Chemical pollution of water, air and food supplies has been documented for decades, but it is only now that scientists working in public interest have uncovered the details about the most intimate site of industrial pollution in our bodies.

No one is surprised that industrial chemicals are running through our arteries and veins but the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE)Study corroborates what has long been suspected. The study has found residues of 6-13 pesticides in blood samples of villagers in Punjab.

The study has been conducted by the CSE’s Pollution Monitoring Laboratory.

The study tested 20 randomly selected blood samples from four villages — Mahi Nangal, Jajjal and Balloh in Bhatinda district and Dher in the district of Ropar. In each sample 6-13 different pesticides were found after testing as per internationally accepted methodology.

The levels of certain persistent organochlorine pesticides (OCs) in the samples were shocking: 15-605 times higher than those found in blood samples of people in the US, tested by the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in its report of 2003. Levels of lindane, a restricted pesticide in India, were 605 times higher than those found in the US population. Similarly, the levels of DDT were 188 times higher. The CSE study detected hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) in all the blood samples, and DDT in 95 per cent of the samples.

The study is one of the first in India to test for organophosphorous pesticides (OPs) in human blood. These were found in equally high levels. Industry claims that these pesticides are not persistent and will degrade quickly contrary to the available evidence.

The low-persistent op pesticide monocrotophos was detected in 75 per cent of the blood samples, while chlorpyrifos was present in 85 per cent samples. Seventy per cent of the samples also contained two more ops: phosphamidon and malathion.

The average levels of monocrotophos in the blood samples from Punjab(0.095 ppm) were found to be four times higher than the short-term exposure limit for humans set by the World Health Organization/Food and Agricultural Organization.

If one considers the long-term exposure limits, the results are even more unnerving: the average amount of monocrotophos in the blood of the population CSE tested was 158 times higher than the long-term exposure limit for humans.

The presence of OPs, touted by industry as non-persistent and degradable, are much more toxic than the previously used OC pesticides like DDT.

The CSE analysis points out that while blood samples seem to be already contaminated with high levels of older OC pesticides, newer OP pesticides are now adding to the body’s burden.

The study underlines the need to review the safety and use of this supposedly safer pesticide. Even if the pesticide degrades in the body, as claims industry, the fact is that the exposure is high and there are bound to be impacts for the time the pesticide remains in the body.

Studies done on animals show that even a single, low-level exposure to certain organophosphates, during particular times of early brain development, can cause permanent changes in brain chemistry. Chlorpyrifos, for example, decreases the synthesis of DNA in the developing brain, leading to drops in the number of brain cells.

Another study, done in New York in 2003, found that chlorpyrifos and its toxic metabolite chlorphyrifos oxon can cross the placenta barrier. The study found that if pregnant women are exposed to this pesticide, at very low levels, it can affect their unborn child.

It is well known that pesticide use in Punjab is one of the highest in the country.

No one knows what these pesticides are doing to the people.

What do these high levels of pesticides in blood mean in terms of health effects?

What are the cancer rates in Punjab?

Is there a connection between toxin over-use and the disease burden?

There is a conspiracy of silence but it does not mean there is proof of safety.

What has been found in Punjab perhaps has no comparison.

In this world where there is conflict between truth and industry, the onus is on victims to prove the cause of death, in the face of an evident murderer.

Monitoring pesticides in food commodities for safety is does not serve any purpose, biomonitoring of the body for the burden of chemicals and investigating the source of the chemicals is the only way out. It could lead to fixing the responsibility on the culprits of culapable homicide.

Else where in the world, the Industry reported dumping 7.1 billion pounds of hazardous compounds into the air and water for instance in the United States in the year 2000, according to the most recent Toxic Release Inventory, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) program that tracks only a subset of industries.

All of the 116 chemicals were found in people. But public health experts say one of the most disturbing findings in this round of data is that children had higher body burdens than adults of some of the most toxic chemicals, including lead, tobacco smoke and organophosphate pesticides.

Earlier a study led by Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, in collaboration with the Environmental Working Group and Commonweal, researchers at two major laboratories found an average of 91 industrial compounds, pollutants, and other chemicals in the blood and urine of nine volunteers, with a total of 167 chemicals found in the group. Like most of us, the people tested do not work with chemicals on the job and do not live near an industrial facility.

Scientists refer to this contamination as a person’s body burden. Of the 167 chemicals found, 76 cause cancer in humans or animals, 94 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 79 cause birth defects or abnormal development.

Study results appeared in the journal Public Health Reports (Thornton, et al. 2002) – the first publicly available, comprehensive look at the chemical burden we carry in our bodies.

None of the nine volunteers worked with chemicals on the job. All led healthy lives. Yet the subjects contained an average of 91 compounds – most of which did not exist 75 years ago.

In the light of studies in India and all over the world, the million dollar question is: What health effects can be linked to the mixtures of industrial chemicals found in the human body?

Besides a handful of chemicals, the answer is not known.

The only reason is that there is no legal requirement to test most chemicals for health effects at any stage of production, marketing, and use.

There is an urgent need to revise and integrate our laws and policies governing chemical manufacture to include the provisions like:

-Industry must be made criminally liable for its acts of omission and commission which endagers life

-it must prove the safety of a new chemical before it is put on the market.

-its production and sale must be suspend if the data requested is not generated, or if they show that the chemical, as used, is not safe for the most sensitive portion of the exposed population.

-Chemicals that persist in the environment or bioaccumulate in the food chain must be banned.

-Chemicals found in humans, in products to which children might be exposed, in drinking water, food, or indoor air, must be thoroughly tested for their health effects in low dose, womb-to-tomb, multi-generational studies focused on known target organs, that include sensitive endpoints like organ function and cognitive development. Studies to define mechanisms of action (how a chemical harms the body) must also be conducted.

-Chemical manufacturers must fully disclose the ingredients of their products to the public.

When pesticides were found in soft drinks, the parliament decided to boycott it, now the pesticides have been found in the blood, one wonders how will parliaiment react.