New Paraquat Coverage from The Guardian Shows EPA Not Following the Science; Here One in Eight Acres of California Wine Grape Vineyards Sprayed With this Poisonous Pesticide Causing Parkinson's

This week The Guardian has been running a three article series on paraquat, written by Carey Gillam, a veteran journalist whose coverage of the Roundup trials and glyphosate has been internationally acclaimed. 

Now Carey is back with an in-depth three part series (exhibiting her excellent gumshoe detective research capabilities once again) on the equally unfathomable Parkinson's denial that has plagued paraquat users for decades, as regulatory agencies failed to follow the science connecting paraquat to Parkinson's.

Some of the latest research and expert testimony comes from California's own Beate Ritz, a German born UCLA scientist who has extensively studied the use of paraquat in California's Central Valley. I wrote about Ritz's research here and her appearance in a German TV show from DW on this topic.

The Guardian had to say about Ritz and other scientists, who...

"said that the EPA had looked at 26 epidemiological studies in its assessment of paraquat and Parkinson’s and all but two of them found positive associations between the pesticide and the disease. Yet the EPA downgraded most of those studies, focusing on those that did not find an association, the scientists said."

The last of the three new articles sheds light on new efforts to get the EPA to ban paraquat in California. 

I'm republishing a blog post [originally published last year] that shows where in the California wine industry paraquat is being used. Kern, Monterey and Fresno counties top the list. 

A further note: when I first published the original post below I included the name of the grower in Monterey county who was the biggest user in the county. I almost never publish the names of anyone using toxics, but that time I did. I quickly got an email from a family member of that person, saying the grower had stage 4 cancer and would I please remove their name (which I did). Data is real.

And full disclosure: In July I started writing for Carey's environmental journalism site for EWG–The New Lede.org. Here is a list of the articles I've written there so far. 

Source: Tracking California (DPR Data)

NOTE: The data below from 2018 is still the most current aggregated data available from DPR, which says 2019 data should be available soon.

California winegrowers used 75,329 pounds of paraquat dichloride on 75,463 acres of wine grapes in the state in 2018, according to the most recent data compiled by the Department of Pesticide Regulation. The deadly pesticide, linked to Parkinson's disease, was applied to 13 percent of the state's 590,000 acres of wine grapes.

This map show exactly where it was sprayed. 

NOTE: I first wrote about paraquat use on this blog five years ago in 2017. 

What is most surprising is that paraquat is not just sprayed in the Central Valley. Coastal counties are also big users with Monterey County topping the list of the biggest in 2018.

By 2019 that had changed with Kern County in the lead. Here are the 2019 standings from DPR data. 

Should you think twice about buying that non-organic supermarket wine? 

CENTRAL COAST 2018

• Monterey County | 18,810 pounds on 28,004 acres

• San Luis Obispo | 3,235 pounds on 2,790 acres

CENTRAL VALLEY 2018

• Kern County | 11,441 pounds on 9.282 acres

• Fresno County | 10,163 pounds on 9.658 acres

• Merced County | 9,099 pounds on 6,613 acres

• San Joaquin County | 6,033 pounds on 5,255 acres

• Stanislaus County (Modesto area) | 3,173 pounds on 2,388 acres

HEALTH RISKS AND A NEW WAVE OF COURT CASES 

While paraquat and associated drift have been studied by UCLA epidemiologists and shown in dozens of studies to be linked to Parkinson's disease, the poisonous chemical, banned in Europe, is about to get its moment in the spotlight as new plaintiffs file suits against its Swiss-headquartered, Chinese-owned agrochemical giant manufacturer. Paraquat, known as Gramoxone, is manufactured in England, where its use is banned.

The U. S. Right to Know group, which followed the Roundup cases, has set up a new center for tracking these cases and the science linking paraquat to Parkinson's. It's called the Paraquat Papers.

As in the Roundup cases, lawyers have found evidence that Syngenta, which manufactures paraquat, knew of the herbicides's extreme toxicity and failed to adequately protect consumers who used the product. 

Law firms are actively seeking plaintiffs for new lawsuits. 

One important development fueling these suits is the testimony of a former Syngenta toxicology scientist, Jon Heylings, who for years tried to convince the company to increase the amount of an emetic (a substance that makes humans vomit) so that it would be harder for people to swallow a fatal dose, but the company did not act on his recommendations. 

A U.S. law firm representing U.S. plaintiffs contacted him and Heylings released internal documents collected from years of work on the subject. See more coverage from The Guardian and Beyond Pesticides here.

Jon Heylings

Writing in the New York Times last year, Jane Brody interviewed Parkinson's expert Dr. Tanner, a neurologist and environmental health scientist at the University of California, San Francisco, who told her, "In 2017, it [Parkinson's] resulted in about $25 billion in direct medical costs and another $26 billion in indirect costs, she said." Experts have called Parkinson's a man-made epidemic.

UCLA epidemiologist Beate Ritz, who testified as an expert witness in the recent Roundup trials in California, did some of the pioneering research linking paraquat use in agriculture to Parkinson's in California. Her research focused on Fresno, Kern and Tulare County residents. (For other NYTimes coverage, click here.) 

Ritz studies: 2011 and 2009 

Quoted in a 2016 article in the New York Times, Ritz said, "It’s a poison, and we really shouldn’t be using this as an herbicide in the way we do."

SUSTAINABLE UNDER CSWA?

So the question might be: is paraquat banned in the Wine Institute's sustainability program, CSWA? And the surprising answer is no. Paraquat is not encouraged, but it is permitted (with justification on why it needs to be used). The question is: why?

(Other sustainability programs do not permit its use. These include Napa Green, and, as of December 1, 2020, SIP Certified.)

Another question: why is the EPA still allowing its use? 

Wine growers in the EU may not use it.