The article discusses
the chronic kidney disease and how it has struck 15 percent of the north
central region in Sri- Lanka for the past two decades. It has been unknown as
to what causes the disease but after extensive research scientists have related
it back to pesticides in their food. It is still unknown what pesticides are
contaminating their food so deaths due to kidney disease are still continuing. The
outbreak of the kidney disease began in the 1990s and has continued since then.
Scientists have come up with many theories to explain the outbreak but none
have been pinpointed as the exact cause so confusion was spread across villages
about what is causing the outbreak. In 2008 the World Health Organization began
a study to figure out what had caused the outbreak. For over three years no
information was given about the study; it wasn’t until this year that the
government released partial findings that concluded that exposure to low
concentrations of cadmium and arsenic is the cause of the epidemic. A toxicologist
at the Karolinska Institute refutes this information and says that based off of
the information the group has released nothing can be concluded and the levels
of exposure that were described are not enough to cause chronic kidney failure.
The results that the government released have no explanation of how the food is
contaminated. A suspect of the cause is the agrochemicals which are used in the
areas rice patties but that theory remains unproven. Since it cannot be proven
farmers still apply tons of agrochemicals to the rice patties in Sri-Lanka. Within
the article is also tells how Buddhist monks are donating their kidneys and how
this has inspired people to donate their kidneys as well.
When reading this article I was amazed that the government
was not revealing the information from the study to help the people stop chronic
kidney disease which has been harming the people in Sri-Lanka since the 1990s.
It was three years before any information was given to the people from the
study that they did. Keeping this information from the people is keeping them
from stopping the disease from harming them. Thankfully, there are people who
are willing to donate their kidneys to save as many lives as they can but there
are still more that can be saved.
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