Good Food is First Food. It is not junk food. It is the food that connects nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it provides employment to people. Most importantly, cooking and eating give us pleasure. …
Asbestos-related litigation in the us runs into billions of dollars today. So much so that the amount is estimated to exceed the combined cost of destruction caused by 9/11 and Hurricane Andrew. The trend has been accentuated by a spate of new lawsuits against relatively less risky industries that used …
death stalks the workers of the International Rice Research Institute (irri) in Philippines. Because more than four decades of experiments and intensive studies have let loose a toxic trail. This alarming revelation came recently after an independent medical survey was conducted on former employees of irri. Several instances of fatalities …
oil is the lifeline of the world’s eco nomy. Dependence on oil has skewed incomes within nations and altered power relations among them. While oil provides multiple benefits to society, every stage of its lifecycle has harmful effects on health and environment. These are broad in scope and degree. The …
Vashram Kanabhai, a head constable in Surat traffic police, collapsed on duty. The 44-year-old cop's lungs were diagnosed as having been damaged. Kanabhai's case is not an isolated one. Many of his colleagues have to bear the brunt of this occupational hazard. To tackle the vehicular pollution menace, the Surat …
A study carried out by a number of Belgium universities has shown that even a moderate exposure to pollutants like polychlorinated aromatic hydrocarbons (pahs) can retard sexual maturation in children. Till date only occupational or accidental exposure had been implicated for such problems. The study was conducted on 200 adolescents …
workers in the wooden furniture industry are susceptible to cancer because of constant exposure to wood dust, reiterates a new study. The adverse health effects of wood dust are well known, but there is very little documentary evidence to support this knowledge. The study was conducted by a team of …
These factories do not exist in government records. Nor do they figure in the lists of pollution control boards or other regulatory bodies. Even as they have mushroomed in small towns, they are also sprouting in the dark bylanes of congested localities in large cities. They function from one or …
a recent analysis of us customs department records has exposed the double standards being applied by America. According to the figures, nearly 29,484 tonnes of pesticides that are banned or severely restricted in the us were exported between 1997 and 2000. Fifty-seven per cent of these products were shipped to …
A proposal to ban smoking in all indoor public places is on the anvil in Hong Kong. The plan includes a complete ban on smoking in offices, shops, factories and restaurants, with managers empowered to enforce the prohibition. But Jimmy Yuen, a consultant for Hong Kong's occupational safety and health …
At present in India more than thirty mines are in operation. It produces 2800 tones of asbestos per month (mainly chrysotile and tremolite) and in recent years substantial quantity (-70%) is imported from Canada. The quality of asbestos produced in India is very poor. The mining and milling and other …
Workers in sawmills and wood-related industry, such as plywood manufacturing, are exposed to carcinogens and other dangerous chemicals. The chemicals may be naturally found or synthesised. Chlorophenols
A study of structural chromosomal aberration frequencies in peripheral blood lymphocytes was performed in a group of 20 professional drivers exposed to airborne pollutants and 20 matching controls. The subjects in the latter group were of the same sex (males) and of similar age as the exposed ones, and also …
catalytic converters, meant to clean up car exhausts, are polluting the environment. A group of Italian and French researchers have found traces of heavy metals emitted from the devices in remote regions of Greenland. Seth Dunn of the Worldwatch Institute, a non-governmental organisation based in Washington dc, usa, says, "They …
US-based activists and representatives from the Indian Association of Occupational Health (IAOH) called for a ban on all activities relating to mining, manufacture, use and trade in asbestos at a symposium held on February 2, 2001 in New Delhi. The seminar became a battleground for pro and anti-asbestos groups. "It …
in an endeavour to improve the working conditions in Delhi and prepare a list of recommendations for Delhi health minister, the New Delhi-based Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health, and the University of Queensland, Australia, held a two-day conference on December 8-9, 2000 in New Delhi. The recommendations made included …
amid the controversy over the relocation of polluting industries, a private bill introduced in the Delhi Assembly on November 23, 2000, which aimed at protecting the city residents from environmental hazards, was rejected. The Environmental Related Diseases (Prevention and Control) Bill, 2000, was introduced by former Delhi health minister Harsh …
How do you plan to overcome the flaws in the current pollution control approach in Tamil Nadu? Where pollution is concerned, I believe it is not appropriate to use the word
to highlight the health hazards posed by environmental and occupational exposure to pollutants, the Lucknow- based Industrial Toxicology Research Centre ( itrc ) recently organised a five-day
Exposure to environmental pollutants is known to be harmful to health, in general, and to lungs in particular. In this respect, traffic police are at particular risk due to the nature of their job, since they are exposed to emissions from the vehicles. Here, we show that in the traffic …
