The Hindu : National : Centre accused of accepting 'fudged' report in haste

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Tuesday, Apr 06, 2004

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Centre accused of accepting 'fudged' report in haste

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, APRIL 5. A doctored laboratory report was the basis of the conclusion of the expert committee of the Centre that there was no link between the aerial spraying of the pesticide, endosulfan by the Plantation Corporation of Kerala at its plantations in Kasaragod district and the health problems faced by the local people, the Editor of Down to Earth, Sunita Narain, said here on Monday.

Ms. Narain told reporters that the Centre had accepted the report by the eight-member committee, headed by O.P. Dubey of the Indian Council of Agriculture Research, though it was not even signed by all the members.

The Committee had rubbished a report of the National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH) that established a link between the pesticide and the horrendous mutations and ailments affecting the people of the many villages in the district and preferred to go by the report of the Fredrick Institute of Plant Protection and Toxicology (FIPPT), an accredited laboratory that is now known as the International Institute of Biotechnology and Toxicology.

Ms. Narain distributed extracts from the FIPPT report that showed that the laboratory misrepresented its own findings. The chromatogram for a blood sample reproduced in the report showed peaks of alpha and beta endosulfan (isomers of endosulfan) as 13890 and 5220 respectively.

However, elsewhere in the report the values for the same sample were reported as less than 530 and 75 respectively.

It calculated the total endosulfan residues in the sample to be less than 0.001 parts per million on the basis of this ``fudged data.'' It had also falsely brought down the actual levels of total endosulfan content in several samples of leaves and soil.

While the sum of alpha and beta endosulfan as well as endosulfan are normally reported as the `total endosulfan content', the laboratory had reported it as total endosulfan sulphate content.

On the other hand, the NIOH had reported presence of alpha and beta endosulfan in soil, water and human blood samples. This indicated that the pesticide persisted in the environment. The FIPPT report mentioned negligible values of alpha and beta endosulfan, thus supporting the contention of the industry that the pesticide disintegrated and turned into sulphate inside humans and other mammals.

If the FIPPT had calculated the endosulfan (alpha plus beta) content in the blood samples on the basis of the actual values in the chromatogram, it would have been 0.186 parts per million.

Significantly, the NIOH had found a maximum level of 0.0787 parts per million of the pesticide residues in blood samples collected from Padre village.

The NIOH had reported significantly higher prevalence of neurobehavioural disorders, congenital malformations in females, abnormalities related to male reproductive system and other ailments in the area.

Ms. Narain said that the Dubey Committee had summarily dismissed the NIOH study observing that its findings were `not in conformity with the known and accepted properties, chemistry and toxicology of endosulfan.'

"However, nobody has studied the impact of pesticide on humans. Nobody has lived in a village where the pesticide was sprayed twice a year for 20 years."

It was the Centre's responsibility to regulate the use of pesticides. "It was criminal to allow spraying in a place where people live. If this could happen in Kerala, what could not happen in other States like Bihar?"

She said that with the acceptance of the Dubey report by the Ministry of Agriculture and closure of the case last year, the credibility of the Central institutions had suffered.

Minutes of the Committee meetings showed that doubts about the laboratory reports had been aired in the Committee itself.

The eight-member committee had two representatives of the industry in it, but none representing the people of Kasaragod district.

Ms. Narain said she only held the elected Government responsible for the situation. Unless there is strong regulation, industry could not be expected to play it fair.

People were saying that after the next elections, corporates would be ruling the country, not the elected representatives.

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