Finally, An Antidote

THIRTEEN-year-old Radhika of Delhi ought not to have died. Her family didn't know what do when she accidentally swallowed rat poison. Ironically, neither did the local doctor. And by the time she reached the hospital it was too late. Like thousands others who get poisoned, Radhika fell prey to sheer ignorance.

But now victims of poisoning in Delhi need not die unattended. A good samaritan is just a phone call away. Dial 6859391 or 6593677 for information on what to do till medical assistance arrives. These numbers belong to the National Poison Information Centre (NPIC), set up by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and the environment and forests ministry. Set up with a modest grant of Rs 55 lakh, the NPIC has a wide-ranging database: poisons—industrial effluents, toxic wastes, potent drugs, insecticides, pesticides, noxious gaseous emissions, all manner of chemicals, and more—and their health-spoils; poisons and their effective taming, antidotes and all; poisons and prescription of drugs; poisons and management of chemical disasters.

"At the moment, our priority is to make our database comprehensive, with data from various clinics and hospitals, both here and abroad," says Dr S.B. Lall, a poison expert at the centre. And soon it will be available on the Internet on which researchers and doctors can access latest findings.

Keeping up with the latest research on poisons in the West is crucial, for, explains Dr S.D. Seth, chief of the centre: "We are talking about the same poisons and, as it happens, most of the good research on toxins is happening abroad. Let alone basic research, we haven't even conducted enough epidemiological studies to ascertain the scope and intensity of the problem."

Seth is rightfully indignant. "First, we surround ourselves with toxic chemicals and when they hit us badly, we panic. The Bhopal tragedy is a grim reminder of our apathy to the danger these chemicals pose to human health. The tragedy took us by surprise; ignorance of the poisons and how to deal with them eventually resulted in greater misery and deaths which could have been prevented," he says.

But there are lesser-known chemical disasters that have exposed our inability to deal with them—the 1986 glycerol tragedy of Bombay, last year's radioactive leakage from the Rawatbhata nuclear power station, besides accidents like chlorine gas leakages, deaths from illicit liquor containing methanol, and fires in plastic-recycling marts. "It's appalling," says Lall, "that these disasters haven't still hammered home the importance of setting up poison control centres at strategic locations throughout the country. Those that exist have ill-trained doctors and lack information on how different poisons act on the human body."

Incidents like Bhopal are tigers which pounce occasionally. More dangerous are environmental toxins which gnaw at our health surreptitiously. "Their impact on health is less documented, chiefly because they are slow poisons. It's therefore extremely important to monitor their levels in the air and to carry out epidemiological studies on humans," says Lall.

In fact, the centre has just concluded a study on the health impact of cadmium and lead pollution in some areas of Delhi. The findings indicate more than permissible levels of lead and cadmium in the air around Delhi's Safdarjung Enclave, Mayapuri, Pandav Nagar and Sagarpur areas. These pollutants have been linked to hypertension and kidney disorders. Investigations by Vatavaran, an NGO, have revealed high levels of lead in the bodies of Delhi-dwellers.

And that's not all. Household products such as kerosene, naphthalene, phenyl, lead and cadmium-based batteries, and industrial and agricultural chemicals such as aluminium phosphide, copper sulphate, corrosives, methyl alcohol and phenol, are potential poisons. And if you add the toxic side-effects of potent drugs like theophylline, it would seem there is no way we can escape the poisonous web we are entangled in.

Seth regrets that the centre wasn't set up much earlier, despite increasing poisoning cases in recent times. In fact, it is estimated that as many as half-a-million people die of acute poisoning the world over. "Though there are scarce epidemiological studies of poisoning in India, I guess the incidence is very high, considering thousands of cases are either misreported or misdiagnosed or not reported at all," he says.

But it's never too late. Citizens concerned and affected by the miasma of modern life will at least have a door to knock on. n