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{
    "id": 928651,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/928651/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 455,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Ali",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "research and co-ordination, financing and partnership with foreign and national organizations. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, when we talk of prevention of cancer, as we have been told by several Members who contributed, you might not even know what causes cancer. Somebody said this morning that we are behaving like in the 1990s, when people were talking about HIV/AIDS. Everybody was afraid of it. However, the problem has now become cancer. At least in the case of HIV/AIDS, we are told that it is sexually transmitted; or that it is caused by blood transfusion. However, with cancer, we do not even know the cause. We have heard people talk of carcinogenic things. I remember, in 1997 in Wajir during the rains, all the animals started dying and the people started having diarrhea. Then the Rift Valley Fever came about, and we did not know anything about it before then. If you asked the nomads there about the history of how this disease came about, they would tell you about a place along the Merti Aquifer, where some people came and dumped some things. These people claimed that they were looking for oil, and dug wells. During the day, they would come with sealed drums. At during the night, all the locals were told to get away and those things were dumped inside the wells. The same story happened in the Chalbi and Marsabit. That is why we are told that the number of cancer cases have increased abruptly from those times. In Wajir, every other person who has cancer suffers from throat cancer. People attribute it to hot tea, but we have been drinking hot tea for so many years. Why now? Others attribute the cancer to miraa ; but our people have been chewing miraa all along, why now? I remember as a first timer in 1998, I asked a question, because there was a French company associated to that issue. I did not get any proper answer up to this time. As Sen. Wetangula said, there are issues of dumping of foreign and toxic substances, especially in black Africa. It has happened in Wajir and Marsabit counties. Consequently, the water flows downhill from Marsabit to Wajir, and into the Indian Ocean. We are even told that any animal that eats the grass that grows around the area where the dumping was done dies."
}