Bayer gives up fight to restart Institute MIC unit

Submitted by SfB.Website on Fri, 03/18/2011 - 13:50
Bayer gives up fight to restart Institute MIC unit - Charleston Gazette
March 18, 2011 - By Ken Ward Jr.
 

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Bayer CropScience has decided not to restart the unit that makes the deadly chemical methyl isocyanate at its Institute plant, officials revealed today.

Al Emch, a lawyer for the company, told a federal judge that Bayer officials in Germany did not want to restart the MIC unit while there was an ongoing government inspection of the facility.

U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration officials are conducting a broad review of the plant, including the MIC unit, and have said they may not complete their work until September.

Emch said that timeline made it impossible for Bayer to resume producing the pesticide Temik, which is made with MIC, until after the 2011 growing season had ended.

The move ends a quarter-century effort by some local residents to rid the Kanawha Valley of the Institute plant's stockpile of MIC, the chemical best known for killing thousands of people in a 1984 leak at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India.

"I am heartened with Bayer's decision and believe that we are safer as a result," said Maya Nye, a leader of the local group People Concerned About MIC, and one of 16 residents who had sued to block Bayer from restarting the unit.

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CNN-IBN: Cancer rates in Bhopal

Submitted by SfB.Website on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 10:00

Bhopal gas tragedy: cancer rates treble

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/bhopal-gas-tragedy-cancer-rates-treble/146063-3.html

Click the link above to view the video corresponding to this piece.

Mumbai: It was undoubtedly the world's worst industrial disaster but 26 years on, the skeletons of the past still haunt the population. The Indian Council of Medical Research has carried out more than 18 studies on the health impact of Methyl IsoCyanide (MIC) gas, which people in Bhopal were exposed to.

The latest, a 19-year long, as yet unpublished, study on Cancer Patterns has some startling findings.
According to a study conducted from 1989 -2008, incidents of cancer in areas affected by Methyl Isocyanide (MIC) increased by 72 per cent during this period.

Cancer rates for women in MIC-affected sites shot up by 115 per cent, compared to 82 per cent increase among women in areas not affected by the leak.

Cancer in all sites -- MIC-affected as well as those unaffected -- increased in men by 3.4 times and in women by 2.5 times.

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Bhopal LowDOWn - February 2011

Submitted by SfB.Website on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 13:26

Bhopal LowDOWn - February 2011

In this issue:

   1. Survivors protest unethical drug trials on gas victims
   2. Supreme Court admits curative petition on enhanced compensation 
   3. Aquatech dissociates with Dow after Bhopalis protest
   4. Max Carlson’s Bhopali wins “Best Documentary” at Slamdance
   5. Dow in the news: Greenwashing its image - Anna University dumps Dow - Ontario's history with Agent Orange
   6. Longtime activist Gary Cohen profiled in Miller-McCune Magazine
 
Recent Requests to Information have confirmed that the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Survivors protest at BMHRCCentre (BMHRC) conducted 7 unethical pharmaceutical trials on gas victims, only one of which was monitored by the Drug Controller General of India.  The trials have resulted in the deaths of at least 10 survivors.  On February 24, survivors and activists marched to BMHRC and demanded the suspension of senior consultants, who received substantial sums of money from the drug companies.  Protestors also decried the preferential treatment given to wealthy private patients over gas victims, who the hospital was originally created for.  Read more here.
 
On February 28, the India's Supreme Court accepted the Government of India's petition for enhanced compensation in the 1989 out-of-court settlement, which was from Union Carbide for $470 million.  While the submission does indicate recognition of the settlement's inadequacy, the government's curative petition is not without its problems; death toll figures are grossly underestimated, medical ailments were wrongly-assessed, and children born to gas-affected parents are not considered for compensation.  Read ICJB's response to the curative petition here.
 
During the Aquatech India trade exhibition in Mumbai from March 2-4, Dow Chemical was forced to withdraw when 70 Bhopalis protested its involvement.  As activist Nawab Khan said at a press conference, "Dow need not pour money into such conferences to sell its water technologies, instead it should just accept the liability of Bhopal, clean up the toxic wastes and contaminated groundwater. It would get the clean image it is so looking forward to."  Read the full story and see more pictures
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