On/off ban on endosulfan in Colombia

Endosulfan is regarded by the national coffee growers and research centre in Colombia (CENICAFE) as worse than the insect pest, 'broca' which it aims to kill. The research centre has observed respiratory problems in workers, and 1993 found significant quantities of endosulfan in the blood and urine of agricultural workers using endosulfan. CENICAFE is also concerned about the impact on flora and fauna in the coffee zones. The danger to health is heightened as the villages and their water supplies are surrounded by coffee plantations(1).
    Figures from the 1994 poisonings register of the Departmental Committee of Coffee Growers indicate a total of 161 poisonings, which include six suicides. The other 155 are due to exposure and they state that endosulfan is responsible for most of these.
    On 16 February 1995, the Ministry of Health passed a resolution (No. 000021/95) banning the import, production, trade and use of endosulfan and agreed to decide a deadline for complete withdrawal from the market of all substances containing it. The resolution is signed by the Minister of Health and the Secretary General, but has never been published and therefore not enacted.
    A Ministry of Health spokesman, Joré Hernan Botero, sub-director of the Health and Environment Division, said the Ministry had decided a ban was not after all necessary, and that the benefits were greater than the risks, provided the necessary protective measures are taken. The scientific information on which the Ministry based its decision was reported as a technical team of Agrevo. Agrevo, formerly Hoechst, the main producer of endosulfan, also put its case on the efficiency of endosulfan against broca(2). The Ministry does not appear to have considered independent scientific evidence, nor taken account of the views of either environmentalists or CENICAFE, whose members are the main users of endosulfan in Colombia.

1. 'A remedy worse than the illness', El Tiempo, Bogota, 10 March 1995.
2. 'The insecticide, Thiodan will not be banned', El Pais, Cali, 18 February 1995. Detailed information provided by PAN Latin America.

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 28, June 1995, page 25]