Greater than 50 US lawmakers are calling on the Environmental Safety Company (EPA) to hitch dozens of different nations in banning a extensively used weed killer linked to Parkinson’s illness and different well being risks.
In a 31 October letter to the company, seven US senators stated that paraquat, a weed killer generally utilized on US farms, was a “extremely poisonous pesticide whose continued use can’t be justified given its harms to farmworkers and rural communities”. The decision for a ban from the senators got here after 47 members of the US Home of Representatives despatched an identical letter to the EPA calling for a ban earlier in October.
The lawmakers cite scientific hyperlinks between paraquat use and improvement of Parkinson’s and different “life threatening ailments” in addition to “grave impacts on the surroundings”. “Well being dangers embrace the next threat of Parkinson’s illness, with some research discovering a 64% improve within the chance of growing Parkinson’s, non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, thyroid most cancers, and different thyroid points,” they wrote.
New Jersey senator Cory Booker, organizer of the Senate letter, stated the dangers of paraquat publicity are “properly documented” and that it’s “irresponsible” for the EPA to proceed to permit its use. “I hope the EPA will comply with the science and ban paraquat,” Booker stated.
The EPA has lengthy maintained that there’s no “clear hyperlink” between paraquat publicity and Parkinson’s illness, although the company does have plenty of restrictions on use of the chemical as a result of its acute toxicity. The company issued a draft report earlier this yr affirming its place.
Nonetheless, the company stated at the moment that it will be reviewing extra scientific research and would difficulty a last report by 17 January 2025.
When requested concerning the congressional name for a ban, an EPA spokesperson stated solely that the company “will reply to the letter appropriately”.
A number of California lawmakers pushed for a ban in the newest state legislative session, additionally citing the dangers of Parkinson’s. A compromise measure signed by the governor final month requires an expedited regulatory evaluation of paraquat.
The push to ban paraquat within the US is “lengthy overdue”, stated Ray Dorsey, a professor of neurology on the College of Rochester who research the causes of Parkinson’s illness.
“For 60 years, paraquat has been serving to gasoline the rise of Parkinson’s illness,” Dorsey stated. “The proof from human, laboratory and apparently even the corporate’s personal analysis is overwhelming. When paraquat is banned, extra lives will likely be spared the results of Parkinson’s.”
Chinese language-owned Syngenta, the longtime maker and marketer of paraquat merchandise didn’t reply to a request for remark concerning the congressional letters, The corporate has denied there’s any legitimate connection between Parkinson’s and paraquat. In response to earlier reporting, it asserted that no “peer-reviewed scientific publication has established a causal connection between paraquat and Parkinson’s illness”.
Inner Syngenta paperwork revealed by the Guardian present the corporate was conscious a few years in the past of scientific proof that paraquat might influence the mind in ways in which trigger Parkinson’s, and that it secretly sought to affect scientific analysis to counter the proof of hurt.
Syngenta was allegedly aided in suppressing the dangers of paraquat by a “fame administration” agency known as v-Fluence, the Guardian reported in September.
Hundreds of US paraquat customers that suffer from Parkison’s are at present suing Syngenta, alleging the corporate ought to have warned them of the danger of growing the incurable mind illness, however as a substitute labored to cover the proof of threat.
This story is co-published with the New Lede, a journalism challenge of the Environmental Working Group
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