{"id":25744,"date":"2019-10-07T00:00:36","date_gmt":"2019-10-07T04:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/?p=25744"},"modified":"2019-10-06T21:07:41","modified_gmt":"2019-10-07T01:07:41","slug":"banana-workers-made-sterile-from-pesticide-sue-dow-in-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2019\/10\/banana-workers-made-sterile-from-pesticide-sue-dow-in-france\/","title":{"rendered":"Banana Workers Made Sterile from Pesticide Sue Dow in France"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Beyond Pesticides<\/em>, October 7, 2019)\u00a0Central American agricultural workers, exposed in the 1970s and early 1980s to a highly toxic pesticide, subsequently began suing manufacturers in the mid-1980s, with mixed success. Now, some of those workers have stepped up their game<\/a>: they have brought suit against three big agrochemical industries in France to try to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in damages awarded to them by Nicaraguan courts, but never paid. As reported by The New York Times<\/em><\/a>, \u201cthe case could set a legal precedent and lead to more lawsuits in France for harm done in other countries by the pesticide Nemagon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farmworkers in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, the Philippines, West Africa<\/a>, and the U.S. were exposed to the highly toxic, brominated organochlorine pesticide ingredient, DBCP (dibromochloropropane), from the 1960s until cessation of its use, which has varied from country to country. DBCP was sold in the pesticide products Nemagon and Fumazone as a soil fumigant and nematocide on banana plantations and other crops across Central America (especially), in western Africa, and in Hawaii.<\/p>\n

As acknowledged by the Environmental Protection Agency<\/a> (EPA), DBCP has multiple adverse health impacts: decreased sperm production and mobility, disturbed estrous cycles, reduced phagocytosis by white blood cells, and malignant tumorigenesis<\/a>, as well as mutagenesis. The IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) has classified it as a possible human carcinogen<\/a>. The headline impact on agricultural workers has been reproductive sterility<\/a>: a huge number of men were sterilized by exposure to this compound \u2014 an estimated 1,500 in Costa Rica in the 1970s<\/a>, and tens of thousands across all regions of use by the 1990s<\/a>.<\/p>\n

DBCP was introduced to agriculture in the U.S. in 1955; as reported by the European Environment Agency<\/a>, a mere six years later, laboratory experiments showed that the compound shrank rodent testicles and greatly reduced sperm quality and quantity; still, the chemical industry marketed the pesticide, and it became a commercial success. By 1975, production had reached 25 million pounds per year<\/a>, and its use had spread from the U.S. to Central America, West Africa, the Philippines, and the Caribbean.<\/p>\n

According to EPA,<\/a> until 1977, DBCP was used on more than 40 different crops in the U.S.\u00a0Then, EPA suspended registration for all products containing DBCP (excepting use on pineapple crops in Hawaii) from 1977 to 1979. In 1985, the agency announced its intent to cancel all registrations for DBCP; after that, even the use of existing stocks of DBCP was prohibited. Although agricultural use of the compound was functionally banned in the U.S. in 1979, primarily for causing sterility, its use continued abroad. In Nicaragua, for example, DBCP was legal<\/a> from 1973\u20131993. Also, U.S.-based banana and pineapple producers continued to use Nemagon<\/a> through the early 1980s at their production sites in countries with poorer environmental standards.<\/p>\n

In a pattern of corporate irresponsibility, if not actual malfeasance, now commonly recognized \u2014 think Big Tobacco, Big Fossil Fuels, Big Pharma, Big Chem \u2014 Shell (Royal Dutch Shell) and Dow Chemical were aware as early as 1958<\/em> of toxicological data<\/a> from experiments on male rats demonstrating that exposure to DBCP caused reproductive anomalies, including reduced testes size at airborne exposures of 5ppm (parts per million), and at 20ppm, sterility in all subjects. (Dow Chemical<\/a> merged for a time with DuPont to become DowDuPont; in spring of 2019, that company disaggregated into Dow, DuPont, and Corteva, the last of which handles the agricultural seed, trait, and chemicals strands of the business.)<\/p>\n

Farmworkers, particularly from banana plantations, who had suffered harms from DBCP \u2014 usually sterility \u2014 began to sue manufacturers (largely Dow and Shell) and large producers, such as Dole (formerly Standard Fruit Company, now Dole Food Company). Such frontline workers most affected by the ravages of pesticide use often face a Sisyphian task in seeking legal and monetary redress for those harms, as they confront giant corporate entities that leverage enormous resources to delay, delegitimize, and defeat the \u201clittle guys.\u201d In these DBCP cases, that list includes flat-out stonewalling on payment by industry, repeated challenges to courts\u2019 jurisdiction in the matter, and U.S. courts punting<\/a> on these cases by outright refusing to hear them.<\/p>\n

Some examples from that fraught landscape:<\/p>\n