The overuse of pesticides in Punjab is delaying the onset of puberty in youngsters. The onset of puberty in females has advanced and that in males has been delayed due to pesticides.
Expressing a need to prevent toxic components from leeching into our environment, experts in different fields related with agro-genetics have said that the Government must pay more attention to this area and bring the right kind of policies to contain the use of pesticides and support the traditional organic methods of agriculture. The incidents of cancer can be reduced if the use of pesticides is checked prudently.
Addressing a seminar on “Cancer and Ecotoxicology” at Punjab University Dr. G.P.I. Singh, Vice Chancellor of Adesh University said that it was not necessary that the skewed gender ratio in Punjab is purely for sociological reasons; he mentioned that female foetus is more sensitive to toxics in the first trimester of pregnancy and therefore results in more frequent spontaneous abortion. He said “Many pesticides are hormone disruptor, mimicking estrogen and other hormones and hence affect human beings in more than one way,”
Dr. J. S. Thakur of Community Medicine, PGI said that in India nearly 70 percent cancer cases were preventable if proper policies were adopted. Over a period of time the land of five rivers, Punjab has become the land of five big drains due to lack of attention and pollution which has thereby become a source of diseases.
Agriculture expert Devinder Sharma said “India and the world produces enough food, sufficient for twice the current population and all the emergency created to produce more and more by use of insecticides, GM crops, etc. is industry driven, solely motivated by profit making which has no concern for environment and health. In this scenario, we have gone into a deceptive maze just like Abhimanyu of Mahabharata; we have entered the maze but don't know how to come out of it.”
Regretting the poor approach of the policy makers, social activist Hemant Goswami said that Cancer could be prevented by controlling cancer causing agents i.e. carcinogens however India lacks any policy to regulate, ban or control the spread of carcinogens. The situation was so bad that we didn't even have a list of input chemicals used in our Industries and no product was ever tested for carcinogenicity in India.
Dr. Sukhdev Kundu, Chairman of “International Centre for Biomonitoring & Ecotoxicology” said that lack of proper biomonitoring and growing toxicity in our ecosystem is now reflecting in increasing disease burden and cancer rates in Punjab & Haryana.