On September 11, 2024, Parkinson’s Australia—an advocacy group for people with Parkinson’s—announced a petition to ban paraquat.
Paraquat is a common herbicide used by farmers in Australia, the U.S., and other countries. Parkinson’s Australia acted after the news media revealed a leaked email from the National Farmers Federation head office, in which members were directed to stay silent on a story linking the common farm chemical to Parkinson’s disease (PD).
In the U.S., the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research has also created a petition to ban paraquat, as have other organizations like Earth Justice and Change.org. Seventy other countries have already banned the herbicide.
Farmers Asking Questions About Paraquat and Parkinson’s in Australia
ABC News in Australia recently reported on a small rural community in Victoria’s potato country concerned about paraquat and PD. Dr. Wesley Thevathasan, a neurologist based in Melbourne, spoke at a town gathering. He noted that he’s treated thousands of patients with PD and that farmers are overly represented.
The report went on to provide evidence from litigation against paraquat manufacturer Syngenta showing that management was aware of the dangerous effects of paraquat—including its potential connection with changes in the brain leading to PD—but failed to warn users of the danger.
A follow-up report by ABC News detailed the email leaked by the National Farmers Federation (NFF)—the leading farm lobby in Australia encouraged members to avoid talking about ABC’s investigation of the link between paraquat and PD.
“Essentially as we expected the story has had very little traction beyond the ABC online and Landline story and that’s how we’d like to keep it,” the email reads.
The leader of the NFF’s Victorian branch took the opposite approach, warning the organization that they risked being on the wrong side of history.
New Study Supports Paraquat Association with Parkinson’s Disease
Parkinson’s Australia notes that it’s calling for a ban on paraquat because of “growing scientific evidence linking the chemical to increased risks in the development of Parkinson’s disease.”
As recently as February 2024, scientists published a study assessing the potential associations between paraquat exposure and Parkinson’s disease (PD). They looked at data from 829 PD patients and 824 community controls in agricultural regions of Central California.
Results showed that paraquat exposure assessed at both residence and workplace was associated with PD, based on several exposure measures:
- PD patients lived and worked near agricultural facilities applying greater amounts of the herbicide than community controls.
- Working near paraquat applications every year in the window and a higher average intensity of exposure were both associated with increased odds of PD.
- Similar associations were observed for residential proximity.
- Risk estimates were comparable for men and women.
- The strongest odds were observed for those diagnosed at less than 60 years of age.
“This study,” the scientists wrote, “provides further indication that paraquat dichloride exposure increases the risk of Parkinson’s disease.”
Plaintiffs Working to Prepare New Set of Paraquat Lawsuits for Trial
The manufacturers of paraquat face thousands of lawsuits filed by farmers, agricultural workers, and others in the U.S. who were frequently exposed to the herbicide and claim to have been subsequently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. All federally filed paraquat lawsuits have been centralized into the Southern District of Illinois for pretrial proceedings.
District Judge Nancy J. Rosenstengel recently dismissed several cases the parties had prepared for early trial, after ruling that a key expert witness for the plaintiffs could not testify in court. Without that testimony, the plaintiffs could not show the connection between Parkinson’s disease and paraquat exposure.
This ruling does not affect the over 5,000 other cases still pending in that court, however. Additional cases have since been selected for trial.
Exclusively focused on representing plaintiffs, especially in mass tort litigation, Eric Chaffin prides himself on providing unsurpassed professional legal services in pursuit of the specific goals of his clients and their families. Both his work and his cases have been featured in the national press, including on ABC’s Good Morning America.
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