The Arrested Development Study

So apart from the nebulous fears that we nurture about chemicals what do we know about the impact of pesticides on health? Shockingly little. The inadequacy of the current stipulated tests for pesticide registration and regulation even in the developed world has been clearly demonstrated. Despite the frenzy to create more molecules, to get them registered with concerned authorities and to make profits out of selling them or perhaps because of them, we only know a few potential impacts of some pesticides. In India for instance, out of a total of 147 pesticides registered, the tolerance limits of only 50 have been evaluated. Existing literature in India gives us knowledge of the high pesticide residue levels in our food, water and bodies. We also have some data from hospitals through documentation on acute poisoning at the workplace. It is also known that farmers in India use mixtures of pesticides, the permutations and combinations of which run into thousands, the impact of which has hardly been studied. It was increasingly evident that concrete data had to be gathered on the chronic effects of pesticides on human health. Effects that no one could dismiss as random or merely unfortunate.

A nine-month study by Greenpeace India in 2003 showed that the problem of pesticides affecting the health of our children was not limited to accidents. Pesticides are affecting the health of children everyday in every part of the country. In agricultural communities seemingly normal children were victims of chronic exposure to pesticides. The study came to be known as the Arrested Development study because it reflected the reality of the mental development of Indian children being compromised silently and without remorse.