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South America
According
to U.S. Customs records, lindane was exported to Brazil at an average
rate of nearly one ton per week between 1994 and 1998. The average rate of
export to Hong Kong was 0.6 tons per week.
018
Environmental Contamination by Hexachlorocyclohexane in a Large Area in
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Ana Maria Cheble B. Braga, Luiz Cl udio Meirelles, Hermano Albuquerque,
M.D., Funda‡ o Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Manguinhos, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
During the past 3 decades, a large amount (about 300 tons) of hazardous waste
from the production of gamma hexachlorocyclohexane (Lindane) was left in the
open air in an area of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, because the factory closed. This
exposed the local population and contaminated the environment. The area, called
Cidade dos Meninos, covers 19.4 million square meters and has approximately
1,000 inhabitants. The community is served by four schools with about 700
children. Most of the buildings belong to the federal government.
The potential for this contaminant to cause health damage to the exposed
human population has not yet been well defined. Several studies have already
been conducted in the area. In 1989, the Ministry of Health requested an
investigation of the residents' health. Seven families (31 individuals) were
investigated by clinical and toxicologic evaluations in search of any health
damage. These families live about 100 meters from the waste. To determine trends
of hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) concentration in the serum of schoolchildren, a
study was conducted in 1992 to measure alpha, beta, gamma, and delta HCH in 186
individuals, aged 5-18 years, compared with a group of 184 non-exposed persons.
Results of these studies will be discussed.
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/c95a3140.html
Martinez
D.E., Cionchi, J.L., and Bocanegra, P. 1998. Argentina suburban areas in
developing countries and their relationship to groundwater pollution: A case
study of Mar del Massone. Environmental
Management 22: (2) 245-254.
Abstract:
Human activities carried out in suburban areas in many developing countries are
directly related to groundwater pollution. The main objective of this paper is
to analyze the relationship between land use and groundwater pollution in the
suburban area of Mar del Plata (Argentina). We identified three elements that
are endangering the quality of groundwater: horticultural activity, urban solid
waste disposal sites, and sewage disposal on land. Fifty wells in an area of 175
km(2) were sampled in order to verify the impact of these problems on
groundwater. All samples were analyzed for major ions, and about 30 of them for
fecal coliforms and heavy metals. Nineteen samples were selected for pesticide
analyses. The average nitrate content was 80 mg/liter, eight times the regional
background value, Fecal coliforms were detected in 60% of the analyzed samples.
Zinc content and a high Cl-/HCO3- ratio were observed in the surroundings of the
solid waste disposal area. Moreover, lindane and heptachlor pesticides were
detected in ten samples
In
the torrid Yaqui Valley of Sonora, Mexico, she found what she was looking for.
The Yaqui Indians of that area lived in two distinct groups: one in the valley
lowlands, the other in the highland foothills. In the intensively farmed
lowlands, Yaqui mothers had been exposed, over the course of numerous growing
seasons, to high levels of pesticides, including compounds such as lindane and
endrin, long banned for agricultural use in the United States. By contrast,
foothill families lived simple ranching lives, rejecting pesticide use
altogether--to the point of preferring to swat insects in the home rather than
spray a pesticide.
http://www.motherjones.com/mother_jones/JA99/endocrine.html
********************* PERU *********************
PERU: PESTICIDE POISONING OF 24 CHILDREN HIGHLIGHTS HAZARDS OF
POOR AGROCHEMICAL CONTROLS
[The following article by Stephanie Boyd is reprinted with
the permission of Noticias Aliadas in Lima, Peru. It first appeared in the Nov.
11, 1999, edition of the weekly publication Latinamerica Press.]
Primitiva Jara Conde cannot convince her 6-year-old daughter, Luzmila, to
eat. "She'll only drink herbal tea, and she won't get out of bed,"
Jara says. Mothers throughout the village of Tauccamarca are having difficulty
persuading their children to eat or play after 44 children who went to school
Oct. 22 were poisoned by drinking a government-donated milk substitute
contaminated with a highly toxic organophosphate insecticide, probably
parathion. Twenty-four died, and the long-term physical and psychological
effects on the survivors, many of whom suffered asphyxiation, will not be known
for years, if studies are ever carried out in the isolated community 70 km from
Cusco. Nine days after the tragedy, Conde breaks into tears as she relates what
happened. "Luzmila came running into the house, shaking furiously, and
saying, 'My sister, my sister is dead.' I ran down to the schoolyard to find
Grimalda [Luzmila's 9-year-old sister] dead, and other children shaking,
vomiting, and dropping to the ground." The government accused community
members of "negligence and ignorance" in the handling of dangerous
chemicals, although the teacher and several parents acted quickly to induce
vomiting. The initial Health Ministry report described a series of accidents in
which poison added to a bag of milk substitute to kill stray dogs was
inadvertently mixed with the children's breakfast drink. The school's lone
teacher, who was in charge of serving the breakfast, was jailed but released
after protests by the Cusco teachers union. The teacher's lawyer says his client
is a scapegoat in a campaign to cover up government negligence. What is clear,
observers say, is that the case demonstrates the dangers of uncontrolled
pesticide use. "What happened shows us once more the validity of the
repeated arguments for demanding the removal of these toxic substances from the
market," said Luis Gomero of Peru's Action Network for Alternatives to
Agrochemicals (RAAA). The government has focused attention on the illegal trade
in banned chemicals, saying analysis showed the culprit to be ethyl parathion, a
highly toxic organophosphate banned in Peru and about 24 other countries. While
observers agree that the sale of banned chemicals is a problem, they caution
that Peruvian law allows registration of 26 pesticides that the World Health
Organization (WHO) considers hazardous or highly hazardous. One of these, methyl
parathion, which is legal in Peru as a 2.5% powdered concentrate, could be to
blame for the poisonings, said Gomero, who added that restrictions on the sale
of the product, which is meant for specific agricultural uses, are not enforced.
Ethyl parathion is usually sold as a liquid, but the woman who allegedly mixed
the poison with the milk substitute told investigators she used a powder. The
victims' symptoms are consistent with poisoning by various organophosphates,
including methyl or ethyl parathion, Gomero said. RAAA is calling for
independent testing that would determine the chemical and concentration, as well
as point investigators toward the commercial product used. Gomero said Peru does
not need such highly toxic products. Because 800 commercial pesticides are
registered in the country, "you could use other products, which are just as
effective, and ban the 26 highly toxic pesticides still on the market," he
says. Lack of training for agricultural producers, many of whom cannot read
labels in Spanish, and the indiscriminate sale of both banned and legal
agrochemicals in public markets--where they are often displayed beside food--add
to the safety hazards, said the RAAA. A spokesperson for the Peruvian
Agriculture Ministry, which regulates pesticide use, said the case does not fall
under its jurisdiction, because farmers around Tauccamarca do not use
agrochemicals. But visitors to Tauccamarca, including RAAA scientists, found
several discarded empty bags of pesticides, including lindane,
in fields and paths
around the community. Each year about 100,000 people in Peru are poisoned in
agrochemical accidents, according to a 1998 RAAA study. Gomero said many more
cases probably go unreported. Worldwide, the Pesticide Action Network (PAN)
reports more than 220,000 pesticide deaths and about 3 million poisonings, most
among farmers in developing countries who lack proper safety equipment and
training. The PAN says pesticide use in developing nations, especially Latin
America, is on the rise. A 1998 Brazilian Labor Ministry report on children and
adolescents on tobacco plantations said long-term exposure to toxic chemicals
can also cause neurological damage, resulting in depression or the loss of
reflexes. The report also noted an increase in cancer and anacephalic births.
Scientists say consumers are affected by the accumulation of agrochemicals in
their bodies, which leads to cancer, birth defects and possibly sterility. The
US-based Worldwatch Institute estimates that pesticide use could probably be
halved over the next decade without reducing productivity. Agrochemical use is
being challenged by hundreds of global organizations seeking ecological
alternatives. At a May conference in Chile organized by the Action Network for
Pesticides and their Alternatives in Latin America (RAP-AL), a coalition of
nongovernmental organizations, scientists, and victims of pesticide use from
more than 12 Latin American countries demanded citizen participation in drafting
legislation and monitoring use. A failed UN attempt to draft an international
treaty restricting highly toxic chemicals that last for decades in the
environment, known as Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), underscores the
resistance to banning even the most poisonous pesticides. Negotiations in
September were marked by controversy over inclusion on the list of four of the
"dirty dozen" chemicals, including PCBs and DDT. Representatives from
nations with malaria zones worried that banning DDT would lead to new epidemics,
even though cheaper, safer alternatives are available. Under the 1998 Rotterdam
Convention on trade in hazardous chemicals, if a chemical has been banned or
severely restricted in at least two countries, it cannot be exported without the
permission of the receiving country. Transnational companies, the main
beneficiaries of the multibillion-dollar agrochemical industry, sidestep this
measure by moving their factories to countries with lax laws or by setting up
subsidiaries. In 1989, public pressure forced Bayer to stop making both methyl
and ethyl parathion in Germany. Bayer moved its plant to Colombia, where it
operates without restrictions. In Tauccamarca, however, no one had ever heard of
the anti-pesticide movement, much less laws restricting toxic chemicals. But
with advice from RAAA, community leader Daniel Ccoricasa, who lost two children
in the poisoning, plans to sue for compensation for victims. Ccoricasa looks at
his one surviving child, 9-year-old Freddy, playing alone in the schoolyard
after having watched his sister, brother, and best friend die. "I'll call a
public assembly so we can begin the legal process," he says. "We do
not want this event to be forgotten.
ssdc.ucsd.edu/news/notisur/h99/notisur.19991203.html |