Via the Island Resources Foundation, two articles about pesticide contamination in Martinique and possible effects on the incidence of prostate and breast cancers there.
The first article, published in 2005, presents the results of a study that found that:
The widespread use of pesticides for many years has led to widespread contamination of rivers and streams in Martinique. …An organochlorine insecticide, chlordecone, was found to be widely distributed. …Chlordecone is a carcinogenic and bioaccumulating pesticide which has a strong potential for causing endocrine disruption.
The second article, dated 2009, concludes that:
On the basis of our previous ecological study and and of this review of key mechanisms of pesticide-induced cancer, we strongly suggest that pesticides may be causally involved in the growing incidence of prostate and breast cancers in Martinique through a common carcinogenic endocrine disruption mechanism. Drastic public health measures of primary precaution of prevention should be therefore urgently taken in order to stop the cancer epidemic in Martinique and more generally in the French West Indies.
As Bruce Potter of the IRF points out, similar situations may well exist, as yet un-investigated, in other banana-producing countries of the Caribbean. Consider that in Dominica, for instance, cervical, prostate and breast cancers are among the top 10 causes of death.
[Photo: André Mouraux at Flickr]
