Opinion

Why hide the truth about CKDu?

Published

5 years ago

2021/08/30

Sahan Weerasooriya

By Dr PARAKRAMA WAIDYANATHA

An open letter to the new Minister of Health

The chronic kidney disease (CKDu) has been a major non-communicable disease prevalent essentially among the Rajarata’s agricultural communities in the last three decades that had, on average, killed several thousand people annually. The disease aetiology is now known, with a high degree of certainty to be hard water in dug wells on high ground contaminated with fluoride. Because it largely affected the farming families, agro-chemicals were justifiably suspected as the cause although without evidence; and many, especially the ignorant politicians, including several key ministers without knowing the facts of the matter, have blamed agrochemicals.

In fact, the term wasa visa krushikarmaya (toxic- agriculture) was coined on conventional agriculture largely because of the misinformation. Ridiculous boards displaying that fruits and vegetables sold in wayside shops are ‘toxin-free’ have been a common sight. The shopkeeper hardly knows the origin of the produce!

Then, there was the much-hyped ‘toxin-free agriculture” or organic farming drive of the Yahapalana government, led by the then President and Ven. Ratana, which again was on the premise that agrochemicals are the cause of the disease. It was, however, a total failure. And it would appear that the current President too, rushed to organic farming with the misinformed judgment that agrochemicals are the cause of CKDu, and probably also of other non-communicable ones, although there has been no evidence for it! He should have consulted the scientists and academics in the relevant fields before rushing to the decision.

However, the new Finance Minister has, in a recent gazette notification, dated 31st July 2021, claimed to be published in order to “regulate the importation of chelated minerals and micronutrients” which were previously banned, has also ‘surreptitiously’ reverted the Presidential decision; allowing imports of virtually all straight chemical fertilizers and mixtures thereof, but on license! So, hopefully, farmers should have access to chemical fertilisers for the coming Maha season!

Be all that as they may, the writer’s concern is that despite the overwhelming research, as also supportive numerical evidence the Health Ministry/Department has been generating on the prevalence of CKD, through a broad surveillance with nationwide sentinel sites that has also supported the observation that drinking water quality is the major cause of the disease, it has hitherto made no formal pronouncement on the disease causation. Regrettably, neither the former Health Minister nor the Agriculture Minister seem to be aware of this fact, from the utterances they have made recently in Parliament and outside. In fact, both of them were seen yelling in Parliament, some days ago, that the cause for the kidney disease is agrochemicals! Further, at a meeting with the farmers some weeks ago, the Agriculture Minister exclaimed that the government has rushed into organic farming to save the kidneys of farmers!

Mr. Minister, please be aware of the following facts and take necessary action to clear the myth in the minds of the President, ministers and other authorities, that agrochemicals are the cause of CKDu, the number one non-communicable in the country:

The scientific and medical community have developed an understanding of the origins of this chronic disease. Steps to control it have shown increasing success as the numbers stricken by the disease have decreased since 2016, following supply of clean drinking water to the residents of the endemic areas. And it is now critically important that people of all affected areas are provided with good quality drinking water. Apparently, when the Yapahalana authorities then “flogging the dead agrochemical horse” came to learn that polluted water was the cause of the disease, rumour was doing the rounds, that the authorities did not want people told about it for fear of an outcry for quality water!

Research by at least five groups and many individuals, local and foreign, have shown that the disease is caused by the consumption of water from wells containing hard water and fluoride, found in geological formations known as Regolith aquifers that hold the water in the relevant dry zone areas. People who were settled rapidly during the Accelerated Mahaweli Programme on higher ground in the late 1970s, had to dig shallow wells or tube wells for their water supply. Estimates reveal that there are some 176,000 such wells in the Rajarata! CKDu is found essentially in villages drinking water from such wells. Residents who get their water from agricultural canals, rivers or reservoirs DO NOT CONTAMINATE CKD, whereas one would have expected them to do so if agrochemicals were the cause of the disease. Please see the attached graph (Fig. 1) from a publication by none other than Dr Asanga Ranasinghe, Coordinator of the CKDu Programme, Ministry of Health and others (BMC Nephropathy, Aug 2019) that reveal a sharp drop in the number of patients in the two most CKD affected districts of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa. This was a consequence of provision of safe drinking water, and in fact the people themselves in the affected areas realised that polluted water was the cause of the disease, and not drinking it. Further, the Table 1 below compiled from the data of 2018 Annual Health Bulletin (page 70), also confirm a sharp decline in the increase in patient numbers from 52% between 2014 and 2016 to just 12% between 2016 and 2018, which should essentially be a consequence of drinking good quality water. There is no other evidence to explain this prominent decline.

Sadly, however, the 2019 Annual Health Bulletin does not carry any information on the CKDu status, despite there being a nationwide Sentinel Survey of patient numbers; and the 2020 Annual Health Bulletin too has not been published to date! Why are the health authorities so negligent about the number one non-communicable disease in the country! Table 1

3. There is CKDu in areas like Mullaitivu where no agro-chemicals whatsoever have been used due to the Eelam wars. So it is now amply evident that residents who drink hard water rich in fluoride contract CKDu, but not those who drink water from streams, reservoirs and wells in the planes.

No CKDu is found in the Hill Country (vegetable and tea cultivation) and in most other areas such as Kalpitiya (vegetable cultivation) where agrochemicals are used much more heavily than in the Rajarata.

The WHO Report, 2013, concluded, amongst other things, that some CKDu patients secreted pesticide residues above the reference (permissible) levels, but did not refer to the pesticide residue status in the urine of the control subjects (from Hambantota) in the trial! Our subsequent analysis of the pesticide residue raw data, revealed that the numbers of subjects with urine pesticide levels were two to three times higher from the non-CKD (Control) area than among the CKD patients (See Table 2). Why did the WHO Report omit this critically important control data? Referring to pesticides, the Report merely stated that some CKDu patients had residues of some pesticides above reference limits! Was it to give the impression that pesticides were probably the cause? However, an International Expert Consultation held in 2018 on CKDu in Colombo, concluded that there is no evidence to implicate agrochemicals in the causation of the disease.

Several ministers and most importantly even the President of the GMOA, Dr Padeniya have been repeatedly claiming that Sri Lanka is the country consuming the highest quantities of agrochemicals in the world. However, the published data of the World Bank (see Table 3) reveals that in this part of the world, we are the country consuming the lowest amount of fertiliser and the second lowest amount of pesticide per unit area!

In conclusion, the disease is evidently caused by consuming naturally contaminated well water. It has nothing to do with fertilisers or pesticides. The disease is prevented by supplying clean water to the endemic villages. This has been done largely by the distribution of rain-water collection tanks, and by the installation of reverse-osmosis water filtration plants by benevolent donors. Moreover, people in the affected areas are now aware of the cause of the disease and are taking preventive measures themselves, as evident from the data.

Please bring this information to the attention of the President and other authorities, so that vital national decisions are based on facts, and not myths!

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Opinion

Shutting roof top solar panels – a crime

Published

9 hours ago

2026/04/20

Thilina Walpola

The Island newspaper’s lead news item on the 12th of April 2026 was on the CEB request to shut down rooftop solar power during the low demand periods. Their argument is that rooftop solar panels produce about 300 MW power during the day and there is no procedure to balance the grid with such a load.

We as well as a large academic and industrial consortium members have been trying to promote solar energy as a viable and sustainable power source since the early 1990’s. We formed the Solar Energy Society and made representations to Government politicians about the need to have solar power generation. This continuous promotional work contributed to the rapid increase in PV solar companies from three in the early 1990’s to over 650 active PV solar companies established today in the country. These companies have created tens of thousands of high-quality jobs, as well as moving in the right direction for sustainable development.

However, all these efforts appear to have been in vain since the CEB policy makers have continuously rejected solar energy as a viable alternative. Their power generation plans at that time did not include solar energy at all but only relied on imported coal power plants and diesel power generation. Even at the meetings where CEB senior staff were present, we emphasised the importance of installation of battery storage facilities and grid balancing for which they have done nothing at all over the past three decades. Now they have grudgingly accepted the need to include solar energy, which was an election promise of the present government. The government policy is that Sri Lanka should go for renewables to satisfy 70% of its energy needs by 2030 and soon move towards the green hydrogen technology by using solar and wind energy.

The question is why the diesel generators and hydropower stations cannot be shut off one by one to accommodate the solar power generated during the daytime. Unlike a coal-fired plant, diesel generators and hydro power plants can be shut off in a relatively shorter period of time. Norochchalai Lakvijaya power plant produces around 900 MW of power while the total country requirement is 2500 MW on a daily basis. The remainder is provided by diesel generators, hydro and other renewable energy sources.

The need for work to achieve this goal of grid balancing should be the primary responsibility of the CEB. Modern grid balancing systems are in operation in countries such as Germany where around 56% of its energy come from renewable sources. They also plan to increase this to reach 80% of the energy required through renewables by 2030. Our CEB is hell bent on diesel power plants. Who benefits from such emergency power purchases is anybody’s guess?

The Government and the CEB should realise that all roof top solar plants are privately financed through personal funds or bank loans with no financial burden on the Government. It is a crime to request them not to operate these solar panels and get the necessary credits for the power transmitted to the national grid. It appears that the results of CEB’s lack of grid balancing experience and unwillingness to learn over three decades have now passed to the privately-funded rooftop solar panel owners. It is unfortunate that the Government is not considering the contributions of ordinary individuals who provide clean power to the national grid at no cost to the Government. Over 150,000 rooftop solar panels owners are severely affected by these ruthless decisions by the CEB, and this will lead to the un-popularity of this new government in the end.

by Professors Oliver Ileperuma and I M Dharmadasa

Opinion

Nilanthi Jayasinghe – An Appreciation

Published

1 day ago

2026/04/19

Thilina Walpola

It was with shock that I realized that the article in the Sunday Island of April 5 about the winsome graduate gazing serenely at her surroundings was, in fact, an obituary about Nilanthi Jayasinghe, a former colleague who I had held in high esteem. I had lost touch with Nilanthi since my retirement and this news that she had passed away, saddened me deeply

I knew and had worked with Nilanthi – Mrs Jayasinghe as we used to call her – at the Open University of Sri Lanka in the 1990s. As Director, Operations, she was a figure that we as heads of academic departments, relied on; a central bastion of the complex structure that underpinned academic activities at Sri Lanka’s major distance education provider. Few people realize what it takes to provide distance education in an environment not geared to this form of teaching/learning – the volume of Information that has to be created, printed and delivered; the variety of timetables that have to be scheduled; the massive amount of continuous assessment assignments and tests that have to be prepared and sent out; the organization of a multitude of face-to face teaching sessions; the complex scheduling of examinations and tests – all this needed to be attended to for a student population of more than 20,000 and for 23 centres of study dotted across Sri Lanka.

It was an unenviable task but Nilanthi Jayasinghe with her flair for organization, handled it all with aplomb and a deep sense of commitment. If there were delays and inconclusive action on our part, she never reprimanded but would work with us to sort things out. Her work as Director, Operations brought her into contact with staff across the spectrum-from the Vice-Chancellor to the apprentice in the Open University’s Printing Press. Nilanthi treated everyone with dignity and as a result, was respected by all at the university. She was sensitive, kind-hearted, a good friend who would readily share problems and help to solve them. The year NIlanthi retired, I was out of the island. When I came back to the Open University, I felt bereft without the steadfast support of her stalwart presence .

The article in the ‘Sunday Island’ describes her life after retirement, looking after family members and enjoying the presence of a granddaughter.

After a lifetime of commitment to others, Nilanthi Jayasinghe truly deserved this happiness.

May she be blessed with peace.

Ryhana Raheem

Professor Emeritus
Open University of Sri Lanka.

Opinion

James Selvanathan Mather

Published

1 day ago

2026/04/19

Thilina Walpola

James Mather (Selvan to all of us) who passed away recently at the age of 95 was one of the leading Chartered Accountants in the country. He was the senior partner of Ernst and Young for long years, and the mentor for a generation of chartered accountants. He was confidante and adviser to many of the leading businessmen of his time. His career spanned over six decades. A man who never sought the limelight, he was very influential in Ceylon/Sri Lanka’s business world.

Selvan Mather was born in 1930 to a well-known Christian family in Jaffna. His father, Rev. James Mather was Head of the Methodist Church in Ceylon. Selvan was educated at Trinity College Kandy, and he had a life-long connection with the school. He entered the University of Ceylon in the late 1940s, at a time when Ivor Jennings was Vice-Chancellor.

He read economics and passed out with an honours degree. For short periods he was in the Department of Income Tax and with the newly established Central Bank of Ceylon. The Central Bank facilitated him to go to England to qualify as a chartered accountant. His two referees, when seeking admission to an accountancy firm in the U.K. were M.D.H. Jayawardena, then Minister of Finance and the Auditor General of Ceylon, L.A. Weerasinghe. Being a chartered accountant was a rare event those days.

On his return from England, his career was with Ernst and Young where he became senior partner. He was close advisor and confidante to many of the leading businessmen. He was admitted to its Hall of Fame by the Institute of Chartered Accountants.

To strike a personal note, I got to know him 50 years ago when he applied for a fellowship given by the Asian Productivity Organisation (APO) in Tokyo. I was in the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs at the time, and the Ministry was handling APO affairs in Colombo. He told me later that he enjoyed his time in Tokyo. From that time, we kept up a friendship with him and Nelun, which lasted 50 years.

My wife, Rukmal, and I lived in Windsor England, for about 25 years. During that time, Nelun and Selvan were regular visitors to England. I remember taking him for long walks in Windsor Great Park, and on the grounds of Eton College which were nearby. We went on long car tours in England covering the Cotswolds, the Peak districts and the Potteries. I remember celebrating Selvan’s 70th birthday in London at a Greek restaurant, along with his great friends, Nihal and Doreen Vitarana. Memories remain, although Selvan is no more.

In the last decades of his life we saw Nelun and him often. A few of us, Manik de Silva, Nihal and Srima Seneviratne and a few others met regulsrly for lunch. We will all miss Selvan who was mine of his life and times very much.

Selvan leaves his wife Nelun and three children and their husbands – Rohan, Shyamala and Indi, and Rehana and Akram. It was a close-knit family and they will miss him.

Leelananda De Silva.