Bayer Found Responsible for Poisoning of Children in Peru
by Erika Rosenthal
After a nine month investigation,
a Peruvian Congressional Subcommittee has found significant evidence of
criminal responsibility by both the agrochemical company Bayer and the
Peruvian Ministry of Agriculture in the poisoning of 42 children in the
remote Andean village of Tauccamarca in October 1999.
The children were stricken
after eating a school breakfast contaminated with the organophosphate
pesticide methyl parathion. Twenty-four children died before they could
reach medical treatment; 18 others survived with significant long term
health and developmental consequences. The pesticide was heavily marketed
under the name of Folidol to small farmers throughout the Andean region
of Peru, the great majority of whom speak Quechua only and are illiterate.
Bayer packaged the pesticide, a white powder that resembles powdered milk
and has no strong chemical odor, in small plastic bags, labeled in Spanish
and displaying a picture of vegetables. The labels provided no usable
safety information, such as pictograms, for the majority of users in remote
villages, and little indication of the danger of the product.
The Peruvian Congressional
Report also found that Bayer should compensate the families and surviving
children for the losses they have suffered. Headquartered in Germany,
Bayer and its Peruvian subsidiary, Bayer Peru, have been principle exporters,
importers and distributors of both methyl and ethyl parathion.
The families filed a suit
against Bayer in October of 2001 asserting that the company should have
taken steps to prevent the foreseeable misuse of this extremely toxic
product, given the severe health risks presented by methyl parathion,
and the prevalence of indigenous languages in the Peruvian countryside.
Two days after the suit was filed, the judge of the Superior Court of
Lima found the case inadmissible on procedural grounds, and concluded
summarily--and illegally--that the plaintiffs had not adequately made
out the underlying substantive case. Under Peruvian law, in the
initial stage of litigation the judge is authorized only to review the
completeness of the filing papers, and may not decide substantive matters
of law. The families successfully appealed the illegal resolution,
and are currently waiting for a hearing date to be set for later this
year.
The suit seeks justice for
the children that perished, guarantees of medical monitoring for the surviving
children, and regulatory reforms to prevent future tragedies. It also
names the Ministry of Agriculture for failure to enforce pesticide regulations;
uncontrolled sales of "restricted use" pesticides including
parathion are common throughout Peru.
The efforts of the Tauccamarca
families and allied Peruvian non-governmental organizations have been
backed by a wave of public support and have won important changes, including
a ban on the sale of most formulations of methyl parathion.
As the World Summit on Sustainable
Development takes place in Johannesburg, South Africa, the families
have written to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan requesting that he exclude
Bayer from the UN Global Compact because of Bayer's actions in Peru. The
Global Compact is a UN partnership with corporations that pledge to abide
by human rights and environmental principles. The letter was signed by
Victoriano Huarayo Torres, representing the Village of Tauccamarca. Two
of Mr. Huarayo's children were among the 24 fatally poisoned. He relates
in the letter,
"In the intervening years
[since the 1999 poisoning] the grieving parents in my village cannot
understand how the United Nations could support a company like Bayer
that has continued to sell its most toxic pesticides (classified by
the WHO as extremely or highly hazardous) for many years after publicly
promising to withdraw them in 1995. Nor can we understand why the United
Nations would support a company that allowed methyl parathion to be
sold in a region where they knew that the people would not be able to
read the label instructions."
Erika Rosenthal is the Legal
Advisor for Pesticide Action Network Latin America.
Sources: Peruvian Congressional
Investigative Committee, Correspondence to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
from Victoriano Huarayo Torres, Aug. 27, 2002; website of the UN Global
Compact, http://www.un.org/Depts/ptd/global.htm;
Greenwash + 10--The UN's Global Compact, Corporate Accountability, and
the Johannesburg ‘Earth Summit' by Corpwatch, http://www.corpwatch.org/campaigns/PCD.jsp?articleid=1348,
CorpWatch, PO Box 29344, San Francisco, CA 94129 USA, phone 415-561-6568,
fax 415-561-6493, email corpwatch@corpwatch.org.
Contacts: Erika Rosenthal,
Pesticide Action Network Latin America (Red de Acción en Plaguicidas
y sus Alternativas en América Latina, RAPAL), phone 1 (510)
550-6752, email erosenthal@earthjustice.org;
or Luis Gomero, Red de Acción en Alternativas al uso Agroquímicos
(RAAA), Lima, Peru, fax (511) 3375170/4257955, email raaaper@terra.com.pe.
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