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Save Broga from becoming another
Medlarstreet in Sint-Niklaas, Belgium: 98 out of 281 persons reported
complaints and/ or diseases such as cancer and leukaemia.
Press Statement
by
Ronnie Liu Tian Khiew
(Petaling
Jaya, Friday):
The Prime Minister, Minister and deputy minister and Chief Minister
in the country have been claiming that incinerators are safe and cause no
damage to the environment. None of them were able to back their claims with
facts and figures. They simply refuse to listen to the people, nor willing
to read and study the information submitted by the people.
There are many findings all over the world, pointing very clearly that no
incinerators are safe. I am re-presenting here the shocking findings from a
report on the health impact of the MIWA-waste incinerator in Sint-Niklaas,
Belgium, titled " Mispelstraat: living under the smoke of a waste
incinerator", to illustrate how dangerous and harmful an incinerator can be.
I am talking about a very small incinerator here, if one compares with the
proposed 1,500 tons per day mega-incinerator to be built in Broga.
Since more than 20 years, the city of Sint-Niklaas (40,000 inhabitants) has
a waste incinerator owned by the government(a cooperation between 5 towns).
This waste incinerator with a 55,500 tons per year capacity (about 100 tons
per day) was built amidst streets where people live. It is less than 2
kilometers from the town centre. There is no heavy industry in the
neighbourhood. It's the only source of dioxin emission in the neighbourhood.
During 21 years, the ashes were stored and transported in open containers.
The most polluted soil samples were situated within 200 meters of the
incinerator and in the direction of the most dominant wind direction, up to
distance of 4 kilometers.
The health research was undertaken in "Medlarstreet" in 1998. Medlarstreet
is situated within a distance of between 300 to 900 meters of the waste
incinerator and laterally in the dominant wind direction. In this street,
compared to all other surrounding living areas, the highest dioxin
concentrations were measured. The health research was managed by a doctor
anaesthetist and a doctor internist, pathologist and cancer specialist of
the Catholic University of Louvain.
88 out of 145 families responded to the questionnaire distributed and
collected door-to-door. In collaboration with the Saint Luke Hospital in
Ghent, all complaints and diseases were coded with the international
ICD-9-CM code.
From the 281 persons, there are 98 persons (35%) talking about complaints or
diseases (52 males and 46 females).
98 out of 281 persons reported complaints and/or diseases. One person can
have several complaints and / or diseases.
9 boys out of 10 between 2 and 9 years old have 1 or more complaints:
misdividing of embryonic cells, hyperactivity, high mental defectiveness,
colds, bronchitis, dust allergy, skin allergy, allergy to cow's milk,
non-closing stomach valve, stenoses of the gastric exit, breathing
disturbances, diarrhoea, infections of the bronchial tubes, asthma,
motorical disturbances, polypis, other allergies.
21 deceased persons were recorded in the survey. All deceased persons lived
in Medlarstreet at the moment the waste incinerator was activated in 1997
and they still lived there at the moment of death.
Out of these deceased persons, one died of throat cancer, three of intestine
cancer, one liver cancer, four lung cancer, two cancer of kidney, one
urinary tract cancer, one tumour bladder, two leukaemia, one heart
condition, one cardiac arrest, one heart decompensation, one gastric
bleeding, one traffic accident and one suicide. Which means 15 out of 21
died of cancer, i.e. 71%.
The deceased female had an average of 59.9 years (the average age in case of
disease of Belgium female is 77.7 years), the deceased male had an average
decease age of 64.7 years (the average decease age of Belgium male is 71.3
years).
The deceased persons lived averagely for 30 years in Medlarstreet. One child
died at the age of 16 of leukaemia.
Between 1994 and 1996, the SMR( standard mortality rate) of the inhabitants
of Sint-Niklaas was 102.8% for males and 107.2 for females. This means that
males here die averagely 2.8% more than the Belgian average, so live
expectancy is shorter, for females it is 7.2% more!
Looking at the Sint-Niklaas district data, the cancer SMR between 1994 and
1996 is 112.08 for males and 105.32 for females. It means that in the
Sint-Niklaas district males die 12.08% more of cancer and females die 5.32 %
more, compared to the Belgian average.
It's very remarkable that as far as women's death cause is concerned, no one
died of breast cancer or cervical cancer, however these cancers constitute
21% of death cause in Belgian females.
Other causes of cancer death in females, than breast cancer, lung cancer,
colorectal cancer and cervical cancer are only 22% in Belgium. The research
showed data of 55%. Examples are liver cancer,urinary tract cancer,bladder
cancer and 2 leukaemia.
Death cause for intestine cancer, lung cancer and other kinds of cancer are
proportional increased in Medlarstreet, for males and females.
Very striking is the resemblance of the situation in Medlarstreet with the
Seveso-report about health complaints 15 years after the accident. In Seveso
there were increasing death occurrences caused by intestine cancer, lung
cancer, liver cancer, 6 times more leukaemia and Hodgkin, and twice more
soft tissue sarcoma. There were also decreasing death causes: breast cancer,
cervical cancer and ovary cancer. This decreasing is blamed to the fact that
TCDD9 dioxin) is reknowned for its powerful anti-oestrogen effects.
145 of the 281 participants (52%) lived in Medlarstreet before 1978: 68
males, 77 females. These 145 persons, who were living in Medlarstreet before
1978, showed 33 cancer occurrences (18 males and 15 females). This is on
average 1 out of 4.4 persons. 29 of the 33 cancer occurrences appeared
during the last 10 years. This means that the change of cancer occurrences
has for the last 3 years increased to 4.8 times more than the Belgian
average.
Very striking is the high amount of young people with cancer in leukaemia
and gland cancer.
8 young people up the age of 17, with a cancer occurrence of leukaemia and
gland cancer, live at less than 1 kilometre from the waste incinerator.
A lot of young people (mainly women) who used to live in the neighbourhood
of the waste incinerator, have problems with fertility, pregnancy and birth.
Their children have a low birth weight, threatened premature during
the pregnancy, children born with serious complaints, etc.
Children here were also found with congenital
defects like: born without small brains, a half diaphragm, heart defects
(also Steiner-disease), dwarf growth (life ability or not), embryonic
defects, autism, double urethra,
non-closing stomach valve.
A lot of people in the immediate surroundings have complaints about
chronical fatigue, headache and diarrhoea.
Decease caused by heart and vein complaints abnormally occurs more in older
people, mainly in the area where fall-out of the waste incinerator is taking
place.
A lot of different rare complaints are situated in the surrounding area
(e.g. retina loosening, bone cancer in youngsters, males with breast
cancers, ALS (deterioration of nerve extremity), decreasing of white blood
cells which can't be explained, Kalher disease).
The report was dedicated to all deceased children caused by cancer. As well
as the numerous serious health complaints caused by the waste incinerator in
Sint-Niklaas.
The purpose of re-presenting this report in Malaysia needs no explanation. I
like to end this statement quoting the remark made by the researchers of
this report, Fred De Baere and Kristine De Leeuw: " A society which does
not take care of its children is less than primitive and underdeveloped".
(27/6/2003)
* Ronnie Liu Tian Khiew, DAP national publicity secretary
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