Effects of endosulfan on children in Kerala

The hitherto unknown pesticide endosulfan has become a part of everyone's lexicon including politicians, journalists, and the local shopkeepers. All because of the dangerous effects of this pesticide on the most vulnerable citizens of Kerala – children.

Childhood is that time of life when you want to have fun, run around, enter the imaginary world of fairy tale stories where everyone lives happily ever after, and generally enjoy to the fullest.

Sadly, the childhood of a vast number of children in Kasargod, Kerala and elsewhere has abruptly halted – all because farmers in the area were, unknown to themselves, spraying their crops liberally with a pesticide containing endosulfan. The reason why the farmers were using this particular type of pesticide was to encourage honeybees to visit their crops and thereby aid in cross-pollination. This particular pesticide, the farmers found, destroyed unwanted pests but were not harmful to the honey bees. It thus helped farmers to grow abundant crops, including fruits and vegetables, not to mention giving honey-producers good business.

Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, the farmers were not enlightened about the dangerous effects of endosulfan. Since this pesticide is used by spraying crops, the chemical would get carried across a large area through the air. Hence, even though those in direct contact with the pesticide may have been affected in fewer numbers, the ones who were affected were the people staying in the area & not just the families of the farmers themselves.

Media visits to the region reported horrific facts: children unable to move at all on their own due to muscular dystrophy; children with various congenital defects; delays in the sexual maturity of boys; listless children who had to be physically carried around by their parent; the list goes on...for these children, there is no fairytale ending of "...and they lived happily ever after".



Help this child and other endosulfan victims in Kerala to have fairytale endings: How to help endosulfan victims