Pesticide firm making people sick

CAP asks authorities to put a stop to daily spraying in Seberang Perai Utara.

TASEK GELUGOR: For about a year now, residents of Kampung Selamat and Taman Selamat in Seberang Perai Utara have been complaining of persistent headaches, coughs and breathing problems.
The culprit, according to the Consumer Association of Penang (CAP), is a company that has been testing its pesticides on a vegetable plot in the area.
“They conduct the spraying daily,” CAP president SM Mohamed Idris said in a press statement today.
He called on the Health Department and the Agriculture Department to put a stop to the testing.
“The problem started about a year ago, after an unidentified company started using a vegetable growing spot in the area as a trial plot to test its pesticides,” he said.
“The area gets polluted as the pesticides go airborne.”
He said the residents, unable to tolerate their suffering anymore, recently decided to complain through CAP.
“Even food stall owners and road users are threatened by this indiscriminate spraying,” he said.
“If the problem persists, the pollution will cause even more serious health complications to the residents and untold problems to the air and the area’s irrigation system.”
The officer in charge of the Penang Health Department was not available for comment.