Once marketed to farmers as a 'no-till' solution, herbicide paraquat is on trial; companies may have known its risk

Image via Civil Eats

While still legal and widely used by U.S. farmers, the deadly herbicide paraquat will soon face court scrutiny. "As of mid-March, more than 3,000 farmers with Parkinson's disease have filed federal lawsuits against the herbicide's former chief distributor Chevron and its lead manufacturer Syngenta, which sells it under the brand name Gramoxone," reports Grey Moran of Civil Eats. "Paraquat is applied in the greatest quantities to fields of soybeans, cotton, and grapes, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It's also the deadliest pesticide used in U.S. agriculture, capable of killing a human with just a sip, as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warns. . . . . As far back as 1983, the journalist Andrew Revkin warned that 'the potent weedkiller is killing people,' as he starkly detailed its link to suicides and accidental deaths. A considerable body of evidence links the toxicant to Parkinson's disease, a progressive neurological condition with no cure."

The use of paraquat began as "no-till" farming evolved. "It was sold to farmers as revolutionary. Its introduction into the marketplace in 1962 coincided with a growing awareness of overplowing soil, year after year until it degrades," Moran writes. "Looking to avoid another Dust Bowl, farmers were eager for ways to keep their soil intact. Chevron, a distributor of paraquat at the time, jumped on this opportunity. . . . 'Let paraquat be your plow,' a 1972 Chevron advertisement in No Till Farmer, the leading resource on no-till methods, urged soil-conscious farmers. . . . In 1984, an op-ed in The New York Times by a Chevron representative proclaimed that 'the plow has been replaced with the use of herbicides,' celebrating the 'quiet revolution.'"

"The first federal bellwether trial is set for October 2023, and it could result in payouts to affected farmers," Moran writes. "The lawsuits, which were consolidated to pool evidence, have led to a trove of hundreds of documents, published by The Guardian and The New Lede, including evidence that the companies knew—as early as the 1960s—about paraquat's potential risks to the brain and feared the potential. . . . Observing these dangers to life and health, more than 50 countries have now banned paraquat, including the E.U., U.K., China, and Brazil."

A plaintiff in the federal litigation, retired farmer Larry Wyles, told Moran, "The companies that produce this herbicide should be held responsible for whatever they are responsible for. If [my Parkinson's disease] had to do with paraquat, then they should pay dearly for that because it has helped to take the dignity out of my life. . . . . I am a shell of my former self." Moran adds, "The disease has also taken a toll on Wyles financially; last year, he had to sell the farm to pay his mounting medical bills."

Moran explains, "At the heart of all the lawsuits is the claim that exposure to paraquat is causally linked to Parkinson's disease—both in the plaintiffs' uniquely devastating cases and on a broader scientific level. . . . Lawsuit plaintiffs were never made aware of the research linking Parkinson's disease and paraquat, largely because it is not included on the label for Gramoxone. In fact, the company's website reads: 'Scientific evidence does not support a causal link between paraquat and Parkinson's disease. Syngenta rejects claims made in litigation to the contrary.' However, this could change as the EPA reconsiders its risk analysis of the herbicide, potentially revising its labeling requirements."

The plaintiffs maintain that the EPA did not protect them. "The lawsuit challenged a range of oversights, claiming the EPA considered the economic risk to growers more heavily than the health risk to farmers and farmworkers, in violation of federal pesticides law," Moran reports. "This includes ignoring the risk of inhaling the herbicide while it's sprayed. The agency, petitioners claimed, also overlooked the medical evidence relating to Parkinson's disease, citing research by the National Health Institute, the nation's main medical research agency, which 'found that people who applied paraquat were more than twice as likely to develop Parkinson's disease as those who applied other pesticides.'"

"Dr. Ray Dorsey, an advisor on the lawsuit and Professor of Neurology at the University of Rochester, noted that Parkinson's disease is the fastest-growing brain disease, but he believes its rate of growth could be slowed if environmental factors, like the spraying of paraquat, were addressed." Dorsey told Moran, "I think the EPA has a lot of explaining to do. Why is it not addressing a known environmental contributor to the rise of Parkinson's?"