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Post by clone on Mar 21, 2011 19:09:01 GMT -8
Stop the endosulfan lobby Thu, 2011-03-10 14:43 Indian companies produce more endosulfan than any other country, and they are bombarding the media and sympathetic government officials in India with misinformation. To date, this has been a winning strategy, and the Indian government has worked hard to protect the interests of its pesticide industry at meetings of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (also known as the global "POPs treaty"). It's a POPs treaty meeting that's coming up in late April in Geneva. Officials from 172 countries will gather to consider a recommendation from a global panel of experts that endosulfan be phased out once and for all around the world. From PAN's perspective, it's high time. Endosulfan has already been banned or slated for phaseout in dozens of countries (including the U.S.) that have recognized the chemical’s devastating harms to people and the environment. This chemical is linked to seizures and deaths; long-term effects of low-dose exposure can include autism, delayed puberty and birth defects. www.panna.org/blog/stop-endosulfan-lobbyThe Indian Government’s opposition to a global ban on endosulfan in Stockholm and Rotterdam Convention meetings has become something of the norm. www.ejfoundation.org/page617.html
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Post by clone on Mar 21, 2011 19:19:13 GMT -8
An Old Pesticide Causing New Problems 20 hours ago NOTE: This is a guest post from Tori Timms, a campaigner for the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF).Around fifty years ago, German company Hoechst Schering AgrEvo patented what was then perceived to be a new 'wonder' chemical pesticide – endosulfan. This, they believed, could be used on almost all crops and could selectively pick its way through the application zone, eliminating pests but leaving useful insects unscathed. Sadly this has not been the case. Fast forward a few decades, and endosulfan has come out of patent, and generic versions are being produced and sold around the world, mainly in developing countries. All but one of the top ten cotton producing countries used it and other regular uses include on soy, rice, wheat, vegetables, fruits, nuts, coffee and tobacco crops. www.care2.com/causes/environment/blog/an-old-pesticide-causing-new-problems/- Traces of endosulfan have been found in the blood of polar bears in Svalbard, the blubber of minke whales and even in grasses on Mt. Everest. - Endosulfan is readily absorbed through human skin, the stomach and lungs and acute exposure can be fatal. The National Poison Control Information Center of the Philippines recorded 278 poisonings including 85 deaths due to endosulfan in 1990 and more recently, in 2008, five school-age boys died in Jharkhand, India, after drinking contaminated milk. - The Pesticide Action Network reported one such story where a father in Benin had come back from working in the fields and left his pesticide-soaked work clothes on the roof of his house to keep them safely out of reach from his young children. Overnight it rained, and water from the roof ran over his clothes and down into the family's water containers. The next morning the children used the water for drinking and washing. Within minutes they suffered headaches, nausea and convulsions. Within 20 hours, all four children were dead. - Chronic endosulfan exposure has been linked to severe physical deformities, delayed reproductive development, suppressed immunity, renal failure, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, increased risk of Parkinson's Disease and infertility. - Unborn children and infants are particularly vulnerable because endosulfan accumulates in placental tissue, umbilical cord blood and breast milk. - Endosulfan is also devastating to livestock and wildlife. - Kerala Agricultural University recently published their findings that within a day of endosulfan being applied to cardamom plants, honey bees in Idukki had shown symptoms of poisoning and colony populations had declined. - because of its persistence, no country can protect its people from endosulfan until a global ban is in place. - Opposition is being led by the Indian delegation, the same government that is the owner and beneficiary of one of the world's top endosulfan manufacturers.
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Post by clone on Mar 21, 2011 19:26:16 GMT -8
എന്ഡോസള്ഫാന് എന്ന ഭീകരത ഡിസംബര് 26 നു പുറത്തിറങ്ങിയ മാതൃഭൂമി ആഴ്ചപതിപ്പിന്റെ പ്രത്യേക എഡിഷന് എന്ഡോസള്ഫാന് ദുരിതം അനുഭവിക്കുന്നവരുടെ ചിത്രങ്ങളും വാര്ത്തകളും മാത്രം ഉള്കൊള്ളിച്ചുള്ളതാണ്. ഒറ്റനോട്ടത്തില് അറപ്പുളവാക്കുന്ന ചിത്രങ്ങള്. വീണ്ടും നോക്കുമ്പോള് നമ്മളില് ദൈന്യതയും അനുകമ്പയും ഒടുവില് രോഷവുമുണര്ത്തുന്ന ചിത്രങ്ങള്. theuncreator.blogspot.com/2010/12/blog-post.html
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Post by clone on Dec 8, 2011 18:27:14 GMT -8
The Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) Session on Agrochemical Transnational Corporations Case Summary Through victims’ eyes: Crimes by agrochemical TNCs Another toxic pesticide that was widely used in past decades is endosulfan, which is linked to congenital and neurological disorders, birth defects, and delayed puberty. Nowhere are these effects more evident than in the village of Kasargod, Kerala, India, where an estimated 4,000 people have died due to the aerial spraying of endosulfan over cashew nut plantations around the village for more than two decades. Endosulfan passes through the placental barrier, resulting in intergenerational health effects. Many children in Kerala have been born with congenital diseases. One of them is the 18-year old Shruthi. Each hand only has four fingers, and her severely deformed right lower limb was recently amputated. Her mother had been exposed to endosulfan while pregnant with Shruthi, and died of cancer six years ago. In many countries in South Africa, thousands of cotton farmers have also fallen ill and died due to endosulfan exposure. A survivor, 29- year old Tamou Yaro Orou Boko of Kassakou, Benin, recalled how in 2004, he almost drank endosulfan, thinking it was water. He immediately spewed out the pesticide, but it still caused hot flashes, dizziness, and vomiting of blood even a year after the accident. “The after effects are still present. Today, the slightest smell of chemicals makes me fall into a coma-like state,” he said. Endosulfan has also been associated with death of bee populations in India, fish kills in Senegal, and cattle deaths in Uruguay. Despite this, endosulfan was only banned worldwide under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) last April 2011. The original manufacturer, German corporation Bayer CropSciences AG, claims that it discontinued endosulfan production in 2007. Nonetheless, it remains unaccountable for decades of poisoning caused by endosulfan, and its other pesticides. Bayer’s earlier banned pesticide methyl parathion, for instance, caused the poisoning of 50 children, of which 24 died, in Tauccamarca, Peru, in 1999 when it was accidentally mixed into their breakfast cereals. The pesticide was packaged in a plastic bag without any indication of its toxic content—only a label written in Spanish that the Quechua speaking farmers could not read. www.agricorporateaccountability.net/en/page/general/22
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Post by clone on Jun 26, 2012 11:10:22 GMT -8
The mother who stood up to Monsanto in Argentina 17 Apr 2012 7:55 AM A few years ago, Gatica co-founded the Mothers of Ituzaingó, a group that started going door to door to find out more about the health problems in its community. This would become the first epidemiological study of the area and produced some shocking results: high rates of neurological and respiratory disease, birth defects and infant mortality, and cancer rates 41 times the national average. Then Gatica and her fellow activists mobilized a loud and public response to these problems. “We blockaded the spraying machines. We would get into the fields to block them,” she said. “We carried out protests at the Ministry of Agriculture and the Health Ministry. We took sick people to the ministry.” And they found researchers to study the links between the increasing health problems and the pesticide spraying. “We were able to verify that people have three to four agricultural chemicals in their blood: endosulfan, heptachlorine, hexachlorocyclohexane,” as well as others, she said. grist.org/industrial-agriculture/the-mother-who-stood-up-to-monsanto-in-argentina/_______________________________ Sofia Gatica, Argentine Activist, Faced Anonymous Death Threats For Fighting Monsanto Herbicide Posted: 05/03/2012 6:05 pm Updated: 05/03/2012 6:16 pm Another pesticide Gatica has targeted of late, endosulfan, has been banned in 80 countries, and in May of 2011 the Stockholm Convention, an international treaty, added the pesticide to their list of persistent pollutants to be eliminated. Her group's press conferences, demonstrations and data-gathering efforts have yielded some success in recent months, and a countrywide ban of endosulfan will go into effect in July 2013. www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/03/argentine-activist-sofia-gatica-monsanto_n_1475659.html
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Post by clone on Jul 7, 2012 14:44:33 GMT -8
Migratory birds hunted, killed in Pondy 26th May 2012 <snip> A majority of these birds visits the Oussudu lake during October-May. Besides the migratory birds, mammals, including jungle cats, palm civets, porcupine, monitor lizards and jackals, are also killed with impunity. The price of these ‘delicacies’ ranges from Rs 100 a kg for varieties like the common egret and purple moorhen to Rs 400 to Rs 500 per kg for much sought after species like the spot billed pelican, grey heron, open billed stork and white ibis. A majority of these birds is listed under Schedule II, III and IV of the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 and killing them carries a fine of Rs 25,000 or imprisonment or both. The narikoravas, living in colonies abutting the bird sanctuary, venture out in the evenings and hunt the birds using country-made guns mainly due to lack of patrolling by the forest department. The poachers also spread food laced with endosulfan on the tree branches in the sanctuary to trap the unsuspecting birds. The carcasses are packed in sacks and sold to prospective buyers in nearby villages to make a fast buck. www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/cities/others/migratory-birds-hunted-killed-pondy-868
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