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| Venomous Earth. How Arsenic Caused the World's Worst Mass Poisoning | Buy a book...
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| Author(s): | A. A. Meharg |
| Publisher: | Macmillan |
| ISBN: | 1403944997 |
| Format: | hardback |
| 192pp | |
| Price: | £16.99 |
| Review Date: | 14 June 2005 |
| Review: | Bengal encompasses the world’s largest delta. In the 1970s nearly a quarter of a million people died each year in Bangladesh from water-borne diseases. Pure drinking water was needed, and the water from the delta plain of Bengal could be readily harvested using cheap tubewell technology – iron tubes pushed through the soft sediment to tap the water stores below. In 1978 arsenic was first detected in the groundwaters, but it was not until 1983 arsenic poisoning was officially reported. Sufferers were reported as having rashes on their trunks, arms and legs. By 1987, 1214 patients had been reported with acute arsenic poisoning. In the 1990s there was a growth in the number of boreholes made, and the problem worsened. By 1996 the WHO declared the Bangladesh situation a ‘major public health issue’. Up to now national and international aid efforts at mitigation have been largely ineffective: in 2000 the WHO estimated that between 35 and 77 million people are potentially exposed to too high a level of arsenic in their drinking water. This book charts the route of the poisoning and looks at the efforts that have been made so far to solve the problem and the ways in which the crisis is to be tackled. |