By Catherine Lagrange and Marion Douet
France - A
French court on Monday declared U.S. biotech giant Monsanto guilty of
chemical poisoning of a French farmer, a judgment that could lend weight
to other health claims against pesticides.
In the first such case heard in court in
France,
grain grower Paul Francois, 47, says he suffered neurological problems
including memory loss, headaches and stammering after inhaling
Monsanto's Lasso weedkiller in 2004.
He blames the agribusiness giant for not providing adequate warnings on the product label.
The
ruling was given by a court in Lyon, southeast France, which ordered an
expert opinion of Francois's losses to establish the amount of damages.
"It
is a historic decision in so far as it is the first time that a
(pesticide) maker is found guilty of such a poisoning," François
Lafforgue, Francois's lawyer, told Reuters.
Monsanto said it was disappointed by the ruling and would examine whether to appeal the judgment.
"Monsanto
always considered that there were not sufficient elements to establish a
causal relationship between Paul Francois's symptoms and a potential
poisoning," the company's lawyer, Jean-Philippe Delsart, said.
Previous
health claims from farmers have foundered because of the difficulty of
establishing clear links between illnesses and exposure to pesticides.
Francois
and other farmers suffering from illness set up an association last
year to make a case that their health problems should be linked to their
use of crop protection products.
The
agricultural branch of the French social security system says that
since 1996, it has gathered farmers' reports of sickness potentially
related to pesticides, with about 200 alerts a year.
But
only about 47 cases have been recognized as due to pesticides in the
past 10 years. Francois, who suffers from neurological problems,
obtained work invalidity status only after a court appeal.
LESS INTENSIVE NOW
The
Francois case goes back to a period of intensive use of crop-protection
chemicals in the European Union. The EU and its member countries have
since banned a large number of substances considered dangerous.
Lasso,
a pre-emergent soil-applied herbicide that has been used since the
1960s to control grasses and broadleaf weeds in farm fields, was banned
in France in 2007 following an EU directive after the product
had
already been withdrawn in some other countries.
Though
it once was a top-selling herbicide, it has gradually lost popularity,
and critics say several studies have shown links to a range of health
problems.
Monsanto's Roundup is
now the dominant herbicide used to kill weeds. The company markets it in
conjunction with its biotech herbicide-tolerant "Roundup Ready" crops.
The Roundup Ready corn, soybeans, cotton and other crops do not die when
sprayed directly with the herbicide, a trait that has made them wildly
popular with U.S. farmers.
But
farmers are now being encouraged to use more and different kinds of
chemicals again as Roundup loses its effectiveness to a rise of "super
weeds" that are resistant to Roundup.
And
while the risks of pesticide are a generally known and accepted hazard
of farming in most places, and farmers are cautioned to take care when
handling the chemicals, increased use of pesticides will only cause more
harm to human health and the environment, critic say.
"The
registration process does not protect against harm. Manufacturers have
to be held liable for adverse impacts that occur," said Jay Feldman,
director of Beyond Pesticides, a non-profit group focused on reducing
pesticide use.
France, the EU's
largest agricultural producer, is now targeting a 50 percent reduction
in pesticide use between 2008 and 2018, with initial results showing a 4
percent cut in farm and non-farm use in 2008-2010.
The
Francois claim may be easier to argue than others because he can
pinpoint a specific incident - inhaling the Lasso when cleaning the tank
of his crop sprayer - whereas fellow farmers are trying to show
accumulated effects from various products.
"It's
like lying on a bed of thorns and trying to say which one cut you,"
said a farmer, who has recovered from prostate cancer and asked not to
be named.
The French association of
crop protection companies, UIPP, says pesticides are all subject to
testing and that any evidence of a cancer risk in humans leads to
withdrawal of products from the market.
"I
think if we had a major health problem with pesticides, we would have
already known about it," Jean-Charles Bocquet, UIPP's managing director,
said.
The social security's
farming branch this year is due to add Parkinson's disease to its list
of conditions related to pesticide use after already recognizing some
cases of blood cancers and bladder and respiratory problems.
France's
health and environment safety agency (ANSES), meanwhile, is conducting a
study on farmers' health, with results expected next year.
