Groundwater in about 20 percent of India’s total land mass contains “toxic levels of arsenic”, exposing more than 250 million people across the country to this deadly element, a recent study has found.
Author
Mimi Roy, Professor, Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India.
Summary
When warts, lesions and sores began to appear on Manatosh Biswas’ skin back in 2011, he consulted a doctor who advised him to undergo a few tests.
Biswas, a resident of Madhusudankati village in West Bengal’s densely-populated North 24 Parganas district adjoining Kolkata, did as the local physician advised.
The test results confirmed that he was suffering from arsenicosis, a condition that manifests in humans exposed to the notoriously toxic heavy metal arsenic.
For 15 years, Biswas lived with Bowen’s disease, a precancerous condition that is a consequence of consuming groundwater with a heavy presence of arsenic.
Since 1983, when arsenic contamination of groundwater sources was officially confirmed in West Bengal, the situation has remained unaddressed with reports suggesting that the problem may have actually worsened.
This is a result of inadequate coordination between the central and state governments which paid little attention to fix the crisis.
Millions at risk
Central government information released in 2016 suggested that 9.6 million people in the state of West Bengal, 1.6 million in Assam, 1.2 million in Bihar, 500,000 in Uttar Pradesh and 13,000 in Jharkhand — a massive swathe of territory in India’s Ganga Basin — were at “immediate risk” from arsenic contamination of groundwater.
More recently, an extensive study found that groundwater in about 20 percent of India’s total land mass contains “toxic levels of arsenic”, exposing more than 250 million people across the country to this deadly element.
Arsenic contamination of groundwater has affected the health of millions of people globally with populations in Bangladesh, India and China the worst affected.
Other countries with arsenic contaminating their groundwater supplies include Argentina, Cambodia, Chile, Hungary, United States, Mexico, Romania, Pakistan, Nepal and Vietnam. Asian and Southeast Asian countries are by far the most impacted.
The World Health Organization classifies arsenic as carcinogenic to humans and lists various forms of cancer, skin lesions, cardiovascular ailments and diabetes as diseases caused by long-term exposure to the deadly element.
Effects of arsenic poisoning
Chronic exposure to arsenic leading to cancer depends on factors like how long someone is exposed, how much they are exposed to, their genetic makeup as well as their nutrient requirements.
Ongoing research has focused on the impact of groundwater arsenic toxicity on prenatal health and the consequences of such acute exposure on children’s development.
Research with respect to expectant mothers’ exposure to arsenic found miscarriages, low birth weight, babies dying before their first birthday, congenital anomalies and stillbirths were more common.
Soon after the prevalence of arsenic in West Bengal’s groundwater was confirmed in the early 1980s, public health officials in Bangladesh detected the toxic metal in their groundwater as well.
More than half the groundwater samples tested in certain areas of West Bengal and Bangladesh found five to ten times more arsenic than the permissible safe limit, making it unsuitable for household and irrigation purposes.
Published in: 360info.
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