An unprecedented legal attempt began yesterday (22/05) to hold British scientists responsible for what the World Health Organisation has called the "largest mass poisoning of a population in history". British lawyers for a group of 500 Bangladeshis want to sue for arsenic poisoning that the villagers received from drinking water. Potential damages of millions of pounds are at stake.

The villagers are seeking leave from the House of Lords to sue the Natural Environment Research Council and its agency, the British Geological Survey, claiming western agencies have a duty of care to people they are trying to help overseas. Lord Brennan QC, for the villagers, told the Lords that the BGS was "the essential and only source of information as to the safety of the water".

The case goes back to the 1970s, when Bangladesh had one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world, due to polluted surface drinking water. The international community began a huge programme to drill wells for crop irrigation, fish farming and domestic use. The rate of child deaths subsequently halved.

In 1990 the BGS obtained a commission from the UK government`s aid agency, then known as the Overseas Development Agency , to survey deep wells dug in the previous decade. Samples from the wells were taken to BGS laboratories to test for toxic elements. BGS argues that its report did not give the water a clean bill of health for drinking, but the report`s author indicated in a published paper in 1994: "The groundwaters are ... suitable for crop irrigation and domestic usage."

The survey never tested for arsenic which, over years, can lead to cancer of the skin and internal organs. That omission will form the centrepiece of any trial.
by David Pallister
(The Guardian, 23/05/2006)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/waste/story/0,,1780933,00.html