Southern States - Kerala

Endosulfan: lifting of ban rakes up controversy

By R. Madhavan Nair

KOZHIKODE, JUNE 6. The lifting of the one-year old ban on the use of endosulfan on crops and plantation has reopened the controversy over its impact on environment and public health.

More so, since the haunting images of children and grown-ups in Padre village in Kasaragod who have been afflicted with gruesome physical abnormalities are still green in public memory.

The State Government recently lifted the ban, which was imposed on August 1, 2001, following the recommendations of the Achyuthan committee and a report prepared by the Kerala Agriculture University (KAU). However, the Government has not lifted the ban on aerial spraying of endosulfan that will continue to be prohibited for all crops.

Environment groups are unhappy with the Achyuthan committee for not pinning the blame for the human tragedy in Kasaragod on the use of endosulfan in cashew plantations of the Plantation Corporation of Kerala. They claim that enough scientific evidence is available for the purpose.

However, Dr. A. Achyuthan, who headed the committee constituted by the State Government to probe the effects of the aerial spraying of endosulfan in Kasaragod district, strongly defended its recommendations and refuted the criticism targeted at the report.

"Much of the criticism (against the report) is not scientific and does not take into consideration the panel's terms of reference'', Dr. Achyuthan said speaking to The Hindu today.

The Achyuthan committee is now under fire from some environmental groups for not stating that endosulfan is the cause of the health problems in villages in Kasaragod district.

The committee report is being criticised for not taking cognisance of a report prepared by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

Dr. Achyuthan said that criticism against the report had stemmed from the inability to see the issue from a scientific perspective and because the relevance of animal studies to human diseases was not properly understood by some critics.

The committee had quoted some studies in rats that were given endosulfan. In one study, it was found endosulfan caused damage to rat testes. In another, sperm count in rats was found to have declined.

It is pointed out that in villages in Kasaragod district, there are fertility problems among humans and, according to the environment activists that is enough evidence to establish a link between the use of endosulfan and decline in fertility.

Countering the contention, Dr. Achyuthan said there was no study documenting extensive decrease in fertility in Kasaragod.

"A substance might produce tissue damage in experimental animals at a fixed high dosage, but it did not naturally lead to the conclusion that it could be the culprit in a given human disease. It merely established plausibility," he said.

"Establishing it as the cause of the human disease needs separate confirmation. These are elementary scientific principles. Common sense need not always be good science'', he said.

The committee chairman also dismissed as baseless the criticism that the panel had ignored a study by Yuquan Lu which "conclusively proved'' that endosulfan produced severe neurological and other physical damage in humans.

Dr. Achyuthan said the Yuquan Lu paper merely showed sister chromatid exchanges and DNA strand breaks were increased in human cell line. Such indications were positive for many chemicals.

Dr. Achyuthan objected to what he believed as an attempt to paint the committee as an agency that tried to shield endosulfan.

He made it clear what the committee had concluded from the literature review of the chronic effects of endosulfan is "there is still much that is unknown about the chronic ill-effects of endosulfan on human health and that it is abundantly clear that such effects on human population are not ruled out in scientific literature contrary to claims made by pesticide manufactures.''

About the chances of establishing links between endosulfan and diseases in human beings, he said that causality was very difficult to prove, especially for low-dose chronic environment exposures.

"The committee did try to find causal factors, using known criteria to distinguish causal from non- causal associations. However, careful scrutiny of available evidence did not help establish a cause-effect relationship between endosulfan use and diseases in residents in Kasaragod,'' he said.

But the committee was very much aware of the limitations of its approach, which was why in spite of the lack of conclusive evidence, it did recommend a ban on endosulfan in Kasaragod.

This, it did because the panel members were aware that while scientific criteria could not be dispensed with in making definite statements on causality, decision-making in public health involved a process that used scientific evidence in addition to judgment and socio-economic considerations. The committee took a firm stand that "in all environmental pollution problems, the onus to prove or disprove cause-effect relationship should be that of the polluter and not the general public who are the victims of the pollution.''

Dr. Achyuthan said the study by the KAU was done many months after the aerial spraying of endosulfan. The negative results obtained by the studies did not mean much since most of the residues would have been degraded because of the passage of time. The committee had doubts about the scientific merits of a study conducted by the Centre of Science and Environment (CSE). Dismissing the criticism against the committee and its report, Dr. Achyuthan said, "the critics tend to use a broad brush to paint scientists and science black. This is very unfortunate, since all scientists are not generally dishonest or pro-establishment.''

Powerful multinational interests in palliating industries could be fought only by using good, exact science, he said.

Scientists should be enlisted as natural allies for the purpose. Irresponsible allegations and badly conducted scientific investigations do immense harm to the whole movement.''

Though the ban on use of endosulfan has been withdrawn, the Peoria division of the Plantation Corporation of Kerala covering Padre and Muliyar villages of Kasaragod district will have no pesticides for five years, as recommended by the Achyuthan panel.

All spraying operations of the Plantation Corporation would be carried out under careful supervision.

Health safeguards for workers engaged in spraying and for nearby inhabitants would have to be provided.

Eco-activists are not happy with the Government decision to lift the ban on use of endosulfan, but to keep the ban on its aerial spraying in force.

It shows'', according to an environment activist, "that the Government is not yet ready to accept the health hazards caused by endosulfan''.

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