A chronicle of the medical disaster in newspapers:
1986
MEDICAL TREATMENT FOR GAS-HIT WOMEN SOUGHT from Free Press 6/12/86. At a press conference doctors stressed that timely medical treatment for women, particularly pregnant was essential. They said the gas seemed to have affected women the most. There were complaints of various ailments, including stoppage of child movement in wombs. Apart from still births they had also seen deformed children being born due to the effects of the gas.
LUNG DAMAGE TO GAS VICTIMS LONG-TERM from Times of India 6/9/86. Studies prove that MIC-induced lung disease has a long-term course. Studies carried out by a team of doctors show that MIC has restricted the functioning of the lungs of the affected persons and caused secondary psychiatric abnormalities.
POINTLESS ARRESTS from Indian Express 13/9/86. The Madhya Pradesh arrested two voluntary workers, once again demonstrating its complete intolerance towards any legitimate questioning of its relief efforts for the gas-affected victims. The two men were found taking notes and taping a meeting of government doctors which had been announced in the press and thus was not a secret or closed-door meeting.
BERGMAN, 2 OTHERS BEING ‘HARASSED’ from Times of India 17/9/86. This is one of many stories in 1986 about the government’s harassment and persecution against relief workers and volunteers opposed to Union Carbide. It’s about the framing up of three relief workers under the “absurd” charge of violation of Official Secrets Act. One of the accused cycled from England to raise money for the gas victims and decided to stay on to help children. He was now being labeled as a spy. Two others who write for a monthly newspaper "Bhopal" had been accused of "illegally trespassing" and recording the meeting of Indian Council of Medical Research with local doctors to discuss the mode of treatment for the gas victims. Thirty one relief workers from different parts of the country had been charged under various offences.
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