bladder cancer rate about twice as high as Argentina's average. (Raloff 1996)India is another area of major concern. Over a million Indians in West Bengal have been drinking water contaminated with high concentrations of arsenic. (see Figure 6-A) Around 200,000 people have been diagnosed with skin lesions due to arsenic. Many of them have hardened strips of epidermis called hyperkeratoses that may potentially develop into cancers. (see Figure 7-A) It is very probable that tens of millions more can be in danger in areas that have not been tested for arsenic. Attention was first drawn to West Bengal in the 1980s when cases of poisonings were reported. The extent of the problem was far more widespread then was at first thought. (Bagla and Kaiser 1996)Dipankar Chakrabortik, a chemist from the School of Environmental Sciences at Jadavpur University, has been conducting studies on the problem for over ten years. His team have tested 20,000 tube wells and found that 62% of them contained levels of arsenic higher than is allowable by the World Health Organization (WHO). Samples from the inhabitants' hair, urine, skin, and nails have shown that they had ingested large amounts of arsenic over the years. Many experts of arsenic and toxicology are interested in the pending crisis in India because of the wealth of information to be gained. It would be possible to discover what diseases arsenic causes and the information learned could help countries such as Taiwan, Chile, and Mongolia, where there are large problems with arsenic contamination. (Bagla and Kaiser 1996)Response from the Indian government to the crisis is low. They had approved a project that costs $25 million in 1995 that would supply piped water to the Malda district, but there has been scant improvement. In fact, the problem has grown more widespread. Tube wells that were not previously contaminated are now tainted and the federal government still seems oblivious to the...
