40th Agenda 

40th Session Issues

Effects of Environmental Hazards/Toxic Wastes on the Worlds Health

The majority of the people of the world are beginning to realize that the human race is just one of an estimated five to ten million species that inhabit our world. Many now argue that if we do not take decisive actions, millions of species may become extinct due to industrial development - buildings, factories, and dams. Half of our medicines are derived from plants, and food supplies depend on genetic resources from the wild; yet only a minuscule number of these species have been tested. We may never know what miracle plants we have lost, or what cures for human ills have gone undiscovered. Our earth is being ravaged by pollution, over use and erosion, making the environment the international issue of the 1990's.

DEFORESTATION

Trees cover a third of our Earth. They regulate climate, protect water supplies and nurture millions of species. Half the world's population depends on forest watersheds for their livelihood, as well as the fuel wood provided by the trees. (See Issue on Deforestation). In the United States one fourth of all prescription drugs are made from tropical plants found in the rain forest. Yet their commercial value coupled with the demand for timber, makes the forest vulnerable to the advances of development. This environmental hazard effects people in villages who depend on the watersheds for drinking, bathing and cooking. The loss of the forests impacts people beyond the reaches of the forest's watershed. It impacts the planet through lost oxygen production, lost discoveries and even desertification.

DESERTIFICATION

The spread of deserts is a phenomenon worldwide, but it is most acutely felt in Africa. Every month more than a million babies are born in Africa to parents who try to scrape up a living from failing soils. Crop lands have no chance of recovery because of the constant farming, there is no time between harvests, no time for the ground to lie fallow.

Herds graze rangeland to the bare earth. The protective trees and shrubs are lost to the cooking pot, the exposed soil is blown away, and the lands resemble the desert more and more as time passes. Malnutrition, starvation and death follow in the path of desertification, making it a major contributing cause to infant mortality and shortened life expectancy.

NUCLEAR POWER ACCIDENT

The 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in the Soviet Union was the worst recorded. The accident caused 100 million curies of radioactive material to be emitted into the environment. The major components of the fall- out were Xenon 133, Iodine 131, Cesium 134 and Cesium 137. Thirty-one people died as a direct result of the Chernobyl accident, but over a hundred million individuals may have been impacted. Thousands to tens of thousands of cancer deaths and generally less fatal thyroid tumors may occur in up coming years as a result of exposure to fallout from the meltdown.

Iodine 131 is of special concern as an internal hazard because it concentrates in the thyroid. Europeans have a very high chance of developing a thyroid tumor if they lived in an area impacted by the radiation. Scientists estimate that:

a) 2,000 - 4,000 thyroid tumor cases from iodine 131 inhalation, of which a few percent might be fatal. The average dose associated with these thyroid tumor cases is only about one rad, corresponding to an individual risk of less than one in one thousand.

b) 10,000 - 250,000 potential thyroid tumor cases from iodine 131 absorbed via the grass-cow-milk route in the absence of actions by public health authorities to block this exposure route. These actions would have greatly reduced the actual numbers of thyroid tumor cases.

c) 3,500 - 70,000 cancer cases from the whole-body doses of cesium 137 (external and internal), of which approximately half might be fatal. This number would be very little reduced by evacuation and decontamination effects because most of the extra cancer deaths would be due to relatively low radiation doses hundreds of miles downwind from Chernobyl where costly mitigation measures will not be considered. If before the accident the lifetime risk of cancer death in such an area were 20 percent, then after the accident it might be increased by only 0.1 percent to 20.1 percent. Nevertheless, it is the addition of such small extra risks over many millions of individuals that results in our estimate of thousands to tens of thousands of extra cancer deaths.

The complete toll of the accident at Chernobyl may not be known for many years. It could affect generations yet unborn.

CHEMICAL ACCIDENTS

On 3 December 1984, the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India emitted 40 tons of deadly gasses into the air. Methyl Socynate was the most deadly of the gases which spewed into the air.

A chemical engineer and journalist described the situation in Bhopal three days later after he visited a hospital of the city which had had 800,000 inhabitants. "No one is counting the numbers any longer. People are dying like flies. They are brought in, their chests are heaving violently, their limbs trembling, their eyes blinking from photophobia. It will kill them in a few hours more, usually minutes." The release of the gas from the plant killed from 2,000 to 5,000 people. Many of the hundreds injured suffer from respiration ailments, permanent eye problems and mental disorders. A survey conducted in 1985 found rates of spontaneous abortion were higher among women who conceived shorted after the disaster. Other reports observed that survivors suffered burned throats, and permanent lung, liver and kidney damage.

ACID RAIN

Acid rain is believed to damage trees, affect crop yields, kill fish and vegetation in lakes and streams, and devours ozone that protects us from solar radiation; a cause of skin cancer and global warming. Citizens of two Canadian towns, exposed to high levels of acid precipitation, showed a small but statistically significant decrement in lung function. For an explanation of the problem of Acid Rain see Issue on Acid Rain.

AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES

Pesticides poison millions of people every year. They often remain on unwashed produce and are consumed. When it rains agricultural pesticides are washed into lakes and streams. Despite the hazards of pesticides, they are essential in the fight against the malaria, a disease which afflicts 100 million people annually, and the pests that consume nearly a third of the world's agricultural produce.

OZONE DEPLETION

The ozone layer filters out the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays, thereby protecting all life below. Depletion of the ozone may result in long term increases in skin cancer and cataracts, and damage to the human immune system. In addition it may reduce crop yields and alter land and water ecosystems. See Issue on ozone to view the scope of the problem.

WATER

Every day 25,000 people die from bad water, because two-thirds of the people on earth have no choice but to use it. They drink it, prepare food with it, and bathe in it. The water is polluted and poisoned by sewage, agricultural run off, and industrial wastes. The contaminated waters flows from lakes and rivers to the oceans - a total of 20 billion tons of wastes a year.

The flow of contaminated water from lakes to rivers to oceans brings about further problems. The coastal areas, where 90 percent of the sea's harvest is nurtured, are quickly being damaged.

Some 40 percent of the world's population depends on water from a neighboring country. Water sources are sometimes shared by more than one country. Problems can arise because of the growing population and their demand for more water. Cooperation is essential. When contaminants are spilled into water that flows into other countries, one country's waste water may become another country's drinking water.

Polluted water has been linked to miscarriages and birth defects. In areas where water was contaminated by chemicals used in hi-tech manufacturing, miscarriages occurred at two to three times the national average.

Polluted Waterways

In 1986, the Rhine River, which runs through Switzerland, France, West Germany and the Netherlands, was affected by the Sandoz plant fire in Basel (See Issue on Transboundary movements for details). Sirens roared and police cars with loud speakers sent a warning in German, the dominant language, to keep windows shut. "The Italians and the Turks were all opening the windows to see what was going on," recalled a Basel Professor. When dawn broke the city was cloaked in a cloud of sulfurous fumes.

The disaster affected thousands of Europeans up and down the river. Villagers who depended on the river for drinking water were forced to get it from fire trucks. In Germany farmers scrambled to remove livestock from the grazing areas near the river. In France sheep that drank from the Rhine River died. In Basel and other cities, fishing was banned in the river and its tributaries.

European officials criticized the Swiss for not properly warning the neighboring countries. The flora and fauna near the river were killed. "The Rhine River will be dead for years to come, " said a Professor of the Technical University in West Germany.

Many bodies of water are also polluted with trash. Mexico's Yucatan peninsula is littered with plastics and tires. Fish and birds are being choked out of Guanabara Bay, the entryway to Rio de Janiero, by sewage and industrial fall out. Japan's Inland Sea is plagued with 200 red tides annually. Fish and shellfish that have absorbed toxins can directly pass contaminants to humans through the food chain process.

TOXIC DUMPING

An Italian businessman was responsible for dumping toxic and radioactive wastes in Koko, Nigeria. Some of the dock workers who have been repacking the refuse for eventual evacuation, are now either vomiting blood or suffering from chemical burns. One man has been partially paralyzed. Premature births have been reported. The 10,000 45 gallon drums are reportedly piled on wooden palettes. At least 4,000 drums are said to be old and rusty, some of them are leaky, and others swell as liquid chemicals vaporize in the tropical heat.

Officials in Lagos and Benin are worried despite the fact that the drums are labeled with skull and cross bone symbols as a warning of toxic and hazardous wastes. These drums have been emptied and some have been taken home by local people who use them as storage containers.

UNITED NATION INVOLVEMENT

The World Health Organization has completed several reports which address all of the sub-issues brought before you. The WHO in conjunction with other UN agencies such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), International Labor Organization (ILO), Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), UNEP have all worked on the environment problem and its effects on Human Health.

Resolutions which have addressed and recognized the problems of the growing use of chemicals in public health, industry, agriculture, food production and in the home together with Environmental pollution resulting from rapid industrialization and new technologies is Resolution WHA 30.47 Evaluation of the Effects of Chemicals on Health; International Program on Chemical Safety. It is also concerned with the acute and especially chronic or combined toxic effects, not only on the present but on future generations. WHO was disturbed by the increasing number of accidental chemical releases and the toll it will take on the environment, results in adverse effects on the health of epidemic proportions.

SUGGESTIONS FOR RESEARCH

Resolutions to consult included:

WHA 30.47 "Evaluation of the Effects of Chemicals on Health, Intertional Programme on Chemical Safety."

WHA 29.57, WHA 29.45, WHA 28.63, WHA 26.58, WHA 31.28 EB 63.R19 and EB 73.R10

SOURCES

1. Miller, Michael W., "Study Says Birth Defects More Frequent in Areas Polluted by Technology Firms," Wall Street Journal, January 17, 1985.
2. Somers, Emmanuel, "Transboundary Pollution and Environmental Health," Environment, Vol. 29, No. 5, June 1987, pp. 6-9, 31-33.
3. "A Lethal Ingredient: Human Error," Insight, March 9, 1987.
4. "A Proud River Runs Red," Time, November 24, 2986.
5. "Coping with Nuclear Nightmare." Insight, March 7, 1988. pp. 48-49.
6. "Chernobyl The Emerging Story: Estimating Long Term Health Effects," Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, August/September 1986, pp. 18-24.
7. "The Dirty Seas," Time, August 1, 1989, pp. 44-50.
8. "Judgement at Chernobyl," Time, July 30, 1987, pp. 44-45.
9. "Koko's Radioactive Waste," West Africa, August 1, 1988, pp. 1388-1389.
10. "Scope of Chernobyl's Danger Rises," New York Times Service, Press Enterprise, Monday July 31, 1989. p A-6.
11. "Union Carbide and the Devastation of Bhopal," Multinational Monitor, April 1987. pp. 6-8.
12. "The United Nations and the Global Environment," UNA-USA.
13. "U.S. Policy and the International Environment," United States Department of State, Public Information Series, June 1989.