Renowned Scientists Speak Out Against Toxic Pesticide, Methyl Iodide

Yesterday, the California Assembly's Health and Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committees held a joint hearing to discuss the Department of Pesticide Regulation's (CDPR) approval of the pesticide, methyl iodide. The pesticide's approval came under scrutiny after environmentalists and scientists accused CDPR of unnecessarily rushing methyl iodide's registration process and ignoring the serious health and environmental implications of using the substance. Yesterday's meeting was the first hearing the state has had since methyl iodide's registration in December 2010, and renowned scientists stepped up to the podium to testify against this dangerous neurotoxin.

John Froines, a toxicologist at UCLA, served as chair of the independent Scientific Review Committee that the CDPR hired to evaluate methyl iodide's safety. The state originally considered registering methyl iodide to replace methyl bromide, a pesticide currently used by strawberry farmers. Despite the fact that the committee warned CDPR against approving methyl iodide because the substance is "one of the most toxic chemicals on earth," CDPR greenlighted the pesticide anyways in 2010. Froines has been a very vocal critic of CDPR ever since, and he was one of the scientists who showed up at yesterday's hearing.

According to the Ventura County Star, Froines reiterated the known facts that methyl iodide can cause cancer, damage nervous systems, and disrupt fetal development. While the CDPR claims that following proper safety measures when using methyl iodide would limit any potential human health risks, Froines disagreed. He said that "adequate control of human exposure [to methyl iodide] would be difficult if not impossible."

Gina Solomon, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), concurred with Froines' doom-and-gloom predictions about methyl iodide. From Solomon's testimony:

Use of methyl iodide instead of methyl bromide creates a Sophie's choice: Trading off protection of the ozone layer against serious risk to groundwater resources; trading off a reduction in skin cancers for an increase in thyroid and other cancers. Methyl iodide also exhibits a remarkable propensity to target the brain and nervous system, and damage the developing fetus; it also has a dramatic affinity for damaging DNA in living cells, all of which makes physicians and toxicologists very worried about the workers who may be handling this chemical, as well as the communities living near where it is applied. In short, if we allow methyl iodide to be used in California, we will all regret it.

Indeed, methyl iodide's reputation is enough to make anyone avoid even driving past California's strawberry fields, let alone working in them. Methyl iodide is a neurotoxin so potent that it's used in lab settings to grow cancer cells. Exposure to the substance is linked to late-term miscarriages, brain damage, and thyroid disease, while breathing in the pesticide induces slurred speech, vomiting, and kidney damage.

Despite methyl iodide's known (and frightening!) risks, CDPR not only approved the substance, it allows farm workers to use the pesticide at rates up to 100 times higher than the maximum safe level of exposure. As Erik Nicholson, Vice President of the United Farm Workers, recently said, "If this decision is allowed to stand, strawberries may very well become the new poster child for giving farmworkers cancer and late-term miscarriages."

The head of CDPR, Mary-Ann Warmerdam, defended methyl iodide's approval at yesterday's hearing, saying that the substance underwent a thorough scientific review. But reviews don't mean much if scientists' advice is completely disregarded. It's clear that CDPR and Governor Schwarzenegger were more concerned with pleasing Arysta LifeScience, methyl iodide's maker, than actually taking scientists' conclusions seriously.

Methyl iodide may have been officially registered, but it won't be used on strawberry fields until this spring. That means we still have a chance to get Governor Jerry Brown to intervene and reverse CDPR's ruling — before the damage is done. Sign our petition asking Gov. Brown to stop farmers from using methyl iodide in California.

Photo credit: cod_gabriel via Flickr