[Editorial] Answers Needed About ‘Smoke Fumigation’

They say more than half the "smoke fumigation" (yeonmak sodok) done by government health centers around the country to exterminate mosquitoes in summer uses products suspected of containing endocrine disruptors. It makes you dizzy to remember that for decades children have followed those smoke trucks around, playing in the smoke as they move along.

Actually the insect sprays you use at home are disturbing enough, but the smoke that is sprayed almost everywhere in the country by health centers in each community is sprayed indiscriminately and therefore should be treated with far more care. It can't be any more a comedy when the health centers that are supposed to be responsible for the country's basic health are hurting it instead.

The official explanation from the health authorities essentially seems to be that the products used by a considerable number of centers contain cypermethrin, dichlorvos, chlorpyrifos, and kadethrin, and that while those chemicals are suspected of being endocrine disruptors that has not been proven. The thinking seems to be that the production and use of those products is prohibited, but since centers are using products that were produced before being banned their use is not illegal. If you place the highest priority on the people's welfare that's a pathetic excuse.

We suggest that now is the time to commence on encompassing analysis of the cost, effects, and negative side effects of smoke fumigation. The needs and effects might even vary by region. It goes without saying that if it is necessary then the authorities should use products that aren't harmful to humans. We also hope to see them accelerate the pace of research into endocrine disruptors. It has already been several years now since endocrine disruptors were discovered in breast milk, leaving the country in shock and causing the government to create a body to deal with the problem. Isn't it just a little much that the Task Committee on Harmful Chemical Substances was formed in 1998 and only seven years later finished determining some procedures for assessing the harmfulness of chemical products and is scheduled to utilize those procedures only beginning next year?

The Hankyoreh, 3 September 2005.

[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]