Farmworker Health and Justice Team

Coming Clean is a national network committed to environmental health and safety for everyone, regardless of race, gender or immigration status. We condemn the ongoing and escalating violence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and agents against civilians. We stand with our members on the ground who exercise their legal rights to live, protest, and document ICE activity in their neighborhoods. ICE’s escalating violence and clear violation of civil rights threatens everyone’s health and safety.

While paraquat is prohibited from use on farms in China, continued imports to the United States are protected from trade barriers. Paraquat was recently put on a 37-page list of products that were exempt from tariffs President Donald Trump put on China. “The health and environmental harms of paraquat will be felt in U.S. communities for generations, while profits from paraquat sales overwhelmingly flow to Chinese companies,” researchers wrote. Imports to the United States rose from just 11 million pounds in 2012, according to the report from advocacy organizations Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, Coming Clean and the Pesticide Action Network. The report was produced as part of a research series from the advocacy groups that’s examining the harm of pesticides. “Foreign-owned agrochemical companies are profiting while our essential farming communities suffer,” said Judy Robinson, executive director of Coming Clean, in a statement.

The US has been importing increasing amounts of paraquat, a pesticide widely used in farming that is linked to Parkinson’s disease, even as other countries have banned the chemical amid growing concerns about risks to human and environmental health, according to the findings of a new report.  The report cites multiple Chinese factories as supplying paraquat to the US in recent years but singles out Sinochem Holdings, a Chinese government-owned company and parent to paraquat maker Syngenta, as among the key suppliers by way of a Syngenta manufacturing facility in central England. Sales in the US are “helping to prop up demand for a toxic product with a shrinking global market,” the report states. “I hope this research shows that giant, foreign-owned companies are the ones profiting from weak US pesticide regulations,” said Deidre Nelms, spokeswoman for Coming Clean and author of Tuesday’s report.“These companies can’t be trusted to solve the health and environmental problems they had a hand in creating in the first place,” she said. “Farming without pesticides is the only viable way to protect the health of the people who grow and harvest our food.”

A new report reveals that the U.S. imports tens of millions of tons of paraquat a year from China and the United Kingdom, countries that have both banned the pesticide due to health and safety concerns. Trade records show that U.S. paraquat imports have increased this decade, even as over 70 countries worldwide prohibit its use. Paraquat exposure has been linked to Parkinson’s disease, thyroid cancer, lung damage, and other serious health conditions. “Corporate greed and weak U.S. pesticide regulations are driving a health crisis for farmworkers, farmers and rural communities. Foreign-owned agrochemical companies are profiting while our essential farming communities suffer,” said Judy Robinson, Executive Director of Coming Clean.

Un nuevo informe revela que los EE. UU. importan decenas de millones de toneladas de paraquat anualmente de China y el Reino Unido, ambos países que han prohibido el uso del plaguicida debido a preocupaciones por el riesgo a la salud y seguridad. Récords comerciales muestran que las importaciones estadounidenses de paraquat han aumentado esta década, aún cuando más de 70 países alrededor del mundo prohíben su uso. La exposición al paraquat se ha atado al mal de Parkinson, cáncer de la tiroide, daño pulmonar y otras condiciones de salud serias. El informe incluye testimonios de campesinos que probablemente fueron expuestos al paraquat en granjas estadounidenses y quienes luego desarrollaron quemazón debilitante de la piel, el mal de Parkinson y daño pulmonar. “Hasta recientemente, no sabía que mi papá probablemente adquirió el mal de Parkinson por sus años de trabajo en los campos de algodón, donde probablemente se usaba el paraquat,” dijo Mirna, miembro de la Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, cuyo padre era campesino en California y falleció por complicaciones del mal de Parkinson. “El gobierno tiene que reconocer el impacto de usar estos químicos porque afectan el ambiente y la salud de nuestra comunidad.”

Legislative language moving through Congress, intended to prevent farmers, consumers, and workers from holding pesticide manufacturers accountable for the harm caused by their toxic products, is being opposed by a broad coalition of farmers, beekeepers, consumers, environmentalists, and workers, with the release of a joint statement opposing a dramatic change in a fundamental legal right.  The document, Protect the Right of Farmers, Consumers, and Workers to Hold Pesticide Companies Accountable for Their Harmful Products, is joined by 51 organizations, coalitions, businesses, and leaders representing tens of thousands of members and communities. The legislation is hidden in a provision of the Appropriations bill (Section 453) that has passed through the Appropriations Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, which is headed for a vote in the full House, followed by the U.S. Senate. 

NEW FACTSHEET Environmental health and farmworker advocacy organizations are urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to adhere to proven science when assessing the safety of chemicals regulated under its statutory authority, and warn against the misuse of New Approach Methods (NAMs) to designate pesticides and other harmful chemicals as safe. A new fact sheet explains that NAMs -  which are mostly unproven and include biochemical, molecular, and cell-based assays and computational models widely promoted by the chemical industry as an alternative to rodent tests - “frequently understate or incorrectly evaluate hazard and risk with potentially harmful consequences for workers, families, wildlife and ecosystems.”"We are alarmed that EPA is relying on these new, unproven tests to justify reducing protection from pesticide exposure. Farmworkers and their children will bear the brunt of this reckless decision." stated Anne Katten of California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, who coordinates Coming Clean’s collaborative team on Farmworker Health and Justice. Read the factsheet in English and Spanish.