A Sluggish Response to Humanity's Biggest Mass Poisoning

Until the mid-1990s, the biggest foe of Gouchan and Renubala Ari and their extended family was poverty. Then a more insidious menace began to stalk the Ari home in Chandalathi, a cluster of mud huts on the edge of a yellow mustard field some 60 kilometers north of Kolkata. The first signs of trouble were brown spots on their hands and feet that, as the months passed, developed into thick calluses and lesions. It was several years later that doctors visiting the area recognized the hallmark symptoms of arsenic poisoning.

Tests confirmed that water from the well the Aris were using was laden with arsenic. Their oldest son and his wife were diagnosed with skin cancer, a disease linked with chronic low-level arsenic exposure. Gouchan sold his cow, goats, and ducks to pay for their treatment. The couple died anyway. Afraid of suffering the same fate, two younger sons moved to other parts of India. "Arsenic destroyed our home," says Gouchan, a frail 76-year-old who walks with a limp because of arsenic lesions. "I'm tired of showing my calluses to strangers," adds Renubala. "Who can understand our misery?"

from the AAAS