Indian villagers have already paid a heavy health price for the uranium industry
Independent studies of the health status of people who live near the uranium mines and mills have found both that there are physical deformities occurring at a much higher rate than controlled villages which are having similar population but are a little bit further away from the mines and mills, as well as lung diseases coming in at a much higher rate among those who work in the mines and mills.
Australia to sell uranium to India but at what cost to its people? Australian Broadcasting Corporation Broadcast: 03/09/2014 Reporter: Stephanie March
As Prime Minister Tony Abbott prepares to sign off on a deal to sell Australian uranium to India, critics are warning of the cost to the lives and safety of India’s most vulnerable.
Transcript
CHRIS UHLMANN, PRESENTER: “……. critics say India’s drive towards a nuclear future is coming at a cost – the lives and safety of the country’s most vulnerable.
South Asia correspondent Stephanie March reports.
STEPHANIE MARCH, REPORTER: This lush forest land in eastern India is home to the Adivasi, one of the country’s Indigenous tribes people. Here in the town of the Jaduguda, the Adivasi live simple lives, much the way they have for centuries.
But the locals feel something isn’t right with the world around them.
Mohammad Yusuf is just one child in the village deformed since birth.
MOHAMMAD MOIN (voiceover translation): We didn’t realise that there was anything wrong with him immediately, but four to five months after he was born, we realised that his legs and arms were not functioning properly.
STEPHANIE MARCH: The 14-year-old tries hard to be independent, but his wasted and stiff body makes it hard for him to move.
MOHAMMAD MOIN (voiceover translation): The doctor’s examined him. They said it wasn’t polio. They said that there was some damage that had taken place before he was born. His nerves were damaged or something like that.
STEPHANIE MARCH: A few doors down, Jobarani Acharya’s three-year-old son, Zariyadev (phonetic spelling), struggles to breathe and can’t sit without help. She doesn’t know what’s wrong with him and can’t afford to take him to hospital to find out.
JOBARANI ACHARYA (voiceover translation): I worry about what will happen when he grows older. What can we do for him? How do we cope with this situation?
STEPHANIE MARCH: Jobarani’s neighbour is a young boy named Gunda, born blind and mentally handicapped. In this hamlet of a few dozen houses there are at least three children with obvious physical deformities and locals believe they know the cause.
MOHAMMAD MOIN (voiceover translation): One of my other children, just six days old, died after dark patches erupted on its body all of a sudden. With Yusuf too, it seems that there was some poisoning or radiation that led to a birth defect.
STEPHANIE MARCH: The village where Mohammad Yusuf and Zariyadev were born is less than two kilometres from this tailing pond, attached to a uranium mine run by the Government-owned Uranium Corporation of India Limited, UCIL.
MOHAMMAD MOIN (voiceover translation): We feel that these are due to the affects of uranium. We’ve seen these kinds of incidents not just with humans, but also with the babies born to animals.
GHANSHYAM BIRULLE, JHARKHAND ORG. AGAINST RADIATION (voiceover translation): We cannot see any benefits. We have received only cancer and diseases. UCIL has given us nothing else.
STEPHANIE MARCH: Independent studies on the impact of the mining operation have been scathing. One survey by Indian Doctors for Peace and Development found that children born to families living near the mining operations were almost twice as likely to have congenital deformities than those born in villages 30 kilometres away and that those with deformities were five times more likely to die than those living in non-mining areas.
30-year-old Rapta Sadr has been physically disabled since birth and blames his problems on being born near the tailing ponds.
In addition, cancer rate are 50 per cent higher in the villages near the tailing ponds and people are 20 per cent less likely to reach the average life expectancy for the state.
M.V. RAMANA, NUCLEAR FUTURES LAB, PRINCETON UNI.: Independent studies of the health status of people who live near the uranium mines and mills have found both that there are physical deformities occurring at a much higher rate than controlled villages which are having similar population but are a little bit further away from the mines and mills, as well as lung diseases coming in at a much higher rate among those who work in the mines and mills.
STEPHANIE MARCH: M.V. Ramana is a nuclear physicist based at Princeton University who’s written extensively on the nuclear industry in India. He’s closely studied the situation in Jaduguda.
M.V. RAMANA: As far as I know, UCIL has offered no evidence that is has actually carried out any kind of detailed epidemiological studies. All it has done is make various assertions. These assertions start with denial, saying that there is no such problem, or claiming that these problems have to do with malnutrition – exactly the kind of thing epidemiological studies rule out……http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2014/s4080503.htm
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