/IPS ENVIRONMENT BULLETIN/ INDIA: Doctors Still Lack Data on Bhopal Crisis

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Dec 7 1996 (IPS) - Twelve years after a toxic gas leak killed thousands of people in Bhopal, India, doctors lack information on everything from the number of casualties following the disaster to the chemical composition of the leaked gas.

Much of the data needed to help prevent further Bhopals exists, according to the International Medical Commission on Bhopal (IMCB), a coalition of 15 doctors who Tuesday released a report on the aftermath of the disaster. But lack of cooperation by the Indian government and the Union Carbide transnational, whose plant leaked the gas in 1984, has kept much of the information unavailable, it adds.

“This is the world’s worst industrial disaster, and yet it is the world’s least investigated major disaster,” argues Dr. Ramana Dhara, one of the IMCB commissioners.

Although between 8,000 and 10,000 people died following the gas leak, and more than 50,000 people are still estimated by the IMCB to be suffering from the effects of the disaster, most of the victims are not being treated any differently from the general population of people suffering similar symptoms, notes Dr. Rosalie Bertell, one of the IMCB’s two coordinators.

“In Bhopal, there was no special recognition on the part of the doctors that these (ailments) are gas-related and have a special protocol for treatment,” she says. “Although it’s twelve years after the fact, they have not systematically kept records on the survivors.”

As a consequence, many Bhopalis suffer from the after-effects of the Union Carbide leak, but are prescribed the same treatments as patients who are suffering from normal ailments.

Many Indians have thus been forced to go to absurd lengths for treatment, Bertell argues, including one patient who received a total of 87 different prescriptions for his symptoms in one year.

Information about how to treat the gas leak could have prevented many deaths, says Dhara. “It is a striking fact that much of the mortality and morbidity could have been averted by the simple expedient of covering the face with a wet cloth,” he wrote in a 1992 study. Yet many Bhopalis and health officials were unaware of that at the time.

Other symptoms, meanwhile, have been underappreciated. Dr. Tom Callender, an IMCB member, completed one recent study suggesting vastly higher rates of neurological damage — ranging from dizziness to memory lapses and temporary loss of vision — among Bhopalis close to the Carbide leak. Of the victims, some 64 percent also report anxiety symptoms, which the Indian government has tended to ignore as a gas-related health problem, he adds.

When the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal leaked gas on Dec 2 and 3, 1984, at least one component was methyl isocyanate (MIC), which can clearly damage neurological systems, Callender argues.

But to this day, the U.S.-based Union Carbide firm refuses to reveal what the other components of the toxic gas cloud were, Bertell notes. As many as 29 different chemicals — all posing different health risks — may have been released, she says.

Dhara notes that doctors continue to debate whether phosgene, cyanide, or other such toxic substances were released into the air — potentially affecting some 200,000 people. But those debates cannot be resolved without more information on the composition of the gas, he says.

Similarly, the IMCB contends that Indian doctors have uncovered a substantial amount of data about the disaster’s health consequences which the Indian government has refused to make public. The government, which agreed to a 470-million-dollar settlement from Union Carbide in 1989, has contended for years that releasing the information could have prejudiced ongoing court cases. Those reasons should not apply anymore, Bertell says.

The larger problem is that Union Carbide has evaded responsibility for its own actions in killing and harming thousands of Indians, argues Ward Morehouse, a founder of the International Coalition for Justice in Bhopal, which has organised tribunals in India to judge the company’s actions.

“Union Carbide has never been subject to the discipline of a court of law in producing its evidence,” Morehouse says. Instead, he claims, the company was happy with its cash settlement — amounting to only some 300 dollars per claimant — since it avoided any trial in which the company’s shoddy environmental safeguards might be exposed.

Union Carbide counters that it has done a considerable amount to redress an accident which the company blames on a disgruntled Indian employee. A spokesman for the firm notes that the U.S. chemical firm has paid nearly one billion dollars to India in damages and has also offered to build a new hospital in Bhopal.

The efforts to pin blame on a disgruntled employee are “just a public relations ploy,” Morehouse says, noting that Union Carbide has never tested that claim in court. The employee accused of the crime, he notes, has lived in peace with his neighbours in Bhopal — an unthinkable feat if he were guilty, Morehouse argues.

Bertell adds that Union Carbide has not increased its contribution to disaster relief in Bhopal, relenting only when India’s Supreme Court seized the money the parent firm earned for the sale of its Indian operations.

Yet Union Carbide remains off the hook for its culpability over a vast range of problems, including ongoing environmental distress, she says. “They burned toxic material on the property,” Bertell argues. “How much of it is in the ground water is anybody’s guess at this point.”

There are between 30 and 50 potentially toxic chemicals at the site, where local people still operate a pump system for ground water — which she thinks could pose a major health threat in years to come.