Toxic Armenian Food Chain

Toxic Armenian Food Chain



March 2007 - Armenian doctors and 
scientists are sounding the alarm after discovering traces of 
toxic substances in patients, including the mothers of young 
children. Yet despite the potential health implications for 
the Armenian public, no one can identify the sources of the 
problem with any certainty. 
In tests, doctors have found evidence of chlorides which could 
lead to serious medical problems. 
One strong suggestion is that the chemicals have found their 
way into the food chain from pesticides used in farming. 
"Chlorine compounds are present not just in the soil and in 
water, they are also detected in a human biology – in sweat, 
saliva and mother’s milk," said Albert Hairepetian, director 
of Armenia’s Institute of Environmental Hygiene and 
Prophylactic Toxicology. "This is just unacceptable." 
Organochlorines such as the notorious pesticide DDT were used 
in Armenia until they were banned across the Soviet Union in 
1972. 
The poisoning could have come from a residue of DDT still left 
in the ground, but some experts suspect the banned chemical is 
still being used illegally by farmers. 
A worker with an obsolete pesticide eradication program funded 
by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs finds bags of 
DDT on an Armenian farm. 
"We carried out research to find out whether the presence of 
these toxic substances in humans was due to the use of DDT in 
Soviet times," said Lilik Simonian, an expert with the 
organization Armenian Women for Health and a Healthy 
Environment. "We established that there are fresh traces of 
DDT as well as old ones." 
Hairepetian and his colleagues studied milk samples from 40 
mothers in maternity wards in Yerevan and the town of 
Ashtarak, and concluded that the toxic substances are being 
passed on to newborn babies. 
This information was not shared with those tested. "It’s 
pointless to subject people to unnecessary stress, because at 
the moment there’s nothing we can change," said Hairepetian. 
Simonian’s group came to similar conclusions when it carried 
out a parallel study in 2004 in 10 villages in the Ararat 
region south west of Yerevan. 
Farms in the Ararat valley, which supply markets in the 
capital Yerevan, are seen as the main source of these toxic 
pesticides. 
At one Yerevan food market, 37 year old Nora said she heard on 
the television recently that food grown in the Ararat valley 
may be unhealthy. "Now I ask where vegetables come from before 
I buy them," she said. 
But market trader Gayane said her sales have not suffered from 
the alarming media reports. 
"Sometimes the customers ask where the vegetables come from, 
but later on it all gets forgotten," said Gayane, adding that 
as she is not buying her produce direct from the farmers she 
doesn’t know what it contains. 
Of 15 shoppers interviewed at the market, only one of them 
knew about the toxic issue. 
"We breathe such poisonous air that a little bit more poison 
or a little less won’t make a lot of difference," said 55 year 
old Vardges. 
A grocery store in the Armenian capital Yerevan. 
Experts say that the toxic substances involved will be 
discharged from the body naturally, but that they do some 
damage to the nervous and immune systems along the way. 
"There is practically nothing doctors can do about this," said 
Nune Bakunts of the Anti-Epidemiological Institute for 
Hygiene, run by Armenia’s Health Ministry. "It’s the job of 
those who own the land. 
"We have to ban the use of toxic chemicals containing 
chlorine. They have been labelled as 'persistent' as they are 
present in the environment for a long time, and now they have 
entered the human organism." 
The Ministry of Agriculture insists that banned pesticides – 
however cheap and effective they may be – are not on sale in 
Armenia. 
"These [included] the acaricide group which have a sulphur or 
nitrogen base," said Garnik Petrosian, head of the ministry’s 
plant cultivation department. "You see we do not use 
trichlorfon, methyl parathion, DNOC or DDT, which are 
considered dangerous." 
Petrosian said that pesticides are sold only after they had 
been approved by a special licensing commission. 
His words were echoed by Environment Minister Vardan Aivazian, 
who said, "We carry out checks, we question the customs 
authorities and we consistently get the same answer – these 
substances are not imported into the country." 
However, Elizabet Danielian of the World Health Organization’s 
Yerevan office suggested that regulation of imports is lax. 
"Research done by various nongovernmental organizations shows 
that there is no record of all the toxic chemicals imported 
into the country and that we don’t know what substances they 
actually contain," she said. 
The environment minister believes the toxic traces may come 
from Soviet-era accumulations of pesticides in the soil, but 
he said it was also possible that villagers still have stores 
of old chemicals left over and may be using them. 
Experts from Armenian Women for Health and a Healthy 
Environment say they have evidence that this is the case. They 
say chicken farmers are using DDT, so toxic substances make 
their way from the soil into the eggs. 
As an alternative to agriculture as the source of the problem, 
Aivazian pointed the finger at two industrial plants as 
possible suspects – the Nairit chloroprene rubber factory and 
the gold extraction plant in the town of Ararat, which uses 
cyanide as part of the process. He also suggested a further 
possible cause - a toxic waste dump in the village of 
Nurabashen outside Yerevan. 
The Nairit plant was closed in late Soviet times but has since 
reopened. The head of its environmental department said that 
the factory is running at low capacity and there is no 
evidence it is causing any damage. 
{Published in cooperation with the Institute for War and Peace 
Reporting, IWPR. Arpine Galstian is the pseudonym of an 
Armenian journalist. IWPR’s Armenia editor Seda Muradian 
contributed to this report.} 





 

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