Merel van VroonhovenOctober 6, 2023, 6:07 PM
It was years ago, but I could picture her again, my college friend. Slender, blonde wavy hair, straight nose, high cheekbones and bright blue eyes. Beautiful, sporty and smart. After studying architecture, she developed into a much sought-after architect, happily married. They loved the hectic city life, first in Amsterdam, later in New York. When they had a daughter, they moved to the Dutch countryside. Our lives recently crossed paths. “Catch up?”, I emailed. ‘Please. But I have Parkinson’s, don’t be alarmed.’
I’m scared. The woman I meet a week later looks nothing like the bubbly, sporty girlfriend from my memory. Slow and stiff, hands shaking, her soft features turned into a straight face without facial expressions. Troubled, dull eyes that seem to say ‘sorry’. I see a shadow of the woman she once was. “And the invisible part is even more devastating,” she says in a slow voice. ‘Not only the pain, depression and mental deterioration, but also the isolation, the loneliness.’ People see their own fear of decline reflected in her. ‘No one wants to be confronted with that. But I don’t pretend, with all the consequences that entails.’ She now lives without a husband and child.
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Merel van Vroonhoven is a teacher, supervisor and columnist for the Volkskrant. She held top administrative positions for 20 years, including chairman of the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets. Columnists have the freedom to express their opinions and do not have to adhere to journalistic rules for objectivity. Read the guidelines of de Volkskrant here.
“Parkinson takes away your humanity,” says Bas Bloem, professor of neurology in Nijmegen. He is very concerned. Parkinson’s is a silent killer. A progressive disease that cannot (yet) be cured, in which crucial dopamine-producing cells slowly die. The fastest growing brain disorder in the world has increased by 30 percent in the Netherlands in ten years, including among young people. My college friend was 44 when she was diagnosed.
According to Bloem, pesticides, such as the weed killer glyphosate, are an important cause. He wants a ban quickly. ‘Parkinson’s is an environmental disease and not an age-related disease.’ Although an alarming number of studies point to a link between toxic pesticides and the disease, a ban is not a done race. The European Commission wants to authorize glyphosate again for ten years, because the European Food Safety Authority has assessed the product as safe. ‘The problem is that they don’t test properly for Parkinson’s. What you don’t see may be there. The disease often only manifests itself after many years’, Bloem warned in Parliament this week. ‘People come into full contact with the drug through their environment,’ agreed Wageningen professor Violette Geissen. According to her, extension of the European permit is ‘at odds with the precautionary principle’. Supporters of glyphosate first want incontrovertible proof, because they fear higher costs.
“I have long blamed myself for continuing to live for so long among fields where poison was sprayed so lavishly,” my girlfriend says as we say goodbye. ‘I was ashamed, just like I was ashamed of my illness. But what’s the point? I can make it better visible that what you see is not what you see, but what you want to see. And what you hear is what you want to hear.’
Next week there will be a vote in Brussels on whether to continue to allow glyphosate. The House of Representatives is against. It is still unclear whether Agriculture Minister Adema will follow Parliament’s wish to vote against. Does he choose health? Or will he allow himself to be deceived by the exponents of the idea that money takes precedence over people? Simply because what you don’t see isn’t there.
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2023-10-06 16:07:50
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