KASARGOD: The latest study on endosulfan by Dr Jayakrishnan of the Kozhikode Medical College has come under criticism from another academic also. According to Dr K M Sreekumar, associate professor of Agriculture Entomology at the College of Agriculture, Padannakkad, the ‘study was poorly designed, loosely interpreted, incomplete and inconclusive’. According to him, the National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH), which had studied the endosulfan issue in 2003, recommended an epidemiological survey in all the villages affected by the pesticide spraying, but only two villages were selected by the study team of the Kozhikode Medical College.“Most of the parameters used were subjective, based on memory recall by the subjects. Muliyar is a place where intense campaigning was done by Punchiri Club and all the media during the last 10 years.” The parameters used were health events among domestic animals, hospitalisation, reproductive health events, age of menopause and death in families.Interestingly, mental illnesses were not studied especially when such issues were pointed out by all the media from the entire area. Images of mentally challenged children had been frequently relayed by all media. Yet that parameter was missing from the study. This was astonishing and incredulous, he said.“So in the objective parameters, there is significant difference only in the case of physical disability. It is significantly higher in the unsprayed areas compared to sprayed areas for children up to nine years of age, and for those between 10-19 years, it is higher in the sprayed area.“But without the state average for such figures, one can make no data on endosulfan residue in the blood of people living in unsprayed area.
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