Sri Lankan legislator claims cyanide in addition to Arsenic and Mercury found in pesticides
Posted on August 5th, 2011
Athureliya RathanaƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Thero – A Buddhist monk legislator
COLOMBO, Aug. 4 — A Sri Lankan government legislator said Thursday that researchers have found cyanide mixed in pesticides imported in Sri Lanka for farming.
Athureliya Rathana Thero, a Buddhist monk legislator in the government told reporters that the research was carried out at a Malaysian laboratory.
Sri Lankan university academic Channa Jayasumana alongside with Thero said cyanide was found in pesticides imported from Germany, Switzerland and Europe.
“These had high content of arsenic, mercury and cyanide and can have damaging side effects such as sensory impairment, disturbed sensations, lack of coordination, kidney dysfunction, damage to the skin and infertility,” Jayasumana told reporters.
Thero, requesting the Sri Lankan government to ban the import of the pesticides, said the issue will be raised in parliament soon with the support of the opposition.
A group comprising Sri Lankan chemists, pharmacologists, botanists, medical doctors and forensic specialists said that last month the arsenic poisoning was very likely linked to a mystery kidney disease which had killed 20,000 farmers in Sri Lanka in the past 20 years.
The laboratory tests were carried out by Consolidated Laboratory (M) SDN. BID, ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ 2-3 Bedford Business Park Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. The Consolidated Laboratory (M) SDN. BID is an accredited laboratory by MS.ISO/IEC 17025ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ the requirement for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories.
According to the report produced by Athureliya Rathana Thero, the following commercially available samples of Pesticides were provided by Thero for analysis.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚
The following items of laboratory equipment were reorted to be utilised for the test
and theƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ copies of analysis reports were made available for information.
August 5th, 2011 at 7:27 pm
Since some of the chemicals are part of the nature in small quantity it will be a good idea to put a another column to indicate what are the acceptable limits.
August 6th, 2011 at 12:39 pm
Sirih,
I would agree with you that It would be nice if what the definitive acceptable limits are can be specified.
However, the only guidelines available are from the WHO studies. I myself could not find simple figures that could be quoted against each of elements As and Hg. Thre are some figures for drinking water.
It is vey complicated because what is relevant is the concentration of each of these elements in the solutions that are being applied and how much of the solution is applied per unit area and how frequently.
It is further complicated because these harmful elements have the potential for being accumulated in the soil after having reacted with constituent chemicals in the soil. Similarly they can contaminate the ground water as well.
Irrespective of any WHO guidelines each country can decide what it considers acceptable. We see certain drugs, pesticides, herbicides etc that are allowed in one country are not allowed in others.
The driving force behind harmful chemicals being sold for use whether they are drugs used as medicines or the pesticides and herbicides used in aggriculture are the corporations (multinational or otherwise) and the people in the respective countries who authorise their use in those countries.
Until recently tobacco smoke was considered o.k. although it was known to be harmful. Similarly the manufacturers of these product could find professionals in the relevant fields to argue that it has not been proven to be harmful and therefore it must be o.k to use them until.
That is the scenario that is unfolding in Sri Lanka. Professor Nalin de Silva’s valuable contribution on this subject being desparagingly criticised must be seen in that light, otherwise does it really matter how he and his team got the ideas?
August 6th, 2011 at 5:05 pm
The law introduced in 2001 says NO (ZERO) arsenic/cyanide in agro chemicals. Clearly these chemicals have violated this law.
This is independent proof.
Thank you very much Ven Rathana. There are good and bad of sending Buddhist monks to parliament. I think with the right kind of monks, there are more good than bad.
August 7th, 2011 at 12:16 am
It is nice to see Buddhists monks taking an active interest in the environment. Thanks to Ven Rathana. Prof. Bandara’s analysis of water, plant life and fish clearly indicate that toxins and heavy metals exceed safe limits even withot arsenic and cyanide. Lorenzo has made a useful contribution as usual.
Heavy metals damage the mental health of people in NCP and likely to make them morons and death sentance has been passed on to them.What is now needed ti give clean water to thse people as a basic human right. People have spent a lot of time trying to find the cause, now it is time to fix the problem
Environmental pollution and population explosion are majour issues that need attention.
August 7th, 2011 at 1:04 pm
Dear all
In Sri Lanka the term pesticide includes many kinds of ingredients, including proprietary products produced by various chemical distribution companies. This includes insecticides, fungicides, and weed killers. Each company has their own proprietary brand based on cocktail of many chemicals to enhance the sensitivity of the base chemical against the particular pest they recommend to for.
But most important fact is, these chemicals may remain in small amounts (called residues) in or on fruits, vegetables, grains, and other foods. To ensure the safety of the food supply, government authority should regulate the amount of each pesticide that may remain in and on foods.
The maximum residue limit, which is the amount of pesticide residue allowed to remain in or on each treated food commodity is the important parameter we have to consider.
Not the composition in the concentrated form.
That is, if residues are found above that level, the commodity should be subject to seizure by the government.
If these cyanides and arsenic salt contents are not declared during the licensing process then those pesticides are illegal to use in the SL market.
August 9th, 2011 at 5:42 pm
The 2001 law which says that there should be zero As in fertilizer is a law introduced by Morons. If you have a sufficiently
small sample, you can always get zero Arsenic or anything else, ad the statistical fluctuations vary as the square-root of N, the number of atoms in the sample. The minimum sample size must be specified, e.g., 100 grams. Also, what do you mean by zero? Zero means, in an empirical science like chemistry, below detectable levels. And what is that? That depends on the sensitivity of the instrument used. So an agreed upon instrumentation and “acceptable background concentration” has to be specified. I think the Chinese have specified 500 parts per biullion as a very safe amount. Anything below 5000 parts/billion would usually be safe, since a factor of ten fluctuations could occur statistically.
Really, the correct law should be that the levels of As. Hg etc, should be less than the concentration (NOT THE AMOUNT) in the ambient soil. Every time there are rains, the acid rain brings in bits of S, Phosphates, As, and nitric acids. If there are factories and powerstations (burning fossile fuels), there is deposition of As. So there is a NATURAL level of arsenic in the soil. The values shown in the analaysis produced by Rathana Thera are WELL WITHIN THE NATURAL LEVELS.
So this is a TOTALLY MISGUIDED scare by Rathna Thero and the JVP. There is NO CAUSE FOR ALARM IF THESE FIGURES ARE CORRECT.
August 15th, 2012 at 7:37 pm
Arsenic and its metabolites are excreted via kidney which is the primary site of bio transformation of arsenic. Kidneys of persons exposed to high levels of Arsenic have accumulated high amounts of Arsenic in their kidneys.
Arsenic is not easily detectable in hard water since Arsenic forms strong bond with Calcium. The use of Arsenic containing insecticides, herbicides and fungicides on the increase in Sri Lanka in recent years. Also the use of pesticides containing high amount of cyanide and mercury are on the increase in Sri Lanka.
In Padaviya about 5% of the population suffer from Arsenic poisoning and 40% of the death are due to Arsenic poisoning.
All agro chemicals are poisonous to animals, plants, microbes, insects and humans. Chemical pesticides leads to breeding of more pesticide resistant pests and creates pest epidemics.
Since tons of pesticides containing Arsenic,Mercury, Cyanide have been used in Sri Lanka for the last 20-25 years, in them may potentially be the cause for rapidly increasing prevalence of heart disease, diabetes and cancer in Sri Lanka, curing for which the Sri Lankan Government spends millions annually.
Drinking Arsenic contaminated water and rice caused a severe Arsenic poisoning crisis in Bangladesh where more than 70 million people are subjected to chronic arsenic poisoning caused by low quality agro chemicals which have been imported for last 30 years.
August 15th, 2012 at 8:59 pm
Dear all readers ,
We should be very much greatful to Ven Ratana Thero to bring up this issue
Please be aware of this.
These pesticides have been designed to kill people.
Please note that there is this Zionist movement in this world slowly but surely launching the agenda of few bloody idiotic muderers in the world, Babaric Osama and Hillary Levinski included. They want to reduce population in the world, so that they can easily enslave the surviving. This is not a joke.
Read this statement from this spy with the name Ben Silva , came back after long mental illness.
“Environmental pollution and population explosion are majour issues that need attention.”
This is Zionist principle in a nutshell.
Please watch all six movies in your leisure time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOWWIDT910I
Also watch,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6pEZf8P_RE&feature=related