Human Rights Watch, a human rights group based out of New York has issued a new report stating that there are about 20 million people currently living in rural Bangladesh that are drinking very dangerous, poisonous water with high levels of arsenic. While Bangladesh maintains a standard of 50 micrograms of arsenic per liter of water, the evidence for considerable death and illness from exposure to arsenic in water is between 10 and 50 micrograms.

Arsenic is a natural element and can be found in the earth’s crust. It has been used in industry, agriculture and a few other purposes. Arsenic is also a by-product of copper smelting, mining and coal burning. Arsenic can enter water sources either from the natural deposits that exist within the earth’s surface or from industrial and agricultural pollution. Arsenic is toxic and can be fatal if consumed by humans. It has been known to cause cancer, affect the nervous and respiratory systems and can severely impact child development.

Human Rights Watch is relating the current dire situation in Bangladesh to nepotism and poor governance by the current leaders.

The World Health Organization has stated that, “Studies in other countries where the population has had long-term exposure to arsenic in groundwater indicate that 1 in 10 people who drink water

Arsenic was originally discovered in shallow tube wells across big swaths of rural Bangladesh about 20 years ago, at that time awareness was raised so that the Bangladeshi government would provide deep-water wells for the rural population. Somewhere along the line the government moved this situation from being a priority and still has not done anything about it. The poison is still found in shallow, hand pumped wells in the rural parts of the country; here it is the only water source for the population. It is estimated that around 43,000 people die each year from arsenic-related illnesses in Bangladesh alone according to one study and the authors go on to estimate that depending on when this issue is fixed between 1 and 5 million of the 90 million children that are estimated to be born in Bangladesh between 2000 and 2030 will die from exposure to arsenic related illnesses.

Another issue is that the healthcare system in Bangladesh is problematic. They don’t recognize arsenic poisoning unless there are visible skin lesions, even though the majority of cases of people with poisoning don’t even develop them.

To make matters worse, the HRW found that the politicians who were responsible for digging new wells were making their friends and family members a priority rater than digging the wells where they were needed the most –with the highest levels of arsenic. When the wells are dug deeper water that is not contaminated with arsenic can generally be accessed, but those wells are more expensive to dig, and thus, the poor people get the short end of the stick.

How Did The World Health Organization Respond?

The World Health Organization (WHO) has responded with very strong words to the report, they labeled it, “the largest mass poisoning of a population in history.” They have also labeled this as a public health emergency. The Bangladeshi government responded by screening around 5 million wells and labeling them with either red for unsafe or green for safe.

Who’s To Blame?

A senior researcher at the HRW, Richard Pearshouse has blamed the political leaders of Bangladesh for the unfortunate fate of the rural poor who have been poisoned by this toxic drinking water.

“Bangladesh isn’t taking basic, obvious steps to get arsenic out of the drinking water of millions of its rural poor. What we found was basically poor governance. There is no technical problem that can’t be solved if the political will is there. But what we see is that the government is using many of its valuable resources in areas where there is no need for deep tube wells from the government,” he said.