Poisoned And Silenced
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Poisoned And Silenced
Date:
Sat, 4 Jan 2003 18:54:55 -0500
From:
Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide
Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
PESTICIDE ACTION NETWORK ASIA AND THE PACIFIC ANNOUNCES POISONED AND
SILENCED
A Public Hearing of the Impact of Pesticides on Human and Environmental
Health In Conjunction with the People's Movements Encounters at the Asian
Social Forum, Hyderabad, 5th January 2003, 10.00 to 17-00 hrs, Lingam Palli
Function Palace; Lingampalli Function Hall ; 3-4-355; Lingampalli; Bharkatpura,
Hyderabad - 500 027
The globalisation process has intensified the corporatisation of agriculture and dependence on export-oriented development, at the expense of local food production. The neo-liberal policies imposed by the structural adjustment programmes of WB/IMF and through trade agreements presided over by the WTO have forced markets open to dumping of agricultural products, privatisation of basic social and economic support institutions, the privatisation and commodification of communal and public land, water, fishing grounds and forests. These policies have also imposed intensive, externally dependent models of production that are export oriented and have destroyed the environments and livelihoods of local communities. This drive into export-oriented agriculture has meant further monopolisation and control by a few corporations over national food systems and productive resources.
Furthermore, it has meant an increase in the use of pesticides, chemical fertilizers, hybrid seeds and the introduction and commercialisation of genetic engineering in food and agriculture.
The use of pesticides has had a devastating impact on human health and the environment. Daily 68,000 farmers and workers are poisoned by pesticides and yearly an estimated 25 million workers suffer pesticide poisoning.
Farmers and agricultural workers are exposed to pesticides directly when they are mixing and spraying these pesticides. Communities and consumers are insidiously exposed to pesticides through contamination of the soil, air and water. The chronic effects of pesticides are particularly alarming when new studies link certain pesticides to cancer, lowered fertility, disruption of the endocrine system and to the suppression of immune systems.
Agricultural workers and farmers spraying pesticides, as well as communities living in proximity to plantations and large farms where pesticides are aerially sprayed, face these hazards constantly and have had to face the health and the environmental consequences while the plantation owners and the pesticide companies have reaped the profits.
A Public Hearing, Poisoned and Silenced: Impact of Pesticides on Human and Environmental Health will be held during the "Peoples Movements Encounters at the ASF" scheduled from 3-7 January in Hyderabad, India, an event that is expected to mobilise peasant and grassroots leadership against globalisation and its impacts.
Organised by PAN AP, in collaboration with a number of organisations including the Tamilnadu Women's Forum, Society for Rural Education and Development, Thanal, Centre for Resource Education and Community Action for Pesticide Elimination in India; Tenaganita in Malaysia; PAN Philippines, KMP, Cause DS and BISSIG in the Philippines, the public hearing will feature the brave survivors of the most horrendous cases of communities who have been subjected to extremely hazardous pesticides.
1. Women plantation workers in Malaysia In Malaysia, women are the major workforce on plantations and are exposed to pesticides daily in their work environment. Women constitute almost 80 percent of the 50,000 field and general work force in Malaysian plantations, with as many as 30,000 working as pesticide sprayers in the plantation sector alone. Plantation workers in Malaysia spray huge quantities of pesticides almost daily and are exposed to hazardous pesticides including paraquat, methamidophos and monocrotophos. As a result the women workers suffer from a myriad of acute and chronic health effects. These include fingernails turning brown and dropping off, stomach ulcers and pains, back pains, giddiness, difficulty in breathing, nausea, eye irritation and tearing, headaches, tight feeling in the chest, swellings of the limbs, skin itchiness and contact dermatitis, and even incidences of cancers have been reported. Additionally, living conditions in the plantations are poor, medical care is inadequate and the estate management is oblivious and often unsympathetic towards the social and health problems faced by workers. These women workers have also to contend with gender discrimination - they are lowly paid but are given the most hazardous and difficult work in the plantation. But the women are now organising and starting campaigns against the pesticides and their hazards, the companies that profit from these hazards and the trade union that has betrayed their trust.
2. Pesticide Devastates the Lives of Villagers in Kasargod, Kerala, India Over the past two and a half decades, the pesticide endosulfan has been aerially sprayed on a cashew nut plantation covering several villages in Kasargod District, Kerala State, India by the Plantation Corporation of Kerala. The people residing in the villages around the plantation have been afflicted with different kinds of illnesses and health disorders that are a result of exposure to endosulfan. These include nervous system disorders, physical malformations, mental retardation, immunologic disorders in children, and the predominance of neurological and mental disorders, and cancers in adults. People have also noticed the deaths of fishes, honey bees, frogs, birds, chickens and even cows. After many years of continuous campaigning and exposing the impact of the aerial spraying of endosulfan, there is now a ban of endosulfan in Kerala.
3. Pesticide Poisoning in Warangal, Andhra Pradesh, India Massive amounts of pesticides are used in the Warangal District in Andhra Pradesh in cotton production and the people of Warangal are slowly being poisoned by their exposure to these pesticides. They complain of symptoms and illnesses linked to the pesticides used including nausea, intestinal discomfort, chest pain, respiratory congestion, central nervous system stimulation and depression, dermatitis, and visual and hormonal disturbances. A recent study estimates that more than 1000 workers were exposed to pesticides in the period between August-December 2001 in Warangal District with more than 500 resulting deaths. Additionally, reports of hundreds of cotton farmers committing suicide in Warangal have emerged in the last four to five years. Because of recurrent cotton production failures, due to a combination of factors including cotton pest resistance to pesticides and pest resurgence, low quality seeds and other production problems, many farmers have not received any profits from their cotton crop.
Unable to pay the loans taken for cotton production, these farmers have resorted to committing suicide to get out of their debt burden.
4. The Poisoning of a Community in Kamukhaan In the village of Kamukhaan in Mindanao, the Phillipines, several cases of poisoning, sickness and death have occurred ever since a banana plantation moved in next to the community. Kamukhaan, once a picture of perfect prime, thrived with abundant natural resources, is now a barren wasteland where even the grass does not grow, a contaminated sea, and 700 sick and impoverished people breathing in poisoned air. The village has been exposed to large doses of pesticides the plantation uses via aerial spraying, and other methods. Skin diseases, abnormalities and various types of illnesses are now rampant among the villagers. Infants are often born sick and with abnormalities. Stillbirths are frequent. A number of adults have also been diagnosed with more serious, terminal diseases such as cancer. Raising livestock has also proved to be very difficult because numbers of them die every time a spraying occurs. The rivers and the sea, both of which have been one of their major sources for food and income before, have not been spared from pesticide contamination. Their waters, which used to be teeming with fish, are now heavily polluted with chemicals.
5. The Poisoning of former IRRI Workers Former workers of the International Rice Research Institute in Los Banos, Philippines, some who have served the Institute for 41 years, are seeking justice for the work related deaths of 215 former workers and other members of the community. Many workers who have left IRRI are still suffering severe illnesses, which they have attributed to the chemicals they handled in IRRI's experimental fields and research - a variety of pesticides, including the most toxic ones. According to a recent survey, the ex-IRRI workers experience high incidences of severe illnesses such as abdominal cysts, bronchitis, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, pulmonary tuberculosis, diabetes, paralysis, heart diseases, susceptibility to hepatitis, hypertension, renal failure, stroke, Parkinsons Disease, pneumonia, Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, asthma and cancer. The workers have tried to sue IRRI for damages and compensation for their illnesses but are unable to do so due to Presidential Decree No.1620 which provides IRRI with immunity against legal action.
The survivors of the pesticide poisoning such as these are often marginalised due to their poverty and vulnerability. They are rarely heard.
This Public Hearing will give voice to their sufferings, their struggles and to their demands. Three judges from the people's movements will hear the cases and provide judgement, which will be publicised widely. Join us at the People's Movements Encounters at the ASF to hear the voices of these survivors and communities.
For more information contact PAN Asia and the Pacific P.O. Box 1170,10850 Penang, Malaysia Tel: 604-6570271/6560381 Fax: 604-6577445 E-mail: panap@panap.net or visit our website at www.panap.net.
If you would like to be included in our mailing list for continuing information on pesticides, please email us at list@safe2use.com.