Bayer Found Responsible for Poisoning of Children in Peru

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P A N U P S

Pesticide Action Network Updates Service

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Bayer Found Responsible for Poisoning of Children in Peru

 

August 30, 2002

 

After a nine-month investigation, a Peruvian Congressional Subcommittee has

found significant evidence of criminal responsibility by both the

agrochemical company Bayer and the Peruvian Ministry of Agriculture in the

poisoning of 42 children in the remote Andean village of Tauccamarca in

October 1999.

 

The children were stricken after eating a school breakfast contaminated with

the organophosphate pesticide methyl parathion. Twenty-four children died

before they could reach medical treatment, 18 others survived with

significant long-term health and developmental consequences. The pesticide

was heavily marketed under the name of Folidol to small farmers throughout

Peru, the great majority of whom speak Quechua only and are illiterate.

Bayer packaged the pesticide, a white powder that resembles powdered milk

and has no strong chemical odor, in small plastic bags, labeled in Spanish

and displaying a picture of vegetables. The labels provided no usable safety

information, such as pictograms, for the majority of users in remote

villages, and little indication of the danger of the product.

 

The Peruvian Congressional Report also found that Bayer, should compensate

the families and surviving children for the losses they have suffered.

Headquartered in Germany, Bayer has been a principle Peruvian importer and

distributor of both methyl and ethyl parathion.

 

The families filed a suit against Bayer in October of 2001 asserting that

the company should have taken steps to prevent the foreseeable misuse of

this extremely toxic product, given the severe health risks presented by

methyl parathion, and the indigenous language use in the Peruvian

countryside. Two days after the suit was filed, the judge of the Superior

Court in Lima found the case inadmissible on procedural grounds, and

concluded summarily--and illegally--that the plaintiffs had not adequately

made out the underlying substantive case. Under Peruvian law, in the initial

stage of litigation the judge is authorized only to review the completeness

of the filing papers, and may not decide substantive matters of law. The

families successfully appealed the illegal resolution, and are currently

waiting for a hearing date to be set for later this year.

 

The suit seeks justice for the children that perished, guarantees of medical

monitoring for the surviving children, and regulatory reforms to prevent

future tragedies. It also names the Ministry of Agriculture for failure to

enforce pesticide regulations; uncontrolled sales of " restricted use "

pesticides including parathion are common throughout Peru.

 

The efforts of the Tauccamarca families and allied Peruvian non-governmental

organizations have been backed by a wave of public support and have won

important changes. In February 2002, the Peruvian National Agrarian Health

Service indefinitely suspended the registration of all pesticides classified

by the World Health Organization as Ia (extremely hazardous) or Ib (highly

hazardous).

 

As the World Summit on Sustainable Development takes place in Johannesburg,

South Africa, the families have written to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan

requesting that he exclude Bayer from the UN Global Compact because of

Bayer's actions in Peru. The Global Compact is a UN partnership with

corporations that pledge to abide by human rights and environmental

principles. The letter was signed by Victoriano Huarayo Torres, representing

the village of Tauccamarca. Two of Mr. Torres' children were among the

twenty-four fatally poisoned. He relates in the letter,

 

" In the intervening years [since the 1999 poisoning] grieving parents in my

village cannot understand how the United Nations could support a company

like Bayer that has continued to sell its most toxic pesticides (classified

by the WHO as extremely or highly hazardous) for many years after publicly

promising to withdraw them in 1995. Nor can we understand why the United

Nations would support a company that allowed methyl parathion to be sold in

a region where they knew that the people would not be able to read the label

instructions. "

 

Sources: Peruvian Congressional Investigative Committee, Mr. Torres' letter

to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, UN Global Compact,

http://65.214.34.30/un/gc/unweb.nsf/, Greenwash + 10--The UN's Global

Compact, Corporate Accountability, and the Johannesburg 'Earth Summit,

Corpwatch at http://www.corpwatch.org/campaigns/PCD.jsp? articleid=1348,

CorpWatch; email corpwatch; Web site http://www.corpwatch.org.

 

Contact: Pesticide Action Network Latin America (Red de Acción en

Plaguicidas y sus Alternativas en América Latina, RAPAL); phone (510)

550-6752; email erosenthal; Red de Acción en Alternativas

al uso Agroquímicos (RAAA); Lima, Peru; fax (511) 3375170 / 4257955; email

raaaper.

 

PANUPS is a weekly email news service providing resource guides and

reporting on pesticide issues that don't always get coverage by the

mainstream media. It's produced by Pesticide Action Network North America, a

non-profit and non-governmental organization working to advance sustainable

alternatives to pesticides worldwide.

 

 

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