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"A
world of hurt" |
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ADDIS
ABABA(August 13,2008) -
Toxins come in all forms. They come in the form of pesticides, fungicides,
defoliants (remember Agent Orange), coolants, electrical insulators.
The list goes on and on. They kill or cause illness to humans and
animals that come their way who are usually hapless captives. The
poor and powerless are their easy targets, because these people live
close to the smoke stacks and dumps and work in the riskiest jobs.
Industrial chemicals, next to animal habitat loss, are supposed to
have contributed to the extinction of not so few animal species, especially
bird and insect species. It is not only over-fishing that had sent
fish to the brink of extinction from time to time. Poisonous chemical
solutions in the water, far above the tolerable levels, have been
responsible too.
Life goes on. As the science of detection of chemical pollutants in
the water, in the soil and the air gets refined, the level of toxicity,
the kind of toxicity and the threshold levels of tolerance by the
living things in the vicinity are a matter of routine testing in most
countries of the West.
Besides, governments ( not all, by any means) today, enact laws, regulations,
and institute safety measures regarding the use of pesticides and
other chemicals in general, in order to escape from the worst effects
of their fallout.
But in spite of what has been done to eliminate the worst consequences
of chemicals worldwide, people as well as animals, got a lot of the
hurt and continue to do so. More so, it seems, in the least developed
countries of Africa and Asia. The poisoning of the environment is
affecting humans in more ways than one. Not only do they make you
sick. They make the ambience of your surroundings unlivable.
Brick kilns belch black smoke which brickmakers and others in the
site who inhale the gas have been found to damage their DNA due to
toxicity arising from incompletely burned wood and the oil used to
heat the furnaces. Don't expect the clueless bricklayers in a remote
corner in Latin America do anything about it.
Clouds of pesticide that may save crops from disease or pest attacks,
do pose an eminent danger to agricultural workers on the fields. The
extent of the danger becomes more potent when the crops under cultivation
are for export and when they are within confinement in green houses.
Export crops such as flowers or tobacco, for instance have to compete
tough internationally, of course. Otherwise the hard currency can't
be had. That could be why, perhaps, agricultural workers employed
in such kinds of farms are considered an afterthought in the equation.
In any case, the chemical used for such crops have been linked with
cancer and endocrine and various disorders.
In 1971-72, close to 500 people died and about 7000 people were hospitalized
in Iraq during a famine, when they ate bread made from seed grain
that had been treated with a fungicide to hold down molds. The seeds
may have been safe to plant but not to eat. In Ethiopia too in the
past, some farmers ate the 'forbidden fruit" and had ended up
dead or maimed.
Some chemicals may not kill, but they almost undo you in other ways,
like interrupting your genealogy. According to National Geographic
October 2000, "But for banana plantation workers in Central
America during the 1970s and 1980s, pesticide exposure had devastating
consequences. A chemical called DBCP, used to control rootworms, left
as many as 30,000 men sterile for life."
In Ethiopia, there is no doubt that polluted rivers are causes to
several water-borne diseases. I am not up-to-date on the current situation
of Bilharzias in the country, but it used to be the most seriously
debilitating water borne disease in the country.
The late Aklilu Lema was the pioneering figure in the fight to eliminate
the disease by biological control, but I don't know if his legacy
had the intended impact countrywide.
Water pollution of one kind or another is rampant in Ethiopian rivers.
The consequence has been that aquatic life, including fish, was effectively
eliminated but that has been a given for a long time. What we need
to determine afresh is if the fish from the various lakes that get
their replenishment from the rivers, is safe to eat. Same with the
vegetables that use irrigation water from those same polluted rivers.
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