Published on Portside (https://portside.org)
Proof that Bhopal Gas is Now Claiming its Third Generation of
Victims
Rakesh Dixit
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
The Wire
Bhopal: A recent medical study has confirmed that the deadly gas
that leaked from the Bhopal pesticide plant of the American multinational
company Union Carbide 31 years ago is continuing to cripple the third
generation of its survivors.
The study, conducted by 30 doctors in the last
three years, has found that ‘far too many children are being born with
congenital malformations to parents with acute exposure to the toxic gas or
chronic exposure to contaminated water compared to those who were not affected
by either of the two’.
Bhopal was struck by the worst industrial disaster in the world on
December 2, 1984, when 40 tonnes of poisonous Methyl Isocynate (MIC) gas leaked
from the Union Carbide factory, killing over 3,500 people the same night and
maiming more than 500,000 people. Thirty one years later, its effects are still
visible in the children and grandchildren of those who survived.
The Sambhavna Trust Clinic, which sponsored the study, provided
the researchers with information on diagnosed cases of TB, cancer, paralysis,
reproductive health of women, physical growth, mental and social development of
infants and children and birth defects. The study involved 20,000 families that
were divided in four categories in equal numbers — exposed to the gas leak on
December 2/3, 1984, exposed to the contaminated water around the defunct Union
Carbide plant, exposed to both the gas and the contaminated water and unexposed
to either the water or the gas.
Sambhavna’s research workers have identified over 2,500 children
with possible birth defects and out of these over 1,700 were diagnosed with
congenital anomaly.
Funds for running the Sambhavna Clinic come from donations by over
15,000 people from India and the UK. International bestselling writer Dominique
Lapierre regularly contributes to the gynaecology clinic and the informal
school run by Sambhavna.
Ritesh Pal, field coordinator for the research, says the study is
expected to be published in international peer reviewed journals within the
next six months. His colleague, Afreen said that so far 164 children with
mental retardation, cerebral palsy, un-descended testes, polydactyly,
syndactyly, torticollis and other congenital anomalies have been referred to
government and non-government health care centres for medical and surgical
treatment.
Activists in voluntary organisations working among the gas tragedy
survivors, say many of the second and third generation children are born with
congenital defects, cerebral palsy, and even cancer.
“The cases of second and third generation gas victims are rising
each day,” the convenor of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan, Abdul
Jabbar alleges.
“Nearly 25,000 tonnes of toxic waste is lying in open at the solar
evaporation pond, some 400 metres north of the Union Carbide plant. Dumped
waste remains buried in the ground and it is polluting the environment even
today,” Jabbar, a victim himself, adds.
In 2013 , two doctors – Dr Jyotirmay Samaddar and Dr Devendra
Panchal – had concluded in their study of gas survivors’ children that ‘the
probability of a baby being born with congenital anomalies is seven times
higher in areas of Bhopal affected by the 1984 gas tragedy’.
As many as 3,000 newborns are either mentally or physically
challenged and in many cases both, said Jyotirmay Samaddar, a doctor from
Kolkata who has been working for the last 20 years with the victims of Bhopal
gas tragedy.
According to the doctor-duo, out of the 20,000 families from the
MIC-affected areas almost 3,000 children were born with serious deformities and
a majority of them suffer from multiple deformities.
Toxic site
Samaddar also said that the ground water of the area had been
steadily contaminated much before the disaster that struck on the night of
December 2-3, 1984. Ever since the plant was established in 1969, it had been
releasing toxic waste into the environment which gradually permeated below the
soil and contaminated ground water. “The high rate of children with deformities
is a collective result of poisonous water and air.”
The disused Union Carbide factory contains about 8,000 tonnes of
carcinogenic chemicals which continue to leach and contaminate water supplies
used by 30,000 local people. The clean-up has been stalled by a mixture of
bureaucratic indifference, legal actions and rows over corporate
responsibility.
Dow Chemicals, which bought Union Carbide in 2001, says it is not
responsible, arguing that since the plant is on government land it is up to the
state to clean it up. Finally, the government decided to get the toxic waste
from the factory premises transported and incinerated in the industrial town
Pithampur near Indore. The incineration process has begun.
Activist Satinath Sarangi, who runs the Sambhavna Trust Clinic,
says that children conceived and born after the disaster to affected parents
were significantly different from children of the same age born to unexposed
parents. The affected children were shorter, thinner, lighter, and had smaller
heads. They had abnormal growth in their upper bodies.
‘Research done in the past is insufficient and key aspects of the
disaster and its aftermath have been ignored in the research projects.’ says
Sarangi.
In the year 2002 a report published by the Fact-Finding Mission on
Bhopal (FFMB) found a number of toxins, including mercury, lead,
trichlorobenzene, dichloromethane and chloroform in the breast milk of nursing
mothers. In 2009 the same body also took samples from a commonly used hand pump
situated north of the plant and found that the water contained 1000 times the
World Health Organisation’s recommended maximum amount of Carbon tetrachloride,
a known carcinogen.
Studies have found a drastic increase in the number of babies born
with physical as well as mental deformities. Children are born without arms or
legs and are often unable to speak or care for themselves. Doctors in the
region say that these deformities are very different from conventional birth
defects and therefore very difficult to treat.
A 2003 study by the American Medical Association found that boys
who were either exposed as toddlers to gases from the Bhopal pesticide plant or
born to exposed parents were prone to “growth retardation”.
Women who were pregnant during or following the disaster had
extremely high rates of spontaneous abortion. A 1985 study by Medico Friends
Circle (MFC) found that in addition to spontaneous abortion and stillbirths,
pregnant women exhibited diminished foetal movements and menstrual
disturbances. Foetuses that survived the gas disaster suffered from severe
malformations. Birth defects continue to occur among families affected by the
gas leak and contamination of water at a higher-than-average rate even now.
Seven months after the explosion, the then union health minister
reported that 36 women who had been pregnant at the time had spontaneously
aborted, 21 babies had been born with deformities, and there had been 27
stillbirths, all believed to have been caused by the gas. Over the years
children have been born with cleft lips and palates, and foreshortened limbs.
Apart from high incidences of long-term respiratory problems and chronic lung
diseases, myriad other illnesses have manifested, which Sarangi believes are
directly attributable to the long-term effects of the gas.
The effects of the gas on the people of Bhopal have been nothing
short of catastrophic.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had initiated 18
studies in the aftermath of the Bhopal disaster. However, despite findings of
long-term damage to the survivors, these studies were prematurely ended within
10 years. Most studies done by the ICMR were terminated as early as 1989 and
the rest by 1994 without reviewing the collected data. The ICMR’s full report
on Bhopal has not been released as yet.
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