Chronic Kidney Failure Caused By Sugar Pesticide

Imagine for a moment that thousands of Americans eating regular sugar in their foods and beverages began having chronic kidney problems. What would the average doctor blame? They'd blame the sugar itself, right?

But what if it's not the sugar but rather a pesticide sprayed on the sugar which causes the kidney failure? Or even worse... a foreign company targeting countries which Americans buy the bulk of their sugar from and selling banned pesticides to those countries knowing fully well that Americans will eat the sugar sprayed with pesticides banned in Europe and banned in America itself.

PROVING that a pesticide on sugar is causing the kidney disease rather than the sugar itself is a relatively easy task. All one would need to show is that:
#1) Those working in sugar cane fields directly in contact with the pesticide are also dying of kidney failure.
#2) Those working in sugar processing plants around the sugar plants sprayed with the pesticide are dying of kidney failure.

And yes, it's happening.

Little noticed by the rest of the world, chronic kidney disease (CKD) is cutting a swath through one of the world’s poorest populations, along a stretch of Central America’s Pacific Coast that spans six countries and nearly 700 miles. Its victims are manual laborers, mostly sugarcane workers.

Each year from 2005 to 2009, kidney failure killed more than 2,800 men in Central America, according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists‘ analysis of the latest World Health Organization data. In El Salvador and Nicaragua alone over the last two decades, the number of men dying from kidney disease has risen fivefold. ...

The surge of kidney disease is overwhelming hospitals, depleting health budgets, and leaving a trail of widows and children in rural communities. In El Salvador, CKD is the second leading cause of death for men. In the province of Guanacaste, Costa Rica, the regional hospital had to start a home dialysis program because it was overwhelmed with so many CKD victims that it began running out of beds to treat patients with other ailments.

So many men have died in some parts of rural Nicaragua that Maudiel Martinez’s community, called The Island, now is known as the Island of the Widows - La Isla de las Viudas.

from Island of the Widows

Just how much sugar does the United States buy from Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Costa Rica -- the regions where entire towns of sugarcane field workers are dying from chronic kidney disease?

2010 American Sugar Imports by Country

1. Dominican Republic: $100.8 million, up 185.4% (24.1%)
2. Guatemala: $77.6 million, up 328.4% (18.6%)
3. Brazil: $68.3 million, up 123.4% (16.3%)
4. Mexico: $38 million, down 70.7% (9.1%)
5. Philippines: $29.7 million, down 13.4% (7.1%)
6. Peru: $19.2 million, down 110.8% (4.6%)
7. Colombia: $15.6 million, up 855.1% (3.7%)
8. Nicaragua: $12.6 million, up 35.5% (3%)
9. Thailand: $11.5 million, up 104.5% (2.8%)
10. El Salvador: $9.4 million, down 7.6% (2.3%)
11. Costa Rica: $8.4 million, down 22.6% (2%)
12. Panama: $7 million, up from nil (1.7%)
13. Mozambique: $6.99 million up from nil (1.7%)
14. Jamaica: $4.5 million, up from nil (1.1%)
15. Guyana: $4.3 million, up 17,480% (1%)

US Sugar Imports By Country

Which means that the United States buys a combined 25.8% of its total sugar imports from the countries where sugarcane field workers are dying of kidney failure, just working around the pesticides in the fields. Is it just the sugarcane field workers that die of kidney failure from direct exposure, or do the sugarcane factory workers die too? Yes, the factory workers processing the sugar are also dying of kidney failure from exposure to the sugarcane pesticides.

Guatemala: Mystery Disease Killing Thousands May Be Caused by Manual Labor - Sugarcane Factory Workers

El Salvador: Pesticides Fill Graveyards in Rural Villages

Nicaragua: Kidney Failure Epidemic in Sugarcane Workers

Mystery Kidney Disease Strikes Nicaraguan Sugarcane Region

Mystery Disease Kills Thousands in Central America

Kidney Disease in El Savador, Are Pesticides to Blame?

Costa Rica Responds-Investigating an Epidemic of Kidney Disease: Toni Stable Center

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Wondering what the pesticide is? Apparently it's German companies selling a pesticide banned in the EU to those countries which Americans import sugar from.

Former sugar cane workers from Nicaragua suffering from chronic kidney failure are trying to gather support in Germany to fight the most powerful company in their country.

"It's the sugar cane plantations that are making us sick," Carmen Rios, a small woman from El Viejo in Nicaragua says, pointing to the plantations in Chinandega Province. ...

But it's not just Carmen Rios and members of her association who think the evidence is quite obvious. Several German organizations involved in development policy see the proof as well. This is why Carmen Rios, joined by a journalism student from Managua who supports the farmers, was invited by Heidelberg's Nicaragua-Forum to tell her story to a German audience.

...And they want to check if Nicaraguan bioethanol is actually used in Germany and to what extent Germany could influence compliance with health and safety standards at Nicaragua's sugar cane plantations.

Illness-stricken sugar workers from Nicaragua seek German help

So German companies sell banned pesticides to sugarcane fields in those countries that Americans import 25.8% of their sugar from for human consumption. Yet Germans themselves won't eat the sugar. They use it for biofuels only. Then Americans with sugar as additives in all their foods have a cumulative sugar pesticide effect which gets blamed on the sugar-related illnesses, when it's the pesticide. The same German companies sell kidney medications to sick Americans with the kidney failure. So double the profit. Selling the pesticide that causes the kidney failure to countries which America imports sugar from, then Germans profit by selling kidney medications to Americans. But the Germans won't eat the sugar themselves from those Central American countries, they only use it for biofuels.

Kidney failure rate in US doubled in last decade

Kidney Cancer Statistics in US

I heard about that on NPR a few weeks ago, and they blamed it on dehydration and electrolyte loss from the hot, hard work - but sugarcane has always been hot and hard work, yes? It's the usual coverup. I'm glad I don't support NPR.

Hey I have a question, is this stuff in pet food somehow, as well? My 9 yr old cat died of failed kidneys on April 21, and yesterday, I was told by my veterinarian, that they had to refuse cleaning my 8 yrold cat's teeth, because his "kidney and liver number values were too high" which means he aint long for this world either. He is not related at all, to his deceased housemate.

Originally posted by Saucerwench
Hey I have a question, is this stuff in pet food somehow, as well? My 9 yr old cat died of failed kidneys on April 21, and yesterday,

Sorry for your loss. I don't know if it's in pet food (the same pesticide used in sugar). I would have no idea how to figure out which crops and where in the world that the crops came from that became ingredients in cat food.

I don't think there's sugar in cat food though. At least not that I'm seeing on the ingredients of what I buy for my cat. But that doesn't preclude that one of the same crops used to make catfood might be imported from foreign countries that might spray the crops with something harmful.

My cat died of kidney failure too. She was probably between the ages of 20-22, but no one would treat her so I had to lie about her age to get a vet to assist her and claimed she was 18. I did as much meds as I could do for her and had to inject liquid under her skin daily so she didn't become dehydrated. I was only able to extend her life for about 9 months though.

I know the kidney problems in cats have to do with the dry catfood brands. They need to get more wetfood daily. My cat was an avid dry food eater. She was so picky about her wetfood, that many days she'd turn her nose up at it and only eat dry food. On one hand, she lived into her 20s. But on the other hand, the dry food and lack of wet food got her kidneys in the end.

And yes, I too, suspect something sprayed on dry catfood ingredients-- one of the crops. There were a lot of recalled dog foods and cat foods because of some ingredient to them from China. 9 years is really young for a cat to die. Maybe you should see if your cat's brand of food is on the Recalled Foods List over the last year.

Recalled Foods: Mainly Human But Also Pet Foods