If you are handed a bottle of the latest designer water “B’Eau-Pal” in London's fashionable Leicester Square today you'd be strongly advised not to drink it.
The must have product has been released by a celebrity duo and the label designed by the much sought after creative company Kennedy Monk.
But the water looks and tastes disgusting. Behind the drink are the The Yes Men and they are bringing the plight of the people of Bhopal to the UK.
The two US filmmakers are releasing a "hilarious but alarming" documentary The Yes Men Fix The World next month about the devastating explosion at Union Carbide’s Bhopal Chemical Plant in 1984 and its consequences.
Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno famously duped the BBC World Service into broadcasting an interview in which a Dow representative said the company would spend $12 billion compensating the victims - wiping $2 billion off the firm's share price.
Mike told the-sauce.org today: "Dow never came after us - but they know who we are. The next time we attended one of their company meetings they had airport style metal detectors and devises to scan for electrical equipment waiting for us."
More than 500,000 people were exposed to toxic gases and the death toll was estimated at 10,000 in the first 72 hours after the tragedy occurred.
But the disaster site was never cleared up and an estimated 25,000 people living around the abandoned factory site in Bhopal continue to be directly exposed to toxic substances thanks to contamination of their water supplies.
A deadly cocktail of toxins remains at a frighteningly high level. Some of the contaminants are environmentally persistent, remaining in harmful concentrations for decades.
Health symptoms associated with the consumption of the local contaminated water include abdominal pain, skin lesions, dizziness, vomiting, constipation, indigestion, and burning sensations in the chest and stomach.
A report by environmental organization Shristi in 2002 into the conditions in Bhopal found that: “The groundwater, vegetables and even breast milk is contaminated to various degrees by heavy metals like nickel, chromium, mercury and lead, and volatile organic compounds.”
Disease
Some of the contaminants are carcinogenic and can also damage the brain and internal organs. Many of the chemicals are especially harmful to children and foetuses.
Health workers have noted that the majority of children in the most severely affected community, Atul Ayub Nagar, are born seriously underweight, weak, with discolored skin.
The worst cases have twisted limbs and mental health problems. Women complain of reduced lactation and in some instances lactation has stopped within a month of childbirth.
The Sambhavna Trust has now released a new report named “Qualitative description of the water supply among communities surrounding the former Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal.”
Despite the Bhopal disaster, Andrew Liveris, the chairman and chief executive of Dow, the current owner of Dow, said in a statement: "Water is the single most important chemical compound for the preservation and flourishing of human life.
"And yet today, more than a billion people are in peril every day because they do not have enough water or the water they have is unhealthy.
"Lack of clean water is the single largest cause of disease in the world and more than 4,500 children die each day because of it."
Liveris’ earns $16,182,544 a year - or £311,202.76 a week. From this he could afford to give each of the 4,500 children who die every day $14 - enough to provide clean, safe water.
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