Pesticide : 13 children die by eating lychees

ThaiThu/epictura

Published the 31.07.2017 to 12: 30 pm

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pesticideBangladeshlitchisenvironnement

Finally, it is a pesticide. In Bangladesh, the death observed among children who consumed lychees are linked to an insecticide particularly toxic, reveals an international study recently published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. The authors show that 13 children have died in 2012 as a result of exposure to endosulfan, thus contradicting the official version validated in previous scientific work.

The work shows that the chemical has been discharged in excessive amounts on the fruit trees, in June 2012. The children have eaten lychees and died twenty hours later, an inflammation of the brain, directly related to this substance so toxic that more than 80 countries have banned from their territory.

The lone survivor

The symptoms observed in these young victims have first been attributed to a toxin, the methylenecyclopropyl-glycine, which is found naturally in the seeds of lychees. This substance does cause hypoglycemia, particularly in malnourished children. In India, deaths caused by the same syndrome of acute encephalitis have also been recorded near fruit trees. So, scientists concluded that a reaction to this toxin was the cause of these deaths.

But the authors of the latest research challenge this conclusion. “Our survey suggests that this toxin has not been able to cause this inflammation of the brain fatal in these children in Bangladesh in 2012,” demonstrate the authors. The death would have rather been caused by ” a multiple exposure to substances agro-chemicals very toxic “.

To reach this finding, the researchers conducted a survey in northern Bangladesh, in the district of Dinajpur, involving 14 cases of acute encephalitis in children aged one to 12 years. Only one of these children has survived.

Epluchés with the teeth

They have discovered that at the time of the outbreak of this syndrome, the farmers of these fruits were used of endosulfan. Among the children, 13 lived in the midst of fruit-trees or within ten metres of an orchard. Only one stayed a bit further ; it is he who has survived the disease.

The inhabitants were interviewed. They explained to the researchers that children have the habit of playing in the orchards and eat the fruits fallen on the ground without washing them. Gold to peel, they use their teeth.

In 2016, the Bangladesh was one of the few countries that allowed even a limited use of this chemical. The use of this pesticide is totally banned in the United States since the end of 2016, and since the end of 2005 in the european Union.