More than 20 years after the first complaints, industrial pollution is recognized as the cause of the diseases developed by residents of the Alto Atoyac basin, between Tlaxcala and Puebla.
Last April, the National Council for Humanities, Sciences and Technologies (Conahcyt) held a series of webinars in which it described leukemia and chronic kidney diseases as the main diseases derived from industrial activity. These are detailed in his first “Alto Atoyac Basin Strategic Report” focused on the topic of health.
The institute had already named this area as a Health and Environmental Emergency Region (REA) in 2021, known as “environmental hell”, due to high levels of water pollution. Demonstrating the industrial impact on the environment is not new, but national institutions recognizing its relationship with diseases is.
“That today, in 2024, we have an acceptance by the State, even an official document issued by Conahcyt, through the first strategic report, is due to the work we have done from the communities,” said Alejandra Méndez Serrano, director of the Fray Julián Garcés Center.
The Fray Center is dedicated to the defense of human rights in the state of Tlaxcala. In 2017, after a complaint to the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), he succeeded in getting a recommendation issued for the pollution of the Atoyac, Xochiac rivers and their tributaries.
During those same years, they analyzed information from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), which allowed them to identify some figures related to environmental health problems, such as the fact that from 2002 to 2016, a person died every four hours from diseases related to cancer, kidney failure and spontaneous abortions. By 2019, the time had been reduced to two and a half hours.
However, the allegations were denied by the authorities.
“A doctor who was Secretary of Health (state) told us that (the diseases) were not due to industrial pollution, that it was because 'parents don't take good care of their children', that 'the children don't eat well, 'that they 'marry cousins',” Director Méndez recalled of a meeting in 2012.
Diseases in young people
Arsenic, malathion, glufosinate, glyphosate and picloram are some of the toxic agents to which more than 50% of the young population of the Upper Atoyac basin is exposed, according to the Conahcyt strategic report.
This is an environmental epidemiological study focused on acute leukemia and chronic kidney diseases, identified as the main diseases due to exposure to toxins.
In the case of leukemia, a type of blood cancer, it was found that the municipalities of Tlaxcala south of the basin have a relationship between high rates of deaths from acute leukemia and high levels of metals found in the river. The highest prevalence is found among those under 19 years of age. 58% of these leukemias are high-risk.
While in renal diseases, it was found that, although there are no apparent symptoms, 19% of the study participants had a degree of renal dysfunction, mostly in the young population around 13 years of age. This is due to toxic exposure in the Alto Atoyac basin, mostly in eastern municipalities such as Miguel Hidalgo, Mazatecochco de José María Morelos, San Francisco Tetlanohcan, Teolocholco, Papalotla de Xicohténcatl and Tenancingo.
“As for the environmental situation, it's critical. Pollution continues to increase. We are talking about registering high levels of pollutants, both in air, in water, in soil, in the different environmental compartments,” said Gabriela Pérez-Castresana, a researcher at the Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla, during her presentation at last April's webinars.
Conahcyt's strategic report includes a historical review of all industries in the basin. Mention is made of the installation of Volkswagen in 1965, the creation of the Independence Petrochemical Complex in 1969 and the arrival of the Audi company in 2016.
Regarding access to information from these studies, the director of the Fray Julián Garcés Center pointed out that it is still necessary for State institutions to demonstrate the relationship between diseases and the pollutants that industries emit.
“The problem of diseases is unknown to anyone in the region, however, there is not much information released by the authorities to say that this is due to industrial pollution. There has even been negligence, collusion, on the part of the authorities to hide this problem,” said the director.
A program and the right to health
After more than 20 years of disclosure and reporting, the authorities are beginning to propose solutions. Last year, a public policy was approved that includes establishing a clinical toxicology perspective. This means that, when people from the Alto Atoyac basin go to medical examinations for diseases that are repeated in the region, doctors report the cases and a study of the area is carried out.
“Let them not be treated as isolated cases,” said the director of the Fray Julián Garcés Center.
Public policy led to the General Health Care Plan in the Environmental Health Emergency Region of the Alto Atoyac Basin, which has been implemented since last October.
The Plan includes training for health personnel and the hiring of specialized doctors; comprehensive care for sick people inside and outside the state, and information surveys to locate sick people or those with signs. Although the implementation is recent, the policy has been worked on since 2019 when the Toxitour Mexico Caravan was held, composed of observers, specialists and groups, interested in identifying the effects on the so-called “environmental hells”.
In the case of Atoyac, the Fray Julián Garcés Center, the researcher Gabriela Pérez-Castresana and Dr. Regina Montero Montoya from the Biomedical Institute participated, who spoke for months with the Ministry of Health and Conahcyt to prepare this plan.
Although, according to the director of the Fray Center, what remains to be done is to act directly at the sources of the pollutants: industries.
“What we can already demonstrate is that these diseases and these population risks are due to industrial waste. So what we would expect is for Semarnat (Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources) to assume its responsibility to do a strong job of inspecting and monitoring industries. That they can really impose sanctions and monitor compliance so that these toxic substances do not continue to be released into the environment,” Méndez concluded.
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