GM Watch
  • Main Menu
    • Home
    • News
      • Newsletter subscription
      • Daily Digest
      • News Reviews
      • News Languages
    • Articles
      • GM Myth Makers
      • GM Reports
      • GM Quotes
      • GM Myths
      • Non-GM successes
      • GM Firms
        • Monsanto: a history
        • Monsanto: resources
        • Bayer: a history
        • Bayer: resources
    • Videos
      • Latest Videos
      • Must see videos
      • Cornell videos
      • Agriculture videos
      • Labeling videos
      • Animals videos
      • Corporations videos
      • Corporate takeover videos
      • Contamination videos
      • Latin America videos
      • India videos
      • Asia videos
      • Food safety videos
      • Songs videos
      • Protests videos
      • Biofuel myths videos
      • Index of GM crops and foods
      • Index of speakers
      • Health Effects
    • Contact
    • About
    • Donations
    • How donations will help us
News and comment on genetically modified foods and their associated pesticides    
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Newsletter subscription
    • News Reviews
    • News Languages
      • Notícias em Português
      • Nieuws in het Nederlands
      • Nachrichten in Deutsch
    • Archive
      • 2021 articles
      • 2020 articles
      • 2019 articles
      • 2018 articles
      • 2017 articles
      • 2016 articles
      • 2015 articles
      • 2014 articles
      • 2013 articles
      • 2012 articles
      • 2011 articles
      • 2010 articles
      • 2009 articles
      • 2008 articles
      • 2007 articles
      • 2006 articles
      • 2005 articles
      • 2004 articles
      • 2003 articles
      • 2002 articles
      • 2001 articles
      • 2000 articles
  • Articles
    • GM Myth Makers
    • GM Reports
    • How donations will help us
    • GM Quotes
    • GM Myths
    • Non-GM successes
    • GM Firms
      • Monsanto: a history
      • Monsanto: resources
      • Bayer: a history
      • Bayer: resources
  • Videos
    • Index of speakers
    • Glyphosate Videos
    • Latest Videos
    • Must see videos
    • Health Effects
    • Cornell videos
    • Agriculture videos
    • Labeling videos
    • Animals videos
    • Corporations videos
    • Corporate takeover videos
    • Contamination videos
    • Latin America videos
    • India videos
    • Asia videos
    • Food safety videos
    • Songs videos
    • Protests videos
    • Biofuel myths videos
    • Index of GM crops and foods
  • Contact
  • About
  • Donations

LATEST NEWS

  • The Monsanto Papers: Deadly secrets, corporate corruption, and one man's search for justice

  • Researchers want GMO transparency

  • New GM technology has no place in sustainable farming

  • Bayer’s plan for settling future Roundup cancer claims faces broad opposition

  • Hype over cloned ferret rings hollow

GMWatch Facebook cornfield banner

SCIENCE SUPPORTS REGULATION OF GENE EDITING

Plant tissue cultures

GENE EDITING: UNEXPECTED OUTCOMES AND RISKS

Damaged DNA on fire

GENE-EDITED CROPS & FOODS

Help stop the new threat

GM Fed pig

LATEST VIDEOS

  • Seed keepers and truth tellers: From the frontlines of GM agriculture
  • Myths and Truths of Gene-Edited Foods
  • Dangers of gene-edited foods

News Menu

  • Latest News
  • News Reviews
  • Archive
  • Languages

Please support GMWatch

Donations

You can donate via Paypal or credit/debit card.

Some of you have opted to give a regular donation. This is greatly appreciated as it helps place us on a more stable financial basis. Thank you for your support!

Victims of 2017 pesticide poisoning in Maharashtra file lawsuit against Syngenta in Switzerland

Details
Published: 02 October 2020
Twitter

Poisoned farmers sprayed the toxic pesticides after GM Bt cotton fell victim to pests it was engineered to kill

In 2017 vast tracts of GM Bt cotton in Maharashtra in India fell victim to the very pests it was engineered to kill, leading to desperate farmers spraying toxic pesticides to try and save their crop. As a result, about 800 were poisoned and at least 20 died.

The article below reports that some of the farmers and their families are suing the pesticide manufacturer Syngenta. This is a welcome development that could begin to create some accountability on the part of those who sell poisons.
 
However, in a serious omission, the article doesn't mention that the cotton that failed was GM Bt cotton. That’s a key part of the story, as Kishore Tiwari, chairman of the state-run task force on farm distress in Maharashtra, has made clear. “Anxious farmers, who manually opened the bolls,” Tiwari reported at the time, “were aghast to see pink bollworms in abundance. The situation is unprecedented and it looks like more than 50% of the standing crop has been lost to [boll]worms that should not have attacked the genetically modified crop at all.”

Bt cotton is, of course, the very same crop that GMO lobbyists are claiming has been a great success in India. It's also the same crop that Mark Lynas, the British pro-GMO and pesticide lobbyist for Cornell Alliance for Science, credited for "reductions in pesticides".
 
In order that humanity can learn the necessary lessons about the reality of GM crops, it's important for the media to be complete and transparent in its reporting.
---

Victims of 2017 pesticide poisoning in Maharashtra file cases in Switzerland against Syngenta

Lyla Bavadam
Frontline, September 30, 2020
https://frontline.thehindu.com/dispatches/victims-of-2017-pesticide-poisoning-in-maharashtra-file-cases-in-switzerland-against-syngenta/article32729454.ece?fbclid=IwAR2iJ1FPyQvcHnkJ0uf9jDOZcZSTLqeS0BRvrnwabrUSfQN9RLUXwO7YxLQ

In 2O17 about 800 agricultural workers in eastern Maharashtra’s Yavatmal district fell ill after spraying pesticide on cotton fields; at least 20 of them died. They had all been using a pesticide called Polo, manufactured by the global agrochemical giant Syngenta. The company exported Polo even though it had been banned in Switzerland since 2009 because of its harmful effects on health and the environment.

Syngenta rejected any responsibility and said there was no evidence that Polo was involved in the deaths and the poor health of those affected. The European Chemicals Agency has classed Diafenthiuron, one of the active ingredients in Polo, as “poisonous when inhaled” and “may cause damage to organs through prolonged or repeated exposure”.

On September 17 three years later, affected families and victims have taken the legal route to get justice and have filed lawsuits against Syngenta in a civil court in Basel, Switzerland. According to a release issued by Pesticide Action Network (PAN) India, Pesticide Action Network Asia Pacific (PANAP), the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) and Public Eye, an investigative journal, “51 affected families filed a specific instant at the Swiss OECD [Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development] National Contact Point, and three victims filed lawsuits against the agrochemical corporation Syngenta in a civil court in Basel, Switzerland, on 17th September, demanding monetary compensation for loss of lives and sufferings. This is the first time, ever, where victims of pesticide poisoning have reached this stage, especially from India.”

PAN India is a public interest research and advocacy non-profit organisation working with the aim of reducing dependence on toxic chemicals in agriculture and other sectors. Working with partner organisations, PAN obtained documents that showed that Polo did contribute significantly to the 2017 tragedy. Pan says, “According to the documents, the police recorded 96 cases of poisoning linked to Syngenta’s pesticide, two of which led to fatalities. On the basis of these facts and further research, the Maharashtra Association of Pesticide Poisoned Persons (MAPP) together with Pan India and PANAP, ECCHR and Public Eye documented the fate of 51 farmer families.”

Survivors of the poisoning reported severe post-Polo spraying symptoms like temporary blindness, nausea, breathing difficulties, neurological and muscular complaints and even unconsciousness for some days. In some people the effects continue and have reduced their ability to work and earn. All the above organisations have come together to support the families of the victims by filing a specific instance with the National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. A specific instance is when one raises a complaint about the conduct of a company that is inconsistent with the Guidelines.

The organisations are demanding that “Syngenta refrain from selling hazardous pesticides to small-scale farmers in India that require Personal Protective Equipment and for which – like in the case of Polo — no antidote is available in case of poisoning. In addition, the company should pay compensation to the 51 victim families for treatment costs and loss of income.”

Apart from the specific instance that has been filed, PAN India says a specialist law firm in Basel has put together a claim for compensation based on product liability since Diafenthiuron came from Switzerland. In what seems to be a well-rounded attack plan, the Responsible Business Initiative (which goes by its Swiss acronym KVI) has also been involved since it was a case of human rights violations caused by the foreign subsidiaries of a company. The Responsible Business Initiative (“Konzernverantwortungsinitiative”) is an attempt by a coalition of Swiss civil society organisations to hold Swiss companies responsible for human rights abuses abroad. The idea was met with much resistance and its fate is expected to be decided in November by public referendum.

On its website, Syngenta has rejected the Public Eye report saying, “The Public Eye report is politically motivated and deliberately misleading – its rhetoric is designed to scare the public and promote the Responsible Business Initiative in Switzerland. The report is based on a 'highly hazardous' list developed by PAN, which is not recognised by any national or international organisation."

Menu

Home

News

News Archive

News Reviews

Videos

Articles

GM Myth Makers

GM Reports

GM Myths

GM Quotes

How Donations Will Help Us

Contacts

Contact Us

About

Facebook

Twitter

RSS

Content 1999 - 2021 GMWatch.
Web Development By SCS Web Design