Late last month, the court finished hearing petitions from the Gas Affected
Women Workers Organisation (BGPMUS). The organisation argues that the settlement
was illegal because the victims were not consulted before the court reached
a decision. The organisation also questions the court’s figures for the
dead and injured. The court’s estimates, 3,000 dead, 30,000 permanent injuries,
20,000 temporary injuries and 150,000 minor injuries, are ‘a gross underestimate’,
says the organisation.

The extent of injury caused by exposure to the lethal cloud of MIC is
the key issue. Union Carbide argues that there was ‘no long-term health
effect of MIC other than pulmonary and ocular’, and even then the ‘number
of severe cases of pulmonary damage is small and there are no severe ocular
after effects’. The company had been based on the latest figures provided
by the Madhya Pradesh state government, then the settlement would have been
far less than $470 million. According to the state’s assessors, of the 357,000
claimants in August 1990, only 40 were classed as permanently injured and
150,000 were ‘without injury’.

Organisations supporting the victims, including BGPMUS, and the present
Indian government, contest both Union Carbide’s interpretation of the medical
data and the validity of the state’s scheme for categorising the severity
of injuries. The petitioners contend that edidemiological studies and experiments
on rats indicate that even low doses of MIC cause ‘long-term and multisystemic’
damage to the body. Six years after the disaster the medical data suggest
worsening ill health among people exposed to the gas.

This claim is supported by an affidavit from Charles MacKenzie, a professor
of pathology at Michigan State University. Working with Indian doctors,
MacKenzie and Neil Anderson, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine, hav been studying the effects of MIC since 1985. ‘There is concrete
evidence for MIC causing long-term effects rather than simple causing a
short-term pathology,’ says MacKenzie. MIC also affects many organs, not
just the eyes and lungs, he says. The team found injuries to kidneys, the
liver and the immune system. These effects do ‘not appear to be reversible’,
says MacKenzie.

In the first three years after the disaster, the team found that there
had been a threefold increase in inflammation of the eyelids, a doubling
of new cases of cataracts and a loss of visual acuity among people who were
most exposed to the gas. Although the study focused on the effects on the
eye, the researchers concluded that ‘the eye could be considered a ‘sentinel
organ’ for more general phenomena’. These findings are confirmed in an unpublished
five-year study of a much larger group.

Studies by the Indian Council of Medical Research also contradict Union
Carbide’s interpretation of the data. The council surveyed 12,000 people
who were affected by the gas. In its annual report for 1990, the council
concluded that ‘a large number of cases continuing to be symptomatic even
at the end of five years, but there is (an) increasing trend of morbidities’.
Some 93 per cent of children affected by the gas were suffereing from damage
to their lungs and there were around 400 spontaneous abortions and infant
deaths each year in the disaster area – more than 10 times the number outside
Bhopal.

The state government’s categorisation scheme has also come under fire.
Three doctors who presented evidence to the Supreme Court say that the scheme
was ‘illogical and irrational’. They argue that the results of the state’s
assessment have no scientific value because they were based on arbitrary
scoring, insufficient medical testing and an overreliance on medical records
which most of the survivors were in no position to produce. Jabar Khan,
the convenor of BGPMUS, wants to see a medical commission set up to completely
reassess individual injuries.

Satinath Sarangi who has spent the past five years helping the survivors
in Bhopal is convinced that health has deteriorated. ‘If only the judges
spent time in Bhopal, their decision would acquire a human dimension and
it would be simple,’ he said.

The company’s embarrassment was compounded by the release of a damning
report on its activities in the US and by the start of new hearings on behalf
of the victims of Bhopal in India’s Supreme Court. The survivors of the
Bhopal disaster, which killed more than 3,000 people and disabled hundreds
of thousands more, hope to overturn the $470 million (235 million Pounds)
settlement reached between Union Carbide and the former government of Rajiv
Ghandi. This will allow the court to revive the government’s original claim
for $3 billion.

The highly critical report* prepared for the National Toxics Campaign
and the Council on International and Public Affairs by Robert Ginsberg,
an American toxicologists, shows how far Union Carbide lags behind other
chemicals companies in trying to improve its environmental record. The report
is based on information that the company is obliged to provide under the
so-called ‘right to know law’ and on data which is given to state and federal
agencies. It holds that ‘Union Carbide continues to be a major discharger
of toxic substances into the environment and a major generator of toxic
·É²¹²õ³Ù±ð’.

Union Carbide claimed in its own report earlier this year that the company
was ‘finding ways to reduce the amount of wastes from its production operations’.
Yet, according to Ginsberg, in 1988 the company increased the amount of
toxic waste it generated by 32,000 tonnes to 136,400 tonnes. ‘This dramatic
increase far outweighs the decrease of 4,500 tonnes in emissions of specific
substances reported under the Toxic Release Inventory.’

The report also contradicts Union Carbide’s claim to have reduced its
output of waste at plants in West Virginia and Texas by 2,450 tonnes. Documents
given to state and federal agencies by the company ‘indicate an increase
of 8,000 tonnes at those plants’, the report says. And, during 1988, emissions
of methylisocyanate from Union Carbide’s plant in West Virginia increased
by almost 2 tonnes. Methylisocyanate is the gas that poisoned the people
of Bhopal.

According to the report, Union Carbide’s attempts to clean up its operations
fall far short of other companies’ efforts. While other companies dispose
of, on average, only 13 per cent of their wastes on land, Union Carbide
dumps a hefty 35 per cent.

The report acknowledges that Union Carbide has ‘begun a few isolated
projects at various facilities to reduce the use, generation and emission
of toxic substances’. But the report concludes that ‘this has not resulted
in any consistent changes to their facilities as a whole’.

* Present Danagers .. Hidden Liabilities: a profile of the environmental
impact of the Union Carbide Corporation in the United States 1987-1988.