Elixir of Death and Doubt: Paraquat, Parkinson’s Disease, and the Suppression of Science

• In Event: Science, Knowledge & Technology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 9: Technology Mastery: The Professional Social Production of Medical Knowledge

Abstract

Midway through the twentieth century, a powerful toxin entered the food system—a burndown herbicide better known as paraquat. As Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) recognized the compound could cause neurological harm, paraquat covered croplands on both sides of the Atlantic, hidden behind such trade names as Gramoxone, Cyclone, and Firestorm. As scientific evidence mounted, the makers of these chemicals—ICI, Chevron, Syngenta, and AstraZeneca—engaged in a coordinated campaign to deny the harms. These firms manipulated science linking their products to deadly diseases, submitted falsified clinical data to the EPA, and used attorney-client privilege to shield themselves from liability. Banned in sixty-seven nations (including the three that manufacture it), paraquat remains legal in the United States, where its use has doubled since 2013. What clockworks keep powerful neurotoxins on the market, in workplaces, and in the food supply? How do corporations legitimize harmful or even deadly production?
Drawing on the “Paraquat Papers,” 7,155 pages of corporate records unearthed through court-ordered disclosures, and 40 trial exhibits filed in litigation, we tell this story in two parts. First, we show how agrochemical firms engaged farmers, extension agents, and federal conservation agencies to equate no-till farming with chemical intervention, framing herbicides as critical for soil protection. Second, we show how these firms knew paraquat posed risks from the 1960s yet concealed information to keep their product on the market. This defense took three forms: pseudo-solutionism, the addition of an ineffective emetic marketed as a safeguard; influencing strategy, the campaign to discredit research and cultivate compromised experts; and sharp practice, whereby attorneys overstepped their role as officers of the court to edit scientific results and conduct interviews in epidemiological studies. What emerges is not regulatory failure but regulatory architecture performing as designed, to support chemical agriculture, not to hold firms accountable for mass injury.

Authors

• Daniel Akselrad, University of California, San Francisco

• Tracey J. Woodruff, Stanford University

• David Michaels, George Washington University