The long-running dispute over EPA’s approval of paraquat has entered a new phase as the manufacturer of the popular herbicide and several opponents of its use on farm fields filed comments about a preliminary paper that EPA submitted in a court challenge of its action.
EPA reiterates in a 63-page document released Jan. 30 its previous conclusion that there is not enough evidence to link exposure to the herbicide to the development of Parkinson’s disease in humans.
The paper titled, “EPA’s Preliminary Supplemental Consideration of Certain Issues in Support of its Interim Registration Review Decision for Paraquat,” also defends the agency’s cost-benefit analysis for paraquat, sold under the trade name Gramoxone and several others.
The supplemental document was prepared as the result of a suit filed in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals brought by farmworker organizations, environmental groups and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research seeking to overturn the registration. Thousands of lawsuits that claim paraquat caused Parkinson’s disease have been consolidated in federal court in Illinois.
Asked about the litigation, Syngenta maintained its longstanding position that “paraquat is safe when used as directed” and rejected the challengers’ claims of "a causal link between paraquat and Parkinson’s disease because it is not supported by scientific evidence.”
On the other side, the Unified Parkinson’s Advisory Council said in comments that “the link between Parkinson’s disease and paraquat has been identified and replicated across numerous epidemiologic studies. These studies have looked at different groups of people and utilized varied analysis methods, and far outnumber the number of studies finding no association between exposure to the herbicide and the risk of developing the disease.”
In 2022, the appeals court allowed EPA to hold the matter in abeyance while it reanalyzed issues including Parkinson’s, respiratory and dermal exposure and costs and benefits of using paraquat.
Paraquat registrant Syngenta said in comments to EPA on April 1 that current label mitigations are sufficient “to support the continued registration of paraquat dichloride and the safety of its registered use patterns.” The company called “fundamentally sound” EPA’s conclusions about paraquat’s risks and benefits, “which were reached through the science-based risk assessment process and set forth in the final interim decision as well as EPA’s supplemental document.”
On its website, EPA says a “thorough review of the best available science” has found no “clear link between paraquat exposure from labeled uses and adverse health outcomes such as Parkinson’s disease and cancer.”
The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and farmworker and environmental groups dispute that finding. The foundation has protested EPA’s failure to consider 40 studies that it submitted in August, months before the latest document was issued. EPA has said it will consider those studies before it releases its final document in January 2025.
The Unified Parkinson’s Advisory Council, which includes the Michael J. Fox foundation, called on EPA in its latest comments “to reconsider its interim registration review decision and revisit the flawed evaluation, which greatly minimizes the risks posed to the U.S. population by the continued use of paraquat.”
The council and others also raised the issue of impacts on U.S. growers from the trade effects of EPA’s decision. The Center for Biological Diversity questioned EPA’s analysis of the impact of Thailand’s Maximum Residue Limit for paraquat, which is “essentially zero.”
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“EPA’s assumption that Thai importers will bear all the costs to secure a paraquat-free supply line is unsupported by data and in direct contradiction to expert agencies within the U.S. government,” CBD said.
“The U.S. will now be competing for the Thai soybean market with major soybean suppliers like Brazil (which has banned paraquat, and will have no trade barrier),” CBD said. “A Thai importer would likely just import soybeans from Brazil rather than incur the expense of testing a U.S. product. This expense will fall directly to U.S. suppliers if they want to maintain this export market and those costs will likely be passed on to U.S. soybean growers.”
Syngenta didn't address EPA’s analysis of trade impact but emphasized the benefits of paraquat. “EPA has rightly recognized that paraquat has certain important advantages over alternative herbicides, which can make it a preferred choice for weed control in a wide range of crops as well as in specific agricultural scenarios,” Syngenta said.
Syngenta also cited EPA’s conclusion that “paraquat has high benefits for numerous crops and crop groups including artichoke, cotton, peanuts, soybeans, bulb vegetables, cucurbits, alfalfa, orchards and vineyards, but lower benefits for other uses including grains, tomato, and pastureland.” Syngenta contends that the “preplant burndown use of paraquat to clear fields of weeds prior to planting is a high benefit regardless of the crop planted.”
EPA’s Jan. 30 document says that it is considering a ban on “raker and tramper harvesting activities and requiring an enclosed cab for all groundboom applications of paraquat.” A groundboom is an applicator attached to a tractor with several nozzles only inches above the treated plant.
Syngenta said that “a requirement to use an enclosed [tractor] cab for groundboom application regardless of acres treated would not be feasible for many growers and would essentially remove paraquat as a key tool for many small farm operations for several reasons,” including the cost of retrofitting or replacement and maintenance and repairs.
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