Censorship in Guatemala

Our assignment: investigate an issue that we believe needs to be brought to light that is currently being ignored in the mainstream media, mostly out of fear. Like many countries, Guatemala has "selective reporting", often due to the fact that journalists who speak out tend to disappear. We are going to go where other journalists are not going...
Here is the first in our series. More to come this week.


GUATEMALAN AGRICULTURE AND PESTICIDES

Guatemala, being a third world country, depends on agriculture to sustain its economy and to keep the country afloat. In the media there is never any mention of the dangers of pesticides that are used on the plants. For example, it was never mentioned when the United States sent down outlawed DDT to Guatemala so that they could still make a profit off of the illegal pesticide. They made it really cheap so that the poor farmers could afford it. The farmers were ignorant to the fact that this pesticide was very hazardous, not only to their health, but to the environment around them. This is a huge flaw in the Guatemalan government regulations because they are not only putting the lives of many at risk, but they are also keeping the the dangers hidden from the ignorant farmers.

DDT has been proven to cause multiple types of neurological diseases as well as several different cancers. The neurological affects are mainly suffered by babies who had never even come in contact with DDT. The infants ingest the poison through the breast milk of their mothers, who had either been in the fields or whose husbands had been. The parents either did not wash up properly after returning from the spraying, or had not protected themselves from the pesticide that is blown back to their faces by the wind (usually little to no protection is given to Guatemalan field workers). As for cancer, the most common type is breast cancer, but these pesticides can also causes testicular, rectum, prostate, liver, stomach, bladder, endometrium, pancreas, and lung cancers. The cancer most affected by DDT is breast cancer. It is clinically proven that if a young girl is exposed to DDT she has a five times higher chance of getting breast cancer than one that was not, or who were exposed to it later in life.

The media should be informing the public of all the risks of using, and even being around, DDT. Hundreds of people are contracting unnecessary cancers because companies are afraid of losing some profit. One of the most effective, yet far-fetched ways to improve conscientiousness of the dangers of DDT would be to have complete media honesty and to have the facts in newspapers, television shows, news reports, and radio broadcasts. However, this requires a Guatemala without corruption where the government actually cares more about the well-being of the people instead of making profits.



Journalists:

Ruben Bergstresser and Rodrigo Paiz
Editor: Robin Smith

03-19-2010