Author: Monica Piccinini

Freelance journalist focused on environmental, health and human rights issues.

Climate Change – Inaction May Prove Fatal to Humanity

Monica Piccinini

22 Aug 2021

Humanity has been in denial for decades, avoiding the truth about the implications of its complex relationship with nature. A toxic, turbulent and abusive liaison based on constant exploitation. Eventually, a break up is imminent!

As human population numbers have grown and with it consumption, we have seen the correlated demand in areas of food, living space as well as demand for luxury items created by commerce. At the heart, there is a very basic human desire for ‘more’.  Populations across the world are now interconnected in a way few would imagine, therefore creating an environmental impact most choose to conveniently ignore. 

An individual in the Western Northern Hemisphere seeking a never ending supply of fresh exotic vegetables, fruit and meat from half way around the globe at an ever decreasing price. For all those products to be on the consumer’s plate, it will have passed through an incredibly efficient, yet troublesome system.

From high production farming techniques driving the destruction of natural flora, fauna and land exploitation, to the use of pesticides, distribution from one country to another by lorries, planes and ships with huge carbon footprints, all managed by profit oriented distribution companies operating on a global scale.  The simple desire of a consumer wanting more products at bargain costs has created a significant ecological footprint with dramatic consequences. 

The interconnections between our global systems and social fabrics are very sensitive and easily interrupted. The world has had a taste of such disruption with the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the even bigger issues of climate change and biodiversity loss are upon us and we can’t afford to turn a blind eye to, nor try to separate them, as they are all interconnected.

The reality is that the pace of destruction is faster than we had ever predicted. Unless we address the critical situation we have created, and put our house in order, we may be homeless and face a grim future.

“2021 must be the year to reconcile humanity with nature”, said António Guterres, the UN secretary general, in an address to the One Planet Summit of global leaders in Paris last January.

We have seen how much the emergence of a pandemic can cost us and how quickly it can affect businesses, the global economy, and our physical and mental health. Climate change is one of the primary drivers of biodiversity loss, which is a key driver of emerging infectious diseases. Investing in ecological measures that can help future pandemics is much lower than the cost of a pandemic.

One-fifth of the world’s countries are at risk of their natural ecosystems collapsing because of the destruction of their habitats and wildlife, according to Swiss Re. Food, air, clean water, and flood protection have already been damaged by human activity.

According to the OECD, the total economic value to society of biodiversity and ecosystem services is estimated to be as much as USD 140 trillion per year and over half of the world’s GDP (USD 44 trillion) is moderately or highly dependent on nature and its services.

The recently released 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, IPCC, is a stark warning that humanity will not be able to limit global warming, unless we take rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

The top major green house gas emitters in the world are China, United States, India and Russia. China, Brazil, Australia and Russia’s current energy policies will prompt to an astonishing 5C temperature rise.

At 1.5C of global warming, we will see significant and unprecedented changes to the weather across all regions, but at 2C of global warming, the results could be catastrophic and irreversible, with heat extremes, heavy precipitation, marine heat waves, reductions in Arctic sea ice, snow cover and permafrost, agricultural and ecological droughts.  

We have already seen the impact of climate change across the globe with fires, floods, draughts, hurricanes, etc. In Brazil, the worst drought in nearly a century, followed by extreme cold temperatures, has been reported, affecting heavily Brazil’s farming. Deforestation is considered as one of the main causes.  

As world population is predicted to increase to 9.7 billion by 2050, food demand will intensify, putting pressure on the land. We have already exploited more than a third of the world’s land area to crop and livestock production, affecting the lives of thousands of species as well as the land. At least 60% of the world’s agricultural area is dedicated to cattle ranching, making up to only 24% of the world’s meat consumption.

According to a projection by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, PBL, the area of land under agriculture could increase from 35% to 39% by 2050. Industrial agriculture is one such villain responsible for degradation of the land, water, and ecosystems, high green house gas emissions, biodiversity loss, hunger and nutrition deficiencies, as well as obesity and diet-related diseases.

“We are facing acute, interconnected crises – hunger, malnutrition, biodiversity loss, the climate crisis, growing inequality and poverty. What we need are real solutions, not more greenwashing from agribusiness. Real solutions – public regulation for agroecology and Food Sovereignty – require dismantling corporate power, redistributing resources, re-localising food systems and ensuring small scale producers have control. Food is a human right not a commodity”, said Kirtana Chandrasekaran, from Friends of the Earth International.

Global agribusiness giants not only control the market price farmers get, but also what we eat, not to mention their contribution to poor health, food waste, soil erosion and soil acidification due to the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, wildlife destruction, ground water pollution, disease outbreaks, death, hunger and food insecurity, deforestation and climate change. According to the Climate Land Use Alliance, commercial agriculture drives 71% of tropical deforestation, posing serious risks to our global forests and climate.

According to the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services, IPBES, half a million terrestrial species of animals and plants may already be doomed into extinction. Up to one fifth of wild species are at risk of extinction this century due to climate change. Over 25% of forests have been permanently cleared. Since 1970, the global abundance of vertebrates has declined by 68% and since 1700, 90% of global wetlands have been lost.

The degradation of our oceans, soil, rivers, corals, can take decades, if not centuries to recover, and in some cases this destruction may already be irreversible.

Governments across the globe have made many commitments with the intent to tackle climate change. The commitments included the 2011 deadline to decrease emissions by 4%, the 2015 deadline to decrease it by 5%, and the 2020 deadline with the promise to decrease emissions by 10% each year. It has been a total failure and they have missed every single deadline. In the meantime, global emissions keep increasing.

“We have to reduce emissions far more rapidly than we are today. We have to leave fossil fuels in the ground, we have to remove the green house gases we have already put into the atmosphere that are creating this crisis today and into the future, and then to buy time while we manage those two processes. Then we also need to refreeze the Arctic. I don’t think it’s ridiculous, we have at least half a dozen of processes we’ve been looking at (Marine Cloud Brightening Technique)…. We don’t have the time we need to reduce emissions…buying time becomes essential”, said Sir David King, Chair of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group (CCAG) at a Chanel 4 interview last July.

Humanity has to urgently re-think its relationship with nature. Not only we have the responsibility to address the current ecological crises we face, but also try to understand how we got here.

Will science and technology be able to solve the climate change and biodiversity loss crises?

“What people do about their ecology depends on what they think about themselves in relation to things around them. Human ecology is deeply conditioned by beliefs about our nature and destiny – that is, by religion…  More science and more technology are not going to get us out of the present ecologic crisis until we find a new religion, or rethink our old one.” – Lynn White’s 1967 article.

This is the time of serious commitment not only from our world leaders, but also from each one of us. It’s our responsibility to get involved and put pressure on our governments, businesses and policy makers across the world and demand total transparency and urgent action!

Humanity’s Historical Ties with Eugenics

Monica Piccinini

10 Aug 2021

In recent years, the world and its leading nation states, appear to have experienced a fundamental change in social thinking. Evidenced by the reversal of globalisation towards isolationism, the move away from political leadership towards populism, and the move away from truth towards the mass use of mis-information for political gain, control and power.

With these changes in social thinking, major democracies have seen the worrying rise of a series of consequential symptoms:  the far-right movement, white supremacy, widespread use of misinformation, discrimination, xenophobia, inequality, misogyny, homophobia, extremism, racism, denialism, and violence.

Is this fundamental change something new in society, or is it itself the result of actions and belief systems that originated in the distant past? An outstanding 2019 documentary on BBC4, “Eugenics: Science’s Greatest Scandal”, presented by science journalist and author, Angela Saini, and actor, presenter and activist, Adam Pearson, inspired my to write this piece.

Socially good intentions or not?

Eugenics (the word originated from the Greek for ‘good stock’ or ‘well born’), the term first used to describe a movement by Francis Galton, the British explorer and natural scientist, around the 1870’s, is the practice or advocacy of controlled selective breeding of human populations to improve the population’s genetic composition. It encouraged the most valuable people in society to procreate and discouraged it in those it considered less fit.

The world has perhaps unwittingly experienced ‘Eugenic’ ideals throughout its past 150-year history, with Eugenics featuring in some of the world’s most horrific historic events.

It appears that Eugenics continues to have an influence on policies being created by governments today and even more concerning is its resurgence within certain aspects of the scientific community.  Combined with recent technological advances in genetic science, the effects on the future of mankind could be both dramatic and irreversible.

Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, was a superb statistician (he discovered correlation and regression to the mean), also having contributed in the fields of meteorology, anthropology, geology, biology, psychology and psychometrics. He was highly inspired by Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” (1859) and dedicated his work into the study of inherited traits in human society. In Galton’s view, the best babies came from the intelligent and good-looking people.

It’s hard to know whether Galton’s work was malevolent at its core, however, eugenics laid the foundation for one of the world’s most horrific historic chapters, the Nazi genocidal project and sterilization programs across the world, as well as euthanasia programs and Aktion T4, colonialism, mass murder and racial oppression.

Recently, University College London (UCL) apologised publicly for having had a role in promoting eugenics in the past by having links to eugenicists like Galton. Francis Galton funded a professorship in eugenics at the university, the Francis Galton’s Laboratory for National Eugenics, where the focus was not only on disability, but also on race.

According to a recent Reuters report, the state of California has agreed to compensate all the citizens who were forcibly sterilized under old laws, aimed at people who were deemed unfit to have children between 1909 and 1979.

Atrocities influenced by eugenicists like Galton were committed around the world. In the early 1900’s, Germany’s imperial forces, called Schutztruppe, murdered around 80,000 indigenous people (Herero and Nama) in Southwest Africa (Namibia today), one of the first genocides of the 20th century. Medical experiments were performed where people were injected with tuberculosis and smallpox, and decapitated skulls were measured.

Galton’s protégé, Professor Karl Pearson, was an English mathematician and biostatistician and the first chair of national eugenics after Galton died. He was an anti-Semite and considered the Jewish population as physically and mentally inferior, and that the solution to the decay of the British population was to stop the Jewish immigration.

“If you want to know whether the lower races of man can evolve a higher type, I fear the only course is to leave them to fight it out among themselves, and even then the struggle for existence between individual and individual, between tribe and tribe, may not be supported by that physical selection due to a particular climate on which probably so much of the Aryan’s success depended.” – Karl Pearson (1901).

In 1910, Winston Churchill became Britain’s secretary of state and was also considered a strong eugenics advocate.

“I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place”, Churchill’s words in 1937 to the Palestine Royal Commission.

It’s interesting to point out that eugenics is still reflected in some parts of society today. One example of this is the 11-plus exams still being used in some English schools and a product of Cyril Burt’s work. Burt was an educational psychologist and professor at UCL, worked very closely with the British government. He believed that intelligence was innate and that children from rich parents scored better than poor children was mainly because their parents were more intelligent.

To this day, some schools in the UK still perform the 11-plus testing regime, a harsh and unfair experience for students aged as young as 11 and 12, and the results can be traumatic, as some of the students who do not perform well are asked to move schools.

Another famous name to enter the eugenics list was the well-known Marie Stopes, a feminist, author, women’s rights campaigner and trained paleobotonist. She opened Britain’s first birth control clinic. Stopes was also a eugenicist and advocate for controlled selective breeding, calling for the “hopelessly rotten and racially diseased” to be sterilised and opposed inter-racial marriage.

Stopes was married to Reginald Ruggles Gates, a Canadian anthropologist, botanist, geneticist and eugenicist, obsessed with skin colour. Gates believed African-Americans to be a mentally inferior race and that racial intermarriage was the cause of some disabilities.

Eugenics also influenced many sterilisation programs across the world. After WWII, sterilisation policies were carried out in many countries in order to improve racial purity. In 1975, pressured by the American government (Lyndon B. Johnson), Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi, with the help of her son Sanjay, embarked on a mass sterilisation program, considered as one of the most troubling human rights violation the country has ever experienced. As a result, by 1977, over 8 million people in India were sterilised.

Some politicians, scientists and academics across the world continue to value and support the eugenics thinking. In 1974, British senior conservative politician, Keith Joseph, said in a speech, “the balance of our population, our human stock is threatened”, meaning the poor were breeding too fast, and the danger was they were going to swamp everyone else.

“If we are not prepared to predict and intervene far more early then there are children who are growing up, in families which we know are dysfunctional, then the kids a few years down the line are going to be a menace to society”, said Tony Blair, Britain’s former prime minister.

In the UK, there are growing fears about new legislation being put in place after Brexit. An example of this is the recently introduced bill that would allow authorities to criminally prosecute and jail asylum seekers who are intercepted trying to enter the United Kingdom without permission for up to five years.

Many other countries across the world have supported and adopted the eugenics thinking, including Brazil. In the first half of the 20th century, Brazil debated on sterilisation of the “undesirables” to improve the race. Brazil did not pass any sterilisation law, however, in the 1920’s and 1030’s discussions on the subject were amongst doctors, intellectuals, politicians and eugenicists. During Getúlio Vargas government, new immigration policies were approved, preventing the entry of immigrants considered racially inferior. A sterilisation program was never implemented in Brazil, as it was considered a violation of the strong catholic tradition in the country.

Recently, in an audio broadcast, a professor at the faculty of medicine at Federal University of São Paulo, Unifesp, mentioned that blacks and indigenous people were “culturally backward”, trying to explain the notion of pure race.

The GM Designer Babies…

As genetic science technology advances, doors may be open to new forms of high tech eugenics through human genome editing, like CRISPR (the technique that enables precise DNA editing developed by scientists Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A Doudna in 2012). This would create a non-accepting and more discriminatory society. The 1997 movie “Gattaca” exposed glimpses of what our world could look like if we take the wrong steps towards genetic modification, which will divide humanity against itself.

Nowadays, one has the option to select embryos without a faulty gene and implant it in the mother’s womb. Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis, PGD, is a technique that involves testing cell(s) from embryos created outside the body by IVF for a genetic disorder. Tests are carried out for the specific disorder that the embryos are known to be at significant risk of inheriting.

CRISPR pioneer and Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna said in her book on the subject of genome editing, “the power to control our species genetic future is awesome and terrifying. Deciding how to handle it may be the biggest challenge we have ever faced”. Doudna carried on saying, “we don’t have the ability to control the editing outcomes in a way that would be safe in embryos right now… It is very difficult to know how those edits will in fact affect the health outcomes of these kids“.

The World Health Organisation has recently released two new reports providing recommendations to help establish human genome editing as a tool for public health, with emphasis on safety, effectiveness and ethics.

“Human genome editing has the potential to advance our ability to treat and cure disease, but the full impact will only be realised if we deploy it for the benefit of all people, instead of fueling more health inequity between and within countries”, mentioned Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.

According to Stop Designer Babies, WHO’s reports on human genome editing spend many words to say nothing concrete and fail to recommend the obvious solution to the risks of unregulated creation of GM designer babies. The obvious solution, according to SDB, would be to ban on human germline genetic engineering altogether. Editing the human genome can lead to unintended consequences and can lead to an even more divided and unfair society.

In 2018, one specific event shocked the world when Chinese scientist He Jiankui announced he had altered the DNA of twin babies with the intent to prevent them from catching HIV. The result was Lulu and Nana, born not immune to HIV. Instead, they were both accidently given versions of CCR5 that are made up and do not exist in any other human genome in the world. Their genetic changes are still heritable and could be passed on to their children. Jiankui also broke the law by forging documents and misleading the babies’ parents about the risks involved. He Jiankui was sentenced to three years in jail for conducting “illegal medical practices”.

Clear signs of worldwide social, economic and political instability and division show that, as a society, we are swimming into very dangerous waters. The Covid-19 pandemic has only exacerbated existing issues in our society. Countries have retracted, adopting protectionist views and a colonial mentality, therefore creating more walls and discrimination.

It is essential for our society to embrace a compassionate, fair and ethical approach to decisions being made on how we are born as well as how we live our lives. There is an urgent need for a legislative framework to be set up by world leaders, with the objective to protect the most vulnerable ones in our society. We must make sure we do not commit the terrible crimes and mistakes made in the past. This will define the future of humanity.

Brazil: The Land of Impunity

Monica Piccinini

3 June 2021

“Impunity is safe when complicity is general”, once said Mariano José Pereira da Fonseca, Marquis of Maricá (1773-1848).

Visiting my family in the south of Brazil in my early teenage years was always an eventful trip, as I had the opportunity to spend time with my cousins and at the same time I had the freedom to go out with them without being questioned and monitored by my parents. My cousins had a very well established circle of friends; the children of families with influence, power and wealth.

One day, I was told that one of their friends had committed a terrible crime; killing his mother! I was in a state of shock and horror. His parents had been recently separated and his mother was known to be parading town with younger boyfriends, which made him extremely embarrassed. We were then told he had left town, only to return a few months later as if nothing had happened. No one ever questioned him nor mentioned the event. This is the very first time I realised that there were two different set of rules in Brazil, one for the powerful and wealthy, the other one for the remainder of the population. I soon learned the name for it: impunity!

Brazil is known for being a friendly and hospitable country.  That aspect of the culture also extends to idolising and accommodating criminals from all over the world, no exception, including former Nazis like the “Angel of Death”, Josef Mengele and Franz Stangl; the infamous English criminal who helped plan and carry out the Great Train Robbery of 1963, Ronnie Biggs; a convicted fugitive Italian drug lord, Rocco Morabito, recently arrested in Brazil; one of the most important members of “Cosa Nostra”, Tommaso Buscetta; amongst many others.

It is worth pointing out that international criminals are a minority in Brazil, as the country is best known to be the land of impunity, a “safe heaven” for all types of local criminal activities committed by “businessmen”, politicians, the police, terrorists and drug lords.

“Corruption is not a Brazilian invention, but impunity is something very much ours”, once said TV presenter Jô Soares.

Corruption, violence and impunity are interconnected and run through every part of Brazilian society. Corruption leads to violence and impunity, an infectious disease affecting the most powerful in the country.

Published at Portal Brasil Empresarial, there are a few examples of violence, the fight for power, money, and impunity that has run through Brazilian politics for a very long time.

In June 1967, deputies Nelson Carneiro and Estácio Souto Maior, father of pilot Nelson Piquet, drew their weapons and exchanged fire in the Chamber of Deputies. With a .38 caliber revolver, Nelson Carneiro shot Estácio Souto Maior, who despite being wounded, managed to retaliate.

Four years earlier, on December 4, 1963, senator Arnon de Mello, father of the current senator and former president Fernando Collor de Mello, shot at senator Silvestre Péricles, who laid down on the ground and dodged the shots. One of the shots hit senator José Kairala, who died hours later. Fernando Collor’s father reacted to the threats, and during a speech in the Senate, he shot Péricles Silvestre.

In 1929, when the Federal Chamber was still headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, a discussion between deputies Sousa Filho and Simões Lopes resulted in death. Simões Lopes, who was armed, fired two shots at Sousa Filho, who died on the spot.

In all three occasions, all those involved were acquitted and were never held to account for their actions.

Crime-solving rates in Brazil are one of the lowest in the world. The country has loose criminal laws with soft penalties being applied to serious crimes, including incongruous criminal procedural legislation, which allows criminals to go free unpunished. Seven out of ten homicides are not punished in Brazil.

“An absolutely inefficient criminal law, unable to reach anyone who earns more than five minimum wages, has led us to build a country of rich offenders, a country in which people live on bid rigging, active corruption, passive corruption, embezzlement, money laundering. This was no accident. It spreads across the country”, said Luís Roberto Barroso, a Brazilian law professor, jurist and current Justice of the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil.

Currently there are about 500 criminal cases in the Supreme Court, criminal proceedings as well as investigations, most of them against parliamentarians, mentioned Barroso at Jornal do Comércio.

Corruption and impunity work from top down in Brazil. The current president, Jair Bolsonaro, and his family have been involved in various criminal and corruption scandals, accused of money laundering, running a paramilitary death squad, and stealing from the population. These scandals often lack scrutiny and go unpunished.

Authorities in Brazil have always been a fortunate class. The privileged forum favours certain public authorities, unlike the majority of the population, encouraging white-collar crimes, corruption, and impunity to take place.

Developed countries usually have a few positions with privileged jurisdiction, but in Brazil over 45,000 authorities have this privilege. The factors that contribute to an individual or organisation to commit a crime is highly influenced by the possibility of it being tried and convicted by a justice system.

Impunity is also present in the police force in Brazil. The recent events of Jacarezinho in Rio de Janeiro, where an operation by the Civil Police that resulted in the deaths of 25 people, including one police officer, was news across the world. The victims were suspected of criminal activities, but no proof yet has been presented.

“It’s completely unacceptable that security forces keep committing grave human rights violations such as those that occurred in Jacarezinho today against residents of the favelas, who are mostly Black and live in poverty “, said Jurema Werneck, executive director of Amnesty International Brazil.

A study called “Labyrinthine Investigations”, published by Conectas, reveals that reports of violations committed by police officers tend to be ignored and shelved. A complex bureaucratic mechanism capable of silencing victims and protecting crimes committed by police officers was identified.

“The institutions work to justify the conduct of the police officers, to avoid investigation and punishment”, said Adilson Paes de Souza, a retired Military Police Lieutenant Colonel who has a PhD from the Institute of Psychology of USP (University of São Paulo).

“The existing doctrine in the Military Police is one of militarisation and war against the enemy, and this also spills over into the Civil Police, the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Judiciary. When the judge clear signs of torture that a detainee has suffered, the message is the following: this is the enemy, damn it, no standards and guarantees for him”, added Souza.

Brazil is like an orphan lacking protection and direction; a country being constantly fooled, beaten, controlled and exploited by ruthless greedy individuals and organisations. It has been left to fend for itself. It is bruised and traumatised. The criminals responsible are left unpunished, exempted of their heinous crimes.

Brazil’s Relationship With Violence

Monica Piccinini

19 May 2021

It was late 1970’s in the beautiful and peaceful coastal town of Praia da Costa, Southeastern Brazil, and I was on my way back home from school. I couldn’t fail to notice frantic shouting coming from a mini shopping mall about 200 meters away from where I was standing. I suddenly realised what was unfolding right in front of me, a distressed man firing his gun innumerous times at someone. In my entire life, I honestly can’t remember running as fast as I did then. This vivid memory of violence has stayed with me up to today.

Brazil is one of the most violent societies in the world!

Violence runs through Brazil’s entire history. It has become deeply engrained in the psyche of the population. A society has evolved where fear is an accepted part of every day life.

In order to understand this evolution you have to look back through time and the origins of Brazil. A culture of violence can first be seen in the young colonial period of Brazil (1540-1822), when the Portuguese Crown used violence against the indigenous people taking over their lands and imposing their white European culture and later during the period of enslavement of African peoples. This was followed by the Old Republic (1889-1930), in which the colonels used force and violence against rural populations in order to maintain political centrality and territorial unity.

Sadly the trail doesn’t stop there. A culture of violence continued in Brazil during the military dictatorship (1964-1985) with the legitimisation of state violence through persecutions, end of individual freedom, political repression, torture, exile, etc.

The troubled past has created a Brazil that has the 9th highest homicide rate in the world. Recently, the WHO published data revealing that Brazil has five times the world average of homicides.

According to data from the UN agency, deaths in Brazil reached 31.1 people per 100,000 habitants, compared to worldwide rate of 6.4 homicides for every 100,000 people. In Africa the rate is 10 deaths per 100,000, compared to just 3.3 per 100,000 in Europe.

In 2020, Brazil had the highest number of violent deaths in the world, 70,200 deaths, 12% of the total worldwide, surpassing violence in India, Syria, Nigeria and Venezuela.

This incredible headline number hides the suffering of many social groups within Brazil that face violence on an incredible scale. According to the Small Arms Survey, Brazil has the third highest number of deaths of women in the world. In 2018, a woman was murdered every two hours in the country.

A staggering 71.5% of people murdered in Brazil are black or brown, which evidences the correlation between violent death and high levels of social, race and economic inequality.

Children are also victims of violence. Between 2010 and 2020, at least 103,149 children and adolescent aged up to 19 years old died in Brazil, victims of aggression, according to a survey released by SBP, the Brazilian Society of Pediatrics. 2,000 of them were under 4 years old.

The list of affected groups within society goes on and on.  Probably the longest suffering group being the indigenous population of Brazil, who have faced violence from the very first day of colonial settlers landing on Brazil’s shores.

“In cities like Rio de Janeiro, gang violence, the excessive use of force by the State, a system of Justice corrupt criminality, the militarisation of certain areas and the social accumulation of violence – where violence generates more violence – is what marks the extremely high homicide rates”, according to Small Arms Survey.

We can’t deny the fact that violence in Brazil is chronic, a legacy that has become a systemic problem. One has to question the reasons for so much violence in one single country. But they are countless, complex and interconnected. 

Overall, the country has a flawed education system, a health system in desperate need of investment, serious issues of social exclusion, extreme racism, inequality, corrupt institutions, a failed judiciary system unable to maintain a rigorous protocol of punishment for violent crimes and unscrupulous and corrupt governance.

It has ineffective drug-fighting policies, serious arms and human trafficking issues and high circulation of weapons. Firearms accounted to 71% of crimes committed against the lives of Brazilians. From 1980 to 2016, nearly one million Brazilians died by gunshot wounds, according to Atlas of Violence.

With the levels of violence seen annually, it comes as no surprise that Brazil has one of the largest prison populations in the world, where more than 40% of prisoners have not yet been put on trial.

Sadly, there’s no quick fix to the issue of violence in Brazil. Violence is simply the symptom of so many deep problems. It will likely take generations of committed Brazilians to heal the patient. The support of the populist president, Jair Bolsonaro, with his radical and divisive policies, suggests this generation will not be one to start the healing process.

Bolsonaro’s Environmental Denialism

Monica Piccinini

6 May 2021

“A man proceeds towards his announced goal of the conquest of nature, he has written a depressing record of destruction, directed not only against the earth he inhabits but against the life that shares it with him”, Rachel Carson in her book “Silent Spring”, first published in 1962.

Since taking office in 2018, Brazil’s President, Jair Bolsonaro, and his environment minister, Ricardo de Aquino Salles, have been crystal clear about their views and objectives on environmental policies in Brazil.  Their words and actions have served to weaken and dismantle structures and mechanisms of the environmental protection laws, as well as cutting resources for the environment.

Bolsonaro’s policies have encouraged miners, land grabbers and illegal ranchers to cut down the forest for national development. Cattle ranching for industrial meat and soya farms have also contributed for the deforestation not only of the Amazon, but also the Cerrado region in central Brazil.

In May 2020, the government transferred responsibility for leading anti-deforestation efforts in the Amazon from environmental agencies to the armed forces, despite their lack of expertise and training.

Under Bolsonaro’s administration, an area of 2.7 million acres of the Amazon forest, seven times the size of London, was lost in a single year. The rainforest has suffered the worst deforestation for 12 years, according the INPE, Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research.

Scientists warn that if 5-8% more of the Amazon is lost to deforestation, it could reach a tipping point, meaning the rainforest will not be able to produce enough rain to sustain itself. Around 17-20% of the Amazon rainforest has already been destroyed.

Bolsonaro called NGOs working in the Amazon, a “cancer”, a group that he “can’t kill”, accusing them, without proof, of the destruction of the rainforest. He also blamed Indigenous people and small farmers for Amazon fires.

This week, a group of 40 UK firms threatened to stop sourcing products from Brazil over land reforms by signing an open letter calling on Brazil’s legislature to reject a bill, which could legitimise the private occupation of public land.

It is worth pointing out that 2 of the signatories in this letter include the firms Pilgrim’s UK and Moy Park. JBS S.A., a Brazilian company and one of the largest meat processing companies in the world, owns 80% of Pilgrim’s Pride. Moy Park is also owned by JBS, a company linked to the destruction of Brazil’s rainforest.

“Supermarkets need to go beyond their sustainability rhetoric by setting strict requirements for their suppliers, banning deforestation, monitoring their suppliers for compliance, and dropping contracts with the worst offenders like JBS,” said Mighty Earth.

The Amazon rainforest and the cerrado regions are not the only ones being threatened by Bolsonaro and his administration. Any institution or individual who opposes to Bolsonaro’s views and policies, have also been subject to intimidation and vicious attacks.

At the Climate Leaders Summit this year, Bolsonaro pledged to work with the Indigenous communities and protect the Amazon, but instead he has being accused of using intimidation tactics towards the indigenous peoples.

A week after the Climate Leaders Summit, two indigenous leaders and activists, Sônia Guajajara and Almir Narayamoga Surui, were both summoned for questioning by the federal police over allegations of defamation of Bolsonaro’s government.

“The persecution of this government is unacceptable and absurd. They will not silence us”, Guajajara said on an April 30 Twitter post.

Brazil’s environment minister, Ricardo Salles, has recently made a statement about rubber tapper leader, Chico Mendes, who was murdered in 1988, saying, “What difference does it make who Chico Mendes is at the moment?” Later on, Salles mentioned that he was unaware of who Chico Mendes was.

Chico Mendes’ initial aim was to protect the “seringueiras”, rubber tappers, in the Amazon region, that were exploited in large-scale projects and expansion of agribusiness in the country. He also helped establish the Worker’s Party (PT) in Brazil.

“Chico Mendes was a worker, activist, social leader, rubber tapper, parliamentarian, politically persecuted, an example of struggle. He gave his life for the environment and was cowardly murdered by the system. Respect Chico Mendes, minister”, wrote a parliamentarian on Twitter.

The agribusiness industry in Brazil is one of the most powerful lobby groups today, made up of the largely land-owning elites, the very ones Chico Mendes was fighting against. This is an example of how dangerous life can be for environmental activists in Brazil, and now more than ever.

Since 2019, many Brazilian scientists have also been under Bolsonaro’s attacks. He accused the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) for lying about data showing increase deforestation in the Amazon and then fired its director, physicist Ricardo Galvão, for defending the data.

According to Science magazine, online harassment appears to have escalated to physical attacks. Biologist Lucas Ferrante, a doctoral candidate at INPA, published articles in high-profile journals (including Science) criticising Bolsonaro’s environmental and health policies, his cellphone and social media accounts lit up with threatening messages.

In November 2020, Ferrante suffered an attack by a man driving an Uber vehicle he had hailed; the man told Ferrante he “needed to shut up” and attacked him with a pointy object. Since then, Ferrante is reluctant to leave his house and carries a cellphone that isn’t linked to his name.

One more concern for environmentalists in Brazil is Bolsonaro’s government’s release of a staggering 1,059 pesticide registrations since January 2019. One third have already been banned in the European Union due to the risks to health and the environment. A quarter of Brazilian municipalities have a mix of 27 pesticides in the water; 51% of the food contains pesticide residues.

Recently, there have been reports of pesticides being launched by plane over children and communities in Brazil in disputes over land. There are growing complaints from rural communities of symptoms of pesticide poisoning, said to originate from pesticide spraying from farmers’ airplanes.  It is said that the farmers want those communities to depart the land. The Brazilian state is not responding to the seriousness of the problem.

Illegal deforestation, destruction of the environment, invasion of indigenous territories, intimidation tactics and violence towards environmental activists, indigenous leaders and scientists, is abhorrent, unacceptable and must be addressed for the sake of Brazil and humanity. 

Brazil’s History Repeating Itself?

Monica Piccinini

30 Apr 2021

It is 1978 in beautiful sunny coastal city of Praia da Costa, southeastern Brazil, and President Geisel is in town. This is my very first memory as a child of Brazilian politics and dictatorship.

My mother grabs my hand, in the same way other mothers grabbed the hands of their children, and we all were rushed to the main city road.  One hand in our mother’s hand, the other waving a Brazilian flag frantically as Geisel passes by in his uniform followed by his entourage.

Unknown to us at the time, we were not only waving flags at Geisel, we were waving away our rights and accepting the unacceptable.  Many unaware of the conditions we were forced to live in. The 70’s was a turbulent time in the country, a time of restricted public liberties and violation of human rights, a culture of fear and repression, enforced on the population by a military junta.

Little did we know that Brazil would continue to be governed by the armed forces for seven more years.

Ernesto Geisel, an army general, President during the dictatorship, from 1974 to 1978, has been accused of authorising the torture, murder and disappearance of political prisoners. This information was included in a memo written in 1974 and released in 2018 by the director of the CIA, William Colby, addressed to Henry Kissinger, US secretary of state.  

In 1975, the death of journalist Vladimir Herzog, director-in-charge of the department at TV Cultura in São Paulo and culture editor for Visão magazine, marked a period of revolt in the country. Herzog was found dead by hanging in one of the cells of the Operations Centre for Internal Defense, known as DOI-CODI. Additionally, there were reports by the press about the disappearance and execution of countless members of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), and whoever opposed the regime.

In 2014, a final report was presented holding 377 people responsible for the crimes committed during the military regime, including 5 presidents.

According to a recent report published by Human Rights Watch, in May 2020, a federal court dismissed charges against people involved in the torture and killing of journalist Vladimir Herzog.

The criminals of human rights abuses from 1964 to 1985 dictatorship have been protected from justice by a 1979 amnesty law that the Supreme Court upheld in 2010, violating Brazil’s obligation under international law. Since 2010, federal prosecutors have charged about 60 former agents of the dictatorship with killings, kidnappings, among other crimes. Lower courts have dismissed most cases.

Memories of the dictatorship are still fresh and have not been forgotten by most Brazilians who lived during these unnerving, distressing and turbulent years. At the same time, Brazilians now have as a leader President Jair Bolsonaro, former military, who has repeatedly praised the dictatorship.

Bolsonaro has sought to minimise human rights violations during the years of dictatorship and has spread “misinformation” about the military regime, according to 5 United Nations rapporteurs.

Human rights have been violated in many areas during Bolsonaro’s administration. Since taking office, Bolsonaro, his allies, and government officials have been accused of lashing out at reporters over 400 times. In one instance, the federal police was asked by the government to investigate presumed defamation by two journalists and a cartoonist who criticised the president.

It is no secret the fact that Bolsonaro’s government has weakened environmental laws in Brazil, having transferred the responsibility for leading anti-deforestation efforts in the Amazon from environmental agencies to the armed forces. He also accused indigenous people and NGO’s of being responsible for the destruction of the rainforest, without any proof. Furthermore, the government also gave green light to criminal organisations engaging in illegal deforestation in the Amazon, who used intimidation and violence against forest defenders.

According to Human Rights Watch, the Bolsonaro administration has sabotaged environmental law enforcement agencies, falsely accused civil society organizations of environmental crimes, and undermined Indigenous rights. These policies have contributed to soaring deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon, an ecosystem vital for containing climate change.

Another point of concern is the recently sharp increase of violence in Brazil. In 2019, police killed a staggering 6,357 people, 80% of them were Black, one of the highest rates of police killings in the world. Police killings rose 6% in the first half of 2020 and homicides rose 7% during the same period.

According to the Human Rights Watch report, Bolsonaro’s government has also been accused of violating women’s and girl’s rights, environmental rights, sexual orientation and gender identity rights, migrants, refugees and asylum seekers rights, disability and children’s rights, amongst many others.

It is grim when one looks back in history and realises that Brazil remains a society of masters and slaves, continuously failing to invest in health, education, and tackle systemic corruption. Many other important issues, such as civil rights, discrimination, inequality, social justice, socioeconomic exclusion, political participation and environmental degradation continue to be deprioritised.

Examples from today and recent history should be a constant reminder that, unless the rotten trees are removed from their roots, the disease will continue to resurface and spread freely every four years for a very long time to come.

Brazil’s Looming Covid-19 Mutant Storm

Monica Piccinini

26 Apr 2021

Brazil’s tragic and growing covid-19 death toll is second only to the United States, according to Our World in Data, with the total number of lives lost to covid-19 close to 400,000. In terms of confirmed cases, Brazil ranks third globally, only behind the USA and India. 

Brazil faces the perfect storm of a unique combination of mutations and a Covid-19 denier President.

President Jair Bolsonaro criticized governors who took restrictive measures to try to contain the spread of the covid-19 in Brazil.

“The time is coming for Brazil to give a new cry for independence. Because we cannot admit that some pseudo-governors want to impose the dictatorship among you using the virus to subdue you, ” he said at an event in Bahia this week.

Bolsonaro has refused to promote mask wearing, defended the use of ineffective drugs such as chloroquine and invermectin.  He has rejected lockdown and self-distancing measures in order to curb the spread of the virus and failing to develop vaccination strategy in the country.

This has led to a health system that is totally overwhelmed. In many areas, ICU beds are no longer available and many people have died waiting days and even a week for a bed. There are so many dead that they are not being prepared properly for burial.

The situation in Brazil is beyond desperate, without a solution in sight and with no apparent desire from federal government to address the issues.  Hospitals are overcrowded and at their limits, with ICU bed occupancy rate having reached its limits across all major states.

It has been recorded the death of a large number of patients who never managed to get an ICU bed, having waited for days on end. One example was mother and daughter in Espírito Santo, both died waiting for an ICU bed for about a week, and this is not an isolated incident.

In Amapá, the exchange of bodies have been reported, as the system is currently unable to cope, leaving families traumatised.  “A room where they simply throw the bodies, because there isn’t even a morgue, all thrown together with the hospital waste, without any preparation. The patient dies, they take him to that room. As it stands, they only take the body and put it in the coffin, ”described the nephew of a victim who died on March 16. 

Brazil’s rampant and uncontrollable increase in infections has worried many experts, researchers and scientists across the world, with the sudden appearance of new strains of the virus, including the one identified recently in Belo Horizonte, which has 18 unknown mutations and similarities with more contagious variants from South Africa, the UK and Manaus.

“Brazil has its doors open to the virus and its mutations. Mutations are expected, as they happen in a random way and are the result of a bigger viral circulation.” Jesem Orellana, researcher and epidemiologist from Fiocruz (Oswaldo Cruz Foundation) explained. “The Federal Government has made countless mistakes, including the lack of governance with no experience of public health and health emergencies and the fact they did not take adequate precautions to contain the virus and made no effort to set out an efficient vaccination plan.”

Fiocruz mentioned that hospital supplies are at a critical level, and health professionals are physically and emotionally exhausted. The current context not only compromises care for cases Covid-19, but also other diseases and conditions, in addition to favor the increase in lack of health care, contributing to for excess mortality.

The scenes at hospitals in Brazil are catastrophic and it could get much worse, with intubation drugs running out in at least 30% of private hospitals across the country. Some hospitals are now having to dilute these drugs in order to make them last. Without these “intubation kits”, the risks involved when removing patients from respiratory support equipment increase considerably, it can be extremely painful and cause further health complications to the patients.

Another serious concern is the death rate amongst children and babies in Brazil. According to the Ministry of Health, between Feb 2020 and March 2021, 852 children up to the age of 9 years old and 518 babies under 1 year old died due to covid-19, but these are conservative numbers due to underreporting, as some doctors are still reluctant to test young children, with general concept that the virus does not affect the younger population.  

Doctor Fatima Marinho, who is also a senior adviser to the international health NGO Vital Strategies, estimates that the virus in fact killed 2,060 children under nine years old, including 1,302 babies.

Hospital Tacchini in Bento Gonçalves, Rio Grande do Sul, reported that in March there was a sharp increase of covid-19 critical patients admitted to their hospital, reaching 160% occupancy in their adult ICU.

When Tacchini was asked about the hospital’s biggest challenge, it pointed out to the management of “intubation kit”. With the scarcity of analgesics, sedatives and neuromuscular blockers in the Brazilian market, the hospital had to import these drugs directly. However, delivery of the cargo is not scheduled until May 15.  So far, they have been supplied with purchases in the national market in very small quantities and sporadic cargo sent by the federal government and distributed by the state government.

So far, none of the 2,000 professionals working at Tacchini Hospital have died from Covid-19 so far, this may be due to very strict measures being adopted by the hospital.

As for immunisation, Fiocruz researchers mentioned that Brazil is still far from the values ​​necessary for the country to have a situation of control. Vaccination in Brazil continues to advance, as the doses are made available. The country has vaccinated 13% of the population over 18 years old with the first dose and 3.68% with the second dose. Researchers from Fiocruz believe that only a national lockdown, with a minimum duration of two weeks, is capable of containing the progress of covid-19 in Brazil.

“There is a need for convergence and integration of the different powers of the Brazilian State (Executive, Legislative and Judiciary), as well as the different levels of government (municipal, state and federal), with the participation of companies, institutions and civil society organisations (of local to national level) to face this very critical and serious moment of the pandemic ”, Fiocruz researchers warn.

Attempts have been made by local governors and mayors in order to contain the spread of the virus by promoting social-distancing, mask-wearing and even local lockdowns.  However, their efforts are thwarted as any actions that restrict the movement of people can only happen if decreed by Bolsonaro, with approval of Congress.

Bolsonaro called governors as “poor” and “petty”, for defending measures in order to contain covid-19. “There is no way for you to live without a job and without an economy. And the mediocre ones lack this vision. São Paulo is a state that has suffered a lot from this”. “We hope that everything will return to normal as soon as possible. Only in this way can Brazil walk on its own legs”, he added.

On April 14, OAB, the Brazilian Bar Association, concluded that the president committed a crime of responsibility, which would lead to an impeachment process, as well as the complaint of a crime against humanity before the International Criminal Court.

Time will tell if the political hierarchy in Brazil have any appetite to remove Bolsonaro.  In the meantime, Brazilians continue to pay a very high price, their own lives, for Bolsonaro’s populist denialistic leadership style. Lessons have not been learned, as he continues to dismiss the pain and the suffering of his own people and ignore the increasing death toll, as the world watches by.

Toxic Brexit

Monica Piccinini

20 Mar 2021

Since Brexit, many questions have been raised regarding the dismantling of UK regulations and the weakening of pesticide standards via trade deals, which would mean that a large number of chemicals that have already been banned could be authorised for use in the UK. This could have a catastrophic impact on our health as well as the environment.

“The UK public has made it very clear that we don’t want post-Brexit trade deals to lead to any weakening of UK pesticide standards. It’s vital that the Government listens to consumers and protects their health by refusing to allow food imports which contain larger amounts of more toxic chemicals”, PAN UK, Pesticide Action Network, commented.

“If UK pesticide regulations are weakened as a result of EU exit, it could lead to a rise in pesticides in our food, farms and urban spaces, thereby increasing the exposure of UK citizens and our natural environment to their harmful impacts. Pesticides previously banned because of their impact on human health or the environment (such as bee-toxic neonicotinoids) could once again be allowed for use the UK”, PAN UK added.

Pesticides affect our environment, damaging ecosystems by disrupting natural food chains and pollination, contributing to soil degradation, contamination of ground water and destruction of wild life.

These chemicals are also the cause of serious health issues, considered probable carcinogen, capable of causing different types of cancer, including Leukaemia and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, are an endocrine disruptor (EDC’s), which interferes with hormone systems, therefore causing birth defects, developmental disorders, infertility and sexual function. In addition, they are considered a neurotoxin affecting nerve tissues and the nervous system. Children and expectant mothers are the most susceptible to the effects of pesticides.

If pesticide regulations are weakened as a result of Brexit, UK consumers could have no choice but to consume food containing high level of chemicals that are currently banned, due to trade deals with countries like the US, Australia, India and Brazil, where pesticide regulation is less rigorous. Post-Brexit pesticide regulations could include the approval of harmful chemicals such as asulam, glyphosate, neonicotinoids and chlorpyrifos, among others.

UK agriculture and farmers will also be directly affected by allowing crops grown more cheaply on a larger scale to be imported. This could lead to UK farmers having no option but to resort to the use of more pesticides domestically.

The UK and the EU follow the “hazard-based” approach to pesticide regulation, meaning that if a substance is judged to be dangerous and too harzadous to be used safely, then it should be banned. Other countries like the US and Australia work on a “risk-based” approach, meaning that if a pesticide is harmful to human health, then it might be banned while a risk-based is introduced with measures, such as the use of PPE for users or instructions not to spray the chemical in certain areas.

Food regulations in the US are much less stringent than those in the UK and EU. A potential trade deal with the US means great opportunity for foreign lobby groups, such as the US agrochemical industry, to put pressure on domestic regulators in order to approve even more chemicals, expanding the list of pesticides that are already in use in the country.

According to a Toxic Trade report published by PAN UK, Pesticide Action Network, and Sustain, American grapes are allowed to contain 1,000 more times the amount of the insecticide propargite than in the UK. This chemical has been linked to cancer and considered as a developmental and reproductive toxin. An Australian apple can contain 30 times the amount of buprofezin, an insect growth regulator and a possible carcinogen, than a UK apple. This is just an example of the issues the UK could be facing if deciding to weaken pesticide regulations.

A total of 33 organophosphates (synthetic compounds that are neurotoxic in humans) are permitted in Australia, 26 in the US and 4 in the UK and EU. Of a group of 7 active substances considered highly toxic to bees and pollinators, mostly neonicotinoids (harmful to bees, mammals, birds and fish), are banned in the UK, all but one are permitted in Australia and the US.

Over the last 50 years, the US has experienced pesticide resistance due to overuse, allowing the development of “super weeds”, forcing farmers to use greater quantities and a wider range of mixtures, causing the “cocktail effect”, which is significantly more harmful than using single chemicals.

According to PAN UK and Soil Association, pesticide mixtures have been associated with obesity and impaired liver function, even when the doses of individual chemicals are below the safety levels set by regulators. Several pieces of research conducted on human cells and tissues have highlighted that pesticide mixtures can lead to the creation of cancer cells and disruption of the endocrine system, among other health problems. The UK’s regulatory system continues to assess the safety of one chemical at a time, failing to account interactions between multiple chemicals.

As reported by BrasilWire, a joint committee was recently formed by Brazil and the United Kingdom where both countries will work together on issues related to trade in agricultural goods, envisaging potential future trade agreements. A document was signed between the UK’s Secretary of State for Environment, George Eustice, the UK’s Minister for Pacific and Environment, Zac Goldsmith, and Brazil’s Minister of Agriculture, Tereza Cristina, for the creation of a Joint Agriculture Committee (CCA) between both countries. Tereza Cristina is responsible for breaking a record and supporting the approval of 967 pesticides during the Bolsonaro’s administration.

Another worrying factor related to pesticides is poisonings. A recent study published by the BMC Pubic Health Journal report that pesticide poisonings have dramatically increased globally. There are about 385 million cases of acute poisonings each year, meaning that 44% of the global population working on farms are poisoned every year. 

“These numbers are shocking, but unsurprising”, says Dr. Keith Tyrell, Director of PAN UK. “The tragedy is that these poisonings are avoidable – safe and sustainable alternatives exist, and experience from countries like Sri Lanka shows that banning pesticides can be done at low cost with little or no impact on productivity”.

Towards the end of 2020, Qu Dongyo, the Director General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), announced his intention to develop a partnership with CropLife International (Bayer/Monsanto, Syngenta, Corteva, Basf and FMC), a collection of private agrochemical companies, which means that the pesticide industry may have a strong ally and the effects of this partnership could be devastating, especially for LMIC countries.

Since 2015, IARC, the WHO’s International Agency for Research and Cancer, declared Roundup’s active ingredient, glyphosate, as a possible human carcinogen. Since then, the manufacturer, Bayer/Monsanto, has been battling with thousands of lawsuits alleging that exposure to the company’s glyphosate-based products caused non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Germany has decided to implement glyphosate legislation and ban glyphosate by 2024. According to a Reuter’s report, German farmers will need to gradually reduce the use of glyphosate and stop using it completely by 2024.

“The exit from glyphosate is coming. Conservationists have been working toward this for a long time. Glyphosate kills everything that is green and takes away insects’ basis for life”, said Germany’s environment minister Svenja Schulze in a statement.

In January, the UK government authorised the emergency use of the chemical neonicotinoid thiamethoxam on sugar beet seeds, but has recently overturned its decision on the use of the chemical, which has been linked to the falling numbers of honeybees, wild bees and other pollinators.  One third of the food we consume rely on pollination mainly by bees.

Recently, Brussels diplomat, Michel Barnier threatened to suspend the Brexit deal if the UK ignores EU standards. One of the issues in question was pesticide regulation. He added that the UK would be stripped of its zero-tariff and zero-quota with the bloc if it lowers European standards.

“With our agreement, the UK can now export goods without quotas or tariffs to the EU. “However, he [Boris Johnson] announced his intention to deregulate in three areas: financial services, pesticides and working hours”, he added.

“How the UK chooses to govern pesticides will have profound implications for the health of citizens, the natural environment, and the future of UK farming”, said Sarah Haynes, collaboration coordinator at Pesticide Action Network UK.

At the beginning of March CHEM Trust, with more than 20 health and environment NGOs, wrote to UK ministers to urge the Government not to weaken plans for chemical regulations now we have left the EU. In the letter, CHEM Trust stressed that the industry’s proposals would “significantly reduce the ability of the regulator to take action to protect the environment and public and workers’ health from hazardous chemicals.”

In order to protect the environment and safeguard our health, the UK government must decrease the number of pesticides used in the country, avoid the weakening of regulations and at the same time develop sustainable agricultural practices, supporting farmers by adopting a nature-based IPM, Integrated Pest Management. This decision should not be taken lightly and the results will have an irreversible lifelong impact on all our lives and nature.

Populist Virus

Monica Piccinini

6 Feb 2021

Is President Jair Bolsonaro’s inadequate response to the COVID19 pandemic, with its resulting horrendous loss of Brazilian lives, a symptom of a much bigger Brazilian virus? 

A virus that has been contaminating Brazilian politics and its social fabric for decades.  The result being an erosion of trust, a belief that everyone is out for themselves, a breakdown of social cohesion, the net effect being the rise of populism.  A wave that Bolsonaro has ridden.

How did an ex-military, far right populist politician with extremist views manage to win the 2018 election in Brazil?

Since his election, Bolsonaro has seemingly actioned a strategy to create a culture of ‘denialism’ across all levels of Brazilian politics and society, a similar approach used by his friend and apparent role model, former US President, Donald J. Trump.  This denialism giving license to deny and set a ‘false truth’, which suits a politician’s own agenda.  In the early 2000’s, the term ‘spin doctor’ was common.  Politicians like Bolsonaro, Trump and many of their followers have taken that term to a new level.  No longer spinning a truth to reflect a different viewpoint, but now actively denying the truth and instead instilling a falsehood.

The start of the social and political virus can be seen in earlier times.  Matias Spektor, Associate Professor and Founder of the School of International Relations at FGV, Fundação Getulio Vargas, believes that perhaps, due to the high incidence of violence that started to rapidly increase in Brazil in 2017, reaching 64,000 homicides that year alone, combined with the lack of belief in a political system that continuously failed to provide good governance, incessant corruption scandals, high degree of inequality, as well as the fact that a newcomer who spoke a language that was reminiscent to a language spoken during the dictatorship (1964-1985) claiming he would end endemic corruption, loosen gun laws, give police force autonomy in order to fight violence, made him an ideal candidate for president at the time. He also mentioned that Bolsonaro may not be the cause of democracy decay in Brazil, but rather a symptom.

Perhaps the very populism that put Bolsonaro in to office in 2018, will be the force that removes him.  The very visible and real effects of the COVID 19 virus may actually cause the end of one strain of the social and political virus that has permeated Brazil for decades.

We can’t forget that 225,000 (as of February 2) Brazilians have lost their lives to Covid-19 so far, the second highest number of deaths in the world, and the numbers keep rising.

Brazil has been facing many crises due to the pandemic and a new covid-19 variant, initially detected in Manaus, and spreading ferociously across the country. Brazilians have a negligent president as a leader, who has constantly refused to take adequate measures in order to contain the spread of covid-19 and protect its population from further unnecessary deaths.

In the past few weeks, across many Brazilian states and across the world, Brazilians have gone out in the streets protesting against Bolsonaro’s leadership and requesting for his impeachment. Bolsonaro and his government may also face charges of genocide and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court for the way they handled the pandemic.

Recently, 63 requests for impeachment of the president were presented to Rodrigo Maia, speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, but unfortunately, on February 1, Maia’s last day in office, he took the decision and refused to open an impeachment case against Jair Bolsonaro. Maia was replaced by Arthur Lira, who is one of Bolsonaro’s allies. Lira faces charges of taking bribes in the Car Wash scandal and other probes.

“Jair Bolsonaro has gone beyond all limits and is in no condition to continue governing the destiny of more than 200 million Brazilians. In addition to committing crimes of responsibility since the first day he stepped in the Planalto Palace, the president acts irresponsibly and criminally during the coronavirus crisis “, explains Congresswoman Fernanda Melchionna on her official website and who was present in the impeachment request protocol in the Chamber.

A recent study and investigation by NGO Conectas Derechos Humanos and São Paulo University (USP), obtained by Spanish newspaper EL PAÍS, accuse Jair Bolsonaro of allowing Covid-19 to spread freely across Brazil.

“Our research has revealed the existence of an institutional strategy to spread the virus, promoted by the Brazilian government under the leadership of the President of the Republic.”

According to Luiz Henrique Mandetta, doctor and former health minister, who was dismissed by Bolsonaro in March last year due to a disagreement over the use of chloroquine and action guided by the World Health Organisation’s advice, this new variant could trigger a mega-pandemic in Brazil over the next two months.

“We had a new disease and a system with old problems. I had to protect this system and reorganise within a government environment extremely hostile to any reorganisation initiative,” said Mandetta, recalling that he chose to have direct communication with the population. “As there was no government campaign and the president did the opposite, I started to communicate with society so that it could build a line of defense”, he commented on his disagreements with Jair Bolsonaro.

During an interview at Manhattan Connection in January 27, Mandetta spoke about the five critical crises Brazil has been going through in the last year.

Mandetta mentioned that the first crisis took place when Bolsonaro decided to sabotage the prevention system. He dismissed the danger of covid-19 and called it “the sniffles”. Bolsonaro was firmly against the use of masks and social distancing measures. His refusal to act in order to contain the spread of the virus was an indication of his advocacy to herd immunity. “This is a neurosis. 70% of the population will catch the virus. There is nothing I can do. It’s madness”. Bolsonaro said in May last year.

The second crisis arose when Bolsonaro decided to ally with former US President, Donald Trump, and together they created a narrative with the exact same speech, defending the use of chloroquine, contaminating the treatment policy and undermining preventative measures. Bolsonaro mentions the use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for covid-19. His government was betting on the use of this drug to diminish the pandemic in the country, instead of establishing an adequate vaccination strategy.

“I have been talking about the use of hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of covid-19 for 40 days. The use of chloroquine is increasingly found to be effective”, said Bolsonaro outside Planalto Palace last April. Last October, he insisted on the issue saying “In Brazil, if you take chloroquine at the onset of the symptoms, you have 100% cure”.

Mandetta articulated that the lack of a testing system was Brazil’s third crisis. At the end of November, the newspaper “O Estado de S. Paulo” revealed that 7.1 million tests are in the ministry’s warehouse, that is, they were not sent to SUS (Brazil’s health care system) in the middle of a pandemic. Of the total stockpiled, 96% (about 6.86 million units) expired between December 2020 and January 2021.

The fourth crisis hit Brazil when Bolsonaro decided to turn his back on a key solution, a vaccination strategy, joining the anti-vaccine movement. Brazil’s vaccination program has not been short of mishaps and confusion, leaving its population lost and in despair.

Bolsonaro’s government failed to set up an efficient vaccination program, even with the fact that Brazil has a long history of successful vaccination campaigns and its state funded facilities are able to produce and distribute vaccines on a large scale.

According to Pfizer, Bolsonaro’s government missed the opportunity to order 70 million doses of the vaccine back in August with delivery in December 2020.

Astra Zeneca was Brazil’s main choice for its vaccination program. On June 27 2020, Brazil signed and agreement to start manufacturing the 30 million doses of the vaccine locally, by Fiocruz Institute. On August 31, Bolsonaro’s government signed another agreement with Astra Zeneca, this time to produce 100 million doses of the vaccine. On January 22, 2021, Astra Zeneca sent Brazil 2 million doses of the vaccine, sourced in India, as an emergency use.

Fiocruz and Butantan Institutes were expected to manufacture the Pfizer and Sinovac vaccines respectively, but due to lack of the active ingredients needed to make the vaccines, the project has been delayed until February/March 2021. This delay may have been the result of Bolsonaro’s open criticism to China.

On January 17, the National Health Surveillance Agency, Anvisa, authorised the emergency use of both the CoronaVac (developed by Chinese Sinovac in partnership with Butantan Institute) and the Astra Zeneca vaccines in Brazil. CoronaVac was the first covid vaccine shot administered in Brazil in January 17.

In less than one year, Brazil had three health ministers. Luiz Henrique Mandetta, doctor and politician, who trusted WHO guidelines and against the use of chloroquine, was dismissed by Bolsonaro. Nelson Teich, oncologist and health consultant, was appointed to Health Minister soon after his Mandetta’s departure. Teich was in power for less than one month and resigned in May 2020 due to a disagreement with Bolsonaro on topics such as the use of chloroquine and isolation measures.

Eduardo Pazuello, former Army General and no previous health experience, was appointed to health minister. At this point, it was clear that Bolsonaro’s government switched their vaccination strategy, betting on the use of hydroxychloroquine alone to fight Covid-19.

Bolsonaro announced publicly he would not take the vaccine himself and started a misinformation campaign about the vaccine’s terrible side effects.

“At Pfizer, it is very clear in the contract: we are not responsible for any side effects. If you become a chipanz … if you become an alligator, it’s your problem. I’m not going to talk about another animal here, not to mention bullshit. If you become Superman, if a beard is born in a woman or a man starts talking thinly, they have nothing to do with it. Or even worse, tampering with people’s immune systems. How can you compel someone to get a vaccine that has not completed its third trials yet?, said Bolsonaro in December last year.

As of February 1, Brazil vaccinated 2,051.29 million people, approximately 0.5% of the population.

According to Manddetta, the fifth crisis may be about to explode with the new covid variant from Manaus spreading across all states, which may create a “mega-epidemic”.

The recent events of Manaus, where people died asphyxiated due to lack of oxygen supplies and the collapse of the health system, could be replicated across the entire country.  The Ministry of Health pressured the Health Secretariat of Manaus to use anti-viral medications early in the treatment of Covid-19, such as chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, azithromycin, nitazoxanide, corticoid, zinc, vitamins, anticoagulant, rectal ozone and chlorine dioxide.

“Ladies, gentlemen, there is no other way out: we are no longer discussing whether this professional agrees or not. The federal and regional councils have already positioned themselves, the councils are in favor of early treatment, of clinical diagnosis”, said Pazuello during an interview in Manaus on January 11.

“The treatment must be immediate and the drugs must be made available immediately. The patient needs to take the medication and be accompanied by a doctor, no doubt about it ”, added Pazuello.

There is no question and it is clear that Bolsonaro and his government have failed Brazilians at so many levels, by lack of planning and action, as well as employing a denialism approach to a lethal and highly transmissible virus, which was left to spread freely through the entire population. Bolsonaro and his administration should carry the burden and consequences already visible and felt by most Brazilians. Unfortunately, the man hangs on to his position as fiercely as he can, without any signs of remorse. His decision to sacrifice life over the economy is unacceptable for most and may haunt him for many years to come.