Recent mass arsenic poisoning of ground water in Bangladesh has been declared the “worst national disaster” Bangladesh has ever faced and further deemed a “state of emergency.” Apart from hundreds of deaths already reported, seventy million people are estimated to be at high risk of developing deadly arsenicosis symptoms, including symmetric hyperkeratosis of palms and soles, skin cancer, cancers of the kidney and lung, and diseases of the blood vessels. To fight against this pervasive public health disaster, the government of Bangladesh has joint collaboration with the World Bank, WHO, UNICEF and various other international and national NGOs, which channeled millions of dollars to the local villages in Bangladesh for providing options for arsenic safe water. However, the majority of the options are found both technologically and culturally inappropriate, and thereby abandoned by the intended beneficiaries.

               In a broader framework, my interest is to understand how people perceive, explain, and respond to newly emerging diseases. Precisely, being driven by such inquisition, I have taken up Arsenicosis as a domain of analysis to understand how people affected by arsenic poisoning perceive, explain, and respond to this outbreak of which they were unexposed before. Drawing particularly on ethnographic research conducted over a year among the rural people of Southwestern Bangladesh, I analyze arsenicosis as an illness within the specific socio-cultural context of rural Bangladeshi health beliefs and practices. The examination of the labels, etiologies, and symptoms applied to explain this disease reveals a major gap in perceiving arsenicosis by different actors: the arsenicosis patients, Biomedical doctors, Alternative practitioners, Public health officials and NGOs. Thus, I further analyze how the beliefs and perceptions of the actual patients shape health-seeking processes and response to mitigating efforts offered by many stakeholders in Bangladesh. My paper also provides a critical examination of the role and responsibilities of local, national, and international organizations involved in fighting against pervasive arsenicosis and their relationship with the community people through illuminating the political economic nature of this disease.