Little recovery by poison gas victims

Press, 15 May 1985, Page 34

Little recovery by poison gas victims

NZPA-Reuter Bhopal, India Victims of Bhopal’s poison gas disaster surveyed by an independent medical team showed few signs of recovery, and the gas may have polluted the city’s soil and water supply, the team’s report said today. The report was released at a news conference by three senior doctors who were part of a 21-member medical team from Bombay. The team made the survey in March, three months after the tragedy in which up to 2500 people died. The survey, which lasted a week, studied 569 people from areas of the centralIndian city affected by a methyl-isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticides factory in December. The team of 14 doctors, including gynaecologists, chest specialists, obstetricians, and pediatricians, and seven medical technicians were all from the K.E.M.

Hospital, Bombay’s second largest medical institute and a teaching hospital. Professor V. N. Acharya, a kidney specialist, said in the report that more than 100 days after the disaster, victims were still affected in spite of receiving treatment.

“The fact that injuries to different organs have persisted for so long, in itself poses a grave problem,” Professor Acharya said.

The doctors were concerned about high levels of thiocyanates — the form cyanide takes in water or blood — in Bhopal water. “Filtered water of Bhopal has values up to two parts per million (ppm) in comparison with Bombay tap water which has a thiocynate value of o.Bppm,” Professor Acharya said.

“The authorities in Bhopal should scrupulously check if the high levels of thiocyanate in the lakes, sub-soil and filter water of Bhopal are progressively diminishing or persisting.” Professor Acharya said that during their stay in Bhopal, all the doctors noted that the thiocyanate level in their blood rose although it returned to normal when they got back to Bombay.

“Thiocyanate may stop people getting better. Examination of the blood of the affected population showed that their average thiocyanate level was three times the average level found in Bombay,” Professor Acharya saia.

Continued exposure to thiocyanates was known to affect functioning of organs such as thyroid glands, which were essential for normal growth, particularly during puberty and pregnancy.

Professor Acharya said 29 of 38 pregnant patients in the survey aborted. The report drew no conclusions. The survey also showed the affected area was far larger than earlier believed by authorities. “The Government says about 250,000 people were liable to be affected, using an area inside a 2km radius,” Professor Acharya said. “But we think the area affected is much, much larger.”