The lack of the necessary protection is a major issue with respect to pesticides. Cancer arises from contact with pesticides, chemicals used to kill insects or plants, to which Brazil is a world leader in consumption.

The farmer Atilio Marques da Rosa, 76, was riding his bicycle when he felt severe dizziness and fell in front of his house in Braga, a small town of less than 4,000 inhabitants in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul.

“The dizziness reappeared later, and tests showed that it was cancer,” says the son Osmar Marques da Rosa, 55, who is also a farmer.

Atilio was diagnosed a year ago with a tumor in the head located between the brain and eyes.Because of the disease, no longer he works at his small farm, which produces corn and cassava.

For him, the cancer originates in contact with pesticides, chemicals used to kill insects or plants to which Brazil is a world leader in consumption since 2009.

“My father long accused the business of poison. Never been used, but the neighboring farms always spray the soy with plane and everything , ” says Osmar.

The northwest, where Atilio lives, is a national zone increased use of pesticides, according to a map of the Laboratory of USP, drawn from the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics).

Experts addressing the problem at the local, state that there is no doubt about the relationship between poison and disease.

“Several studies indicate a relationship of pesticides with cancer,” says oncologist Fabio Franke, coordinator of the Center of High Complexity in Oncology (CACON) Hospital of Charity of Ijuí, which serves 120 municipalities.

The Glyphosate is the most widely used pesticide in the country, and manufactured by Monsanto, which rejects the ratio of use of the product with the disease.

The company says it is “one of the most used in the world for over 40 years and in over 160 countries herbicides” and that “no association of glyphosate with these diseases is supported by toxicology tests, experiments or observations” .

Sindiveg (National Union of Products for plant protection), which represents pesticide manufacturers, which refers to the question of the BBC Brazil to Andef (National Association of Plant Protection), is mainly for them.

In a statement, Andef states that “any chemical substance synthesized in the laboratory or even those found in nature, can be considered toxic,” and that the health risks depend on exposure conditions “which include: dose (amount of ingestion or contact), time, frequency, etc. “.

Fabio Franke, coordinator of the Center of High Complexity in Oncology (CACON) sees a direct link between pesticides and cáncer.Uno of the main problems is that most workers do not follow the technical instructions for handling substances.

“We always ask if use protection if they use computers. But serve people mostly poor. Since joining costs a lot to buy masks, gloves, goggles. They are exposed,” says Emilia Barcelos Nascimento, volunteer League women Against Cancer Ijuí.

Anderson Scheifler, social worker association (Aapecan), confirms: “We have the resume of these people who report a history of excessive use of pesticides and, in most cases, without using protection.”

‘Alarming epidemic’

A study conducted at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) compared the number of deaths from the micro-region of Ijuí with another epidemic in the state and in the country between 1979 and 2003 cancer and found that the mortality rate Local area exceeds both the gaucho, which is already high, and national levels.

According to the Inca (National Cancer Institute), Rio Grande do Sul is the state with the highest rate of mortality of the disease. In 2013, there were 186.11 140.54 deaths of men and women, for every 100 thousand inhabitants of each sex.

The index is also higher than the second-placed Paraná (137.60 men) and Rio de Janeiro (118.89 women).

The state is also a leader in estimated new cases of cancer this year, also developed by Inca – 588.45 451.89 men and women per 100,000 persons of each sex.

In 2014, 17,500 people died of cancer in gaucho lands – across the country were 195,000 deaths.

Each year, about 3,600 new patients are treated in the unit coordinated by Franke. There are 23 thousand people. Of these, 22,000 are covered by the NHS (National Health Service) – public funds disbursed about US $ 12 million per year for treatments.

According to the oncologist, most patients come from rural areas, but the problem may be even greater, since the harmful effects of pesticides not only occur by direct exposure at work in the field, but also through food, water pollution and air.

“If these numbers were from patients with dengue or even a simple flu, I have no doubt that the situation would be treated as the most alarming epidemic, with the decree of public emergency and all. But is cancer. There is a strange silence about this reality, “says promoter Nilton Santos Kasctin, the prosecutor of the city of Catuípe.

“Thousands of people die from cancer due to pesticides,” he adds, but according to Andef, “the field of crop protection shows the degree of regulation strictest in the world.” More than 1,100 people died from pesticide poisoning in the country in 8 years

The marketing of pesticides increased 155% in ten years in Brazil, say the sustainable development indicators (IDS), the IBGE study last year – between 2002 and 2012, use increased from 2.7 to 6.9 kilograms per kilograms per hectare hectare.

The number is alarming, especially since 64.1% of poisons applied in 2012 is considered dangerous and very dangerous 27.7%, according to IBGE.

The Inca is one of the organs that are officially positioned “against current practices of pesticide use in Brazil” and “highlights the risks to health, especially in the causes of cancer.”

As a solution, it is recommended at the end of the aerial spraying of poisons, tax exemption for the marketing of products of agriculture ecological and alentanla no longer using pesticides to grow food.

Sarpa Marcia Campos Mello, a researcher at the institute and author of “Pack Abrasco – Impacts of pesticides on health , ” says the most used in Brazil pesticides are based on glyphosate – sold under the name Roundup and manufactured by Monsanto.

According to her, the glyphosate is linked to breast and prostate cancers and lymphoma and other genetic mutations.

“The World Health Organization (WHO) states that 80% of cancer cases are attributed to exposure to chemical agents. If pesticides are also these agents, which has already been tested, we have to reduce or ban these products completely, “he argues.

Monsanto, however, rejects the view. When contacted by the BBC Brazil, the company said that the registration of glyphosate in the European Union was renewed for 18 months in June.

The renovation, however, was not without controversy. The original intention was that the renovation was 15 years. France, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands were against. One reason is the recent classification of the Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organization, which has classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”