LA ISLA IN THE NEWS
IPS - JAN 2012 - El Salvador: Pesticides Fill Graveyards in Rural Villages
Sitting in the shade under a tree at a careful distance, Francisco Sosa watches his son prepare the land for planting by spraying the weeds with an herbicide from a tank carried on his back.
The 60-year-old Salvadoran farmer would like to help his son Saúl, 25, but on doctor’s orders, he can’t. Like many other peasant farmers in this rural community in the southeast of El Salvador, he suffers from chronic renal insufficiency.
“The doctors told me not to spray poison anymore, that it could complicate my illness further,” Sosa told IPS on his farm in Nueva Esperanza, a rural community of around 500 people that was settled in the 1990s in the Bajo Lempa region in the province of Usulután on El Salvador’s Pacific coast. [Read More]
ProPublica + SLATE - DEC 2011 - Dubious Medicine, Dirty Underwear, and Gas Drillers
Thousands of Sugar Cane Workers Die as Wealthy Nations Stall on Solutions
Center for Public Integrity
Kidney failure has become a near epidemic among sugarcane workers in Central America. Since 2005, at least 2,800 men have died each year. Researchers suspect a toxin may be a trigger. But nobody knows for sure, in part because governments and international aid agencies have failed to investigate.
Contributed by @ericuman
NTN Television - DEC 2011 - Enfermedad renal crónica está acabando con la vida de los hombres en Centro América
Investigadores tratan de establecer las causas de una enfermedad renal crónica que está afectando a gran cantidad de hombres en Centro América, ha llamado la atención de epidemiólogos alrededor del mundo, por que no se conoce su origen. [Video]
Confidencial - DEC 2011 - Miles de cañeros mueren por Enfermedad Renal
LA ISLA, Nicaragua —Maudiel Martínez tiene 19 años de edad y una tímida sonrisa, una maraña de pelo negro y rizado y un cuerpo delgado y muscular debido a sus años de trabajo en los cultivos de caña de azúcar. Durante la mayor parte de su adolescencia fue un joven saludable y fuerte que pasaba sus días talando las altas cañas con su machete. [Read More]
