Argentina docs: pesticides cause Cancer surge

Declaration of Physicians in Crop-sprayed Towns in Argentina at 3^rd National Congress

Faculty of Medicine, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, 17 October  2015

December 2, 2015    Institute of Science in Society

Original Publication: http://www.reduas.com.ar/declaration-of-the-3rd-national-congress-of-physicians-in-the-crop-sprayed-towns/#more-1541

Sign the Independent Scientists Manifesto on Glyphosate here:
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Independent_Scientists_Manifesto_on_Glyphosate.php

 

Five years after the first meeting at the Faculty of Medical Sciences of Córdoba, we –  scientists, doctors and members of health teams from sprayed villages of Argentina -gathered in the Aula Magna of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), to verify that what we said then is emphatically true and getting worse by the day. The current system of agricultural production in the country pollutes the environment and our food, sickening and killing human populations in agricultural areas.

In the last 25 years, the consumption of pesticides increased by 983 % (from 38 to 370 million kilos), while the cultivated area increased by 50 % (from 20 million ha to 30 million ha). A production system based on the systematic application of agricultural poisons means, inevitably, that nature responds by adapting, forcing farmers to apply greater quantities of pesticides in the field to achieve the same objectives. Over the years a system has been created by and for sellers of pesticides, who every year increase their net sales (in 2015 the increase was 9%) while our patients, too, year after year are being exposed to this pesticide pollution more and more.

There is no doubt that the massive and growing exposure to pesticides changed the disease profile of Argentina’s rural populations and that cancer is the leading cause of death among them (and the worst way to die).

Research presented at the congress show studies at different scales, which highlight a consistent pattern of toxicity. From small towns to larger populations at the provincial level (as in Chaco and Córdoba) or national level, different levels of exposure to glyphosate or agricultural poisons in general are compared, showing that reproductive health is affected by increases in spontaneous abortions and birth defects. Also increased are endocrine disorders such as hypothyroidism, neurological disorders or cognitive development problems and soaring of cancer rates – a tripling of incidence, prevalence and mortality – which are directly related to pesticide exposure. In parallel, data from studies in experimental models show that the genotoxicity of glyphosate and other pesticides is an underlying biological mechanism that explains its relationship with disease that doctors have found in our patients. Furthermore, genotoxicity has been verified in agricultural populations (adults and children) exposed to pesticides, while being absent in populations that are not fumigated.

Distribution of soya planted left and distribution of cancer mortality in Cordoba and Santa Fe, according Minagria and provincial Ministry of Health