Toxic Strawberry Plants

A big part of my job is research. As I look through articles and websites I am always considering the relevance to my health and to the health of those around me. Recently I have been very disturbed about the possible use of methyl iodide as a chemical used to disinfect soil before growing strawberries and other fruits. Approval is being considered for its use in California.

Breathing the toxic fumes released by methyl iodide can cause poisoning with symptoms such as nausea, dizziness, coughing and vomiting but it also causes lung, liver, kidney and neurological damage. Does this sound like something you want to be working with as a farmworker? How about as an end consumer of the fruit?

Methyl iodide is one of the most toxic chemicals on earth. It is a known carcinogen, neurotoxin and causes late-term miscarriages. Scientists use this chemical in the lab to induce cancer in cells. They take serious precautions too; using a ventilation hood and protective gear when handling small amounts. If approved for agricultural use, methyl iodide would be applied, as a gas, at rates of up to 100 lbs per acre. In addition to the threat posed to farmworkers and communities living next to strawberry fields, methyl iodide would likely contaminate groundwater.

California’s Proposition 65 lists methyl iodide as a known cancer-causing agent. Labtests involving rats and rabbits show methyl iodide can cause thyroid cancer and miscarriages. Scientists say methyl iodide is also a neurotoxin. Case studies of people who were accidentally exposed to methyl iodide show "chronic, irreversible brain damage," according to John Froines, a chemist at UCLA who chaired an independent review panel.

In all of their infinite wisdom, The Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) had set acceptable exposure levels for methyl iodide that are 120 times higher than recommended by its own scientists and an eight-person panel the department commissioned to peer-review its work. How can this possibly make sense to the people at the DPR?!?

"I've never seen anything like this," said Ron Melnick, a panel member and scientist at the National Institutes of Health, who has participated in similar assessments in the past. "Why have someone review a document when you're just going to ignore it?"

So why does the government want to push through methyl iodide? The answer may lie in an interesting blog post I found as shared below:

“Methyl iodide replaces methyl bromide, which was phased out beginning in 1999 and became completely banned in 2005. (The EPA claims that methyl bromide destroys the ozone layer.)

In my view, when something like this happens we are well served by examining who stands to profit from government intervention; the story the general public hears isn't necessarily relevant when there are thousands of chemicals that "damage the ozone layer." One to two billion tons of methyl bromide are produced naturally by marine organisms each year. Banning the manufacture of a gas that is so prevalent in the world seems suspect to me.  I can't help but wonder who owns the company that produces the new product that is the best replacement.

In this case the paper trail of corruption seems relatively clear.  Methyl iodide was patented by UC Riverside, and licensed to Arysta LifeScience in 1999, the same year that the EPA's phaseout began. Arysta is the world's largest privately held "crop protection" company, grossing $1.2 billion in 2007. As the phase-out began to lower the available supply, the price of methyl bromide rose from $600 per acre to over $3,000 per acre.  At this point the president and CEO of Arysta, Elin D. Miller, is appointed to work for the EPA.  A year later, a curious coincidence occurred.  On October 5th of 2007, the EPA approved methyl iodide, and on October 22nd of 2007, Arysta is purchased by Permira Advisers LLP, Europe's biggest buyout firm, for a cool $2.2 billion. Because Arysta is a private firm, we don't know how much of the company was still owned by Elin when the sale was completed. This seems like blatant corruption to me.

Today, the replacement chemical costs $4,800 per acre, and the only reason the new chemical is viable in the market is because of the EPA's ban on the much cheaper, safer methyl bromide. If methyl bromide were still legal it would be selling for $600 per acre, making its alternative ridiculously expensive.

I think that this type of corruption is simply normal behavior for government agencies. Regulation is just a fancy word for putting a company out of business so that a new one can take its place. In this case the legalization of methyl iodide and the banning of methyl bromide shifted profits away from farmers and Great Lakes Chemical (the primary producer of methyl bromide in the US), and to the Arysta corporation and its new owners. It seems clear to me that what the EPA does has little to do with public health, and everything to do with corporate profits.”

Lawsuit

On December 1, 2010, in the 11th hour of the Schwarzenegger Administration, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation approved the use of methyl iodide as a soil fumigant pesticide in agriculture. A lawsuit was filed on December 30, 2010 by Earthjustice and California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. on behalf of Pesticide Action Network North America, United Farm Workers, Californians for Pesticide Reform, Pesticide Watch Education Fund, Worksafe, Communities and Children Advocated Against Pesticide Poisoning, and farmworkers Jose Hidalgo Ramon and Zeferina Estrada. The lawsuit challenges the December 20 DPR approval of methyl iodide on the grounds that it violates the California Environmental Quality Act, the California Birth Defects Prevention Act and the Pesticide Contamination Prevention Act that protects groundwater against pesticide pollution.

On January 3, 2011, a petition was submitted to Jerry Brown, the current governor of California on his first day of office. It contained more than 52,000 signatures from people opposed to the use of methyl iodide in California.

Reconsideration

Methyl iodide is facing renewed scrutiny from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The agency asked for public comment on the nearly year-old petition filed by farmworker and environmental advocacy groups that called on the government to rescind its approval of the controversial fumigant.The public had until April 30 to comment on the pending petition.

News of the move came just a day after state Department of Pesticide Regulation Director Mary-Ann Warmerdam, under fire for rushing methyl iodide through an emergency approval process last December, resigned to take a job with Clorox. Seems a much better fit to me, don’t you agree?

State Assemblyman Bill Monning, chair of the California Assembly Committee on Health, convened a hearing on DPR’s approval of methyl iodide, at which scientist John Froines said the department took a “fanciful and even ludicrous” approach to mitigating the fumigant’s effects on workers and rural residents.

Following a 30-day public comment period, “EPA will evaluate the petitioner’s request” and reconsider registration in 2013.

How can we promote change? Don’t buy strawberries unless they are organic. In fact; don’t buy any food unless it’s organic or comes from a trusted source that practices safe farming methods without the use or herbicides, pesticides, growth hormones and genetically modified organisms. We are what we eat and we need to take responsibility for our health by choosing to put healthy food in our bodies.