Before dawn every day he joins hundreds of wholesale traders at Delhi's Azadpur Mandi, a sprawling, chaotic market where trucks blare Bollywood music, porters haul huge brown sacks of fruit and vegetables and hawkers ply tea and cigarettes.

His own trade is in rosy red apples, laced with calcium carbide.

Bhim says he's been adding chemicals to his apples for years to artificially ripen them after a long journey from the Himalayan foothills, despite being told that it causes cancer.

Human pesticide poisoning has become major public health issue these days. Throughout the world highest levels of pesticide exposure are found in the farm workers, applicators and people living adjacent to heavily treated agricultural land. Pesticides are linked to various chronic diseases like cancers, infertility, kidney failure, repr oductive problems and nervous disorders.



The documentary Bananas!

Agricultural pesticides account for at least 250,000 suicide deaths each year, making pesticides the single most common means of suicide worldwide.

In a prospective cohort study of patients presenting with pesticide self-poisoning, Andrew Dawson and colleagues investigate the relative human toxicity of agricultural pesticides and contrast it with WHO toxicity classifications, which are based on toxicity in rats.

Jorhat, Sept. 27: A large number of cattle has died from suspected pesticide poisoning in the Meleng-Boguriguri area under Teok revenue circle in Jorhat district in the past week.

Jorhat deputy commissioner R.C.

Pesticide industry body loses defamation case against CSE, twice. The Crop Care Federation of India (CCFI), a pesticide industry body, has twice lost the defamation case it filed against Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi. CCFI had been pursuing the case against a study done by CSE highlighting the endosulfan poisoning of residents of Padre village in Kasaragod district, Kerala.

This new report by PAN-AP reveals that hazardous pesticides are commonly used in unsafe situations around the world, and calls for assertive action by corporations, governments and international bodies to address pesticide hazards.

River pollution due to extensive use of pesticides is dangerous for the critically endangered Ganges river dolphin, India's national aquatic animal, says an expert. There are only about 2,000 left, down from tens of thousands just a few decades ago. About half of these are in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

Pesticides, High-voltage Cables Taking Toll On Endangered Bird
Vijaysinh Parmar | TNN

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