Athough it has long been suspected that the deadly pesticide Endosulfan is causing serious harm to farmers who use it, no effort has been made so far to study its effects on humans.
Instead, India has managed to secure several exemptions, including a phase- out period of 11 years to implement the ban on its production and use at an international conference in Geneva.
The country is not new to the harmful effects of the pesticide, which have been felt from the 90s onwards among the farmers and people in villages.
“The pesticide seems to have a direct impact on the reproductive, immune and nervous systems, but the problem is that no in-depth study has been done so far in our country to prove this. Studies on mice and guinea pigs have revealed that it is a serious health hazard,” says Dr Riyaz Basha, associate professor, community medicine, Bangalore Medical College (BMC), warning that Endosulfan can be harmful if inhaled or if one has food that has ingredients sprayed with it while in the fields. But the effects would depend on the level of exposure, according to him.
“If it is overused it can have more far greater consequences than other chemical pesticides. One might experience dizziness, vomiting and blindness. Even more seriously there could be renal failure, epilepsy, paralysis and even death," adds Dr Basha.
“Endosulfan also appears to be damaging the quality of sperm in men and the endocrine levels in women. Pregnant women exposed to this often give birth to children with deformities, but to establish this we need to do an in-depth study,” he emphasises, explaining that a study of this sort would require at least five years and a lot of funding and resources. The only study done so far was in 2001 by the National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH) ,which was
more observational in nature. But it concluded that the pesticide was a health hazard.