ABSTRACT
During the early nineteenth century, one European visitor to Jamaica surveyed the land and used the term “red marly soil” to describe some of the mountainous areas. This chapter begins with a brief overview of the origins and mechanics of the bauxite industry in Jamaica. It explores the environmental impact of this industry. The chapter profiles Jamaica’s medical institutions and health problems, and demonstrates that, as the nation’s bauxite industry expanded, medical studies were emerging by clinical researchers in Jamaica that cast doubt on the tendency to assume black populations were less susceptible to diseases linked to environment and pollution. These diseases included lung diseases and cancers. A medical history hypothesis about the social impact of modern bauxite mining in Jamaica concerns a chemical found in red mud— sodium. However, the evidence of contamination of ground-water from red mud slurry raises interesting questions about environmental chemicals that are associated with elevated levels of hypertension and cardiovascular disease in Jamaica’s population.
