Traditional medicine can reduce heavy-metal contamination: Phichit Governor
Thailand's most updated English news website, newspaper english, breaking news : The Nation
Phichit’s Governor Surachai Kanarsa has recommended the use of traditional detoxification measures to cure local residents affected by heavymetal contamination from a nearby gold mine.
Traditional medicine has proved effective in detoxifying some of the residents, he said, with the level of heavymetal contamination dropping after two weeks.
The recommendation was one of three measures suggested by the governor at a meeting with local authorities to alleviate the problem of contamination caused by Akara Resources, which operates gold mines in the province.
Other recommendations were to find other water sources outside the affected areas and provide villagers with water purifiers so that they could have clean drinking water. The governor proposed the import of organic vegetables to provide to villagers who could not eat their homegrown crops for fear of possible contamination.
Heavy metal substances have been identified in the blood samples of 401 villagers out of 723, according to the information provided by Central Institute of Forensic Science and Rangsit University.
A group of villagers submitted a petition to the prime minister seeking his help to solve the problems.
