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Price Tag To Growth:CITIZENS HEALTH GOES AWRY?, by Dr MM Kapur,16 April 2009 Print E-mail

Health Special

New Delhi, 16 April 2009

Price Tag To Growth

CITIZENS HEALTH GOES AWRY?

By Dr MM Kapur

People need to be aware of the green themes in vogue today, like sustainable development, carbon foot print, genuine progress indicator or green growth. It guides them to resolve the dilemma as to how to sustain the 6 billion plus population on the limited resources of planet earth.

However, people world-over are aware that the unlimited growth paradigm is faulted and unsustainable. The effect of this growth pattern on our environment has been disastrous. It is visible to all in their own surroundings and globally in global warming and climate change. Conventional wisdom has so far not acknowledged this truism. The march towards economic growth is in full swing and is our national goal.

It is suspected by many that this inexorable march has led to large-scale crisis of confidence in governance, some of which has overflowed into lack of confidence in the market and consumerism. It has also laid bare and exposed the financial institutions to scrutiny, revealing their overstretched resource conditions and their failed state.

To strengthen these points, a review of the components of our environment is necessary. It reveals the effects of unsustainable growth and disease burden resulting as an outcome. First in line of the review is pollution, which contaminates the external environment (air and water) and enters the food chain (plant and animal life). The internal environment of the human body communicates with the external environment through the respiratory and gastro-intestinal systems. And, the contaminants in air, water and food are absorbed and find their way into body fluids and cells.

The result is damage to:  the cell membrane (the outer wall of the cell), which slows transfer of nutrients into the cell and waste matter out of the cell; to the enzyme systems within the cell, and slows cell function and to the nucleus and genetic material – this may affect cell dividing or heredity in germ cells.

Estimates are that the proportion of the global burden of disease associated with environmental pollution hazards ranges from 23 per cent (WHO 1997) to 30 per cent (Smith, Corvalan, and Kjellstrom 1999). These include: infections diseases related to drinking water, sanitation, and food hygiene; respiratory diseases related to severe indoor air pollution from biomass burning and vector-borne diseases with a major environmental component, such as malaria.

These three types of diseases each contribute approximately 6 per cent to the updated estimate of the global burden of disease (WHO 2002). Outdoor air pollution (industry and fossil fuels) result in  0.6 to 1.4 per cent of the burden in developing regions, and other pollution, such as lead in water, air and soil, may contribute 0.9 per cent (WHO 2002)

The major pollution of surface water is a result of drains and sewage being discharged in our rivers. This is a major cause of health hazards for those living up stream. Chemical pollution of surface water can create health risks, because such waterways are often used directly as drinking water sources or connected with shallow wells. Besides, waterways have important roles for washing and cleaning, for fishing and fish farming, and for recreation. Thus, all these pollutants can enter into our food chain.

Another major source of drinking water is groundwater, which often has low concentrations of pathogens because the water is filtered during its transit through underground layers of sand, clay, or rocks. However, toxic chemicals such as arsenic and fluoride can be dissolved from the soil or rock layers into groundwater. Direct contamination can also occur from badly designed hazardous waste sites or from industrial sites (in developing countries). There is thus an imperative need to monitor hazardous waste disposal and protection of river and waterways.

Regrettably, no published estimates are available on the global burden of disease resulting from water pollution. Acute exposure to contaminants in drinking water can cause irritation or inflammation of the eyes and nose, skin, and gastrointestinal system. However, the most important health effects are due to chronic exposure (for example, liver toxicity) to copper, arsenic, or chromium in water. Excretion of chemicals through the kidney targets the kidney for toxic effects, as seen with chemicals such as cadmium, copper, mercury, and chlorobenzene (WHO 2003)

Pesticides and other chemical contaminants that enter waterways through agricultural runoff, storm water drains, and industrial discharges may persist in the environment for long periods and be transported by water or air over long distances. Pollution due to human waste has resulted in increased water borne disease among population using raw river water.

As a result of global warming, the World Health Organisation has said that countries like India would see an increase in vector and water-borne diseases especially in the northern region. The window of transmission for a disease like malaria would increase by nearly three months. Emphasising on the "serious and damaging effects" of climate change on human health, it warns: "Air quality will suffer greatly and respiratory diseases will increase. Heat waves will be more intense and of longer duration, mainly affecting the most vulnerable population, the children, elderly and the poor through heat strokes and cardiovascular complications,"

Thus, the six health outcomes which are likely to be affected by climate change in the region are: respiratory diseases, vector-borne diseases, water-borne diseases, malnutrition, injuries and psychological stress. And majority of these would be a result of changing rain patterns due to melting of glaciers and resultant natural calamities like floods and cyclones.

Let us now look at noise pollution, which is caused by the growing road and air transport, factories, congested business centers and inside buildings. Its effects: A person entering a very noisy area may experience a measurable loss in hearing sensitivity but will recover after returning to a quiet environment; it could evoke several kinds of reflex responses, which are part of a response pattern commonly called stress reaction. The heart, blood vessels, intestines and endocrine glands are all organs in which noise associated changes have been observed.

Another concern is India’s major programme for energy generation using nuclear plants. This programme will install a number of high value assets in a densely-populated country. These plants will be subject to pilferage of nuclear material, sabotage and perhaps acts of terrorism. All three scenarios entail radiation hazards for the unsuspecting unaware population. In addition, tritium is the fourth unavoidable hazardous source. Nuclear power plants routinely and accidentally release tritium into the air and water as a gas (HT) or as water (HTO or 3HOH). So far, no feasible technology exists to filter tritium from a nuclear power plant’s gaseous and liquid emissions to the environment.

Tritium emits radioactive beta particles. Once inhaled or swallowed, its beta particles can bombard cells. If a particle zaps a DNA molecule in a cell, it can cause a mutation. If it mutates a gene important to cell function, a serious disease may result. Just as water containing ordinary hydrogen and oxygen is a component of all living cells triturated water can also be incorporated into the body cells. Research indicates that tritium can remain in the human body for over 10 years.

Routine releases and accidental spills of tritium from nuclear power plants pose a growing health and safety concern. Exposure to tritium has been clinically proven to cause cancer, genetic mutations and birth defects in laboratory animals. In studies conducted by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in 1991, a comprehensive review of the carcinogenic, mutagenic and teratogenic effects of tritium exposure revealed that tritium packs 1.5 to 5 times more relative biological effectiveness (RBE), or biological change per unit of radiation, than gamma radiation or X-rays.

Thus, the quest for economic growth needs to enlarge the ambit of its database. It needs to aim for more sustainable and universal objectives and importantly calculate the cost/benefits equation of projects impartially and honestly bearing faith to the interest of the aam aadmi.  A greater national effort and native, scientific ingenuity is needed to limit the cost component of this equation for greater benefit of the citizen and his environment. --INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

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