Muzzafarpur deaths caused by pesticides, not lychee: study

It is not the lychee fruit itself but endosulfam, an internationally banned pesticide, which caused the infamous deaths of children in Bihar's Muzaffarpur region, a new study has found.

In June 2014, 122 children in Muzaffarpur region died after their brain swelled, with symptoms resembling acute encephalitis. Six months ago the medical journal The Lancet published a study connecting the deaths to the consumption of the luscious fruit, widely grown in the region.

The Lancet Global Health report in January this year blamed the annual outbreak of the condition on the fruit itself, saying when it is consumed on an empty stomach by malnourished children it could lead to extremely low blood-sugar levels, causing seizure and death. The report said lychees contain toxins that inhibit the body's ability to produce glucose, which affected young children whose blood sugar levels were already low because they were not eating dinner.

The Lancet studied 390 patients admitted to the two referral hospitals in Muzaffarpur between 26 May and 17 July 2014 with symptoms of acute encephalitis syndrome. They concluded that skipping the evening meal after consumption of lychee caused death in many cases.

But according to the new study, it's the land and not the produce that was causing the neurological damage. The new study, published in The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, found that a number of pesticides - including endosulfan, which has been banned since 2011 - caused the brain damage among children.

The researchers learned that children living near the orchard frequently ate unwashed fruit that fell to the ground, and peeled away the lychees' rough-textured red skin with their teeth.

The study was not able to definitively show that each case was caused by pesticides, or identify which pesticides were responsible for the young victims' brain inflammation.

In the new study, published on Monday, the researchers interviewed families that worked in lychee orchards to conclude that most affected children had consumed ''unwashed lychees, peeling away the skin with their teeth''. The report adds that ''eating lychees was not associated with illness in the case-control study. The outbreak was linked to lychee orchard exposures where agrochemicals were routinely used, but not to consumption of lychees.''

Spraying of endosulfan on cashew plantations in Kerala's Kasaragod district had caused a generation to be born with physical deformation like congenital disabilities, hydrocephalus, diseases of the nervous system, epilepsy, cerebral palsy. The pesticide was sprayed from helicopters over the cashew crop, which fell on plants and crops, and leached into water, affecting people that consumed it.