Iowa's People, or Big Pesticide Companies?

You can help choose

I was recently asked by a person who hasn’t read any of my writing what I liked to write about. And I immediately thought about agroecology, local foods, “Faux Real Stories,” “Walk There Agains,” “Postal History Sunday,” music, puns and topics that encourage learning and finding ways to just be and do better. I believe strongly that there is a place for all of this - perhaps more than ever.

But I also feel I have an obligation to write about difficult and sometimes unhappy things where I have specialized knowledge through personal experience or training. I will admit that I would rather not write about some of these things. Things like pesticide drift, avian influenza or a food system that fails to value local production. But that’s often how obligations work.

Today, I want to call your attention to a dangerous bill being actively considered in many states (including Iowa) that would provide lawsuit immunity to big pesticide companies.

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Pesticide companies are trying to tell us what to do

I am about to be dramatic to make a point - so take it in the spirit intended. I’ll get to the accurate details once I get you all riled up. Yes, that’s me. A rabblerouser.

If I walked up to your new vehicle and hit it repeatedly with a baseball bat, causing very real damage, what would you expect should happen to me as a consequence for my actions? Of course, you would expect that I would be held accountable for those actions. And, frankly, so would I. But, apparently pesticide companies, like Bayer/Monsanto, seem to think that they should be an exception and they should not be held accountable when they cause harm to others.

The big difference, however, is it is not just a few dents in a car we’re talking about. This is about your health and safety. This is about my health and safety. This is about our hardworking farmers and farmworkers. This is about people who are suffering from cancer, Parkinson’s, and birth defects. This is about big corporations pushing our government to weigh the profits of their companies more heavily than the lives of the people those governments are supposed to be serving.

Bayer and the Modern Ag Alliance is pushing a misleading story line to push bills in many states, including Iowa, that would remove our only remaining tool to keep pesticide companies accountable when they harm us. Currently, this bill is in the Iowa Senate as SSB 1051 and it would remove a person’s ability to take a pesticide company to court if they were harmed by a pesticide product.

That’s the bottom line. The bill passes and gets signed by the governor - then Bayer and every other pesticide company can just smile and say, “so sorry you have cancer, but you’ll just have to deal with it.” And it doesn’t matter if it can be shown that their products caused your medical problem.

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There is something you can do about it

Some of you might be ready to do something about it now. So, I’ll give you that information here.

Take this link and follow the instructions to send a letter to your Iowa Senator. Full disclosure - this action is produced by PAN (Pesticide Action and Agroecology Network), my employer. In fact, I was the key individual who wrote the content you see and the letter that will go to your Senator.

If you have the energy to do so, you can also go to Beyond Pesticides and their page that tracks similar bills in other states. They ALSO have an action that you can follow the directions and send.

If you know someone in Missouri, you can send them to this PAN action. By the end of the week, PAN will have live actions for Tennessee and Florida - two states where we have a decent sized email list. We will also be targeting the EPA on this topic. So, stay tuned.

Send the link to your friends and family. We can stop this.

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The nuts and bolts of the problem

I want to start by pointing out that our current system for regulating pesticides is inadequate when it comes to making sure products will not result in environmental or health harms. But, instead of looking for ways to improve, we have to fight an effort to reduce - not enhance - our ability to protect people and our environment from injury.

I participated in a recent webinar with various Iowa organizations that are working to stop the bill in our state. If you would prefer to hear a summary of the bill verbally with some slides, take a look starting at the 9 minute mark in the video below:

If you prefer words - here are some that might help you better understand the issue:

• FIFRA (Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act) is the federal law that directs the EPA to determine that pesticide products will not bring unreasonable risk to people or the environment when they are used as instructed.

• EPA uses existing research (not their own), most of which is provided by the pesticide companies themselves, to assess these products. If they approve registration of a product, they produce a use label that includes application instructions and any warnings regarding use of the product. These use labels reflect the research results provided by the pesticide companies.

• State departments of agriculture are responsible for enforcing the use label. Enforcement relies on a system where citizens report a suspected misapplication and the state agency investigates the event. If it is found that the use label was not followed the state might levy a small fine and/or it could revoke or suspend a applicator’s license (rare). The state has no power to compensate or help those who have been exposed to pesticides.

• The judiciary provides tools for individuals to take corporations to court if they believe they can show that the company failed to provide proper warning about a potential risk that comes with using the product. These cases are called “Failure to Warn” cases and it is extremely difficult to win them.

• It is during the discovery process of “failure to warn” cases that additional research and additional risks arising from a pesticide could be uncovered. Successful cases typically uncover evidence that the pesticide company was aware of risks that they did not divulge to the EPA. Thus, the label was not accurate for the known risk. It is the potential threat of loss of revenue through these cases that puts a check on pesticide companies - discouraging them (at least a little) from blatant dishonesty regarding health and safety risks when they seek EPA registration for a dangerous product.

The bill, as it stands, would make the EPA use label the final word making it sufficient “warning” regardless of accuracy. Even if the label is wrong because information was not made available to the EPA, the label will be “sufficient.” Even if that label is old and new information has been uncovered about new risks, that label will be “sufficient.” Even if you become very ill and there is plenty of evidence to show that the pesticide caused that harm - it’s your problem because the label was “sufficient warning.”

So, while I would actually rather we moved EPA to use a much stricter approach for limiting the use of pesticides AND allow states and localities to set higher pesticide regulations if they wish AND allow more freedom for those who become ill to hold these companies accountable. I’ll settle for simply stopping a bad bill that would grant lawsuit immunity to pesticide companies.

For now.