UK's Greenpeace organization has unearthed corporate documentation showing that the chemical giant Syngenta resisted efforts to make its toxic herbicide less dangerous to use for decades. Memos reveal that corporate officials discussed the matter repeatedly but refused to act on grounds of cost. Paraquat was synthesized in 1882, but not widely used until the middle of the 20th century. The herbicide became notorious when the US government paid for the substance to be sprayed on Mexico's marijuana fields during the late 70's. Today it is used in 120 countries including the United States on more than 100 crops.
Paraquat in the US is died blue and has a sharp smell warning of its extreme toxicity. It also includes an emetic to induce vomiting if swallowed to prevent fatal poisonings. Still, deaths due to paraquat poisoning are estimated to be in the thousands worldwide annually with seventeen deaths in the US due to poisoning occurring over the last twenty years. In Switzerland, where Chinese-owned Syngenta has its headquarters, the herbicide has been banned since 1989; fifty other countries have banned the herbicide. Gramoxone brand paraquat is manufactured in the north of England where it is also banned from use. Several studies have linked Paraquat exposure to Parkinson's disease in agricultural workers. The most common cases of Paraquat exposure come from inhalation, prolonged skin contact, or entry into the body through a wound. As little as 10ml--a tablespoon--can be fatal if swallowed. Many children have died from a sip of the chemical improperly stored in an innocuous bottle.
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| a warning from 1983 |
Although Syngenta is just one of 377 companies worldwide that have registered the product for sale, its records show that a former head of toxicology told the company that it needed to change its formulation of Gramoxone to reduce toxicity by increasing the amount of emetic additive.. The company ignored his advice to add more emetic to the product and shelved formula alterations that could have made Gramoxone less toxic. The former company toxicologist alleges the emetic concentration used by the company is based on a single “fabricated” internal report from 1976, in which an now-dead Imperial Chemical Industries [a corporate predecessor] toxicologist named Michael Rose manipulated data from a small-scale clinical trial to wrongly suggest humans were ten times more sensitive to the emetic additive than any of the three tested animal species.
Documents going back to 1968 detail how the subject of reducing the product's toxicity, including dilution or granulation, was repeatedly discussed internally because the number of deaths from paraquat poisoning put company profits at risk. In 1986 the company estimated there were 2,000 deaths a year, with more than 95% thought to be suicides. However, the agrochemical giant and its predecessor corporate entities rejected or resisted many different options for changes to the formulations of Gramoxone on cost grounds and the desire to protect profits. It resisted regulatory efforts to ban or restrict sales including attention from the EPA prompted by the lack of an antidote or effective emergency treatment. Ultimately, EPA approved the herbicide for use in the US in 1982 convinced by its distributor, Chevron Chemical Company, that the emetic content made the poison less deadly.
However, the company stated in a internal review memo of 1981 that "the conclusion that emerges from this scrutiny is that, at best, only a few people have survived paraquat poisoning because of the inclusion of the emetic. Even in these cases we cannot be certain that the emetic has contributed to saving life." Syngenta denies the allegations against it claiming their former employee did not raise safety concerns with the company until after his company contract had ended and began collaboration with Greenpeace. It also characterizes the argument that increasing the level of emetic improves the safety of their product is "overly simplistic". The product liability case against Syngenta in the US goes to trial in the coming months.