INSIDE:
- Update: Health minister retracts his statement on cola issue
- Book launch: Agenda Unlimited
- Editorial: Divert, deny, dismiss and damn
- Cover: The wayward growth of the sponge iron industry
- News: Industrial plans threaten Kolkata wetlands
- News: Polluted Lidder river casts shadow over Amarnath pilgrimage
- News: Jatropha plantations could lead to drinking water shortage
- Science: Cloves can help fight lung cancer, says study
- Feature: How the antibiotic market narrows your options
- Publications: Leapfrog Factor & Body Burden
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Update: Health minister retracts his statement on cola issue
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Health minister Anbumani Ramadoss' statement, casting doubt on CSE's
pesticides in cola study, raised a furore in Parliament. With many
interpreting the remark as a clean chit to cola majors, the minister
was put in a spot. Soon, Ramadoss retracted his statement, saying
that colas were actually unsafe.
Read the full story online>>
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/bihar-deputy-cm-stirs-up-a-storm-with-remarks-on-asbestos-40790
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Book Launch - Agenda Unlimited
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Agenda Unlimited is a compilation of key Down To Earth stories that
chronicle the variety of grassroots initiatives undertaken by individuals
and communities, both urban and rural, to protect or revive threatened
or degraded local environments.
CSE's latest publication will be launched at the Frankfurt Book
Fair on October 4-8, 2006.
For more on the Frankfurt book fair>>
http://www.frankfurt-book-fair.com
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Editorial: Divert, deny, dismiss and damn
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What a line of attack! PepsiCo, in its advertisements to deny that
it had pesticides in its drinks, said that there were more pesticides
in tea, eggs, rice and apples. Coca-Cola, in its defence, has similarly
argued that as everything in India is contaminated, its drinks are
safe. They say this is being done to target them, because they are
big brands and us multinationals. On the other hand, the pesticide
industry, in its public response, wants the focus not to be on pesticides
but on heavy metals and other contaminants. They also say that they
are being singled out.
What should we understand from all this: one, we should not target
us companies, not target the pesticide industry and in fact, not target
any particular industrial sector but keep the issue at the level of
generalities. Two, we should not try and fix any specific problem,
like pesticides in soft drinks through improved regulations. But we
should keep our work focussed on everything that is bad from pesticides
in milk to heavy metals in soil. Three, we should not try to get the
government to set regulations for soft drinks because they were found
to have pesticides. We should instead try and fix something else.
Let's put this spin-doctoring aside. We know this is the first step
of a game-plan: to divert attention from what needs to be done or
to feed on our part helplessness and part cynicism that everything
is so bad, so why bother.
Let's focus on what needs to be done. There is no doubt that water
is increasingly contaminated with all kinds of bacteria and that dirty
water kills more babies than anything else in our country, which is
clearly and absolutely unacceptable.
Worse, we have a double burden of both pollutants and diseases.
So there are biological contaminants mixed with trace chemical toxins
from the modern industrial world they include arsenic and mercury
to hormones and pesticides to even more deadly dioxins and furans.
All this contamination has to be challenged. All this has to be
minimised so that it does not jeopardise our health. All this will
have to be done urgently and together. But all this can only be done
with a clear strategy and prioritisation of action so that we can
bring deliberate change.
Let's take the issue of water and food safety. The government's
own research shows that raw agricultural commodities from milk to
vegetables are often contaminated with pesticides. We also know that
regulations for pesticides in raw agricultural commodities are set,
but are lax and not enforced. Therefore, the strategy is to ensure
that we can revamp regulations that govern the safe use of pesticides.
The agenda for reform here is manifold: to ensure that no pesticide
is registered without the setting of a maximum residue level, which
defines what is safe residue in our food; to ensure that the sum of
all toxins are kept within an overall safety threshold called the
acceptable daily intake by toxicologists and to ensure that there
are credible and effective ways of enforcing these standards.
In this we can learn from governments across the world. For instance,
the UK government has a policy for naming and shaming suppliers of
food that is contaminated. Our government can also check milk and
vegetables on a random basis and make the data it collects available
publicly.
In addition, it will be important to work with farmers who overuse
and misuse pesticides, because of the lack of information supplied
by the industry. Remember that the problem is exacerbated by the fact
that the government has virtually abdicated its role of agricultural
extension to private pesticide and seed industry interests.
But like all our other double-triple-burdens, we cannot take the
step-by-step approach. The industrial world first cleaned up its water
of bacteria, then pesticides, then heavy metals and is now dealing
with tinier and even more modern toxins like hormones and antibiotics.
We have all of that in our food and water.
We also do not have the luxury of first cleaning agricultural raw
material, then building our processed food industry. We will have
to clean both ends of the food chain the farm and the fork. We will
have to do it together.
In all this we know that diversion is just one of the ploys. The
second is to deny. This is where "science" becomes a handy weapon.
Modern science fails us. Even though it has created modern toxins,
it is slow on generating knowledge about the impact of these toxins
and pollutants on our bodies and our environment. Take climate change,
take tobacco or even pesticides. The polluters want "conclusive" and
"incontrovertible" evidence that there is cause and effect. We the
victims have to prove our science.
The third tactic is to dismiss: your science is not good, it is
not validated or peer reviewed. The health minister did exactly this
when he used a half-baked report to try and discredit our laboratory
and our work on soft drinks and pesticides.
It did not matter that the same laboratory, its equipment and methodology
had been examined and endorsed by the highest parliamentary committee.
It did not matter, because the purpose was not science but to use
its power to discredit and to dismiss.
The fourth step in the polluter's game-plan is to damn and to destroy.
Let's see what the future holds.
- Sunita Narain
Read the full editorial online>>
http://www.downtoearth.org.in/
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Cover: The wayward growth of the sponge iron industry
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India's booming sponge iron sector brings with it a host of worries:
most of the present industries -- and also the planned ones -- are
located in areas characterised by virgin forests, tribals and poor
environmental governance. Almost 80 per cent coal-based sponge iron
manufactured in the world comes from India, while other countries
remain unwilling to let this dirty industry flourish in their own
backyards.
Read online (subscription required)>>
http://www.downtoearth.org.in/
=================================
More in Down To Earth magazine
=================================
News: Industrial plans threaten Kolkata wetlands
Construction of the proposed highway connecting north and south
West Bengal could destroy the fragile East Calcutta Wetlands, warn
ecologists.
Read complete article>>
http://www.downtoearth.org.in/
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News: Polluted Lidder river casts shadow over Amarnath pilgrimage
An official report has raised concern over the rising pollution
levels in the Lidder river in Pahalgam -- a base camp for pilgrims
heading to the Amarnath cave in Jammu and Kashmir.
Read online (subscription required)>>
http://www.downtoearth.org.in/
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News: Jatropha plantations could lead to drinking water shortage
A Planning Commission report says that plantation of the water-intensive
Jatropha crop could encroach on animal habitats and lead to a shortage
of drinking water.
Read online (subscription required)>>
http://www.downtoearth.org.in/
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Science: Cloves can help fight lung cancer, says study According
to researchers at Kolkata's Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute,
intake of cloves could inhibit abnormal cell growth in lungs.
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Feature: The antibiotic market narrows your options
In the absence of regulations, pharmaceutical companies have been
actively promoting expensive broad-spectrum antibiotics in India.
As a result, doctors are prescribing them for even severe diseases
like typhoid and cholera even though cheaper options are available.
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Publications
===============================
Leapfrog Factor
The continent dodders as the automobile industry hardsells cars
as the key to a lifestyle of wealth and freedom. Asia can survive
only if it reinvents the idea of mobility. Builds cities based on
public transport. Leapfrogs vehicle technology and fuel quality to
cut exposure to killer fumes. Finds its own unique way out of the
haze. Presents the complex Asian challenge and ten years of action,
learning and impacts.
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Body Burden
Down To Earth's work on health and environment have been brought
together as a comprehensive book "Body Burden", which talks about
eight key issues that affect the developing world - infectious diseases,
air pollution, water pollution, toxins, lifestyle diseases, regulations
and a special report on the industrial disaster in Bhopal.
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CSE is an independent, public interest organisation that was established
in 1982 by Anil Agarwal, a pioneer of India's environmental movement.
CSE's mandate is to research, communicate and promote sustainable
development with equity, participation and democracy.
Contact CSE: http://www.cseindia.org/aboutus/feedback.htm
E-mail: < cse@cseindia.org>
Address: 41 Tughlakabad Institutional Area, New Delhi - 110062
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