SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) — A California lawmaker announced a new bill Wednesday to ban the weed killer paraquat, which has been linked to Parkinson’s disease and other health risks especially for Californians in agricultural communities.
Assemblymember Laura Friedman, a Democrat from Burbank, said Wednesday that she is partnering with the Environmental Working Group on Assembly Bill 1963, which would ban the use of paraquat dichloride — a highly toxic chemical that is among the most widely used commercial herbicides in the U.S. Famers use it on crops like almonds, grapes and pistachios to manage weeds, with hundreds of thousands of pounds sprayed in California each year.
Environmental advocates say that the chemical, once sprayed, stays in soil and air particulates for years, particularly affecting agricultural workers who are disproportionately people of color and immigrants. Exposure to paraquat has been linked to Parkinson’s disease — a progressive brain disorder that sparks involuntary motions and permanently impairs a person’s ability to move and speak — as well as childhood leukemia and other serious health problems. The chemical has been banned in the EU and in at least 60 countries.
In a press conference Wednesday on Assembly Bill 1963, Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, said that paraquat has been on the U.S. market since 1962. Application of the chemical on cropland requires use of highly protective equipment and a respirator.
The working group’s researchers reported that 5.3 million pounds of paraquat were sprayed in California from 2017 to 2021, During that same time period, more than 80% of residents in the Kern County towns of Shafter and Wasco lived near farms that sprayed 180,000 pounds of paraquat.
Cook called use of the chemical “archaic” but said it will be a difficult battle against powerful interests funding pesticide use since studies on use of the chemical can take many years.
Working group member Alexis Temkin said continuing to use paraquat ignores the body of evidence showing the effects of the chemical on humans and animals. Temkin said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has also ignored that evidence of harm.
“Most of the world has already moved on. This legislation does take the position that the EPA has not gotten it right yet," Cook said. "We have many instances where the EPA will announce alongside the industry that the pesticide they approved that people are being exposed to at work, in the air, is completely safe — right up until the moment when the EPA bans it.”
“No one thinks paraquat is safe, but why is it taking so long to get off the market federally?” he added.
Friedman said the bill shows California needs to be a leader in eliminating herbicides like paraquat.
“We need to do more to protect our vulnerable community members, particularly our agricultural farmworkers,” Friedman said.
If approved and signed into law, the bill would ban all uses of the chemical starting in January 2026.
The working group says that the primary manufacturer of paraquat, the Swiss-based and Chinese-owned chemical giant Syngenta, knew about the health hazards associated with the chemical, including its correlation with Parkinson’s disease, but did not disclose the information to the EPA or the public. The nonprofit news outlet The New Lede published “The Paraquat Papers” in 2022, which documented the decades Syngenta spent concealing evidence and undermining independent research showing a link between exposure to paraquat and Parkinson’s disease.
At least 300 lawsuits have filed since the start of 2024 claiming damages from the use of paraquat, according to the Baltimore law firm Miller and Zois. A February 2024 study published in the National Library of Medicine reported “further indication that paraquat dichloride exposure increases the risk of Parkinson's disease.”
The EPA said in 2016 that it had a new plan to control accidental paraquat poisonings, which have resulted 17 deaths since 2000 — three of them children who drank the chemical after it was illegally transferred to beverage containers. The agency proposed special training for certified applicators who use paraquat, and labeling changes and warning materials to emphasize its toxicity.
Currently, the government only allows certified applicators to use the chemical, and it cannot be stored in or around residential dwellings or used around home gardens, schools, recreational parks, golf courses or playgrounds.
Follow @nhanson_reports
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
Additional Reads
-
California certifies March 5 primary election results April 12, 2024 -
