KILLING GRASSHOPPERS AND PEOPLE?

KILLING GRASSHOPPERS AND PEOPLE ?

"They say it's a program for killing the grasshoppers, but they are killing us too! And on the labels of the Dursban chemicals they use for the spraying, it even
says that the United Nations FAO and the European Union is paying for this!"

By Henk Ruyssenaars

FPF - Feb. 22nd 2005 - Years ago it already was known that spraying grasshoppers with (DOW) chemicals was killing people too, via air, soil and water, while trying to exterminate the grasshoppers plague and their swarms in the North West African countries.

But any further interest in the human victims, from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations which is supposed to control this pest, is near to nil.

''As long as the UN and EU pay; all is OK !'' - goes the 'gravy train' song. But there's too much money involved to take the health and lives of people into account apparently.

Dursban is the trade name for chlorpyrifos, a toxic pesticide, a product that proved to have the nerve agent effects that Rachel Carson warned about.

It was tested on prisoners in New York in 1971 and in
1998 at a lab in Lincoln, Nebraska. It replaced DDT when DDT was banned in 1972.

A huge seller, in June 2000, EPA limited its use and forced it off the market at the end of 2004.

FAO's specialist mr. James W. Everts* - who is a Dutch 'environment officer' from the Locust Group ECLO at FAO-AGP in Rome (Italy) - has not yet answered a
letter with polite questions which was sent to him two months ago. When asked again one month ago, he wrote ''he needed more time''. But a month later no answer to the questions has arrived.

They do not seem to care very much concerning the poisened people and their complaints. [The UN-'Gravy Train' is still in force apparently]

But now again a friend - who lives with his family in the area - phoned and complained: "They are not only killing the grasshoppers with this Dursban poison, but we get sick and die sometimes too." He told about the women getting miscarriages, and children which are born malformed; looking like deformed thalidomide
(Softenon) babies.

The babies and people are buried, but the grasshoppers - like the spraying - come back every year...

After living and working in the area for ten years as journalist/correspondent - one still remembers the comlaints of the people in the Sahel villages, which during the 'Rally Paris-Dakar' saw docters and para-medics with million-dollar ambulances race and fly by, while the local population many times not even could afford an Aspirin for their headaches after the spraying.

Nobody stopped to ask why they where sick, and what eventually the reason might be.

Five years ago: US bans Dursban

Coming June it will be five years ago that the American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally published a report about the dangers of the Dursban
pesticide's negative effects, which have actually been known since 1972.

Dursban, EPA concluded, is high risk stuff and the Agency announced: "Decision Effectively Bans Dursban From Stores:

''The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that one of the most commonly used pesticides, a compound sold as Dursban and found in dozens of
home-and-garden products, may be more dangerous to people than previously thought, according to sources familiar with the decision.''

Dursban is used to spray the areas where the locusts swarm.*

UN, FAO and many other so called 'experts' have been dealing with criminal multinationals* like DOW Chemical (Napalm-Vietnam/Bophal-India etc.) and
similar $billions worth of pesticides since 1972. But the people which are victim of the global pesticide maffia still die, and the babies are still deformed.

When the gravy train-'experts' had time for it during the latest conferences, they talked about the usual ''New strategies needed to secure food and safeguard ecosystems" - because they do understand that the chemicals poison the whole area, water, soil and air.

But - according to FAO [7 January 2005] - ''Despite recent improvements, the Desert Locust situation remains serious in Western Africa where vigilance and
intensive control operations are still needed.''

In Northwest Africa, Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania continued intensive control operations against immature swarms during last December. Late forming
swarms from summer breeding in the Sahel reinvaded parts of southeastern Mauritania and eastern Senegal.

About 880,000 ha were treated from the air and on the ground in West and Northwest Africa during December 2004, compared to 2.2 million in the previous
month.

The total area treated since the beginning of the upsurge (October 2003) has now reached 12 million ha, according to FAO's latest Desert Locust bulletin.

Countries in West and Northwest Africa have made great efforts in controlling the swarms coming out from the Sahel, but only in March-April 2005 will it be possible to have clear indications on what scale breeding will occur and on what scale the Sahel will be reinvaded in summer," FAO now has warned.

The pesticide maffia finds healthy alternatives not profitable, so the sprayed people have no choice:

They have to choose between pest and cholera.

Henk Ruyssenaars

* The annual worldwide sales of pesticides for example are in the region of 30 to 40 billion US dollars.

The following ten top chemical companies share over 96% of such sales:

No Company Description Sales region

1 Monsanto USA Multinational India, etc.
2 Bayer Germany Multinational US, Asia, L. America
3 Zeneca UK Multinational China, Thailand
4 AgrEvo Germany Multinational US, China etc.
5 Dupont USA Various countries
6 Rhône-Poulenc France Various countries
7 DowElanco Various countries
8 Amer. Cyanamid USA Various countries
9 BASF German Various countries
10 Novartis Swiss Various countries

(A) Ciba-Geigy - Swiss - N. America & Europe Multinational - (B) Sandoz Swiss Various countries

Companies listed under (A) and (B) have merged and are referred to as Novartis.This is one of the largest multinational companies.

Questions? Try asking FAO-Environment Officer:
James W. Everts -
Locust Group/ECLO - FAO-AGP
Rome, Italy

Footnotes/Links:

* "Decision Effectively Bans Dursban From Stores'' -
Washington Post - June 1 - 2002 -
Url.: http://tinyurl.com/3kdwv

* Desert Locust upsurge in 2004 -
Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5gfhe

* FAO Emergency Prevention System. The Desert Locust component. Url.: http://tinyurl.com/4h653

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
http://tinyurl.com/4ar5e
Editor: Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/6v8ru
The Netherlands
FPF@Chello.nl

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