SACRAMENTO, Calif.— California’s pesticide regulators released preliminary findings today linking the herbicide paraquat to risks to wildlife and human health harms, including thyroid disease and birth defects.
“The evidence continues to mount that paraquat is just too dangerous,” said Jonathan Evans, environmental health legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The most effective way to avoid paraquat’s risks is for California to join nations throughout the world and ban its use. The state can’t keep letting Big Ag use hundreds of thousands of pounds a year of this incredibly harmful herbicide.”
Paraquat is currently banned in more than 70 countries and is one of the most lethal herbicides still approved for use in the United States. It is linked to a range of diseases.
Research indicates that bans on paraquat do not have negative effects on agricultural production because of the wide range of alternatives.
The preliminary findings released by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation found potential risks for birds and mammals, including some of California’s most imperiled species like the San Joaquin kit fox and Swainson’s hawk.
Today’s assessment also found that reducing the risks to wildlife with mitigation measures that merely restrict paraquat’s use may not be feasible because the herbicide is so persistent in the environment.
The findings also confirmed substantial public health impacts such as an association between paraquat and thyroid disease as well as birth and reproductive harms.
Despite paraquat’s well-documented risks, California used more than 350,000 pounds of it in 2023 alone. The use of paraquat is heavily concentrated in the San Joaquin Valley, affecting agricultural communities most severely.
The preliminary findings come in response to requests from conservation and public health groups to reevaluate approval of the herbicide paraquat and ban its use in the state.
In 2024 California also passed A.B. 1963, which requires the Department of Pesticide Regulation to reevaluate the use of the herbicide. The bill was authored by former California state legislator Laura Friedman, who was elected to Congress in November.
There is no antidote for paraquat poisoning. The pesticide’s severe toxicity is highlighted on an EPA website titled “Paraquat Dichloride: One Sip Can Kill.”
Ingesting or inhaling paraquat, or exposing it to the skin, can lead to a range of health risks short of death, including cancer, heart failure, kidney failure, liver failure and scarring of the lungs. Farmworkers and agricultural communities are at greater risk of inhaling paraquat because the herbicide can volatize or spread on dust that blows in fields and into neighborhoods.
Paraquat has been linked to Parkinson’s disease, a devastating neurological condition with no known cure. Researchers found that paraquat exposure in California’s agricultural communities leads to increased risks of Parkinson’s and thyroid cancer.
In 2021 farmworker groups, environmentalists and health organizations, represented by Earthjustice filed a lawsuit challenging the EPA’s reapproval of paraquat. That legal challenge is ongoing while the agency reviews the risks of the herbicide.
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