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    Pesticide Ban May Bring Down Suicide Rate - Today's Paper - The Hindu

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    it.salam33
    1) Easy access to pesticides, especially the insecticide Furadan, has been a major contributing factor to Kerala's high suicide rate in recent decades as pesticides were the method of choice for suicide attempts. 2) Sri Lanka saw a substantial reduction in suicides after implementing restrictions on access to pesticides by locking them up and only distributing them during use for farming. 3) Experts believe Kerala's plan to ban several toxic pesticides will significantly reduce the number of suicides, as was the case in Sri Lanka, by restricting access to the most common means of suicide by poisoning.

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    Pesticide Ban May Bring Down Suicide Rate - Today's Paper - The Hindu

    Uploaded by

    it.salam33
    15 views4 pages
    1) Easy access to pesticides, especially the insecticide Furadan, has been a major contributing factor to Kerala's high suicide rate in recent decades as pesticides were the method of choice for suicide attempts. 2) Sri Lanka saw a substantial reduction in suicides after implementing restrictions on access to pesticides by locking them up and only distributing them during use for farming. 3) Experts believe Kerala's plan to ban several toxic pesticides will significantly reduce the number of suicides, as was the case in Sri Lanka, by restricting access to the most common means of suicide by poisoning.

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    1) Easy access to pesticides, especially the insecticide Furadan, has been a major contributing factor to Kerala's high suicide rate in recent decades as pesticides were the method of choice for suicide attempts. 2) Sri Lanka saw a substantial reduction in suicides after implementing restrictions on access to pesticides by locking them up and only distributing them during use for farming. 3) Experts believe Kerala's plan to ban several toxic pesticides will significantly reduce the number of suicides, as was the case in Sri Lanka, by restricting access to the most common means of suicide by poisoning.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    15 views4 pages

    Pesticide Ban May Bring Down Suicide Rate - Today's Paper - The Hindu

    Uploaded by

    it.salam33
    1) Easy access to pesticides, especially the insecticide Furadan, has been a major contributing factor to Kerala's high suicide rate in recent decades as pesticides were the method of choice for suicide attempts. 2) Sri Lanka saw a substantial reduction in suicides after implementing restrictions on access to pesticides by locking them up and only distributing them during use for farming. 3) Experts believe Kerala's plan to ban several toxic pesticides will significantly reduce the number of suicides, as was the case in Sri Lanka, by restricting access to the most common means of suicide by poisoning.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
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    TODAY'S PAPER

    Pesticide ban may bring down suicide rate


    K.P.M. Basheer KOCHI:, MAY 06, 2011 00:00 IST
    UPDATED: MAY 06, 2011 04:10 IST

    SHARE ARTICLE       PRINT A A A

    Many pesticides used in India have been banned by developed countries Curbs on easy access to pesticide helped Sri
    Lanka cut suicide rate

    Easy access to pesticides a reason for rising suicide rate in the past
    decade

    The Kerala government's plan to ban the use of a series of pesticides is likely to
    have a major positive spin-off: a substantial fall in the number of suicides in
    the State which has one of the highest suicide rates in the country.

    Psychiatrists, social workers, and researchers, who have welcomed the ban on
    several ‘Red' and ‘Yellow' pesticides, are certain that it will drastically cut the
    number of suicide deaths as well as suicide attempts. For, they point out,
    pesticides (insecticides and weedicides included) have, in the past decade,
    emerged as the first choice of tool for those attempting to end their lives in
    rural Kerala.

    V. Sathesh, head of the Department of Psychiatry, Kottayam Medical College,


    said the ban would have a phenomenal change in the suicide landscape of
    Kerala. “In my review of 1,300 cases of suicide deaths and suicide attempts, I
    have noticed that a half of them had consumed pesticides,” he told The Hindu.

    Sri Lanka's example


    Dr. Sathesh said that curbs on availability of pesticides had substantially
    reduced the number of suicides in Sri Lanka, a country which had a very high
    suicide rate. Pesticides needed for farming in a village would be kept locked in a
    big box by a village elder and would be handed out to the farmers only at the
    time of application on the crops.

    Social workers engaged in suicide prevention efforts pointed out that one
    particular brand of insecticide, Furadan — which has been banned in the U.S.,
    the European Union, eastern Africa and South Africa — was responsible for
    most of the individual and family suicides in the farming communities.
    Furadan, which is nicknamed ‘Kurudan' (blind man), is often identified with
    suicide in Idukki and Wayanad districts. Furadan was behind the deaths of
    scores of farmers in these districts in the middle of the last decade.

    Deadly cocktail

    In Bison Valley panchayat in Idukki district, which a few years ago was the
    suicide capital of Kerala, Furadan was the main killer. Many suicidal farmers
    there had mixed Furadan with alcohol, thus making a deadly cocktail to end
    their lives.

    “Easy access to Furadan and other insecticides was a major reason for the rising
    suicide rate in Kerala in the past decade,” said C.J. John, chief psychiatrist at
    Medical Trust Hospital, Kochi. “In most of the impulsive (non-premeditated)
    suicide attempts, the easy availability of pesticides gave the final push,” Dr.
    John, who is a pioneer of free suicide prevention counselling in the city, said.

    P. Indiradevi, professor of agricultural economics, Kerala Agricultural


    University, who has extensively studied the pesticide use pattern in Kerala, feels
    that there should be strict curbs on pesticide use. Many of the pesticides used in
    India were banned by developed countries.

    Kerala, which has long been had a high suicide rate, however, is now gradually
    recovering from the longing for death. With the ban on some ‘easy-to-die'
    pesticides like Furadan, the suicide rate may come down further.

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