Alappuzha: Othalanga or Cerbera odollam received international media attention after it took the life of Sports Authorities of India (SAI) athlete Aparna Ramabhadran and left three others battling for their life recently. Washington Post ran a report “The Brutal Harvest of India’s ‘Suicide Tree’” a day after the death on May 7.
Odollam tree widely grows in Kerala’s marshy areas but it is relatively unknown to Western doctors, chemists, analysts and even coroners or forensic scientists. The report says the toxic plant is responsible for about 50 per cent of the plant poisoning cases and 10 percent of the all poisoning in Kerala.
On July 22, 2012, seven girls of Poruvazhi Govt HSS in Kollam district attempted suicide by eating it. A 2004 study ‘Cerbera Odollam: A 'Suicide Tree'...." by a three-member team led by Yvan Gaillard of France's Laboratory of Analytical Toxicology found it responsible for roughly a death per week in Kerala.
Researchers say it is the deadliest of the toxic plants and between 70 and 75 percent of the suicide victims were women. Another study published in international journals estimated the annual Odollam deaths between 11 and 103.
Double that number fail to die after eating the fruit that stops the heart. But no government agencies, voluntary organisations or local bodies have made any attempt to prevent them. Even countries where it does not grow naturally are vulnerable because the Asian diaspora could bring them there.
“Typically it’s used to produce rat poison and deodorant. In humans the chemical disrupts the heartbeat and can cause the heart to stop entirely. There is no real antidote,” said Dr Sairu Philip, an associate professor of community medicine at the Medical College here.
