Girl with 8 limbs faces surgery.

This child had a "co-joined, parasitic" twin, and was born with one head, one torso, and eight limbs. Citizens in her small village in India thought her the "goddess incarnate" and built a temple for her.

She is in Bangalore right now, having a 14 hour surgery with 36 surgeons on board to try to correct the condition.

:wow:

http://www.charter.net/video/?&vendid=35&vid=127608

Sorry if this is a dupe.

Is is just me, or do these really bizarre birth defects always seem to come out of India? What's the deal with that? Something in the water?

taken care of in modern countries. In the US my guess the pregnancy would have been terminated pretty early on.

Specifically, India. Anytime anyone's born with two heads, three balls or eight arms, it always seems to happen there. Maybe it's just the fact that India has more international press than most third-world countries that lack prenatal care. I dunno.

I believe Kestrel is correct in the estimate that many women in third world countries or simply isolated regions are affected more often simply because doctors are scarce. However, the possibility that there are chemicals in the water supply is always there--fucking corporations move into places where they're not bound by laws and restrictions, and pollute the water quietly with horrible things. We've even seen it here--Love Canal is one of the most widely known cautionary tales.

The Ganges, the holy river of the Hindu faith, is now little more than a toxic waste dump.

Campaign to Hold Coca-Cola Accountable

http://www.indiaresource.org/campaigns/coke/index.html

Coca-Cola Crisis in India

Communities across India are under assault from Coca-Cola practices in the country.

A pattern has emerged as a result of Coca-Cola's bottling operations in India.

* Communities across India living around Coca-Cola's bottling plants are experiencing severe water shortages, directly as a result of Coca-Cola's massive extraction of water from the common groundwater resource. The wells have run dry and the hand water pumps do not work any more. Studies, including one by the Central Ground Water Board in India, have confirmed the significant depletion of the water table.

* When the water is extracted from the common groundwater resource by digging deeper, the water smells and tastes strange. Coca-Cola has been indiscriminately discharging its waste water into the fields around its plant and sometimes into rivers, including the Ganges, in the area. The result has been that the groundwater has been polluted as well as the soil. Public health authorities have posted signs around wells and hand pumps advising the community that the water is unfit for human consumption.

* In two communities, Plachimada and Mehdiganj, Coca-Cola was distributing its solid waste to farmers in the area as "fertilizer". Tests conducted by the BBC found cadmium and lead in the waste, effectively making the waste toxic waste. Coca-Cola stopped the practice of distributing its toxic waste only when ordered to do so by the state government.

* Tests conducted by a variety of agencies, including the government of India, confirmed that Coca-Cola products contained high levels of pesticides, and as a result, the Parliament of India has banned the sale of Coca-Cola in its cafeteria. However, Coca-Cola not only continues to sell drinks laced with poisons in India (that could never be sold in the US and EU), it is also introducing new products in the Indian market. And as if selling drinks with DDT and other pesticides to Indians was not enough, one of Coca-Cola's latest bottling facilities to open in India, in Ballia, is located in an area with a severe contamination of arsenic in its groundwater.


Destroying Lives, Livelihoods and Communities

Water shortages, pollution of groundwater and soil, exposure to toxic waste and pesticides is having impacts of massive proportions in India. In a country where over 70% of the population makes a living related to agriculture, stealing the water and poisoning the water and soil is a sure recipe for disaster. Thousands of farmers in India have been affected by Coca-Cola's practices, and Coca-Cola is guilty of destroying the livelihoods of thousands of people in India. Unfortunately, we do not even know the extent of the damage as a result from exposure to the toxic waste and pesticides as these are long term problems. Most affected are the marginalized communities such as the Adivasis (Indigenous People's) and Dalits (formerly untouchables), as well as the low-income communities, landless agricultural workers and women. Taken in its entirety, that's a lot of people in India.

Coca-Cola is destroying the food security of the people of the land, and by stealing the water and poisoning the water and soil, it is also responsible for ensuring a life of misery for future generations to come.

More.............

In India and China, but can't afford decent medical care.
After the Bhopal Union Carbide Explosion and other assorted environmental disasters in that part of the world, I'm not surprised at the birth defects.

Lots of co-joined twins, specifically.

I haven't heard anything since this morning.

Her body absorbed the internal body parts of the twin.

The poor little thing. :( I hope she makes it.