Activists in Argentina Expect Landmark Ruling against Agrochemicals
Activists in Argentina Expect Landmark Ruling against Agrochemicals
By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Aug 17 2012 (IPS) - After more than a decade of campaigning against toxic agrochemicals, a group of women from a poor neighbourhood in the northern Argentine city of Córdoba have brought large-scale soybean growers to trial for the health damages caused by spraying.
~snip~
In 1999, Gatica’s daughter died of kidney failure three days after her birth. The mother’s grief turned into anger, and she started to keep track of the cases of cancer, birth defects and other health problems in the neighbourhood.
She suspected that the numerous health problems were caused by glyphosate, the herbicide used on fields of genetically modified soybeans, sprayed by hand or from planes.
Gatica’s list included cases of newborns with six fingers or without a thumb, with deformed jaw bones, or without intestines. “We had malformations, cancer, lupus, purpura, haemolytic anaemia,” she said.
More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/08/activists-in-argentina-expect-landmark-ruling-against-agrochemicals/