Death By Arsenic: An Increasing Problem In Bangladesh

One in five deaths in Bangladesh can be attributed to arsenic poisoning, according to an unsettling new study in the medical journal The Lancet. 

The report’s saddening statistics establish a clear connection between various illnesses, including lung, skin, bladder and kidney cancers, and arsenic poisoning, as well as highlight the severity of arsenic poisoning.

In the 1970s aid and development organizations installed some 10 million hand-pumped wells in Bangladesh in an effort to curb an epidemic of waterborne illness.

The effort successfully decreased cholera and similar diseases, but a new problem rose to take their place: the well water was contaminated with arsenic.

The situation has since bloomed into what the World Health Organization in 2000 called “the largest mass poisoning in history.”

Researchers writing in The Lancet study calculated that in the past thirty years, roughly 77 million people in Bangladesh, around half of the country’s population, were accidentally exposed to arsenic contaminated water. 

Using a century’s worth of data collected by the Health Effects of Arsenic Longitudinal Study (HEALS), scientists tracked arsenic poisoning in correlation with mortality rates. The massive study involved testing 11,746 participants every two years, in addition to testing 5,966 wells for contamination. 

All participants with arsenic contamination, regardless of the concentration, had an increased risk of mortality -- meaning that people exposed to the Bangladesh safety standard levels (50 micrograms/liter) and even the WHO recommended standard levels (10 micrograms/liter) were at increased risk of sickness. 

The most disturbing results, however, showed that once individuals were exposed to high arsenic levels, their risk of mortality remained high even after they subsequently decreased or stopped their exposure.  

The good news is that arsenic poisoning can be avoided. Contaminated wells are too shallow and extract water from a ground level where arsenic is present. The trick is to dig deeper wells down past the arsenic. 

Ideally this study will invigorate a campaign to overhaul Bangladesh’s well system, hopefully for the last time.

Image: Nicole.Hung616, Flickr