Pesticide poisonings India

The first report of contamination of food commodities in India was the report of pesticide poisoning of wheat flour in 1958 (Karunagaran, 1958). Following this, there are plenty of market and field surveys of almost all the vegetarian and non-vegetarian food items of India mostly on the pesticides rather than other PTS chemicals, reviewing all of which will be a task more than the necessity of the present review. 

Mandni et al. Acute pesticide poisoning among female and male cotton growers in India. International Journal of Occupational Environmental Health (2005) ii 221-232... 

The banning of DDT and other eommonly used organochlorine (OC) pestieides led to inereascd use of other, more acutely toxic synthetic compounds that were also effective in pest control but were much less persistent in the environment. Subsequently, several cases of pesticide poisoning, including the Bhopal disaster in India, have been reported (Gupta, 2fKM). 

Snicide deaths and impnlsive acts of self-harm associated with pesticides have cansed increasing global concern. It has been reported that deliberate ingestion associated with pesticides has resnlted in 2-3 million hospital admissions and about 220,000 deaths each year. In recent years, pesticides have been used in a spate of suicides in some parts of India (Andhra Pradesh). Pest resistance and resurgence (mainly on cotton crops) and abuse of pesticides because of lack of strict market regulation of toxic chemicals like pesticides have been found to be the causative factors of human poisonings. 

In India, home to over one third of the world s cotton farmers, cotton accounts for 54% of all pesticides used annually - despite occupying just 5% of land under crops. In a single 5 month observation period, 97 cotton farmers experienced 323 separate incidents of ill health. Of these 39% were associated with mUd poisoning, 38% with moderate poisoning, and 6% with severe poisoning. 

Applied to cotton grown in 28 different countries, endosulfan is perhaps the most widely used cotton pesticide after deltamethrin it is applied to cotton in 9 of the top 10 cotton producing countries and is the dominant pesticide in the cotton sector in 19 countries . A recent report suggests that endosulfan may be the most important source of fatal poisoning among cotton farmers in West Africa . In India, home to the world s largest cotton farming community, over... 

As discussed earlier, nuclear accidents liave not been die only accidents to occur in recent times. Other disasters at chemical plants have been responsible for a much greater loss of life. Tlie worst disaster in the recent history of the chemical industry occurred in Bhopal, in central India, on December 3, 1984. A leak of methyl isocyanate (MIC) from a chemical pkint, where it was used as an intermediate in the manufacture of a pesticide, spread into tlie adjacent city and caused the poisoning dcatli of more tlian 2500 people apja-oximately 20,000 others were injured. 

Methyl isocyanate (MIC) is the smallest member of the isocyanate family and the most reactive and toxic of all. MIC was almost unheard of until the fateful night December 3, 1984, when nearly 30 metric tons of this poisonous chemical spewed out of the Union Carbide India Ltd (UCIL) pesticide plant within a period of 45-60 min (Jayaraman, 1984). Bhopal turned into a city of death , wrote the fortnightly India Today (December 30, 1984). The journal Nature (Opinion, 1984) vented its anger thus ... the anguish vividly carried round the world by the television cameras seems not to have matured into the anger, even hysteria, there would have been had the [Bhopal] accident occurred on the edge of a European city - or in Connecticut (the headquarters of Union Carbide was in Danbury, Connecticut, USA). 

Neem (also known as azadirachtin) is an insecticide extracted from the seeds of the neem tree (Azadirachta indica) common in most of Africa and India. It is closely related to the chinaberry tree (Melia azadarach), common in the southern and southeastern United States. Extracts of both trees have insecticidal properties. Neem is unique among pesticides since it has so many uses It acts as a broad-spectrum repellent, growth regulator, and insect poison. It discourages feeding by making plants unpalatable to insects if they still attack, it inhibits their ability to molt and lay eggs. 

It is estimated that about one-fourth of the crops in India are damaged by either rodent or insect infestation (11, 12). This means that there is a great need for pesticides and rodent poisons. The 1977 production was about 39,000 metric tons at about 78% utilization. Increased production will help to utilize the excess chlorine production within India. 

---