{"id":61209,"date":"2025-02-12T01:00:23","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T09:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/civileats.com\/?p=61209"},"modified":"2025-04-15T13:04:15","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T20:04:15","slug":"is-there-enough-evidence-of-health-risks-for-the-epa-to-ban-paraquat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/civileats.com\/2025\/02\/12\/is-there-enough-evidence-of-health-risks-for-the-epa-to-ban-paraquat\/","title":{"rendered":"Is There Enough Evidence of Health Risks for the EPA to Ban Paraquat?"},"content":{"rendered":"

April 15, 2025 Update: <\/b>Syngenta, manufacturer of the weedkiller paraquat, which has been linked to Parkinson\u2019s disease, <\/span>has entered into an agreement<\/span><\/a> to potentially settle thousands of lawsuits against the company.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>

Farmers use the herbicide paraquat, often sold under the brand name Gramoxone, to clear fields before planting. One of the most popular herbicides<\/a> in the U.S., paraquat is cheap and effective, able to rapidly kill grasses and perennial weeds, but a growing body of research has connected it to Parkinson\u2019s disease<\/a>, thyroid cancer<\/a>, and harm<\/a> to birds, amphibians, reptiles, and plants.<\/p><\/div>

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One of the most popular herbicides in the U.S., paraquat is cheap and effective, able to rapidly kill grasses and perennial weeds, but a growing body of research has connected it to Parkinson\u2019s disease, thyroid cancer, and harm to birds, amphibians, reptiles, and plants.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The mounting research, however, has so far failed to convince federal and state regulators to ban its use in the U.S. It is illegal in more than 70 countries<\/a>, including the European Union, as well as the U.K.<\/a> and China, where it is manufactured.<\/p>\n

Parkinson\u2019s disease is the\u00a0world\u2019s fastest-growing neurodegenerative disease<\/a>. Epidemiological studies linking it to paraquat<\/a> are at the root of roughly 7,000 lawsuits<\/a>\u00a0filed in federal court against Syngenta, the company that manufactures paraquat.<\/p>\n

At the same time, environmental groups are engaged in a 2021 lawsuit against the EPA for re-approving paraquat. As these two separate lines of legal action move forward, it remains to be seen how the scientific research will be considered. Studies linking paraquat to Parkinson\u2019s disease haven\u2019t moved regulators to outlaw the pesticide, but lawsuits seeking damages for the neurological disorder will almost certainly depend on them.<\/p>\n

The EPA\u2019s Delay<\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/div>

Paraquat was first registered for use in the U.S. in 1964. The registration process, which involves a risk assessment of the pesticide\u2019s potential human health and environmental impacts, with data from the manufacturer, must be done every 15 years to ensure that no new science proves the pesticide poses \u201cunreasonable\u201d risks to people or the environment.<\/p><\/div>

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In 2021, to mitigate risks as part of the re-registration process, the EPA implemented some interim paraquat safety measures<\/a>\u2014including limits on aerial spraying and a respirator requirement. However, the agency allowed paraquat use to continue, claiming it hadn\u2019t found a clear link between paraquat exposure and adverse health outcomes such as Parkinson\u2019s disease and cancer.<\/p>\n<\/div>

\"A<\/a>

Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency moved to abandon its newly established mitigation measures for paraquat applications, which included limits on aerial spraying and a respirator requirement.(Photo credit: mladenbalinovac\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

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Environmental groups sued, saying the protections were inadequate. \u201cEPA is so focused on the limitations of individual studies, they didn\u2019t meaningfully consider the broad consistency of evidence across multiple lines of evidence,\u201d says Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, senior attorney for toxic exposure and health at Earthjustice, which sued the EPA over its 2021 interim decision.<\/p>\n

On January 17, EPA took two actions. The federal agency abandoned their 2021 interim protections and required the manufacturer, Syngenta, to conduct tests to better understand how the pesticide volatilizes\u2014becomes airborne as a gas\u2014and drifts beyond the application site. And now, with chemical industry insiders<\/a> recently appointed to steer the EPA\u2019s regulation of chemicals, the future of restrictions on paraquat is in question.<\/p>\n

On February 10, Kalmuss-Katz filed a legal response to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, requesting the court deny both of EPA\u2019s January 17 actions. Abandoning interim safety measures, the motion stated, \u201cNot only prolong risks but potentially make them more severe by weakening the safeguards that EPA itself found were necessary to address paraquat\u2019s unreasonable adverse effects.\u201d As well, the motion pointed out that the EPA did not state how they would meet the October 2026 re-registration deadline while waiting years for volatilization studies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the tired old industry tactic of delay, delay, delay,\u201d said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of several advocacy groups that sued the EPA over its 2021 interim decision.<\/p>\n

The EPA did not respond to multiple requests for an interview or to emailed questions about its paraquat decision, sent before publication.<\/p>\n

California\u2019s Evaluation of Paraquat Studies<\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/div>

The EPA\u2019s decision last month to abandon protections and order more testing cited a recent preliminary report<\/a> published in California, one of the nation\u2019s largest users of paraquat. The report, which EPA said it had not had time to evaluate, was released by the state\u2019s Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR), and is the initial stage of the state\u2019s own comprehensive evaluation of recent science to determine whether to continue allowing the use of paraquat in California.<\/p><\/div>

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\u201cEPA is so focused on the limitations of individual studies, they didn\u2019t meaningfully consider the broad consistency of evidence across multiple lines of evidence.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The report, which followed an initial review of 4,000 public comments and 150 scientific studies, highlighted research indicating paraquat can cause thyroid cancer<\/a> and have ecological impacts<\/a> on wildlife. However, DPR stated that, so far, its \u201creview of existing human health studies, including epidemiological studies, does not indicate a causal association between paraquat exposure and Parkinson\u2019s Disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked for comment, DPR Deputy Director of Communications and Outreach Leia Bailey wrote in an email to Civil Eats, \u201cDPR considered epidemiological studies along with all other toxicology studies to determine areas of risk that can lead to restrictions on pesticide use.\u201d<\/p>\n

She further noted that epidemiological studies span several decades. \u201cIt is expected that the legal label restrictions for paraquat use currently in place at the federal and state level would significantly reduce exposures compared to exposures that study subjects recall experiencing in the past,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

In other words, the epidemiological studies span decades of paraquat exposure before 2021\u2019s more stringent application rules for the herbicide, which lowered exposure\u2014and presumably the risk.<\/p>\n

California DPR\u2019s review continues, with a final decision due by 2029.<\/p>\n

California\u2019s Central Valley: A Parkinson\u2019s Laboratory<\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/div>

Over\u00a01 million people<\/a>\u00a0suffer from Parkinson\u2019s disease in the U.S., and each year, 90,000 new cases are diagnosed. Parkinson\u2019s disease can develop when the nerve cells that produce the chemical dopamine die<\/a>; dopamine controls critical body functions such as memory, mood, and movement.<\/p><\/div>

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In recent years, it\u2019s become clear that Parkinson\u2019s is largely caused by interactions between genetics and\u00a0environmental factors, including exposure to metals, solvents, or pesticides<\/a>. According to a recent study<\/a> that offered free genetic testing for Parkinson\u2019s disease to more than 10,000 participants with the disease, only 13 percent were predisposed genetically.<\/p>\n

Said another way, 87 percent of the Parkinson\u2019s cases analyzed had no known genetic risk factor. As a result, researchers are investigating how genes and environmental exposures interact to create hot spots<\/a> of Parkinson\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n

California\u2019s Central Valley, which produces one-quarter of the nation\u2019s food, is one such hotspot. \u201cI call California\u2019s Central Valley my personal lab,\u201d says study co-author Beate Ritz, a Parkinson\u2019s disease researcher at University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and a retained expert consultant in lawsuits against Syngenta. \u201cThe levels of Parkinson\u2019s disease there are outrageous.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2021, California dedicated $8.4 million to fund and expand the California Parkinson\u2019s Disease Registry<\/a>, one of 14 state registries. Registries provide data sources that help researchers identify high-risk groups, determine accurate prevalence rates, and improve links between the disease and risk factors such as pesticide exposure.<\/p>\n

In addition, a number of Parkinson\u2019s studies have focused on California, because it has the most rigorous reporting of pesticide usage in the country; in 2023, California farmers bought over 92,000 pounds of paraquat<\/a>. \u00a0Between 2017 and 2021, over 5.3 million pounds of paraquat<\/a> were sprayed in California, according to the Environmental Working Group. These data makes it possible to begin identifying correlations and better understand how pesticides impact the health of agricultural communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI call California\u2019s Central Valley my personal lab. The levels of Parkinson\u2019s disease there are outrageous.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It\u2019s not just farmworkers or those who apply pesticides who face risks. Ritz and co-author Kimberly Paul, also a Parkinson\u2019s disease researcher at UCLA, published a 2024 epidemiological study that shows<\/a> that people who live or work within 500 meters of fields on which paraquat has been applied for at least two decades had double the risk of Parkinson\u2019s disease compared to the rest of the region\u2019s population.<\/p>\n

A separate Ritz and Paul study also identified 10 additional pesticides<\/a> that kill neurons and result in Parkinson\u2019s disease. And a new paper<\/a> by Brittany Krzyzanowski, a researcher at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, found that people who live near sunflower, winter wheat, and alfalfa fields\u2014where paraquat is just one of dozens of pesticides used on these crops\u2014have increased risk of Parkinson\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest oversights, many scientists agree, is that the EPA only considers one pesticide at a time. Farming communities are often exposed to multiple pesticides at once, so the EPA\u2019s assessments don\u2019t reflect real-world exposures, says Paul.<\/p>\n

What the Science Shows, and How It\u2019s Selected<\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/div>

For many scientists, numerous studies,<\/a> both epidemiological and in-vitro cell studies conducted over decades around the world, leave little doubt that paraquat exposure is associated with Parkinson\u2019s disease. Paraquat is, after all, a neurotoxin<\/a> that can damage the central nervous system and kill lung, liver, and kidney cells when ingested or inhaled. One teaspoon can cause extreme respiratory and gastrointestinal distress\u2014and even organ failure or death<\/a>. The EPA\u2019s website says: \u201cOne small sip can be fatal<\/a> and there is no antidote.\u201d<\/p><\/div>

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\u201cStudies from researchers around the world link paraquat exposure to Parkinson\u2019s disease in humans and laboratory animals,\u201d says Ray Dorsey, a professor of neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York and co-author of the 2020 book Ending Parkinson’s Disease: A Prescription for Action<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The financial benefits of reducing pesticide-related Parkinson\u2019s disease are striking. Global sales of paraquat are $400 million each year, yet the economic burden of Parkinson\u2019s disease, in terms of health care costs, is $52 billion a year<\/a>, according to Dorsey. \u201cEven if paraquat was responsible for just 1 percent of Parkinson\u2019s disease cases, the economic value of preventing its use is $500 million per year,\u201d says Dorsey.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Syngenta has been aware of possible long-term health impacts of paraquat for decades. A trove of Syngenta\u2019s internal documents\u2014dubbed the \u201cparaquat papers<\/a>\u201d by a 2022 Environmental Working Group Investigation<\/a>\u2014detailed how as early as 1975, the company feared it could face legal liability for paraquat\u2019s long-term health impacts. \u201cOne company scientist called the situation \u2018a quite terrible problem\u2019 for which \u2018some plan could be made,\u2019\u201d The Guardian<\/a><\/em> reported.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Syngenta\u2019s] own researchers demonstrated that paraquat exposure led to features of Parkinson\u2019s disease in three different mammalian species in the 1960s,\u201d Dorsey says.\u00a0\u201cI am not sure what additional evidence is needed to conclude that paraquat causes Parkinson\u2019s disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most recent lawsuits could cost Syngenta and co-defendant Chevron USA\u2014the successor to the company that distributed paraquat in the U.S. until 1986\u2014roughly $1 billion to settle cases<\/a>, predicted one of the plaintiff\u2019s lawyers.<\/p>\n

The EPA gives the greatest weight to studies that demonstrate paraquat causes direct harm in lab mice. The agency places lesser value on in-vitro cell studies or epidemiological studies. In the cell studies, paraquat introduced to cells sharply increased the amount of damaged proteins inherent to Parkinson’s disease; it is these damaged proteins that clog brain cells, causing them to deteriorate.<\/p>\n

It’s all about how you interpret correlation versus causation, Donley says. \u201cEPA is looking for a level of confidence for causation that is nearly impossible to achieve in public health research,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

Ideally, the EPA wants studies that test the blood and urine of people who have been exposed to paraquat for years, explains Donley. \u201cThose studies cost millions of dollars\u2014yet federal funding for academic research is plummeting,\u201d he says. Donley has never seen the EPA require the pesticide makers to produce that data.<\/p>\n

The question of cause is already proving contentious in the Parkinson\u2019s disease lawsuits; judges have ruled that they won\u2019t allow testimony<\/a> from an expert on whether paraquat is capable of causing Parkinson\u2019s disease in the lead up to the first trial, scheduled to start in October<\/a>. As a result, epidemiological studies that demonstrate links to paraquat exposure and cell-based studies revealing how paraquat damages dopamine cells may be even more important.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn every other country, industry has to bring a chemical to the regulatory agency with proof that it\u2019s safe,\u201d says Kyla Bennett, director of science policy at the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. \u201cIn the U.S., it\u2019s more like, \u2018Here\u2019s the chemical. [EPA] has 90 days to prove it\u2019s dangerous.\u2019 It\u2019s totally backwards.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s Next<\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/div>

For the time being, it will be business-as-usual with paraquat until October 1, 2026, when EPA is legally required to finalize paraquat\u2019s re-registration review\u2014a timeline that doesn\u2019t allow for the four years needed to conduct volatilization studies. <\/p><\/div>

\n

In California, Paul and others plan to use the Parkinson\u2019s disease registry to continue their research using a state-wide database of patient information to better identify risk factors. Unfortunately, she notes, the registries often can\u2019t get data on everyone potentially affected. \u201cOne of the most vulnerable populations are migrant workers,\u201d she says. \u201cMany of those will be missed.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s increasingly likely in the future, given the Trump administration\u2019s new restrictive immigration policies<\/a>, which may make migrant workers less willing to participate in any kind of government study\u2014even at the state level.<\/p>\n

Reporting for this piece was supported by the\u00a0<\/em>Nova Institute for Health<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

April 15, 2025 Update: Syngenta, manufacturer of the weedkiller paraquat, which has been linked to Parkinson\u2019s disease, has entered into an agreement to potentially settle thousands of lawsuits against the company. 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