Thousands of U.S. farmers have Parkinson's. They blame a deadly pesticide

https://www.mlive.com/news/2025/12/thousands-of-us-farmers-have-parkinsons-they-blame-a-deadly-pesticide.html

by bikenaga • 7 months ago

456 349 7 months ago

"Critics point to research linking paraquat exposure to Parkinson’s, while the manufacturer pushes back, saying none of it is peer-reviewed."

What lead it to being "banned in dozens of countries all over the world, including the United Kingdom and China"?

blibble2• 7 months ago

in most civilised countries: chemicals added to food are banned until proven safe

... then you have the USA

JumpCrisscross15• 7 months ago

chemicals added to food are banned until proven safe

Is that the case here? Paraquat wasn’t banned for any reason, it just hasn’t been approved yet?

That doesn’t comport with how the word “banned” is usually used.

Aloisius5• 7 months ago

What civilized countries are we talking about?

Because paraquat was approved for use over much of the world at one point, including countries people claim require substances be "proven safe."

witte• 7 months ago

Chevron clasically has ignored health and safety requirements to the point where there was once the “Chevron Doctrine” which deferred legal interpretations to specialized regulatory agencies which established clearer guidance against murky legislative directives. The Doctrine was recently overturned by the ostensibly rogue SCOTUS as highlighted by the harvard business review: https://hbr.org/2024/09/the-end-of-the-chevron-doctrine-is-b...

mistrial9• 7 months ago

"Under Chevron, if a judge found that the agency had made a reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous congressional directive, they were obliged to defer to the agency’s interpretation of the law, effectively ending any substantive review of a challenged rule. The repeal of Chevron is a huge blow to regulators, evidenced by the fact that the decision had been cited more than 18,000 times over 40 years."

the Chevron Doctrine is new to me; it appears that the parent comment was not answering "why was it banned internationally" but rather emphasizing weakness in US procedures

stuffn4• 7 months ago

Chevron didn’t establish clearer guidelines.

It was weaponized by both parties to create defacto laws without proper legal procedure. It should’ve been unconstitutional from the beginning as only Congress can make laws. Regulatory agencies are far easier to control, generally contain administration-friendly plants, and are not expected to provide any justification for their decisions. The result is laws that change as the wind blows, confusions, and rights restrictions done by people who should have no business doing so. The “reasonable interpretation” rule allowed Congress to completely defer to them and force citizens to spend tremendous capital getting a case to the Supreme Court.

Chevron’s overturn was objectively a huge win and hardly a “rogue” decision. That editorialization is not a fair representation of the problems it has caused when regulatory agencies begin attempting to regulate constitutional rights. It was overly vague and gave far too much power to people who cannot be trusted with it.

We shouldn’t need Chevron Deference to make laws that protect people from harm done by corporations. Period. If we do, it’s a failure of Congress to do their jobs and a mechanism should be in place to have a “reset button” (like many other countries when they form a government).

somenameforme5• 7 months ago

That's a rather rose colored way of framing what Chevron was. It essentially removed the role of the judiciary in settling disputes. In cases where a regulator's action was deemed at least "reasonable", the judiciary was obligated to simply defer to the regulator's interpretation.

And due to widespread regulatory capture, this is hardly some social benefit. The original case Chevron Doctrine was based on [1] essentially came down to the EPA interpreting anti-pollution laws in a way enabling companies to expand pollution-causing constructions with no oversight. The EPA was then sued, and defeated, by an environmental activist group, but then that decision was overturned by the Supreme Court and Chevron Deference was born.

Other examples are the FCC deeming broadband internet as a "information service" instead of a "telecommunications service" (which would have meant common-carrier obligations would have applied), and so on. Another one [3] - Congress passed legislation deeming that power plants must use the "best technology available" to "minimize the adverse environmental impact" of their water intakes/processing. The EPA interpretation instead allowed companies to use a cost-benefit analysis and pick cheaper techs. And I could go on. Chevron Deference was an abomination.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_U.S.A.,_Inc._v._Natura....

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cable_&_Telecommunica...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entergy_Corp._v._Riverkeeper_I....

tastyfreeze3• 7 months ago

[Edit] The below comment is inaccurate. The pesticide sprayed for gypsy moths was DDT. I am leaving this comment because it should be known that this was a thing even though it is now off topic.

P̵a̵r̵a̵q̵u̵a̵t̵ DDT is also linked to the polio pandemic. It was sprayed everywhere gypsy moths were found. Great success at killing moths. Also weakened human children to to where a common disease could get into spines and cause paralysis.

Researching this kind of stuff is not for the faint of heart. Its horrible all the way down. Not recommended for the faint of heart.

kens• 7 months ago

Paraquat is a herbicide, not an insecticide, so why would it be sprayed for moths? I searched for information linking moths, paraquat, and polio, but couldn't find any. Is this claim a hallucination?

paddleon• 7 months ago

um. My uncle died of polio, and I was a medical researcher (phd) for a while.

Polio can cause paralysis just fine on its own, it doesn't need DDT or paraquat to help it.

And you are also right that widespread spraying of DDT lead to all kind of problems (killed all the birds, for one, leading to "Silent Spring"), which one reason it was banned.

another reason is the mosquitos developed resistance.

itintheory• 7 months ago

gypsy moths

The common name is "spongy moths" now, to avoid a racial epithet.

"In July 2021 the Entomological Society of America decided to remove the name "gypsy moth" from its Common Names of Insects and Related Organisms List as "hurtful to the Romani people", since gypsy is considered an ethnic slur by some Romani people." [1]

[1] https://www.entsoc.org/entomological-society-america-discont...

zug_zug3• 7 months ago

So assessments of safety of a chemical aren't hard science. They are statistical judgment calls (often based on things like giving a much, much higher dose to a rodent and looking for short-term effects).

And the reason that is is because there's no affordable, moral way to give 100,000 farmers [nor consumers] a small dose of a product for 20 years before declaring it safe. So the system guesses, and it guesses wrong, often erring against the side of caution in the US (it's actually quite shocking how many pesticides later get revoked after approval).

Europe takes a more "precautionary principle" approach. In those cases of ambiguity (which is most things approved and not), they err to the side of caution.

Notice how this claim here is again shifting the burden to the victims (their research doesn't meet standard X, allegedly). Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

threethirtytwo• 7 months ago

The US is very capitalist and consumer based. They error on the side of “does it make money?” Or “will I lose money?”

JumpCrisscross15• 7 months ago

assessments of safety of a chemical aren't hard science

These are still data. I'm curious for the contexts that lead other countries to actively ban the substance.

If it simply hasn't been approved in other countries, one can't use that information to infer about its safety.

aeternum4• 7 months ago

IMO the FDA should do a better job at helping the populace distinguish between these two:

1) Evidence for the null hypothesis (there are enough studies with sufficient statistical power to determine that product likely does not cause harm at a >95% CI).

2) There is no evidence that it is unsafe. (nor that it is safe).

The problem is #2 sounds a lot stronger and often better than #1 when put into English. There must be some easy to understand way to do it, IE an 'insufficient testing' vs. 'tested' label/website or something.

bobbylarrybobby• 7 months ago

Shouldn't most chemicals be assumed unsafe until proven otherwise? How many chemicals have we produced in a lab that have no harmful effects? Even medicine is bad for you, it's just better than the disease it's meant to treat. I don't know why we'd treat something designed to kill animals as safe for humans without studies showing that it's not harmful. (Well I do know why, but I don't know why voters go along with it.)

jdasdf• 7 months ago

What lead it to being "banned in dozens of countries all over the world, including the United Kingdom and China"?

political pressure. Same reason lots of stuff is banned in the EU even when it's safer than other things that aren't banned.

nosianu• 7 months ago

political pressure. Same reason lots of stuff is banned in the EU even when it's safer than other things that aren't banned.

You avoid the question instead of answering it (What caused that "political pressure"? Does such a thing just occur randomly in nature?), following it by an assertion that you don't bother to provide any evidence for.

3D30497420• 7 months ago

I believe the EU tends to follow a precautionary principle, namely a substance generally must be shown to be safe before it’s approved. In contrast, the US follows a risk-based approach where a substance can often be used unless it’s shown to be harmful. So it isn't really that many "safe" things in the EU are banned, rather they have not been approved. Pretty sure this is specific to food additives, though may apply to other areas.

_zagj2• 7 months ago

There's a synthetic opioid called MPPP, which, if inappropriately synthesized (IIRC, using too much heat in one step), yields MPTP, which is non-toxic in and of itself, but has the ability to penetrate the blood-brain barrier, where it is then metabolized into MPP+, which is potently neurotoxic to the dopaminergic neurons of the Substantia Nigra, reliably producing a Parkinsonism in those exposed to it (from wikipedia):

The chloride salt of MPP+ found use in the 1970s as an herbicide under the common name cyperquat.[4][3] Though no longer in use as an herbicide, cyperquat's closely related structural analog paraquat still finds widespread usage, raising some safety concerns.

EDIT: the neurotoxicity of MPTP was discovered after a number of heroin addicts developed a sudden, irreversible Parkinsonism after injecting bad batches: https://archive.org/details/TheCaseoftheFrozenAddict

The doctor featured in that NOVA episdoe summarizes the history of MPTP and its relevance to Parkinson's research and epidemiology here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5345642/

Over the last two centuries the pendulum of opinion has swung widely as to whether the cause of PD was due to genetics or environment causes [69]. While MPTP has not yet been found in the native environment, beginning in the 1980s the pendulum swung dramatically in the direction of the environmental hypothesis, spurred not only by the observation that a simple pyridine (MPTP) could induce so many of the features of PD, but also the striking similarity between its toxic metabolite, MPP+ and paraquat (differing only by one methyl group) [70], an herbicide that is used worldwide. Since that time, a large number of studies have shown pesticide exposure is a risk factor for PD [71]. Interesting, this risk is enhanced by the presence of certain genetic variants [72], consistent to the adage that “genetics load the gun, but environment pulls the trigger”.

_zagj2• 7 months ago

Actually, surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly, given the interesting history and a large chunk of HNers being functional drug addicts--albeit not necessarily of opioids), MPPP was discussed here just last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41053383

downrightmike4• 7 months ago

The other thing you should know is that they use it to help the plants grow, but they use larger amounts to kill the plants at the same time so they can uniformly harvest. So we eat more of this crap than you'd expect, because they are using it beyond expected ways

Aloisius5• 7 months ago

What lead it to being "banned in dozens of countries all over the world, including the United Kingdom and China"?

Almost everyone who banned it did so because of acute toxicity - it requires careful handling to use safely.

Unfortunately, it was commonly used to commit suicide in many countries. In other countries, it was deaths from accidental ingestion, lung damage from unsafe handling, etc.

I don't know of any country that banned it because of a purported link to Parkinson's.

calebm• 7 months ago

"With evidence of its harms stacking up, it’s already been banned in dozens of countries all over the world, including the United Kingdom and China, where it’s made. Yet last year, its manufacturer Syngenta, a subsidiary of a company owned by the Chinese government, continued selling paraquat in the United States and other nations that haven’t banned it."

zug_zug3• 7 months ago

Reminds me of "cancer alley" [1].

As somebody who's looked in to this a bit, the deeper I dug the more I ultimately moved toward the conclusion (reluctantly) that indeed big corporations are the baddies. I have an instinct to steel-math both sides, but not every issue has two compelling sides to it...

One example of them clearly being the baddies is them paying people to social media astroturf to defend the roundup pesticide online [2].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_Alley

2. https://galiherlaw.com/media-manipulation-comes-out-during-m...

peppersghost937• 7 months ago

You should consider dropping that instinct. If you look into how corporations have behaved historically you'd assume evil until proven innocent. Especially US corps.

Permit• 7 months ago

You should consider dropping that instinct.

This is the reason we have people mistakenly repeating the conclusion that AI consumes huge amounts of water comparable to that of entire cities.

If you make any other assumption than "I don't know what's happening here and need to learn more" you'll constantly be making these kind of errors. You don't have to have an opinion on every topic.

Edit: By the way, I also don't think we should trust big companies indiscriminately. Like, we could have a system for pesticide approval that errs on the side of caution: We only permit pesticides for which there is undisputed evidence that the chemicals do not cause problems for humans/animals/other plants etc.

reactordev• 7 months ago

Legislatively allowed evil

throwaway132448• 7 months ago

Perhaps, but it’s much easier to find contrived ways to stay neutral, than take a stance and actually be the change you want to see.

bombcar2• 7 months ago

Corporations have to be assumed to be amoral, which means that practically speaking, you can assume they'll tend towards evil.

At least you have to continually monitor them as such.

NaOH• 7 months ago

Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

tootie• 7 months ago

You can certainly accept a bias against corporations but you still should never assume every accusation is correct. Otherwise you'd be inclined to believe bullshit theories like Moderna wants our kids to have autism.

samdoesnothing2• 7 months ago

You're right. That's why I never took the Covid vaccine and I convinced everyone I know to avoid it as well. You cannot trust big pharma after all the evil things they've done.

kwanbix• 7 months ago

It is a consequence of our current model of living, where the only thing that matters is proffit.

littlestymaar4• 7 months ago

Unfortunately, in the current political environment saying that there are things that matters more than profit makes you a Commie somehow…

soulofmischief• 7 months ago

Checking in from cancer alley!

There are refineries within a stone's throw from my house. One of them sits on the highest point in our water table and the vacuum it creates has been destroying our famously soft water by creating underground fault lines which pollute the aquifer with leeched hard minerals.

But hey, oil.

littlestymaar4• 7 months ago

I used to be a proponent of the industrial agriculture, because technological progress of all kinds (genetics, chemicals, mechanisation) are the reason why food is now abundant.

But the massive disinformation campaigns and targeted harassment of researchers, as well as the outright corruption of science is where they lost me. Surely you wouldn't do things like that if you had clear consciousness.

parineum• 7 months ago

One example of them clearly being the baddies is them paying people to social media astroturf to defend the roundup pesticide online [2].

It certainly looks bad but I'm not sure the logic really follows.

It's just modern PR. Companies used to just do that by having good relationships with journalist but now social media has taken a lot of that role away. It's a fairly natural transition for companies to make and I'd be surprised if you couldn't find a lot of major corporations that don't do something similar.

And, also, it doesn't necessarily follow that they are either willingly lying or that their products are unsafe.

eitau_1• 7 months ago

Seeing how much having an unlimited upside corrupts corporations seeded my first serious doubts about capitalism.

GuB-422• 7 months ago

We need some more nuance here.

Companies are not evil, they are profit driven, and they make profit by responding to demand. If people demand evil, they will make evil, if people demand good, they will make good. I think it is too easy to blame them when ultimately, we are the one who support them.

In the case of farming, we want cheap food, and the way to make cheap food is intensive farming, with pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. So, companies make pesticides, farmers use them, and we eat the cheap food. Because we recognize that some checks need to be put in place, we elect governments to regulate all that, and or vote goes to whoever makes the best balance between cheap food, taxes and subsidies, and general health and precautions. This is crucial because cheap food is a matter of survival to some.

So in the end, there are no "baddies", just a system that's not perfect. Also keep in mind that big corporation are made of a lot of people, you may be one of them. I am. Does it make us evil? Maybe a little, but I don't think any more than average, as middle-class, I even tend to think we define the average.

Paedor• 7 months ago

This only really applies in a world of complete information. Pesticide side effects were an enormous externality, which only the company was aware of. And they obviously worked hard to keep that information out of the public consciousness. Perhaps there could be nuance to producing the pesticide, weighing food prices against health impacts, but that’s no justification for lying about what it does.

multiplegeorges• 7 months ago

If people demand evil, they will make evil, if people demand good, they will make good.

This is so naive.

People do not ask corporations to be evil and they certainly don't demand it. People ask for good value and convenience and corporations respond by doing by amorally pursuing that.

However, when you ask consumers if they want value and convenience at the cost of *evil*, they almost always say no.

Corporations have a demonstrated and well-documented history of actively hiding their evil actions because they know consumers are not aligned with them at all.

If consumers "demand" evil, as you say, then corporations wouldn't try to hide it.

aqme28• 7 months ago

Companies are not evil, they are profit driven, and they make profit by responding to demand

How do you define evil? Profit motivation at the expense of human life is as evil as anything you're ever going to find outside of fantasy literature.

schubidubiduba• 7 months ago

The issue is when companies try to hide their evil, manipulate public opinion, lobby (bribe) lawmakers to disable the democratic process, ...

All of which happens regularly, and especially in this case, as the person you responded to showed.

Don't seek nuance where there is none.

array_key_first• 7 months ago

This is assuming that every consumers knows what evil goes into their consumption. They don't, and not by choice, but because nobody will tell them. Ever. In fact, everyone will spend billions to make sure they don't know.

The problem with simplistic free market dynamics views is that they rely on consumer choice. Consumer choice relies on consumer consent and free information flow.

As soon as EITHER of those two are chilled, even just a tiny bit, the free market dynamics thinking falls down like a house of cards. Now the situation is orders of magnitude more complex, and we actually have to think about what's going on, inatead of appealing to a model so bare-bones it's practically impossible to see in real life.

RataNova2• 7 months ago

"Cancer Alley" is a good comparison because it shows how this plays out over decades

chasil• 7 months ago

https://archive.ph/YVt2I

SavioMak• 7 months ago

or ublock origin `www.mlive.com##+js(rc, article__paragraph--blur)`

SideburnsOfDoom• 7 months ago

A related, recent story: "Scientists Thought Parkinson’s Was in Our Genes. It Might Be in the Water"

Highlighting the role of environmental pollution in causing Parkinson’s.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46216422

https://www.wired.com/story/scientists-thought-parkinsons-wa...

https://archive.is/ZvjZH

jtbayly• 7 months ago

Am I the only one that thinks it's weird to call a weed killer a pesticide?

JumpCrisscross15• 7 months ago

Herbicides are a pesticide [1]. (Alongside insecticides, fungicides and fumigants, among others.)

[1] https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2017-01/documents/pe...

lordswork• 7 months ago

Technically, yes, but it's a similar relationship of humans being animals. If you say animals, the audience will assume you're not talking about humans.

mathgradthrow5• 7 months ago

1 in 400 US citizens is diagnosed with parkinsons, if by "thousands", this headline means 5000, then 1 in 2000 US farmers has Parkinson's. Stop it.

zamadatix3• 7 months ago

The article already talks to the numbers they mean and what scale they believe it to be:

More than 6,400 lawsuits against Syngenta and Chevron that allege a link between paraquat and Parkinson’s are pending in the U.S. District Court of Southern Illinois. Another 1,300 cases have been brought in Pennsylvania, 450 in California and more are scattered throughout state courts.
“I do think it’s important to be clear that number is probably not even close to representative of how many people have been impacted by this,” said Christian Simmons, a legal expert for Drugwatch.

mathgradthrow5• 7 months ago

There are hundreds of pictures of the Loch Ness monster.

slashdev• 7 months ago

The article mentions epidemiological studies showing that people living or working near farmland where paraquat is used have a higher incidence of Parkinson's.

Don't be so quick to dismiss it, there could be a link.

tastyfreeze3• 7 months ago

Paraquat was used in horrendous amounts mid century. It may be a dose dependant outcome.

lm28469• 7 months ago

If only we had tools like science and statistics... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00139...

tredre3• 7 months ago

Skepticism is healthy. You've found that the numbers don't make sense at face value. The problem is that you stopped there, you haven't even made any attempt at reconciling them with the original claim.

What if the US number of 1 in 400 figure is that high precisely because it includes people exposed to pesticide? In other words, maybe the number would be 1 in 500 if it weren't for Paraquat? You'd have to look at concentration maps or at the very least check what's the diagnosis rates in other countries before you can truly dismiss the claim, imho.

mathgradthrow5• 7 months ago

The problem is that you stopped there, you haven't even made any attempt at reconciling them with the original claim.

What are you talking about? I've done all the diligence that is due. If you want to convince me, you have to actually present your evidence. When you do present evidence, I'm free to assume that the evidence you've presented is your best evidence.

The article starts with a story about an 83 year old farmer with Parkinsons. I'm not going to continue reading after that point. An 83 year old with Parkinsons is not an anomaly, his existence is not evidence of anything. I'm not required to look beyond this point, and I'm absolutely free to comment about that. This is reasonable skepticism. I am not claiming evidence of absence, I'm claiming absence of evidence.

But fine, if you want to look for evidence of absence, then as you say, We need look no further than a random country where paraquat is banned. Paraquat is banned in germany, and there are 80 million people in germany, go google how many of them have Parkinson's disease.

If you are trying to convince me of an effect so small that you cannot even come up with one anomalous Parkinson's case to write a story about, then I don't care.

MarkMarine2• 7 months ago

I just read another article about this, but the affected group is military from Camp Legume. The water in Legume was contaminated, and its actually given a control group test for the incidence of Parkinson’s with Camp Pendleton, where the water was not contaminated.

Spoiler: it looks like the farmers are right

https://www.wired.com/story/scientists-thought-parkinsons-wa...

Amazing thing is TCE was banned by the Biden EPA in 2024 and Trump’s EPA stopped its ban.

Infernal• 7 months ago

For anyone stopping by looking for more info, it’s Camp Lejeune not Legume.

krustyburger• 7 months ago

Camp Legume may be a reference to this scene from the film Blazing Saddles:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=VPIP9KXdmO0

MarkMarine2• 7 months ago

Good lord. Thank you. Served in Pendleton and I should know better.

brendoelfrendo• 7 months ago

Minor correction: it's Camp Lejeune. I just had to chime in because Camp Legume is both very funny and kind of an appropriate typo for the topic.

keiferski• 7 months ago

An excellent movie on basically the same topic is Michael Clayton, with George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, and Tilda Swinton in IMO each of their best career performances.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Clayton

losthobbies• 7 months ago

One of my favourite movies. Everyone in it is so good.

jamestimmins• 7 months ago

Excellent movie. Worth noting that it was written by Tony Gilroy, who created Andor and cowrote The Bourne Identity, so if you enjoyed those you're likely to enjoy this.

stickfigure• 7 months ago

ChubbyEmu video for "A Farmer Mistakenly Drank His Own Herbicide. This Is What Happened To His Brain."

jmclnx• 7 months ago

Chevron, which never manufactured paraquat and hasn’t sold it since 1986 ... should not be liable

I think Chevron may have a point, no one knew back then and they stopped selling it ~40 years ago. But ---

To me, if the US had a real Health Care System, people would not have to file lawsuits to get the care they need.

But in the US, this is how things work. The care these people need is unaffordable by everyone in the US except for the very rich. So they will be waiting probably 10 to 20 years for relief as the lawsuit works it way through the courts and appeals.

juujian• 7 months ago

Meanwhile, RFK is too busy talking vaccines and beef tallow...

forgetfreeman3• 7 months ago

I know I'm going to regret this but...beef tallow? What?

bombcar2• 7 months ago

Fries used to be fried in beef tallow oil basically everywhere. Most fast-food chains went to vegetable oils for various reasons (vegan, subsidized, cheaper, supposedly healthier, etc). Many perceive a noticeable taste difference.

NotGMan• 7 months ago

Why can't all of these things be problematic? Why the binary thinking?

clivestaples• 7 months ago

I got shingles-ish rash after sitting in an outdoor jacuzzi in Salinas, California. Visited the urgent care and the Standard-trained doctor of immigrant farm laborers said it was related to the pesticides. Said he lost both parents in their 40s and suspects it was the indiscriminate spraying from the air in the 70/80/90s. Eye-opening and thought-provoking.

bloomingeek3• 7 months ago

As a city dweller, I used to use Roundup along my fence line. Then I read an article in a newspaper about spraying chemicals when there is a breeze. So I read the label on the Roundup bottle and it said absolutely do not spray in any windy conditions. Next I polled my coworkers about this and they all said they just stay upwind!

The bottle label also said Roundup is active for up to 30 days, then I thought about my dogs. I no longer use any chemical for lawn care.

As to the plight of the farmers: I wonder if most of them bothered to used proper personal protection gear when spraying? Even if they had enclosed cabs, the chemical would still coat the tractor and tank surfaces which can be rubbed against at any time.

stef25• 7 months ago

My dad used Roundup extensively in the garden in the 80s and 90s. Both he and a gardener he hired to help died from dementia.

The scientist in me wants to see definitive proof from validated studies.

phantasmish2• 7 months ago

In many parts of the country whole counties smell of pesticide for a few days every year (and pig-shit another few days, but that’s a different issue)

I’ve lived in some of them, and my mom did a lot of by-hand weed-killer spraying (big plastic refillable jug with sprayer hose & wand) along a mile-plus of fence line, for years. Her generation didn’t really do PPE, so no respirator. Died relatively young of a Parkinson’s-adjacent dementia a little while back. No history of any of that in the family. Hm.

buildsjets• 7 months ago

When the stories about Roundup started floating around, I switched to 30% strength vinegar with a squirt of dish soap in it. It kills weeds and undesired plants off just as quickly and effectively as Roundup did, but obviously it does not prevent new seeds from sprouting. It is indiscriminate, whereas Roundup selectively targets broad-leafed plants, so you want to avoid getting it on grass. I use a big tarp to mask off the grass if I am using it heavily along the lawn borders. It's very effective for things like borders, gravel paths, stuff like that.

Also, instead of smelling like a chemical factory, your yard will smell like salad dressing for a day or so.

downrightmike4• 7 months ago

And get in in the air intakes for the AC, or even if they closed it off to only recycle internal air, they brought chemical in with them

vel0city8• 7 months ago

So I read the label on the Roundup bottle

Something that is supposed to be done to legally use it properly under FIFRA. There's a reason why it says in big letters READ ENTIRE LABEL BEFORE USE.

Its nuts to me there's so many people out there buying crazy chemicals and just #yolo'ing it all over the place.

diggyhole• 7 months ago

The weird thing about this sort of stuff is I believe genetics play a role. My father in law has worked in ag his whole life. Specifically spraying fertilizer and pesticides. He is obese and has a terrible diet. One would think he is riddle with cancer and died at 50. He retired at 67 and is overall somewhat healthy for someone who is 300 lbs. Life is weird.

francisofascii2• 7 months ago

Isn't this old news? If you are a Vietnam vet who were exposed to Agent Orange or other herbicides, and you get Parkinson's, the VA assumes it was from Vietnam. My grandfather had Parkinson's a long time ago it was always said it was due to pesticides they used while farming.

downrightmike4• 7 months ago

First acknowledge AO death was in 2015, they gaslighted entire generations. Had Nixon not sent his campaign manager to Vietnam in 1969, and promised the VietCong a better deal later when he was president, we wouldn't have spent those five unneeded years there and wouldn't have used AO.

011000112• 7 months ago

IIRC the issue with AO was the dioxins present as a side-product of the synthesis, not the herbicide itself. Dioxins are nasty.

phendrenad2• 7 months ago

Are the migrant workers getting Parkinson's, or only the white males who can pull the heartstrings of MAGA folks?

Nasrudith• 7 months ago

Paraquat seems like it should be banned on its acute toxicity grounds alone, but the Parkinson's link as phrased doesn't stand out given the article's statistics. A thousand out of a million is a thousandth.

A baseline rate or Parkinsons would be a good addition to the article. I have seen figures of 1 out of 331 for total or apparently about 1.1M total. Farmers make up about 2% of the population. Doing rough back of envelope math shows that you would expect 22K farmers to have Parkinsons assuming even distribution by population. The numbers aren't precise but if the article's thousands was taken literally it would ironically suggest paraquat has a protective effect against Parkinsons which is obviously absurd thing to assume from a known neurotoxin.

Not every farmer with Parkinsons is suing though. If we assume 1% of farmers are involved in lawsuits then thousands is alarming because it would imply 10x rates. 10% suing though and it is expected. 100% suing would be 1/10th the general rate which would fit with the absurd counterfactual hypothesis that non-lethal paraquat exposure prevents Parkinsons.

jtrn5• 7 months ago

The chance this is a trustworthy source for me is close to 0. This just sound like fantastic pseudology:

“Even secondary exposure can be dangerous. One case published in the Rhode Island Medical Journal described an instance where a 50-year-old man accidentally ingested paraquat, and the nurse treating him was burned by his urine that splashed onto her forearms. Within a day, her skin blistered and sloughed off.

JKCalhoun• 7 months ago

"Paraquat, a heavily regulated weed killer, is banned in more than 70 countries…"

Seventy countries kind of suggested to me that something is up with this chemical.

cm2012• 7 months ago

GMOs are harmless but also widely banned.

LPisGood4• 7 months ago

I agree. If merely being splashed by his corrosive urine sloughed off her skin, I think he would not be alive to urinate.

phainopepla2• 7 months ago

It seems unlikely but possible that she was highly sensitive or allergic to the substance in a way that he wasn't

burkaman• 7 months ago

I mean you can click on the source right there, that is literally what happened: http://www.rimed.org/rimedicaljournal/2023/06/2023-06-40-ima.... The description maybe makes it sound a little more extreme than it actually was, but it's the correct terminology and an accurate description of events.

jtrn5• 7 months ago

Is lying by omission and juxtaposition. It's manipulation. And it pisses me off to no end. I read the original source. It has NOTHING to do with Parkinson’s. It’s a suicidal dose ingested, and when extracted, it was still a dangerous chemical. If I drank a gallon of gasoline and you pumped it out of me, then it caught fire, it wouldn't explain anything except that gasoline is dangerous and burns. Nobody disputes that with regard to this chemical. So why slip it in like that? And the fact that people don't care just shows why they CAN “just slip it in there” in an article about Parkinson’s... nobody cares as long as it confirms their bias.

I only care about evidence that proves that it causes Parkinson’s, with basic scientific rigor. I’ll eat my hat if any of the cited studies did basic attempt at falsification.

desro• 7 months ago

I was able to find the references (including photos of the mentioned forearms) on PubMed and the RIMJ after a quick search. Paraquat is nasty stuff.

- [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33769492/

- [1] http://www.rimed.org/rimedicaljournal/2023/06/2023-06-40-ima... (via https://rimedicalsociety.org/rhode-island-medical-journal/)

- [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraquat

jtrn5• 7 months ago

Yeah, I found it myself. And yes, it's nasty stuff. But in the context of the article, it’s pure nonsense.

Should we ban anhydrous ammonia, chlorine, or gasoline? They are nasty and dangerous too. The article is purely scare-mongering to make it seem true while obviously pushing an agenda. This is not science. See my reply at the same level after I did a review.

jtrn5• 7 months ago

I just finished reading article and honestly, my BS detector is going off the charts.

I’m not saying pesticides are health tonics, but this piece feels like pure litigation PR rather than an actual investigation. It prioritizes storytelling over science and engages in what I can only describe as lying by omission. Here are the main issues I found:

The nurse whose skin peeled off just from touching a patient’s urine? The article frames this to make you think, "Wow, this stuff is so toxic that if a farmer uses it, his body becomes a weapon." I looked into the medical case this is likely based on. That patient didn't just "farm" with Paraquat; he ingested a lethal, concentrated dose (usually a suicide attempt). By leaving out that the patient drank a cup of poison, the author conflates Acute Poisoning (death in days, acid urine) with Chronic Exposure (trace amounts over years). If the farmer in the main story had enough Paraquat in his system to burn a nurse’s skin, he wouldn’t be alive to give an interview about Parkinson’s. He’d be dead from multi-organ failure. Omitting this context is manipulative fear-mongering.

Then there is the math: Parkinson’s affects about 1% of the elderly population. There are 2 million farms in the US. Even if Paraquat was essentially harmless water, you would still have tens of thousands of farmers with Parkinson’s purely by chance. The article ignores this base rate to imply that every diagnosis is a result of the chemical. It treats a probabilistic risk as a deterministic cause.

It also ignores confounders (like the "Rural Cluster" Problem). Farming is a "chemical soup" lifestyle. You have well water (a known PD risk), head trauma risks, and exposure to dozens of other chemicals like Rotenone or Maneb. The article presents a direct line: Paraquat -> PD. But scientifically, isolating one chemical from 30 years of rural living is a nightmare. The article doesn't even attempt to falsify the hypothesis or look at other factors; it just assumes the lawsuit's narrative is the scientific truth.

The article also fails basic science standards. It is storytelling, not science. A real scientific inquiry follows Popperian standards—you make a conjecture and then try to disprove it. This article does the opposite: it acts like a defense attorney. It stacks up emotional anecdotes and selective correlations to confirm its bias and ignores the replication crisis in epidemiology where results often don't stick.

This isn't journalism and it’s not science; it’s advocacy via outrage. It uses the real tragedy of these farmers to push a specific narrative, relying on readers not knowing the difference between drinking poison and spraying crops. If you’ve ever wondered why science doesn’t make more progress, and we have the replication crisis, look no further.

sentrysapper2• 7 months ago

Why does that sound untrustworthy? Do you have any idea of what the tobacco industry hid about second hand smoke exposure? How is it somehow more plausible this nurse made up her condition than pesticide manufactures being honest about the impacts?

jtrn5• 7 months ago

I don’t think the nurse is lying at all. The medical case is real. My point is that the article omitted the fact that the patient she treated had ingested a massive, lethal dose of concentrate (acute poisoning), and she was exposed to it when extracting it. The journalist used the symptoms of a suicide attempt to illustrate the risks of routine farming, which I think is misleading. It’s not about the nurse making it up... it’s about the article leaving out the context that matters most. Especially when pushing the argument that it causes Parkinson's.

My gut intuition just didn't like the framing. Now that I have read through it thoroughly, my answer is this: It's untrustworthy because it is obviously extremely selective with what it includes, omits relevant base rates, uses graphical examples out of context, and has an obvious bias and agenda. That is just one of tens of examples in the article.

Your tobacco reference can be condensed into: "Large firms are known to lie and cover up things." I agree 100%. They plainly outright lied directly AND lied by covering up. But the reaction to that is not to lie better. And by better, I mean lying by omission, juxtaposition, and framing. These are still methods of lying, just that they are harder for people to detect.

IlikeKitties• 7 months ago

Here in Germany, farmers are regularly complaining about all the bureaucracy and "unnecessary" safety requirements in regards to pesticides and over-fertilization . But they also complain when nothing grows anymore because they killed the top soil with too much fertilizer, poisoned the groundwater and then die of Parkinson because, who would have thought, all those regulations and safety requirements had a point after all. I don't know how to help those people, I really don't.

ltbarcly32• 7 months ago

It's a herbicide, not a pesticide. I clicked the article because I was surprised that any current pesticides are that harmful to humans.

Pesticides are, generally, safe to humans. Herbicides are, generally, not at all safe to humans. Roundup is probably the most safe outside of per-emergents like corn husks or whatever, but it's not a free ride either.

JumpCrisscross15• 7 months ago

Pesticides are, generally, safe to humans

Out of curiosity, why?

steviedotboston• 7 months ago

they are designed to target specific aspects of the insects nervous systems that humans dont have and are used in small doses/by the time any residue reaches a human its diluted. herbicides are very different.

neogodless• 7 months ago

https://kagi.com/search?q=Pesticide

Pesticides are substances that are used to control pests. They include herbicides, insecticides, nematicides, fungicides, and many others (see table). The most common of these are herbicides, which account for approximately 50% of all pesticide use globally.[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesticide

You're trying to be pedantic, but you're actually wrong. If you think about it, from the perspective of anyone trying to raise crops, weeds are pests. (They are pests to lots of non-farmers, too.)

Similarly...

A pest is any organism harmful to humans or human concerns. The term is particularly used for creatures that damage crops, livestock, and forestry or cause a nuisance to people, especially in their homes.
Plants may be considered pests, for example, if they are invasive species or weeds.

pitaj• 7 months ago

While saying "it's an herbicide, not a pesticide" is categorically incorrect, I still think it would be better if the journalist used the more specific and less confusing term here.

ltbarcly32• 7 months ago

I'm not trying to be pedantic, I've literally never heard of pesticide used to mean anything but bug killer. I guess you are technically correct?

manarth• 7 months ago

    > "Pesticides are, generally, safe to humans."

There are many common pesticides which have extreme toxicity to humans, including HCN (Hydrogen Cyanide), (ab)used under the brand-name Zyklon B in WW2, and still sold today as a (controlled-use) pesticide under generic brand names.

It's a chasm-leap to say that pesticides are generally safe to humans.

ericmcer• 7 months ago

I am dubious of all the claims that say something designed to kill organic life is safe because it just means "safe at X dose". Like there isn't a pesticide made where I could drink a tablespoon of it and be fine. It just doesn't present noticeable effects at tiny doses so it is labeled safe.

Like if I drank a 1/4 shot of Vodka every morning I wouldn't notice it at all, but I imagine it would have some impacts on my health over the long run.

Not to mention we might have 30+ chemicals/medications/additives/whatever all being consumed constantly at "safe levels" with no research into how they interact or accumulate.

bikenaga• 7 months ago

Here's some of the research linked in the article.

"Rotenone, Paraquat, and Parkinson’s Disease" - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3114824/

"In 110 PD cases and 358 controls, PD was associated with use of a group of pesticides that inhibit mitochondrial complex I [odds ratio (OR) = 1.7; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.0–2.8] including rotenone (OR = 2.5; 95% CI, 1.3–4.7) and with use of a group of pesticides that cause oxidative stress (OR = 2.0; 95% CI, 1.2–3.6), including paraquat (OR = 2.5; 95% CI, 1.4–4.7)."

"Agricultural paraquat dichloride use and Parkinson's disease in California's Central Valley" - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38309714/#full-view-affiliat...

"Ambient paraquat exposure assessed at both residence and workplace was associated with PD, based on several different exposure measures. The PD patients both lived and worked near agricultural facilities applying greater amounts of the herbicide than community controls. For workplace proximity to commercial applications since 1974, working near paraquat applications every year in the window [odds ratio (OR) = 2.15, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.46, 3.19] and a higher average intensity of exposure [per 10 pounds (4.54 kilograms), OR = 2.08, 95% CI = 1.31, 3.38] were both associated with an increased odds of PD. Similar associations were observed for residential proximity (duration: OR = 1.91, 95% CI = 1.30, 2.83; average intensity: OR = 1.72, 95% CI = 0.99, 3.04). Risk estimates were comparable for men and women, and the strongest odds were observed for those diagnosed at ≤60 years of age."

"Department of Pesticide Regulation Releases Preliminary Findings from Review of Environmental and Human Health Studies Related to the Use of the Pesticide Paraquat" - https://www.cdpr.ca.gov/2024/12/30/department-of-pesticide-r...

"DPR’s preliminary scientific evaluation found that the current registered uses of paraquat in California may adversely affect non-target organisms, including birds, mammals and aquatic organisms, with the most significant risks to birds. Additional mitigation measures, beyond current restrictions on paraquat use currently in effect, may not feasibly reduce these environmental impacts to acceptable levels.

Consistent with United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (U.S. EPA) 2019 review, DPR’s review of existing human health studies does not indicate a causal association between paraquat exposure and Parkinson’s disease."

kamaal• 7 months ago

I was casually chatting with my uncle who is a doctor, he says something along the lines that if a chemical can kill a rat or a mosquito, to assume it won't do any damage to humans is kind of hilarious.

Of course humans who inhale this thing in small quantities won't die, but you can be sure they will kill some tissues that they go into. Now comes another problem of regular exposure, and these chemicals having an entry, but no exit path. That just means there are tissues, that are likely dying out every time there is a exposure.

Again none of this might kill you at the first exposure, but if there are enough dead tissues, there sure is likely to be things like Parkinson's or may be even diabetes.

Im guessing combined with this, if you already some bad genetics it could cause issues like these.

georgeburdell• 7 months ago

One of my relatives owned an animal farm for a couple of decades and got a very rare muscle wasting disease. A high school friend of his, who was also a farmer, got the same disease. I imagine there were innumerable harmful chemicals on the land and in the water from decades of use before he bought it in the 90s.

krautburglar• 7 months ago

Many medical preparations are oil rather than water soluble. Seed oils tend to be the cheapest choice, and probably still have trace amounts of pesticides/herbicides/fungicide--even after processing. Under such conditions, one must wonder how many of our modern neurodegenerative conditions are iatrogenic. Genetics may load the chamber, but environment pulls the trigger.

mring33621• 7 months ago

Huh.

Poisons are poison!

And they sprayed this shit all over themselves and people nearby.

kevin061• 7 months ago

I looked up this pesticide. It is banned in EU. Not exactly surprising.

reboot81• 7 months ago

They did that in 2007. Some countries banned it as early as 1983. Remind me, what year is it now?

neilv• 7 months ago

While Chinese companies supply paraquat to American farmers, the report points out China is also a big purchaser of crops, like soybeans, that are grown with help from the pesticide.
“In these two ways, China economically benefits from the application of paraquat in the U.S., where it outsources many of its associated health hazards,” the report said.

There would arguably be a poetic justice to the US taking a turn at bearing health and environmental costs to benefit other nations, but it's not right for that to happen to any country.

gradientsrneat• 7 months ago

"poetic justice" is the same mentality as people writing articles glorifying rich Chinese criminals for using South America's drug trade for money laundering because something something Opium War.

In either case, it's not the same. The United States benefits greatly in the short term from larger agricultural output, and herbicide manufacturing centers still create significant health risks for their local communities wherever they are located. So, whether you're the buyer or the seller, you're losing.

bilsbie• 7 months ago

Same issue as living near golf courses?

DudeOpotomus2• 7 months ago

Except the data doesnt back up that assertion. Golf course employees and golfers have no higher rates of than the public at large. So what gives?

If the very people who spend most of their waking lives on the grounds and among those fertilizers and pesticides do not have any great instance, maybe just maybe its something else. Like the gallons of unregulated chemicals that are in those tract houses that were all built around the same time...

one example is the drywall was used extensively in the 90's. Its makeup banned in the country of origin, China but its product was used all throughout the US for decades.

misja1112• 7 months ago

Data does back up this assertion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43933580

The correlation seems to point to usage ground water that is contaminated with pesticides. So people living close to the golf courses have higher Parkinson risk. Probably golfers and employees less so.

francisofascii2• 7 months ago

I know a guy who had a weird habit of using his mouth to clean his golf ball. He eventually got oral cancer.

alex_young• 7 months ago

https://archive.ph/YVt2I

ck2• 7 months ago

propublica.org has endless great articles on this and other horrors in the US

but if we aren't going to change a damn thing with daily mass shooting we sure aren't going to fix poisoning the environment, fracking is 100x worse than this and "sacrifice zones" are a real thing

follow the money, sue before current administration makes it illegal to sue

https://www.propublica.org/series/sacrifice-zones

josefritzishere• 7 months ago

This reminded me that the current administration has approved PFAS pesticides aka forever chemicals which are linked to certain cancers. What could possibly go wrong. https://time.com/7336883/epa-pfas-pesticides-health-risks/

reducesuffering• 7 months ago

The chemical manufacturer, Syngenta, is the same one involved in the creation of atrazine, the chemical notorious for preliminary evidence of the whole frog sex-changing while it's been sprayed all over the US but banned in most other countries.

dontlikeyoueith• 7 months ago

Too bad they voted to eliminate accountability for businesses that poison people.

Now they get to find out.

misja1112• 7 months ago

There is so much evidence of this connection piling up ..

E.g.:

Proximity to golf courses where pesticides are used -> Parkinson: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43933580

Farmers using pesticides have 60% higher Parkinson risk (2019): https://nos.nl/artikel/2302396-landbouwgif-kan-kans-op-parki... (Dutch)

Parkinson should be labeled as profession-linked disease for farmers(Swiss): https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/pestizide-als-krankmacher-pa...

Aloisius5• 7 months ago

You're conflating different chemicals together.

Paraquat (what this article is about), isn't used by any people in the links you gave (golf courses, Dutch or Swiss farmers).

m463• 7 months ago

parkinsons might have multiple causes.

https://www.wired.com/story/scientists-thought-parkinsons-wa...

OutOfHere• 7 months ago

The government absolutely cannot be trusted to protect the individual, whether a farmer or a consumer. It is coming down to each individual protecting himself by assessing the safety of the ingredients, sometimes also the purity.

sixothree• 7 months ago

I honestly think there's a technology / robotics solution to the pesticide, and especially herbicide, problems. I'm in completely the wrong space to see it happen, but I'm still hopeful someone smart can do it.

hereme888• 7 months ago

So the U.S. is still using 11-17 lbs/yr despite warnings and bans really since 1986, a re-authorization in 2021 by the EPA, and known elevated risk near use sites, which corporations have fought against claiming "no definitive proof". So if the U.S. allows its use "as directed", who can be legally accountable for all this?

thelittlenag• 7 months ago

My father is a data point in this. He was a farmer all his life and ultimately it was Parkinson's that did him in. While we took some precautions, I have no doubt that the herbicides we used should have been handled more carefully.

biddit• 7 months ago

Sorry for your loss - it's a terrible disease.

My mother is also data point - grew up on a farm where her father used it. She was diagnosed with Parkinson's 2018.

MPSFounder• 7 months ago

Under Trump, so many regulations have been setback. It will only get worse. I think the answer has to be on the community level, pushing back against industrial use that has not been rigorously tested. However, many believe that job creation is more important than the right of individuals (innocents) to a life free of health issues.

011000112• 7 months ago

There are plenty of things that can lead to Parkinson's. Recently we learned even copper salts carry a risk: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01618...

(Unfortunate for many like me who considered them relatively safe for years and did a lot of chemistry with them.)

Farmers use many chemicals for a variety of tasks and it wouldn't surprise me if there were multiple chemicals involved, perhaps even synergistically. Maybe a farmer exposed to paraquat is fine, but one who is exposed to both paraquat and a copper-based antifungal or fumes from a welding repair become more damaged. Hard to say.

expedition32• 7 months ago

In the Netherlands there is a discussion about agriculture impact on public health.

Each pesticide individually is safe but nobody knows what happens when you mix fifty chemicals and put them in the ground water.

On a positive note you have to die from something and ignorance is bliss.

ashwinne• 7 months ago

How can consumers avoid/reduce risk of ingesting this from the produce we buy at the store?

senectus1• 7 months ago

Dammit, this is one thats allowed in Australia.

RataNova2• 7 months ago

The "safe when used as directed" line also feels hollow when the real-world data includes spills, inhalation, secondary exposure, and long-term low-dose contact

mapt• 7 months ago

Paraquat is something that can cause acute toxicity to the point of death.

Glyphosate is a teddy bear by comparison.

Many chemicals that cause acute toxicity at high doses also have poorly studied chronic toxicity or carcinogenicity issues, either from bioaccumulation or from cumulative low-grade damage. These issues are much less well-studied than chronic effects of less harmful chemicals, specifically because acute toxicity and attempts to avoid it makes objective testing difficult.

dommakravosec• 7 months ago

I was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease a year ago at the age of 67. For several months I had noticed tremors in my right hand and the shaking of my right foot when I was sitting. My normally beautiful cursive writing was now small, cramped printing. And I tended to lose my balance. The neurologist had me walk down the hall and said I didn't swing my right arm. I had never noticed! I was in denial for a while, as there is no history in my family of parents and five older siblings, but I had to accept I had classic symptoms. I was taking amantadine and carbidopa/levodopa and was about to start physical therapy to strengthen muscles. I used different supplements that didn't work, so last July, I tried the PD-5 protocol—the best decision ever! My tremors eased, my energy returned, and I sleep soundly. I feel like a new woman, and I can walk and exercise again. I got the PD-5 from limitlesshealthcenter. com

knowitnone3• 7 months ago

These farmers reap the benefits using pesticides and then sue so they get double pay. They knew what they were getting. Who would have thunk chemicals cause disease. And who do the consumers sue having eaten all this pesticide laden produce for all these years?

Donnakravo• 7 months ago

Eliza33• 7 months ago

I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease four years ago. For over two years, I relied on Levodopa and several other medications, but unfortunately, the symptoms kept getting worse. The tremors became more noticeable, and my balance and mobility started to decline quickly. Last year, out of desperation and hope, I decided to try a herbal treatment program from NaturePath Herbal Clinic. Honestly, I was skeptical at first, but within a few months of starting the treatment, I began to notice real changes. My movements became smoother, the tremors subsided, and I felt steadier on my feet. Incredibly, I also regained much of my energy and confidence. It’s been a life-changing experience I feel more like myself again, better than I’ve felt in years.If you or a loved one is struggling with Parkinson’s disease, I truly recommend looking into their natural approach. You can visit their website at www.naturepathherbalclinic.com. info@naturepathherbalclinic.com

Thousands of U.S. farmers have Parkinson's. They blame a deadly pesticide

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