As I visit ‘looks-like-paradise’ MARTINIQUE, I get to learn from locals that the challenges exist when confronting the big boss FRANCE, that did not hesitate to dump here what is illegal in FRANCE! looking for activists to extend support against these criminal actions that are far from being over.
Background: ‘For 20 years, from 1973 to 1993, the insecticide chlordecone (Kepone) was used in Martinique and Guadeloupe, in the French West Indies, to combat banana weevil, exposing a significant proportion of the population to cancer risk and polluting the soil and water. Even after the product was banned in mainland France and the U.S., the French government allowed for its use to continue in the Antilles until 1993.
It was first detected in drinking water on Martinique in 1999, then in sweet potatoes and cassava. It has since been established that it has infested the whole food chain, including beef and chickens, with high concentrations in eggs. It is even present in the milk of nursing mothers.
A study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and in Guadeloupe confirmed that chlordecone, which disrupts the endocrine system, is responsible for a significant increase in the risk of prostate cancer, the cause of half the cancers detected on the two islands. About 80,000 people live in areas were the soil is contaminated and 13,000 absorb more chlordecone than the reference dose per day, simply by eating their own vegetables.’
SOURCES: www.liberation.fr/planete/
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Photo courtesy of Iara Lee.
Photo courtesy of Iara Lee.
From MARTINIQUE… following my life motto:
Health and Happiness Hiking 
[Photo courtesy of Iara Lee.]