Scientific Experts Are Calling It The Paraquat Parkinsons Disease Pandemic

People living in nearby neighborhoods may have double the chance of getting Parkinson's disease

Thursday, October 21, 2021 - Syngenta, the maker, and marketer of a brand of paraquat called Gramaxone, all but ignores the link between human paraquat exposure and developing Paraquat Parkinson's disease. The company's website instead focuses on the comparatively rare instances when a person accidentally drinks the defoliant and the emetic chemical they have added to paraquat to induce vomiting. The Syngenta website fails to address millions of Americans that have been and are being exposed to paraquat dangers through the air, land, and water, and are developing Parkinsons, a deadly neurological disorder. Paraquat is included in a basket of pesticides that are being blamed for causing neuromuscular distress in farmworkers. Hundreds of farmers, farmworkers, landscapers, golf course maintenance workers, and others have filed lawsuits seeking to hold Syngenta responsible for failing to warn them of the connection. Studies show that repeatedly inhaling low doses of paraquat over time can cause brain cells to cease producing dopamine, a neurotransmitter chemical that is essential for normal motor skills. Not only are occupational users of paraquat at risk, but also the people that live, work, and play near farms and golf courses that spray or have sprayed paraquat. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned the use of paraquat on golf courses a couple of years ago in an abrupt admission of the herbicide's toxicity. Syngenta failed to warn users of paraquat for almost 50 years by their own admission when they said they began paraquat warnings in 2014.

A UCLA professor seeking to explain the rise in the incidences of Parkinson's disease decided to take a look at the rural areas that surround farms that spray paraquat. After looking at those death certificates in California that list Parkinson's disease as the cause, the professor found clusters of Parkinson's in California's Central Valley, where about 25% of all vegetables grown in the US come from, she claims. The professor asks the question if rural living is supposed to be healthy, why all of the deaths listed with Parkinson's disease? The study showed that people that live near farms that use pesticides have almost double the cases of Parkinson's. Pesticides and herbicides that are designed to kill plants and bugs can destroy the brain's central nervous system also and may not stop with insects and plants. Early signs of Parkinson's disease include finding it more difficult to grasp objects and to walk. Farmers say that no matter how careful they are, there is an ever-present fog and smell of industrial pesticides and herbicides. Most people living, working, and playing in nearby communities say there is a constant chemical smell in the air. The Journal of Toxicological Sciences wrote about how lab mice lost their sense of smell when forced to inhale low doses of paraquat, creating a link between the weed-killer and Parkinson's disease. "Prolonged, low-level inhalation of the common weed-killer paraquat, implicated in the risk of Parkinson's disease, caused male mice to lose at least some of their sense of smell, a study reports. This work also supported previous studies showing the inhaled chemical enters the brain via the olfactory nerve. As such, it may help in establishing more accurate risk assessments when setting herbicide limits to protect the public. Sense of smell in exposed female mice, interestingly, was not significantly affected," wrote Parkinson's News Today.com

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