文档介绍：Agriculture Department
Food and anization
of the United Nations
Hazardous pesticides
In July 2000, sixteen healthy young farmers in
Senegal's Kolda region suddenly fell sick and
died. All suffered the same symptoms - severe
swelling of the face, limbs and abdomen, heart
pains and breathing difficulties - and all were
dead within a week. A team of government
disease and poisoning specialists quickly located
the probable cause: two pesticide powders,
Granox TBC and Spinox T, which the victims had
used to protect newly planted groundnut seeds
against fungus and insects.
Eighteen months later, in Geneva, an
international panel of experts launched action
aimed at alerting governments to the danger.
The Interim Chemical mittee found
Granox TBC and Spinox T to be "severely
hazardous" and mended that both be
added to a growing list of agro-chemicals subject
to international trade controls. Next year, that
mendation goes for approval to an inter-
governmental body responsible for the
Rotterdam Convention, a legally binding global
agreement that seeks to prevent unwanted
imports of dangerous chemicals, particularly in
developing countries. How big is global trade in these
chemicals?
"The Senegal case is a good example of how
"At present, it is difficult to say. An estimated
the Rotterdam Convention is protecting people
on