August 1, 2009

Vitamin A

Vitamin A – abundant in carrots, kale,

Broccoli, sweet potatoes, dandelion greens,

Collard greens, spinach, liver, milk,

Eggs, apricots, cantaloupe, mangoes . . .

Half of one carrot daily, provides a child’s

Necessary requirement of Vitamin A.

But how scarce this vitamin, and other

Essential ingredients of health, are

In the diet of the malnourished . . .

Of the 10,900,000 children who die every

Year, one half – 5,450,000 children –

Die at least partly because of malnutrition.

Of the 1,611,440,000 children presently living

In developing countries:

One out of three – 537,000,000 children –

Grow up stunted because of poor diet.

One out of six – 269,000,000 children –

Were born malnourished, and

One out of 13 – 127,000,000 children –

Are so deficient in Vitamin A, that

Every year, one out of every 340 of them –

375,000 children – become blind.

And of these who lose their sight,

Half – 187,500 children – die

Within a year of going blind.

Most of these children deficient in Vitamin A

Belong to the world’s 1,000,000,000 poor –

Those whose lot it is to subsist on $1 or less a day.

There are 309,000,000 of these $1 or less a day children,

And three quarters of them – 241,000,000 children –

Live in either Sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia . . .

Precisely those areas most vulnerable to global warming:

By 2030, in southern Africa, where maize is

The staple of the poor, climate change

Is likely to cause a decrease of 30 percent

in the maize crop, compared to 1990.

By 2030, in South Asia, where regional staples

Include wheat, rapeseed, rice, millet and maize,

Climate change is likely to cause a decrease of 10 percent

In these crops, compared to 1990.

The Vitamin A tragedy has antecedents. During the 1970’s,

Under the banner of the “Green Revolution,”

Pesticides and herbicides were introduced into Third World

Agriculture. All plants but the desired commercial crop,

Were now declared “weeds,” and eradicated,

No matter their existing nutritional contribution.

The landscape changed to monocultures of priced crops,

And the poor could no longer include these commensal plants

In their diet. In India, free-of-charge, Vitamin A-rich bathua

Was now an enemy. In 2002, India had 35,000,000 children

Deficient in Vitamin A – the largest number of any country.

Exploitation takes many forms, not only the most overt –

Colonialism. Pesticides and herbicides benefited

The Third World temporarily, but their use was soon

Revealed to be unsustainable, from the points of view

Of the development of plant resistance, degradation

Of the soil, toxic effluents, its reliance on oil,

And its large demand for irrigation water.

And now, with global warming, exploitation comes in

The form of an imposition of lower harvests,

And predictable starvation on a very large scale.

It is difficult to live in such a world.

Each one of these suffering children

Could be me.

My gut revolts, wrenches me apart,

And makes me vomit that last carrot I ate.

A wave of disgust rises within me,

The stench suffocates.

And then, a seismic rift opens between me

And a humanity in which this is allowed to happen,

And I can never love this humanity again.

I look at it aghast.

My heart dead to it,

Even though I know

That I am part of it.

References

* References with an asterisk (*) are cited by the World Hunger Education Service, 2009.

I did not verify them independently.

* Black, Robert, S. Morris and J. Bryce, 2003. “Where and why are 10 million Children dying every Year?” The Lancet. 361:9376, pp. 2226-2234. June 28.

(Poor nutrition plays a role in at least half of the 10.9 million child deaths each year).

* Black, Robert, H. Lindsay, Bhutta Zulfiqar, Laura Caulfield, Mercedes de Onis, Majid Ezzati, Colin Mathers and Juan Rivera, 2008. “Maternal and Child Undernutrition – Global and regional Exposures and Health Consequences.” (Maternal and Child Undernutrition Study Group). The Lancet 371: 9608, pp. 243-260. January 19.

(Undernutrition among pregnant women in developing countries results in 1 out of 6 infants being born with low birth weight).

* Bryce, Jennifer, Cynthia Boschi-Pinto, Kenji Shibuya, Robert Black, and the World Health Organization, Child Health Epidemiology Reference Group, 2005. “WHO Estimates of the Causes of Death in Children.” The Lancet. 365, pp. 1147-1152.

(Poor nutrition plays a role in at least half of the 10.9 million child deaths each year).

* de Onis, Mercedes, Edward Frongillo and Monika Blossner, 2000. “Is Malnutrition declining? An Analysis of Changes in Levels of Child Malnutrition since 1980.” Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 78, pp. 1222-1233.

(Malnutrition, as measured by stunting, affects 32.5 percent of children in developing countries).

Gorstein, Jonathan, undated. “Magnitude of Vitamin A Deficiency.” Global Health Conference, Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology, Department of Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, WA.

http://courses.washington.edu.hserv544/gorstein. Accessed August 2, 2009.

(Pre-school Children:

* Clinically deficient: 3 million (Asia and Africa).

* Sub-clinically deficient (low serum retinol): 100-140 million.

* 250,000-500,000 become blind each year.

* 90 percent case fatality among those who become blind).

Lobell, David, Marshall Burke, Claudia Tebaldi, Michael Mastrandrea, Walter Falcon and Rosamond Naylor,

2008a. “Prioritizing Climate Change Adaptation Needs for Food Security in 2030.” Reports. Science, 319: 5863, pp. 607-610.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/319/5863/607. Accessed July 31, 2009.

(An analysis of climate risks for crops in 12 food-insecure regions, was conducted to identify adaptation priorities, based on statistical crop models, and climate projections for 2030 from 20 general circulation models. Results indicate South Asia and Southern Africa as two regions that, without sufficient adaptation measures, will likely suffer negative impacts on several crops that are important to large food-insecure human populations).

2008b. “Prioritizing Climate Change Adaptation Needs for Food Security in 2030.” Policy Brief.

http://www.iis-db.stanford.edu/pubs/22099/science_policy_brief. Accessed July 31, 2009.

(The crop with the single largest projected impact is maize in Southern Africa, currently the most important source of calories for the poor in this region. Losses, by 2030, are expected to be a remarkable 30 percent, relative to production in 1990. In South Asia, which currently has 30 percent of the roughly 800 million global malnourished, many crops have more than a 75 percent chance of incurring losses from climate change. These include wheat, rapeseed, rice, millet and maize).

Murray, Michael and Joseph Pizzorno, with Lara Pizzorno. 2005. The encyclopedia of healing foods. New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster/Atria. For the vitamin A content of foods: pp. 99-100.

For ½ carrot providing a child’s necessary requirement of Vitamin A: pp. 99 and 179.

(Two carrots contain 4,050 Retinol Equivalents. A child’s need is 400-1,000 Retinol Equivalents).

* Shaohua, Chen, and Martin Ravallion, 2004. “How have the World’s Poorest fared since the early 1980’s?” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3341. Washington: World Bank.

(The World Bank estimates that, in 2004, 982.0 million people lived on $1 a day or less. Of these people, 456.0 million (46 percent) were in South Asia, and 309.0 million (31 percent) were in Sub-Saharan Africa. Poverty is the principal cause of hunger. The figure of 982 million poor, in 2004, which does not account for the 2007 rise, is comparable to the FAO figure of 904 million, in 2007, which accounts for the rise).

Shiva, Vandana.

1992. The violence of the Green Revolution – Third World agriculture, ecology and politics. New York, N.Y.: Zed Books and Third World Network. P. 206.

(Same point made as in Shiva 1993, pp. 25-26).

1993. Monocultures of the mind – perspectives on biodiversity and biotechnology. New York, N.Y.: Zed Books and Third World Network. Pp. 25-26.

(Not being commercially useful, people’s crops are treated as “weeds,” and destroyed with poisons. The most extreme example of this destruction is that of bathua, an important green leafy vegetable, with a very high nutritive value and rich in vitamin A, which grows as an associate of wheat. However, with intensive chemical fertilizer use, bathua becomes a major competitor of wheat, and has been declared a “weed” that is killed with herbicides. Forty thousand children in India go blind each year for lack of Vitamin A, and herbicides contribute to this tragedy by destroying the freely available sources of Vitamin A).

United Nations,

* Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), 2006. State of world food insecurity, 2006.

(FAO estimates that 854 million people worldwide are undernourished. This is 12.6 percent of the 6.6 billion world population. Most of the undernourished – 820 million (96 percent) – are in developing countries. In July 2008, FAO announced that due to the higher prices of food, in 2007, an additional 50 million people had become undernourished. The FAO estimate is, therefore, (854 + 50) = 904 million undernourished. Also, see notes under World Hunger Education Service, 2009, and Shaohua, 2004).

Development Programme (UNDP), Human Development Report 2007/2008: Fighting climate change – human solidarity in a divided world. 2007. “Table 5: Demographic Trends.” New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan. P. 246.

(In 2005, of the 5,215,000,000 people living in developing countries, 30.9 percent were children under the age of 15 years).

Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), undated. “Vitamin A Deficiency.” (Tool, adapted by UNESCO from the website of the World Health Organization). P. 7.

http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/files/36928/11014809123FINAL. Accessed August 2, 2009.

(Between 100 and 140 million children are Vitamin A-deficient. An estimated 250,000 to 500,000 Vitamin A-deficient children become blind every year, half of them dying within 12 months of losing their sight).

West, Keith, Jr., 2002. “Extent of Vitamin A Deficiency among pre-school Children and Women of reproductive Age.” Journal of Nutrition, 132, pp. 2857S-2866S. September. Supplement: Proceedings of the XX International Vitamin A Consultative Group Meeting, “25 Years of Progress in controlling Vitamin A Deficiency – Looking to the Future,” Hanoi, Vietnam, February 12-15, 2001.

[In 1995, the World Health Organization estimated 254 million children to be Vitamin A-deficient. Subsequently, estimates were changed to 75-140 million. The present analysis indicates that there are approximately 127 million pre-school children with Vitamin A deficiency. Roughly 45 percent of Vitamin A-deficient children live in South and Southeast Asia, and 25-34 percent live in Africa. The largest numbers of Vitamin A-deficient children live in India (35.3 million), Indonesia (12.6 million), China (11.4 million), and Ethiopia (6.7 million)].

* World Bank, Website, “Understanding Poverty.” (Accessed by the World Hunger Education Service, on February 3, 2008).

(The World Bank estimates that, in 2004, 982.0 million people lived on $1 a day or less. Of these people, 456.0 million (46 percent) were in South Asia, and 309.0 million (31 percent) were in Sub-Saharan Africa. Poverty is the principal cause of hunger. The figure of 982 million, in 2004, which does not account for the 2007 rise, is comparable to the FAO figure of 904 million, in 2007, which accounts for the rise).

* World Health Organization, 2004. “Comparative Quantification of Health Risks – Childhood and maternal Undernutrition.” Probably in Global and regional burden of disease attributable to selected major risk factors.”

http://www.who.org.

http://www.who.int/nut/vad.htm.

(Between 100 and 140 million children are deficient in Vitamin A. An estimated 250,000 to 500,000 of these children become blind every year, half of them dying within 12 months of losing their sight).

World Hunger Education Service, 2009. “World Hunger Facts, 2009.” February 15. Pp. 1-5.

http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts202002.htm. Accessed July 31, 2009.

I am indebted to the World Hunger Education Service for first bringing to my attention, through this article, most of the figures on Vitamin A deficiency which I quote.

(The FAO estimate is based on statistical aggregates. The FAO looks at a country’s income level and income distribution, and uses this information to estimate how many people receive such a low level of income that they are malnourished. It is not an estimate based on seeing to what extent actual people are malnourished, and projecting from there, as would be done by survey sampling. It has been argued that the FAO approach is not sufficient to give accurate estimates of malnutrition).

***