A class-action lawsuit against one of the world’s largest agri-businesses is going ahead, thanks to a Vancouver Island man who passed away last year.
Justice Sandra Wilkinson certified the lawsuit last week in BC Supreme Court. It was started by Wayne Gionet, who worked for Agriculture Canada for decades in Saanich. While there, he used herbicides made by Syngenta and marketed as Gramoxone. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2015 and passed away on August 2, 2023.
The class-action suit is continuing on behalf of his estate. It’s open to Canadians outside Quebec who were diagnosed with Parkinson’s after using Gramoxone products anytime after 1963.
Evidence in the case, including internal Syngenta documents, suggests exposure to the herbicide’s active ingredient may have links with Parkinson’s.
The active ingredient in Gramoxone is paraquat, and as early as 1958 before it was approved for herbicide use, researchers raised concerns about its potential to have toxic effects on the nervous system.
In 1985, the link between paraquat and Parkinson’s was described in a Quebec study. Chevron, which sold paraquat in the USA at that time, sent the study to Syngenta along with a letter raising the company’s concerns:
The attached outlines an aspect of the problem which differs from the normal dangers in dealing with poisons—namely, long-term effects that might not become apparent except after many years.
Since we don’t want to take any chance of facing an asbestos situation down the road, I am sure your people are following this aspect of the matter most closely. However, I thought I would pass this on to you as I cannot think of anything more horrible for us to bequeath to our successors than an asbestos problem.
Less than a year later, in 1986, Chevron exited the US paraquat market; Syngenta remained.
Between 2003 and 2005, Syngenta did confidential testing in-house on animals, and found paraquat exposure led to neural degeneration typically associated with Parkinson’s. The results were not shared with the US, Environmental Protection Agency, or any other regulatory body. Syngenta later adopted the policy to not measure paraquat in the brains of any study animals because “detection of any [paraquat] in the brain (no matter how small) will not be perceived externally in a positive light.”
Paraquat has been banned in 58 countries.
Since 2017, more than 3,600 lawsuits have been filed in US courts over damage caused by exposure to paraquat products, according to Syngenta’s 2022 financial report.
