Marijuana crop field use

a study published in Neurology showed that farmers are more prone to Parkinson's disease than the general population, and pesticides may be blamed. The risk of developing the disease for farmers was 170 percent greater than that for non-farmers.

study in Brain Research, mice treated with paraquat showed decreased proteasome activities. Paraquat systemic administration of paraquat kills a subset of nigrostriatal dopaminergic neurons in mice. The greater amount of paraquat administered, the greater the number of neuronal cells lost.

renowned environmental toxin researcher, Beate R. Ritz, found that paraquat exposure dramatically increased the risk of Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's organizations in the national, state, and regional levels sent a letter to the EPA urging them to ban paraquat because of its substantial and demonstrated risks

manufactured + commercially available in 1962 and is employed for weed and grass control in a wide range of crops, such as peanuts, soybeans, potatoes, cotton, and sugarcane

prolonged, low-level inhalation of paraquat entailed a considerable risk of Parkinson’s disease in mice.

Representative Nydia Velasquez introduced the Protect Against Paraquat Act, whose purpose was to forbid the use of this herbicide in the country

MARCH - PAUL RAKOCZY, VS SYNGENTA CROP PROTECTION LLC, )
SYNGENTA AG, CHEVRON U.S.A. INC https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Rakoczy-v.-Syngenta.pdf

EPA determined that occupational exposure is the primary way people have come into contact with paraquat. Agricultural-related occupations are the primary groups at risk.

Farmers in the United States currently use over 8 million pounds of paraquat each.

Environmental Health Perspectives, a journal associated with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, found that exposure to paraquat increased the risk of Parkinson's disease by 250%.

A medical study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 2009 revealed that any exposure to paraquat within 1,600 feet of a home increases the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease by 75%.

Paraquat banned in European Union due to safety concerns resulting in ban in 32 countries

EPA reviewed over 70 articles covering the potential health risks of paraquat, such as Parkinson’s disease. Determined that “there is insufficient evidence to link registered paraquat products to any of the health outcomes investigated, including Parkinson’s disease, when used according to the label.”.

EPA proposed additional protections in October 2020 to better protect human health and the environment and to diminish the risks associated with paraquat usage.

The agency began its review of paraquat in 2017 and has until October 2022 to make a decision on its future use.

in Samoa from 1979 to 2001, 70 percent of suicides were by paraquat poisoning

1996-1997 In southern Trinidad, particularly in Penal, Debe from 1996 to 1997, 76 percent of suicides were by paraquat,

When a 2011 South Korean law completely banned paraquat in the country, death by pesticide plummeted 46%, contributing to the decrease of the overall suicide rate.[

Heylings found own version of Paraquat with emetic (Gramoxone Inteon) off the market

South Korea experienced a 10 percent decline in suicides after it banned paraquat in 2011,

In 1998–2007, the authors enrolled 368 incident PD cases and 341 population controls from the Central Valley of California in a case-control study. They generated estimates for maneb and paraquat exposures incurred between 1974 and 1999. Exposure to both pesticides within 500 m of the home increased PD risk by 75%.

Syngenta do their own study of Paraquat workers in the UK from 1961 and 1995. found a lower-than-expected rate of Parkinson’s, though its study relied on death certificates, which often underreport the disease.

Paraquat was first described in 1882 by Weidel and Russo.

GMA research shows that farmers exposed to Paraquat are 2.5 x likely to get Parkinsons

5 separate Case-controlled studies published in Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology confirming link between Paraquat + Parkinsons

Michael J Fox foundation lobbies US Congress + EPA to ban use + sale of Paraquat

First Parkinsons lawsuit filed in Missouri against Syngenta and Growmark

Public awareness results in a wave of lawsuits linking chemical to Parkinsons

A new Paraquat Class Action MDL is created in Southern District of Illinois to consolidate all Paraquat lawsuits pending in federal courts across the country

Following Mexican efforts to eradicate marijuana and poppy fields, the United States government helped by sending helicopters and other technological assistance. Helicopters costin $21 million were used to spray the herbicides paraquat and 2,4-D on the fields; marijuana contaminated with these substances began to show up in US markets, leading to debate about the program. + shot peasants with pellets who were defending their crops

Philip A. Botham, Syngenta’s head of product safety, said, “We would never market or continue to market any chemical which we genuinely felt posed a health risk or an environmental risk.” As for studies drawing a connection between Parkinson’s and paraquat, he said, “Our view on those studies is that they are interesting — we don’t dismiss them — but they generate an interesting hypothesis which is worth exploring.”

In July 2021, after receiving and considering public comments on the paraquat proposed interim decision, EPA released the interim decision for registration review. As part of this action, EPA is requiring mitigation measures to reduce risks associated with paraquat in order to protect human health and the environment.

Actions to Prevent Accidental Ingestion and Reduce Exposure to Workers by EPA

New closed-system packaging designed to prevent transfer or removal of the pesticide except directly into proper application equipment. This will prevent spills, mixing or pouring the pesticide into other containers or other actions that could lead to paraquat exposure.

Rose Report. ICI had used the report to justify the concentration at which it added a chemical called PP796 to its paraquat products. But the numbers and graphs he saw jotted in the notebook didn’t support the conclusion that Rose drew in his official report. “When I compared the data in his report to the original pharmaceuticals clinical trial data, I found they were different,” Heylings told The Intercept. “You know, very different.” While an accurate analysis would consider all the outcomes in an experiment, Rose had “cherry-picked,” according to Heylings. “He took some data out, he put some data in.”

wrote up a memo documenting the problems with the data and explaining that based on the evidence he had just found, the concentration of PP796, an additive intended to protect against poisoning, should be 10 times higher than the amount in the Rose Report — and 10 times higher than the levels in Gramoxone, ICI’s bestselling paraquat product.

Rose Report first drafted - study on emetic amount to be added to Paraquat products . Stated humans more sensitive to emetic than dogs + monkeys = lower dose needed than studies. 0.05 a dose that, as company officials noted in a document marked “secret” later that year, “would not result in too great an increase in the cost of Gramoxone

poisonings were reported in Ireland and New Zealand. Soon suicides accounted for the majority of paraquat deaths.

ICI hit on a potential solution to what it dubbed its “paraquat poisoning problem” when a staff scientist suggested adding a chemical to Gramoxone that might induce vomiting - deemed too expensive

reports of poisonings began to mount, ICI returned to the idea. That year, the U.K. Poisons Center received 59 calls about paraquat, as its director, Roy Goulding, told ICI scientists at a meeting held the following year. Six people had died from ingesting the pesticide, including two children

two people in the U.S., a critical market for the company, had already died after ingesting the pesticide. A woman killed herself by drinking it. And a 17-year-old boy in Hawaii died after accidentally drinking paraquat that had been poured into a soda bottle. By then, the problem had also cropped up in other parts of the world, including the Netherlands, Germany, France, Denmark, and Japan. (Paraquat was also sprayed on marijuana fields in Mexico in the 1970s courtesy of the U.S. government, which was hoping to kill the crops and instead created a massive “paraquat pot” health scare.) In Ireland, where 92 people died after ingesting paraquat between 1967 and 1977, a physician who watched a perfectly healthy man die after drinking paraquat dubbed the pesticide the “most deadly killer since the atom bomb.”

Paraquat was going to get a special review by EPA which could result in it being banned in USA. 2 weeks later ICI planned to add emetic PP796 to Gramoxone at 0.05%

ICI Patented PP796 emetic to make a new profit from as it became required in all paraquat solutions.

Chevron scientist named Richard Cavalli called attention to the fact that the science didn’t support the company’s decision to include the chemical at the planned concentration, as a document Chevron U.S. produced in litigation made clear. After looking at data noone had vomited after the 15 minutes given.

according to a 1976 memo from Cavalli, which was supplied by Chevron, Rose hadn’t actually seen the human data that he wrote up in his report; the data was on microfiche, and all hard copies had been destroyed.

efforts included the first private poison-control hotline, the first child-resistant cap, applicator and farmer training programs, Paraquat poisoning-emergency treatment kits and physician guides, and product labeling that exceeded regulatory requirements.

Slade responded by noting people shouldn't put all hopes in the emetic to saving the Paraquat problem

EPA did receive information that suggested PP796 would make paraquat safer, which it cited in its 1982 decision not to move ahead with its investigation and possible ban.

“It strikes me that what we need is a potent emetic which causes vomiting within 5 minutes of swallowing a potentially lethal dose of paraquat. PP796 does not meet this criteria,” an ICI scientist named Lewis Smith wrote in 1984. Smith suggested increasing the amount fivefold, but that didn’t happen.

In Malaysia, where the pesticide was used to control weeds on rubber plantations, there were 253 deaths in 1986 alone.

the company had come up with another fix to what it described in a 1987 document as the “‘business’ problem brought about by suicidal/homicidal abuse of the product.” Where they developed less harmful versions of the product that would be kept secret unless asked by regulators to withdraw the product. In order to provide a ‘basket of options’ to offer to Regions/Regulatory Affairs Section when faced with a paraquat regulatory crisis,” - included a liquid formulation identified as “b,” which was at least five times more dilute than the one on the market, and “c,” a solid version

ICI explained why they never released these safer products - “The introduction of either formulation b) and c) on a global basis would destroy Group profit from paraquat.”

Possible to create product with less Paraquat but PP796 cost eight times more to produce than paraquat itself. the company developed a more dilute version of the pesticide for sale in Japan, where paraquat faced possible withdrawal, it was deemed too expensive in other countries. “At this dilution level, formulation and packing costs would be increased and product usage by farmers would reduce very significantly because of bulk inconvenience and higher prices,” Morrison wrote in October - “We see no reason to change proactively from our current formulations.”

We believe that society needs to address the root cause and focus on mental health issues, not deprive the world of important technology, which has improved overall human wellbeing.”

“Means restriction works because suicidal impulses are often transient, lasting only minutes or hours,” Michael Eddleston, a toxicologist who specializes in pesticide suicides, wrote in The Lancet last year. According to Eddleston, there have been more than 14 million suicides from ingesting pesticides since the most toxic of these products were introduced in the 1950s. Suicide

Sri Lanka still banned Paraquat this year, Other common weedkillers had death rates of between 4% and 8%. 65% for Paraquat.

an internal document produced in the litigation, the company laid out its strategy to address the mounting evidence of neurotoxicity, which it deemed “a threat to Syngenta’s paraquat business objectives.” Syngenta’s global regulatory manager advised steps to “contain any potential impact on Gramoxone” and “shift the focus of serious PD research to other environmental factors.”

Heylings had a meeting with Syngenta to discuss the concerns on the amount of emetic being in-affective. Heylings believed some employees were hearing of this for the first time

Syngenta invited Heylings back for another meeting and shared an analysis of the PP796 data that acknowledged the “tiny number of people” involved in the research and the scientific shakiness of Rose’s process. “In estimating the emetic dose in man Rose clearly recognised that for the emetic dose response to PP796 there was ‘limited data available in man.’ He seems to have visually inspected the data and drawn his conclusions, rather than using any statistical procedure.”

Still concluded that data from 1987 paper confirmed amount of emetic was effective.Unearthed and Public Eye. In an unpublished investigation, the organizations found that the 1987 paper failed to disclose that the majority of research subjects, while presented as having taken Gramoxone, had actually ingested products that had higher concentrations of the emetic and lower concentrations of paraquat. The result was that, again, the emetic appeared more effective than it really was.

Syngenta sent Heylings a document that flatly disputed his claims about PP796 and the Rose report. “There is no evidence of fabrication associated with the 1976 research report and simply no basis to believe the author would have reason to fabricate results,” the unsigned document said.

EPA’s paraquat review manager also told Heylings that she would include his detailed account of the problems with PP796 in the public docket on paraquat. But his memo wasn’t included in the file of the publicly available documents. EPA spokesperson Ken Labbe “this information was mistakenly left out of the docket due to routine staff changes.”

Das, the Syngenta spokesperson, denied that anyone from the company had asked the paraquat review manager or any other EPA employee not to include Heylings’s submission in the public docket. + According to Syngenta, the company has investigated — and dismissed — Heylings’s claims. “Our scientists have invested hundreds of hours examining his concerns, corresponding and discussing them with him,” wrote Das. “Heylings’s argument that increasing the level of emetic improves the safety of the product is overly simplistic; the reality is complex and modern medical and scientific opinion does not support Heylings’s viewpoint.”

Syngenta “The weight of the scientific evidence does not show any causal link between paraquat exposure and the development of Parkinson’s disease,” Das wrote to The Intercept. “We take these claims seriously and intend to vigorously defend against them.”

Syngenta says it is sorry for these losses. “We find it heartbreaking that people have been harmed through accidental or intentional ingestion of paraquat, a product that helps farmers produce food. We empathize with the pain of those who have lost loved ones. No one should ever have to deal with intentional loss of life of a near and dear one.”

Huddersfield firm Syngenta fined £200,000 for chemical leak of three and a half tons of Paraquat

Syngenta admitted two charges contravening regulations, failing to ensure that work equipment was maintained in an efficient state and failing to take all measures necessary to prevent a major accident, the firm’s first conviction.

Dominic Adamson representing the company expressed “sincere regret” for the incident that gave rise to this prosecution. He added: Syngenta takes responsibility for health and safety very seriously and the loss of its unblemished track record is a heavy blow.”