California Debates Approval of Cancer-Causing Neurotoxin, Methyl Iodide

Last month, Change.org brought you news that a coalition of environmental and public health non-profits filed a lawsuit against the California Department of Pesticide Regulation's (CDPR) decision to approve the pesticide methyl iodide. Methyl iodide is a substance so toxic that it's actually used in lab settings to grow cancer cells, and CDPR recently gave strawberry farmers the green light to fumigate their fields with this chemical. For the first time since the lawsuit, the state Assembly's Health and Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committees will hold a joint oversight hearing tomorrow, February 22nd, to examine methyl iodide's hasty approval.

Understanding just how critical this issue is to California's environmental and public health requires a bit of backstory. CDPR first approved methyl iodide in December 2010 despite overwhelming backlash from the scientific community, environmentalists, public health experts, and basically everyone else besides Big Ag. After a substance is approved for use as a pesticide, it's typically subject to a public comment period before it is officially registered. The CDPR, however, bypassed this regulation by declaring methyl iodide's approval to be an "emergency" situation (what the emergency was is still unclear), sending it straight to full registration. Without government intervention, the toxic substance is set to be used on strawberry fields as early as this spring.

If farmers do start using methyl iodide, the consequences could be draconian. Even the most cavalier chemists handle methyl iodide carefully because of its extreme toxicity. The substance is a neurotoxin that's included on California's list of "chemicals known to cause cancer." It's also been linked to late-term miscarriages, brain damage, and thyroid disease. Breathing in methyl iodide induces slurred speech, vomiting, and kidney damage, while touching the substance with one's bare skin can cause burns. In other words, it's Kryptonite for the farmworker set.

The real knife in the back is just how blatantly Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the head of CDPR, Mary-Ann Warmerdam, put agrochemical interests above California's environmental and public health. A group of more than 50 scientists — including six Nobel Laureates — wrote to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) a few years ago highlighting the dangers of methyl iodide. When CDPR was considering registering the pesticide, the agency hired an independent Scientific Review panel, which came to the same conclusion. John Froines, chair of CDPR's independent Scientific Review Committee, publicly referred to methyl iodide as "one of the most toxic chemicals on earth," reports Pesticide Action Network. "Farm workers are on the front lines of methyl iodide use and will suffer the most tragic consequences," said Erik Nicholson, National Vice President of the United Farm Workers, after CDPR approved methyl iodide. "If this decision is allowed to stand, strawberries may very well become the new poster child for giving farmworkers cancer and late-term miscarriages."

Scientists' and public health experts' warnings fell on deaf ears, though. Instead, Gov. Schwarzenegger and Warmerdam, gave in to Arysta LifeScience, the agrochemical firm that manufacturers methyl iodide.

Pandering to Big Ag's interests may have been common practice under Gov. Schwarzenegger, but now that Gov. Jerry Brown is in office, there's a chance to create real reform. California produces about 90 percent of America's strawberries, boasting more than 38,000 acres of the fruit fields. If farmers start spraying these fields with methyl iodide, it will expose countless farmworkers and surrounding communities to a host of health risks. The pesticide's use may also wreak havoc on California's local environment, poisoning wildlife and polluting groundwater with noxious chemicals.

Let's tell Gov. Brown and his Administration that it is unconscionable to spray crop fields with a substance used to grow cancer calls. Sign our petition asking Gov. Brown to immediately reverse CDPR's decision to register methyl iodide.

Photo credit: The 5th Ape via Flickr