Increased
threat of fluorosis in city - Times of India, June 29, 2004
NEW DELHI: With one-third of Delhi's groundwater laced with
excessive fluorides, the number of people falling prey to fluoride
poisoning is increasing...
According to doctors, there are three forms of fluoride poisoning
or fluorosis, the most common being dental fluorosis. The other
two forms are skeletal and non-skeletal fluorosis.
Dental fluorosis causes yellow, brown or black streaks or spots
on the teeth. There is no cure for dental fluorosis. "It
is this physical symptom which makes people aware, whereas skeletal
fluorosis can go undetected for a long time," said Lady Hardinge
Medical College's Pravesh Mehra...
Executive director of Fluorosis Research and Rural Development
Foundation, A K Susheela said a large number of patients are directed
to the foundation since tests for fluoride were not part of the
routine blood and urine tests conducted at government hospitals.
Meanwhile, the non-skeletal fluorosis affects the soft tissues
in the body and one may develop health problems in a very short
interval. (Read
more...)
Drinking
water no succour for this village near Agra - Asian News International
June 11, 2004
(back
to top)
It's no potion but plain drinking water that disables otherwise
perfectly fit residents of Baroli Aheer, a village near Agra in
Uttar Pradesh.
And the cause of agony for the residents of this villages is
an excessive fluoride content in the drinking water.
Every second person-children as well as adults-are suffering
from deformed limbs, cataract, and premature ageing.
With the water sources drying up, only one source of water is
left-a hand pump, which spews contaminated water.
"All this is due to contamination of our drinking water.
Everyone is suffering. More than 40-50 people of different age
groups are suffering. We have tried various treatments but nothing
works," said Rajkumari, a disabled girl.
Doctors attribute the problem to the excessive amounts of flouride,
which is present in the drinking water.
"The water is the cause of all this. Fluorosis exceeds permissible
limits and this is why patients of all ages are suffering and
their bones are getting deformed. Some have even turned into invalids,"
said D V Sharma, an orthopaedic surgeon.
Independent initiatives have confirmed that fluoride content
in the water is between 3.5 and 4.5 ppm, much higher than the
average level. (Read
more...)
Threat
of Fluorosis in drought-hit Gujarat - Times
of India, March 22, 2004
(back
to top)
GANDHINAGAR: As the dawn breaks, Nirmalaben walks a long distance,
carrying water. But it is not the arduous trek for water that
has cast a shadow on her face.
She is worried about the water she is carrying home for her
family members - it's laced with fluoride, and many in Mehsana
district are already suffering from fluorosis...
Past surveys suggest that the problem of fluoride content in water
has been deepening. The Gujarat Ecology Commission's draft Action
Environmental Programme, prepared last year, said in 1991, just
831 villages had fluoride levels in groundwater higher than permissible
limit...
In 1997, the figure reached 2,836. Now, the GWSSB survey says
the number of such villages have nearly doubled to 4,341. (Read
more...)
Fluorosis
on the rise in Rajasthan - Indo-Asian News Service, January
31, 2004
(back to
top)
Jaipur, An alarming one fourth of the rural population in Rajasthan,
India's largest state, suffers from fluorosis, a debilitating
disease that damages bones and teeth, research by a voluntary
body shows. "The incidence of fluorosis, caused by an excess
of fluoride compounds in drinking water, has been rising at an
alarming rate in the state," says Mahitosh Bagoria of Health
Environment and Development Consortium.
"It is estimated that around 25 percent of the rural population
in the state is affected," he said...
The disease was virtually crippling the victims, Bagoria told
IANS.
Villagers who consume non-potable water suffer from yellow, cracked
teeth, joint pains and crippled limbs and also age rapidly. (Read
more...)
Tribals
live with fluorosis as govt turns blind eye
- The Indian Express, January 12, 2004
(back
to top)
CHUKRU (JHARKHAND): Every family in the tribal Adivasi belt in
Daltonganj has at least one person with some physical deformity.
Gastro-intestinal problems are routine here and miscarriages common.
And almost all of them suffer from decaying teeth. Fluorosis has
spread its tentacles in this village, claiming its first victim
last year.
In the absence of proper drinking water facilities, these Oraon
tribals have been forced to consume water contaminated with fluoride.
According to Dr R.P. Singh of the Rajendra Institute of Medical
Sciences, consuming water contaminated with fluoride for six months
can cause flurosis. ‘‘The impact on the body varies
with the extent of fluoride in the water and the genetic and dietary
status,’’ he adds. (Read
more...)
Fluoride
rise in UP water alarming - Times of India, January 2, 2004
(back to
top)
LUCKNOW : Though 17 states in the country have a sizable number
of people with a high fluoride content in their blood, Uttar Pradesh
ranks first in this regard. A Unicef report says that 11.77 million
people in the state are supposed to be having fluoride content
in their blood.
Fluoride, which till few years ago was found in the water in Unnao,
Rae Bareilly and a few villages in Lucknow district, has spread
to new areas. Now this harmful chemical is affecting 18 districts
in the state. In spite of repeated appeals made by prominent social
workers, the government has done nothing but to allow it to spread
in Firozabad , Mathura , Agra , Rae Bareli, etc, says a survey
conducted by a NGO. The survey team which collected water samples
from more than 500 villages, has found that children born in those
areas have been detected with low IQ, memory loss and several
other kinds of debilitating problems. It may be recalled that
spastic children are known to have high concentration of fluoride
in their blood...
In the areas considered to be hit by fluoride, cases of gastro-intestinal
diseases, nausea, bloated stomach, headache, infertility, weakness
of muscles, etc, were found to be on the rise, says the team.
These are other than the dental, skeletal and non-skeletal symptoms.
Shifting of population, where fluoride content is alarmingly high,
is one of the solutions, says a social worker who had been meeting
officials to take measures to save precious lives. (Read
more...)
Fluoride
‘curse’ cripples Bihar village -
The Telegraph, May 10, 2003
(back
to top)
"The sun is beating down hard amid the dusty hills but the
six little devils cannot wait for the race to begin. Ears cocked
for the final whistle, they fidget as they stand in line. And
nervously, adjust their walking sticks.
The whistle goes. Six pairs of legs, grotesquely twisted out
of shape, dig their sticks into the patch of green and hobble
as fast as they can to the finish line.
All six are grinning: Some in shame, some in embarrassment, some
with fear that they will collapse midway. Because they cannot
run like other children their age — their limbs have been
crippled beyond repair by fluoride poisoning.
In Kachariadih village, just four km from the administrative
headquarters of Rajauli subdivisional town, the children need
walking sticks and the young crutches. The overdose of fluoride
in drinking water — about 8 mg per litre when the permissible
limit is 1.5 — has maimed them for good.
...Twenty-five-year-old Parvati Rajlakshmi agrees. Bent double
and in pain, eyes fixed on the ground, she says: “I came
here three years ago from a neighbouring village but after giving
birth to three children, I suffered excruciating pain in the waist
and my physical features got monstrously transformed.”
Her children, two of who hover around her, also limp. Not a single
member of the nearly 100 families in this village dominated by
the Rajvanshis — who are Dalits — is unaffected."
(Read more...)
Indian
villagers crippled by fluoride - BBC News, April 7, 2003
(back
to top)
This is a story of a land where excess fluoride has turned the
ground water into a slow poison, crippling at least 10,000 people
and leaving hundreds of thousand of others in constant misery.
This is the story of Nalgonda,
one of the poorest and most drought-prone districts of Andhra
Pradesh in southern India.
The seriousness of the problem can be measured by the fact that
the groundwater has 10 to 12 parts per million (ppm) of fluoride
in contrast to a maximum permitted level of just 1.5 ppm...
People with paralysing bone diseases, stooped backs, crooked
hands and legs, deformed teeth, blindness and other handicaps
are a common sight.
The most shocking and sad image of this suffering is Ramaswamy.
At 18-yeard of age, when other youths are full of enthusiasm
for life, Ramaswamy looks to be hardly five-years-old, with a
physique completely devastated by the effects of fluoride.
He is so weak that he cannot walk and weighs barely 15 kilogrammes
(less than 34 lbs). He is blind and mentally challenged.
He cannot recognise his own name and he cannot even eat by himself.
"We have done all we could have done," says his father
Ramalingaiah, himself a victim of fluoride in Anneparti village.
(Read more...)
Andhra
town under tension as fast for water goes on -
Hindustan Times (India) March 11, 2003
(back
to top)
"...Reddy and Goud have vowed to continue their fast until
the authorities start supplying potable water to 604 villages
where high fluoride content in water has caused numerous problems,
including bone deterioration, loss of eyesight, diabetes and retardation.
Workers of the Congress, the state's main opposition party, have
been organising protests all over Nalgonda district to express
solidarity with the fasting leaders and to press for the supply
of safe drinking water. Relay hunger strikes, road blockades and
sit-ins have been a regular feature.
Police are having a tough time, especially in Nalgonda town where
huge crowds are thronging the fasting camp. A couple of other
Congress leaders have also joined the legislator and municipal
chairman in their fast." (Read
more...)
Fluorosis
haunts Pavagada taluk - Deccan Herald, August 22, 2002
(back
to top)
"I have been to all the big hospitals in Bangalore. But
even the doctors have pleaded helplessness. What do I do? I have
now resigned to my fate", says Channakrishna, who has been
literally paralysed in the limbs due to fluorosis affliction.
The situation is no different in the other households of Pavagada
taluk in the district. In Thimmapura village, Naganna's four children
have been immobilised by the affliction. In this village, which
has about 50 households, over 30 individuals have been affected
by fluorosis. As doctors say, all people in the entire taluk may
become immobilised if the condition persists.
The prevalence of fluorosis has caused symptoms like joint pains,
irregular growth of limbs and spinal cord, formation of lumps
on the body resulting in inability to even stand up in some cases.
Sixty-year-old Narasappa, who had never had any health problem
since childhood, today has developed bow legs and cannot even
stand up. Likewise, Manjunath (8), has lost movement in the limbs
since the last one year.
The prevailing condition is such that a healthy child will develop
abnormal growth in the limbs in a year's time and the condition
worsens over the years. Treatment of fluorosis, which affects
the young and the old alike, has posed a daunting task of the
medical fraternity.
According to a recent study undertaken in 24 villages of the
taluk, about 90 per cent of the population had been affected by
fluorosis. Almost all children have been affected by fluorosis
of the teeth while in others, it has manifested as joint pains
and deformity of the spinal cord and bones of the limbs."
(Read more...)
Aging
in the time of Drought - Indian Express, July 21, 2002
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to top)
The silence is the first thing to hit you in the village of Jharana
Khurd, 60 km from Jaipur. Then you realise why: There are no young
people in the village. Every one of the 1,200 residents, no matter
if they are 50, 30 or 10, looks old, with yellow, cracked teeth
and pronounced limps.
Blame it on fluorosis, triggered by the flouride pumped up from
the heart of the earth through the only functional tubewell. It's
the story of all the 146 villages in Phagi tehsil, dominated by
labourers and small farmers, a tragedy underlined by three-and-half
years of drought. The failure of rains has caused groundwater
levels to drop and flouride levels to concentrate alarmingly.
But the flouride began making its presence felt long ago. Ask
Ganga and Lachma, both in their 50s, both with hunches protruding
almost at right angles from their bodies.
''We have been like this for the past 10 years,'' they say. Even
30-year-old Sarju and Sayar have yellowed teeth, bleeding
gums and swollen joints. Says Sayar, ''The aches and swells in
the shoulders, hips, ankles make it difficult to get out of bed
in the morning. If we squat on the floor, it's painful standing
up. And we all suffer from backaches.'' Adds Sayar, ''We can barely
lift matkas, or even work in the fields standing up.''
The children are no luckier. The pains in her hips and legs are
so bad that Roshan, 10, for instance, would rather stay at home
than go to school or play. ''Over the past three years, all the
25 tubewells have dried up one by one. Now we have just one handpump.
The doctor says its water is poisonous, but we have no other source
of water,'' says small farmer Bhanwar Lal, 40. (Read
more...)
Fluorosis
playing havoc in Kolar - Times of India,
June 6, 2002
(back
to top)
KOLAR: Barely 70 km from the hi-tech city of Bangalore lies Kolar
where more than 80 per cent of the children in the age-group of
6-14 suffer from skeletal and severe dental fluorosis. Reason:
The water they consume has excess fluoride which has weakened
their hands and legs. Worse, in Kolar, all villages depend on
ground water for their domestic and other requirements. Epidemiological
survey has revealed that over 26,000 people suffer from dental
and skeletal fluorosis and more than 39,000 people are prone to
it. According to World Health Organisation (WHO), fluoride level
in water should be within 1.5 mg/L. But the fluoride concentration
in ground water in Kolar ranges from 2.8 to 4.3 mg/L, which is
far above the permissible levels, according to government officials.
Eleven-year-old Srikanta sits and stands with difficulty and
cannot keep his feet firmly on the ground because he has severe
joint pain. So is the case with 13-year-old Sahana at Nallacheravu
village in Bagapalli taluk, who is irregular to school, because
she suffers from severe joint pain and cannot walk. Sadly, she
continues to drink the fluoride-affected water because the de-fluoridation
tank in her village is defunct. According to doctors and water
quality experts, fluoride affects the system slowly and accumulates
in the joints and weakens it in the long run. ``It is not like
cough or fever which is momentary. It degenerates the system and
the ailment cannot be cured,'' said B.H. Vasudev, a quality assurance
engineer who has begun an anti-fluoride campaign among children
in Kolar. (Read
more...)
Protected
drinking water supply evades Lingagudem -
Times of India, July 11, 2001
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to top)
JAGGAIAHPET (KRISHNA): People of this sleepy village have been
drinking water which has a rich content of fluorine for years
now. Ideally the drinking water should be free from fluorine,
but the water supplied to the village contains 4.2 ppm of fluorine
indicating dangerously harmful levels of flouride. Hence, almost
every family in the village has one or two members suffering from
arthritis. Pasupuleti Ramaiah (63), a farmer, can barely walk
freely. He stopped working long ago as his limbs do not cooperate.
"I suffer from body pains regularly and my legs have rendered
me almost immobile," he said on Tuesday. (Read
more...)
Fluorosis
menace fails to move govt - Times of India,
July 11, 2001
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to top)
PATNA: ...A report reaching the state headquarters here suggests
that 80 per cent of the villagers suffer from fluorosis. Fluorosis,
which results from the intake of excess fluoride and causes thickening
of bones and destruction of nerves, has struck the village in
a major way as almost every family appears to have been afflicted
with the disease in varying degrees. The symptoms start with a
hip pain which spreads to other parts...
"This is the plight of most of the families here," remarked Haridev
Yadav while stressing that they are losing their family members
at a relatively young age. (Read
more...)
Fluorosis
makes Amreli villagers stoop - Indian Express,
May 11, 2001
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to top)
Hatathigad (Amreli): Sandhiben can't sit up on the bed without
an effort. She uses a rope tied to the ceiling to pull herself
up and finally manages to get out of the bed with a little help
from her grandson. Not many will believe that she is just 45.
Fluorosis has added years to her age.
Doctors say consumption of water with perilously high levels
of dissolved fluorides has caused calcification of ligaments that
bind her joints. As a result, Sandhiben's joints in the elbows,
knees, ankles, wrists, knuckles and the spinal column have hardened,
bent and become stiff.
In parched Liliya, Amreli district, water is drawn from such
depth that it is heavily contaminated with fluorides. Water with
as low as one part per million (ppm) of fluorides is considered
unfit for human consumption. According to a Dutch survey, the
fluoride content here is 5ppm...
"Over the years, cases of stiffened joints, extra bone formations,
twisted spinal columns and spondylitis have become common among
villagers of all ages. Babies are born with extra formations and
children's teeth start decaying early,'' says Tomar. (Read
more...)
Excess
fluoride in water wreaks havoc in Jharkhand village - India
Abroad News Service January 11, 2001
(back
to top)
Tragedy has struck many a family in the Bakhari village of Jharkhand's
Daltanganj district, where excess fluoride in water has left several
with severe physical deformities and even paralyzed some...Two-thirds
of the villagers have reportedly developed physical deformities
as all the sources of drinking water in Bakhari have excess fluoride
content.
Kaushalya Devi's husband, her only son and four daughters have
all fallen victim to excess fluoride. Her daughter-in-law too
suffers from severe backaches.
Mangaru Ram's wife, two sons and three daughters have also developed
physical deformities. His 12-year-old son Tundnu Ram has been
left completely paralyzed and his body is bent out of shape. (Read
more... )
High-fluoride
water takes toll in Assam District - India
Times June 2000
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to top)
GUWAHATI: Thousands of villagers have been affected, many of
them crippled for life, by drinking water containing excessive
levels of fluoride, in some parts of Assam's Karbi Anglong district,
a report said...
Paul said the slow poisoning caused by contaminated groundwater
was spreading in remote parts of the state. Many people have been
suffering from severe anaemia, stiff joints, painful and restricted
movement, mottled teeth and kidney failure leading to premature
death while many have been crippled for life.
Fluorosis is a non-curable disease and fluoride a deadly chemical.
So far, scientists claimed that the north-eastern region was safe
from fluoride. (Read
more...)
Villagers
In Unnao Floored By Fluoride - Times of India, August 31,
1999
(back
to top)
High percentage of fluoride in water has wrought havoc in a cluster
of villages in Unnao district, says a report prepared by the Jal
Nigam.
The report quotes WHO specifications which place the permissible
limit at only 1 mg per litre. In these villages, however, the
presence is as high as 7 mg at the highest level and 2.90 mg at
the lowest. Steady consumption of fluoride water, says Arati Lalchandani,
a city based doctor, affects both nerves and the bones and gradually
makes movement and bending of limbs extremely difficult.
In fact the situation is so bad in Siraha Khera, a village 70
kilometres from here, that angry villagers initially refused to
speak to this correspondent. (Read
more...)
Wells
that bring nothing but ills - Manchester Guardian Weekly,
August 2, 1998
(back
to top)
THE PUMP was installed in Shatap's village of Hirapur, in the
central state of Madhya Pradesh, during the United Nations' International
Water Decade of the 1980s. Its borehole was one of millions sunk
throughout the world in a highly publicised race to provide the
world's poor with "safe" drinking water, planned and
part-funded by aid agencies such as Unicef, the UN children's
fund.
The underground water was indeed mostly free of the bacteria
that can infest polluted surface water. But nobody ever tested
the underground water for natural chemicals, such as fluoride,
even though they were known to be widely present in rocks from
which the water was pumped. Madhya Pradesh itself is famous for
its rich mineral deposits.
"The problem is enormous, unbelievable," says Andezhath
Susheela of the Fluorosis Research and Rural Development Foundation
in Delhi...
All across Mandla, a district of a million or so people in eastern
Madhya Pradesh, a steady stream of children have reported similar
complaints since the late 1980s. But in this remote corner of
central India, doctors had not heard of fluorosis. They instead
diagnosed arthritis, polio, rickets, a genetic fault or simply
a "mystery disease". The link with water was never made.
Until, that is, Tapas Chakma, a young research officer at the
Regional Medical Research Centre in Jabalpur came to the village
of Tilaipani in 1995 and suggested that a local girl's strange
disease might be fluorosis.
The
Ministry of not-so-funny-walks - The Guardian (UK) - July
9, 1998
(back to
top)
Meet 10-year-old Shatap, with a walk straight out of Monty Python.
But this diminutive figure is not playing games as he waddles
up the muddy lane, his knees locked together and his stunted and
misshapen lower legs splayed wide like flippers. His gait is permanent;
his bones grossly deformed by fluoride in drinking water pumped
from a borehole at the bottom of the lane.
Besides Shatap, there is Kamala and her bow-legged sister Krishna,
both daughters of the village head. Aged 14 but looking no more
than nine, Krishna was forced to abandon schooling because her
deformed limbs could no longer take her to the secondary school
in a neighbouring village.
Many parents, including Krishna's mother, suffer painful, stiff
and misshapen backs and hips, and chronic gastro-enteritis. Bhaskar
Raman, a local activist who brought the village's plight to the
attention of doctors, says there has been an epidemic of stillbirths
and involuntary abortions - all known symptoms of fluoride poisoning.
All across Mandla, a district of a million or so people in eastern
Madhya Pradesh, a steady stream of children have reported similar
complaints since the late 1980s. But in this remote corner of
central India, doctors hadn't heard of fluorosis. They instead
diagnosed arthritis, polio, rickets, a genetic fault or simply
a "mystery disease"...
"The problem is enormous, unbelievable,' says Andezhath Susheela
of the Fluorosis Research and Rural Development Foundation in
Delhi. She has been unravelling the national story for a decade
during which time her estimate of the people leading "a painful
and crippled life" from fluorosis has risen from one million to
25 million and now to 60 million - six million of them children
- spread across tens of thousands of communities. "In some villages
three quarters of the population are seriously affected." (Read
more... )
