Millions in Bangladesh exposed to arsenic in drinking water

[bijou]

It could be the worst mass poisoning in history. And the terrible irony is that it may all be due to an idealistic push to clean up drinking water for some of the world's poorest people.

A new study published in British medical journal The Lancet says that up to 77 million people in Bangladesh are being exposed to toxic levels of arsenic, potentially taking years or decades off their lives.

An international team of researchers from Chicago, New York and Bangladesh followed 12,000 people over the past decade, monitoring their arsenic intake and mortality rates from contaminated wells.

By the end of the study, one in five deaths were determined to be directly related to elevated arsenic levels in their system. Stretch that over the entire population that takes its water from wells, and the impact is daunting.

The problem has been known about for years, if not the overall deadly impact.

As far back as a decade ago, the World Health Organization called it "the largest mass poisoning of a population in history... beyond the accidents at Bhopal, India, in 1984, and Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986."

Well-meaning development groups had encouraged remote villages across Bangladesh to dig wells over the past decades, rather than rely on potentially contaminated surface water and dirty rivers. But now potentially a much worse problem has been found far below the surface. ...

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/06/20/bangladesh.arsenic.poisoning/

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

So we're looking at potentially 14 million Bangladeshis in an early grave because NGO charities had all the foresight of BP.

Amazing.

Plug those percentages back in to the popuation and basically you're looking at the same level of devastation as WW2 had on Poland.

[formerlurker]

Well-meaning development groups had encouraged remote villages across Bangladesh to dig wells over the past decades, rather than rely on potentially contaminated surface water and dirty rivers. But now potentially a much worse problem has been found far below the surface.

...

And unfortunately, it is also found in abundance in the soil and rock in Bangladesh. It's leached up through the water table in tens of millions of water wells across the country.

You think one of those well meaning development groups would have known, and/or tested for this prior to giving advice. 

[Doc]

You think one of those well meaning development groups would have known, and/or tested for this prior to giving advice. 

And it's not like a test kit for Arsenic (and other heavy metals) is that difficult.......you can get one at any good drug store.......

doc

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

And it's not like a test kit for Arsenic (and other heavy metals) is that difficult.......you can get one at any good drug store.......

doc

Hence, my analogy to BP and its lack of preparedness.

[Ptarmigan]

They could of tested the water before it was distributed for drinking.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

They could of tested the water before it was distributed for drinking.

No, no.

Their good intentions are all that were required.

It's not like they were asking people to drill for oil and only oil can be evil. We don't need caution...we have love.