PESTICIDES

PESTICIDE NUN Jonathan Leake meets Georgina Downs, the one-woman whirlwind who’s holding the pesticide industry and politicians to account

Downs lives in what looks like an idyllic village just outside of Chichester, West Sussex. The home she shares with her parents is surrounded by trees and fi elds – the kind of place most townies dream of. When the family moved in over two decades ago, the adjoining fi eld was used for grazing but, within a year, it was ploughed up for arable crops – and the spraying started. Over the next few years, Downs’ health deteriorated, but she didn’t know why. By 1989, she had enrolled herself into a performing-arts college course, but kept having to take time off with a mysterious set of ailments. Rajasana Otiende, a former fellow student, said: ‘She had a big voice and was very confi dent, but there was a shadow over her. Some days she’d come in and have diffi culty eating or drinking anything. When I asked her what was up, she’d open her mouth and there were blisters everywhere, right down her throat. She regularly suffered from headaches and fl u-type illnesses as well, and was off sick a lot. We wouldn’t see her for weeks on end.’ By her second year at college, Downs began suffering leg pain and had diffi culty walking and, in September 1991, not long after she fi nished college, she was hospitalised with severe muscle wasting, overall muscle weakness and other chronic symptoms. Downs was in hospital for a month, and underwent a series of tests and scans to try to fi nd out why her health was failing. One by one, the doctors ruled out diseases such as multiple sclerosis

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