticipated effects of new technologies or environmental pollution. For example, such damage may adversely impact on a genome - whether plant, animal, micro-organism or other - and have the potential to create adverse, unanticipated, and inter-generational consequences that cannot be reversed.

Over the past 2 years we have produced many substantive documents in response to the following regulatory initiatives and often presented to the relevant Parliamentary select committees (links included):

November 6, 2023: Submission to FSANZ - Application A1274 for Food derived from disease-resistant banana line QCAV-4.
February 26, 2023: Report (submission) to Health Select Committee concerning the proposed Therapeutic Products Bill.
January 16, 2023: 2023 DoC & LINZ consultation on information & emerging technologies. Response to November 2022 draft Long Term Insight Briefing. PSGR submitted that draft paper excluded a sophisticated discussion of key drivers & so focussed on inappropriate technological solutions.
August 7, 2022: Public consultations on the Food Regulatory System Strategic Plan (Australia - FSANZ). The first step of the most significant update to food system regulation since 2000 did not discuss the issue of independent science to triangulate industry claims of safety.
March 16, 2022: Te ara Paerangi - Future Pathways. In the PSGR's submission on New Zealand's future research system, the PSGR submitted that the principle of kaitiakitanga, stewardship, should inform and guide science research, science and innovation system policy.

Health risk is not limited to heritability: twenty-first century science continues to unpack the role of environmental influences that impact genetic function. Our work includes research to advance education about assisting body systems to work effectively while minimising their exposure from environmental harms.

It is becoming evident that subtle (and not so subtle) epigenetic modifications to the genome - which does not damage the gene but negatively alters the way the gene functions - play a substantial part in genetic health, because epigenetic regulation influences all biological processes.

Such modifications may arise from pollution, toxicity, nutritional stress, a disrupted gut microbiome and mental stress.

PSGR makes every effort for the data considered in analyses to be unbiased and trustworthy, giving due weight to the precautionary principle and the public interest. That involves making special effort to pay particular attention to evidence-based research that is produced by independent scientists and researchers who are motivated to sustain ecosystem and human health.

The current accelerating erosion of ecosystem and human health might, on the evidence, be assigned reasonably to 'market-science', rather than public interest science.

In recent decades much of government-financed public interest science has declined rapidly: that has led to dominance of 'market-science' because scientists have become funded predominantly from market players and the profession is predominantly dependent on that market funding for its survival.

PSGR welcomes new members - even if you are not scientists or doctors!

FIND US ON LINKEDIN, TWITTER (@PSGRNZ), INSTAGRAM (@PSGRNZ), ODYSEE (@PSGR) & YOUTUBE (@PSGRNZ).

The information, submissions and other contents on this website are provided by PSGR in the public interest and for professional scientific and medical discussion. This does not imply that all of the views expressed are held by all Trustees. Links to other sources of information do not imply an endorsement by PSGR of that organisation.

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