Global NGO Alliance Calls on WHO to Stop Threatening
Public Health while Working to Save It

Manila, Philippines / Cairo, Eygpt / Pietermaritzburg, South Africa / Bangkok, Thailand / Berkeley, USA / Harare, Zimbabwe. (Wednesday, 23 October, 2002) – GAIA, an international NGO alliance with over 320 members in more than 60 countries, today called on the World Health Organization (WHO) to improve its medical waste management practices and policies which currently threaten public health and the environment.

Through its funding, policy recommendations and actual practice, WHO encourages incineration of medical waste, including waste from large scale immunization drives. Incinerating medical waste threatens public health and the environment. Incinerators are major sources of dioxin, mercury and a host of other toxic pollutants. Dioxins are extremely toxic and persistent compounds that accumulate in the global environment, concentrating in meat, dairy and ultimately humans. Dioxins are linked to a variety of health impacts, ranging from developmental and reproductive disorders to cancer. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin, which is especially dangerous when it enters the aquatic food chain.

On 24 October 2002, representatives from WHO and other international organizations will meet in Cambodia to discuss safe vaccinations and therapeutic injections at the annual conference of the Safe Injection Global Network, or SIGN.

While GAIA members appreciate the concerns, which motivate WHO and other SIGN members to promote immunizations, they also believe that addressing one health threat while creating another is not acceptable. GAIA calls upon WHO and other SIGN members to commit to incorporating plans for safe waste management, without incineration, in every immunization campaign undertaken from this day onwards. “Having all these parties interested in immunization safety together for the annual SIGN meeting provides an ideal opportunity to make a collective commitment to finding alternatives to incineration,” explained Manny C. Calonzo, Assistant Coordinator in the Philippines.

“WHO defines a safe injection as safe to the patient, safe to the worker and safe to the environment, yet WHO also encourages the use of highly polluting and unnecessary incinerators for treating immunization waste,” explained Nityanand Jayaraman*, a member of GAIA in India. “Fortunately there are safer alternatives and we call upon WHO to demonstrate its commitment to public health by breaking the incinerator habit and promoting safe, economical and just alternatives,” he added.

GAIA members around the world work against polluting and wasteful incinerators and for safe alternatives. Hence, the name GAIA stands for both a Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance and a Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives.

For More Information, please contact:

Manny Calonzo, GAIA Secretariat, 9290376

*Nity is coordinator of Corpwatch India.