GLOBAL BAN ON ENDOSULFAN

GLOBAL BAN ON ENDOSULFAN
Stockholm Conventgion watching India’s sand on Endosulfan at the sixth meeting of the persistent organic pollutants Review Committee (POPRC) that began in Geneva,switzerland on Monday 11 th October,2010.
While most of the governments represented at the stockholm convention are taking stands in favour of a global ban on endosulfan. The Kerala government has demanded a ban on the pesticide.
It is an issue in the elections to the local self government institutions in Kasargod district, where at least a few hundred people have died of poisoning caused by the chemical. Many face a wide range of genetic abnormalities and other health problems.
The state government acknowledged that the health problems in 15 villages of Kasargod district were on account of the aerial spraying of Endosulfan for more than twwo decades.
The mayee committee had recommended the conduct of a comprehensive,well designed and detailed health and epidemiological study in the entire plantation area. How ever, nothing was done in that direction for the past five years.
In Kasargod district in Kerala, sustained exposure to Endosulfan resulted in congenital, reproductive, long term neurological damage and other symptoms. There were obsrvation of similar effects in animals. Cows giving birth to deformed calves, Cows and chickens dying inexplicably domestic animals with miscarriages, bleeding, infertility, stunting of growth and deformities, as well as fish kills and dwindling populations of honeybees frogs and birds’ it said quoting a study by India’s National Institute of occupational Health.

Prof.John Kurakar