No death is normal in endosulfan sprayed village

KASARGOD: The state government finds itself in an embarrassing situation as more patients in the endoslulfan sprayed grama panchayats make claims that they are the victims of the pesticide use.As on date the endosulfan cell here has a list of 4,225 victims. As per records, as many as 680 persons had died of endosulfan in the district so far.Now one or two suspected victims of endosulfan die every day with a section of the media reporting 'one more endosulfan death'.Now there are no normal deaths in the area as every death is described as endosulfan death. The relatives make the claim that the victims had stayed near the Plantation Corporation of Kerala and as such they were the endosulfan victims.The claims are made to get compensation. Once the endosulfan victims' list goes on expanding the government has to shell out a monthly solatium of Rs 2,000 besides Rs 300 for the service of bystanders which in most cases are the mothers of the victims.The patients recommended by doctors of the Kozhikode Medical College (KMC) examine the patients at the periodic medical camps and recommend the patients to be included in the list.The Indian Council of Medical Research, which had recently studied the report of the department of community medicine, KMC has reportedly prepared the preliminary report in which it had stated that the number of diseases, now described as endosulfan related, are same in both sprayed and non sprayed areas.This means that the diseases were common whether the area was sprayed with endosulfan or not.In the circumstances, several experts question the parameters used by doctors to determine endosulfan victims. The medical authorities had given a vague reply to the questions asked under the Right to Information Act on the parameters used in determining the endosulfan victims.More importantly, the authorities of the Department of Animal Husbandry (DAH) had said that there were no official records of the mass death of cattle or deformities in the bovine population in the endosulfan sprayed areas.Since the cattle come into direct contact with the ground immediately after the spraying or continue to eat the pesticide sprayed grass, the cattle population should have fallen victims to endosulfan.The medical and agriculture experts who believe that the problems in the district were not caused by the spraying of endosulfan have decided to get the answers from the DAH officials under the RTI Act.