High Residues in India

A recent nation-wide survey of food contaminants, conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), revealed excessive levels of a cancer-causing fungal product in cereals and toxic metals in other food products of India. It has also detected high levels of pesticide residues in cows’ milk and metals like arsenic, cadmium and lead in infant canned products and in turmeric.

    Over 1,600 of the 2,205 samples of cows’ milk tested had pesticide residues, with ‘widespread and excessive’ residues of DDT and HCH in samples collected and analysed from 12 provinces. DDT residues were found in 82% of the milk samples, one-third of which were above the tolerance limit of 0.05 mg/kg. The maximum level of DDT detected was 40 times above the tolerance limit. The ICMR task force found HCH residues in at least 80% of the samples. The intake of beta HCH in some parts of Andhra Pradesh were twice the acceptable levels.

A history of HCH contamination

HCH, also known as BHC, which is more acutely toxic than DDT, has been used in India since 1949. It is the most widely used pesticide with annual consumption exceeding 60,000 tonnes. It is thought that the average Indian dietary intake of HCH exceeds that of the US and UK by a hundred fold. Scientists consider certain isomers of HCH to be carcinogenic and acutely toxic. The US Environmental Protection Agency cites oncogenicity as a major reason for banning the manufacture and sale of HCH isomers except the gamma isomer. Studies of HCH contamination in India in the mid-1980s found residues in foodgrains, oilseeds, pulses, vegetables, meat and poultry, as well as undesirable levels in breast milk and the blood in the umbilical cord.

Pers. comm. Devinder Sharma, New Delhi, 12/8/93, and Business Standard, 6/1/93.

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No.21,September 1993, page 15]