New Research to Investigate Health Impacts of Pollution at Lake Tota: Interview with Primary Researcher Dr. Oscar Paipilla
For the greater part of the twentieth century, coal miners around the world trusted tiny yellow birds with their lives. From 1911 until 1986 in some places, canaries served as indicators of toxins in mine shafts, showing signs of exposure to deadly gases long before their human counterparts and allowing miners time to escape a similar fate [1] . Fortunately, most service canaries were outfitted with special oxygen tanks that allowed for their immediate revival in the case of toxic disaster. These days, our wild birds are not so lucky. “Canary in the coal mine” has since become a metaphor for a seemingly insignificant warning of serious danger. In the case of Lake Tota in the Colombian Andes, the canary in the coalmine could quite literally be the decline of bird populations, which may predict serious health issues for the lake’s human neighbors [2]. It is possible that some of these health impacts, such as higher rates of cancer and impaired neurological development, are already on t
