“The Dean of the faculty of medical sciences of the National University of Rosario, Ricardo Nid, initiated an ideological and academic persecution against a team of teachers, graduates and students who maintain the socio-environmental health materials and all final practice spaces, which are relevant to the work with peoples and Families victims of the dominant agricultural model (Gmos and chemicals). It appears that behind the dean there are provincial officials and agribusiness companies”. Members of the Socio-Environmental Health Department of the Medicine School of the National University of Rosario published a press release denouncing an ongoing persecution towards Damian Verzeñassi, a key witness of the Monsanto Tribunal of The Hague. Another fact that illustrates the actions of the dean Nid is the following: he manged to close the entrance to the office – where all the information on the campaigns are stored – with chains and locks (Including very valuable health tests on the health status of 27 towns and cities such as Santa Fe, Entre Rios, Córdoba and Buenos Aires). All techers were denied access to all of the materials about the campaign. This escalation of academic pursuit was given while Verzeñassi participated in the historic International Tribunal Monsanto, in the city of the Hague, Netherlands (for which he made use, in orderto travel, of his ordinary annual leave).
“We consider grotesque that this persecution against the team takes place coincidentally with their participation in the Tribunal against Monsanto in The Hague (the Netherlands) that showed the world the concrete socio-environmental consequences of the imposition of this agribusiness model”, as reported by Carlos A. Vicente, of GRAIN.
Damien Verzeñassi, Doctor and Professor public health, Argentina, at the Monsanto Tribunal
“The existence of solid, consistent evidence is a basis for political decision … May I tell you that we were lied to when were told that GMO do not require chemicals, we were leid to when we were told that these chemicals were not harmful”
Damian Verzeñassi, Doctor and Professor at the National University of Medical Science of Rosario. One of his study is about the exposure assessment of pesticides in field crops and its potential impact on health in Argentina. The research was coordinated by María del Pilar Díaz and was focus on the area of Córdoba, it involved thousands of surveys, fifty general controls and a multitude of clinical examinations in adults and children. From the study emerged that the impact of exposure and contamination is not just related with those who are directly exposed to agrochemicals, but it shows highest level of damage on their children. The results show that the effects are not only relate with cancer, but also with respiratory, dermatological and genotoxic disease.
Watch the full intervention of Damien Verzeñassi at the Monsanto Tribunal
Pingback: Monsanto: new attacks to the rights of information and research
Pingback: Effects on people’s health caused by pesticides can no longer be ignored