Victims of pesticides fight for justice

1.Paraguay: Action for Life and the Environment
2.UK: Georgina Downs statement regarding Court of Appeal Judgment
3.France: Victims of pesticides organize themselves to get their diseases recognized

NOTE: With research[1] and local reports[2] pointing to the devastating impact of Roundup on the health of rural communities where Monsanto's GM Roundup Ready crops are extensively grown, it's a useful reminder that the GM corporations are also the world's largest pesticide manufacturers[3] with a long and terrible legacy of toxic pollution.[4]

It's not for nothing that the vast majority of GM crops planted worldwide (80%+) involve herbicide tolerance. GM crops have contributed substantially to increased pesticide use and that's not something that's going to change - most new GM crop varieties coming through the pipeline are also pesticide-promoting.

As lawyer Andrew Kimbrell, director of the Center for Food Safety, notes, "All those dreams... the blind will see, the lame will walk... has turned out to be science fiction. They are basically chemical companies selling more chemicals."

It's in this context that we need to see the struggles for justice of pesticide victims worldwide. The GM industry is about extending and intensifying the agrochemical nightmare.

[1]http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6254
[2]http://www.lasojamata.org/
[3]http://www.etcgroup.org/en/materials/publications.html?pub_id=707
[4]http://www.theecologist.co.uk/pages/archive_detail.asp?content_id=753
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1.Paraguay: Action for Life and the Environment
http://www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/protestaktion.php?id=423

Since 24 June 2009, 959 people have participated in this protest action.

Children are the most affected by the pesticides

Despite being a relatively small country, Paraguay has turned into the 4th world soy exporting country. GM soy monocultures, Monsanto‘s RoundupReady soy, are destined for the agroindustry in Europe and China and currently take up over 2 million hectares in Paraguay. Industrial monocultures require intensive agrochemical spraying that contaminate and impact the health of the rural, indigenous and small farmer population.

Thousands of small farmers and indigenous people have been forced to leave their communities, because the living conditions have deteriorated enormously because of the contamination. They end up in poverty and exclusion in the cities.

Recently, the Paraguayan Congress has approved a new law that favours the indisriminate use of agrochemicals. This law that was written by the agribusiness lobby, will perpetuate the impunity of environmental crimes and leaves the population without protection. President Lugo has the power to veto this law and send it back for revision to the Congress. He can also keep a presidential decrete enforced, a decrete that was written by the Minstry of Health, which contains at least some limited measures to protect the population from the fumigations.

The pressure put by the agribusiness lobby on the Paraguayan government is extremely strong. Soy farmers threathen with tractor rallies and manifestations. It is therefore necessary that through an international call, the concerns about the vulnerability of the Paraguayan rural population are made heard. Sign the letter to President Lugo, asking him to veto the law that threathens life and nature.

Read an english translation of the protest letter here:
http://www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/protestaktion.php?id=423&zusatz=1
TAKE ACTION - SIGN THE LETTER HERE:
http://www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/protestaktion.php?id=423
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2.Georgina Downs statement regarding Court of Appeal Judgment
7 July 2009

In July 2009 pesticide campaigner Georgina Downs lost her case against the UK government in the Court of Appeal.

This followed a victory for Downs over the government at the High Court in November 2008, which The Times reported as "a landmark case that could halt crop spraying":
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5161219.ece

That High Court Judgment was clear, with the Judge, Mr Justice Collins, concluding that Downs had produced "cogent arguments and evidence," that had been "scientifically justified." He also concluded that Downs had produced "solid evidence that residents have suffered harm to their health."
Mr Justice Collins added that he was in "no doubt" that the Government had been acting unlawfully in its policy and approach in relation to the use of pesticides in crop spraying, and that public health, in particular rural residents and communities exposed to pesticides from living in the locality to regularly sprayed fields, was not being protected (and this applied to both acute effects and chronic long term adverse health effects).

The UK government appealed against the judgment, resulting in the Court of Appeal case earlier this month.

According to Downs, the judge in the Court of Appeal substituted another, less cogently argued and out of date, case for the evidence she had presented in the High Court case. She commented on the verdict, "I think this may well go down in history as being the most bizarre and inaccurate Judgment to have ever come out of the Court of Appeal."

Her statement is here: http://www.pesticidescampaign.co.uk/documents/georginaStatement7july09.doc

Downs has vowed to continue her fight, saying that she will appeal to the House of Lords.
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3.Victims of pesticides organize themselves to get their diseases recognized
Le Monde, 17 July 2009
Translation: Claire Robinson, GMWatch
http://www.lemonde.fr/aujourd-hui/article/2009/07/17/les-victimes-des-pesticides-s-organisent-pour-faire-reconnaitre-leurs-maladies_1219976_3238.html

The Movement for the rights and respect for future generations has launched a network for the victims of pesticides. This association, which has campaigned for pesticide-free agriculture for the past fifteen years, is sought out by "many individuals who find they have no way to defend himself against the sprays as the legislation is virtually nonexistent," says François Veillerette, President of the Movement.

Pouchin Bertrand is one of them. When he bought his house in the middle of the wheat fields of Beauce, in July 2004, he believed he had won a "little piece of paradise". He was quickly disillusioned. One weekend, a huge tractor came to spray pesticides with a nauseating odour up to the hedge separating the fields from his garden where his little boy was playing. This was his first confrontation, a violent one, with the farmer. Mr. Pouchin appealed to the mayor who, as a first step, delayed. "The municipal council, composed of eight arable farmers out of eleven elected members, sent me packing," he says. Same response from the gendarmes (police). I was told that the farmers were there before me, and that they must work." No one told him that it is an offence to spray these products even in a force 3 wind or 19 kilometers per hour. "That speed is however frequent in the Beauce, where the first wind farm in France is located," says Pouchin. "From March to October, it's a living hell!" he says. The arable farmers dump herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, growth hormones, pest control hormones..."

In October 2008, Damien, his second boy, then 3 years old, lost weight, and doctors diagnose hyperthyroidism that Mr. Pouchin attributes to pesticides, as they are considered to be endocrine disrupters. "At war" against chemical pollution, he launched accusations in the local press and received death threats. Yet he feels justified in his fight when “penitents” from intensive agriculture share their illnesses and their suspicions with him.

Patrick, a farmer in Alsace, is one of these penitents. He always used pesticides because he "learned to do it in school” but has come to regret it since developing Parkinson's disease at the age of 35. "We were told that pesticides were not harmful, so we'd spray dressed just in shorts and a shirt ... One day, a pipe broke and I was showered with weedkiller inside the cab of my tractor. I had to be hospitalized after a high fever. Eight years later, the tremors started. I think I was poisoned, but the "Mutualité sociale agricole" refuses to link the two events and recognize it as an occupational disease, "he says. Bertrand and Patrick met at the new network for victims of pesticides.

The Movement for the rights and respect for future generations calls for the banning of pesticides in the city, in parks, gardens and playgrounds, "so as to prevent children whose ball lands on the lawn from touching and swallowing them.” It also calls for the establishment of buffer zones (organic crops or pasture), between homes and spray zones. And "so that the law is respected, it must be accompanied by stringent criminal penalties," says Veillerette. He hopes that the Government seizes the opportunity to bring in a European directive governing the use of pesticides to introduce these provisions.

The Movement also hopes to come to the aid of professionals who have fallen victim to pesticides, helping them to recognize their disease, "which only one or two farmers have done as yet," says Veillerette. "Many epidemiological studies show that exposure to pesticides increases the risk of cancer, reproductive disorders and neurodegenerative diseases," he says. The National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) has just confirmed on June 16 that farmers have double the risk of Parkinson's disease. "Our opponents respond that nothing can be proven, we never established a causal link between exposure and disease," says Mr. Veillerette indignantly. Breaking the conspiracy of silence should force them to back down." As was the case with asbestos.

Increased risk of Parkinson's disease and lymphoma
Pesticide exposure doubles the risk of Parkinson's disease among farmers, according to a study conducted by a team of researchers from the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) and the Pierre and Marie Curie University. The risk increases with the number of years of exposure and is primarily related to the use of insecticides, particularly organochlorines. Another recent study by Inserm shows that farmers exposed to pesticides have chromosomal abnormalities that may promote the development of lymphoma or cancer of the immune system. In the case of lymphoma, the cancer process begins with an exchange of genetic material, or translocation between chromosomes 14 and 18. The blood of 128 farmers monitored by Inserm showed the frequency of translocated cells was up to 1 000 times above normal.