farmworker illness and pesticide exposures - Lake Apopka, FL

[Guest guest]

Orlando Sentinel entitled: Harvest of Pain

By Colarossi and Robyn Suriano | Sentinel Staff Writers.

APOPKA -- Charlie could see the crop-dusters flying low over the

cornfields before anyone else. When the planes were close enough to hear

the throb of their propellers and smell their acrid spray, would

pull a wooden box over his head.

He worked high atop a slow-moving but deliberate piece of farm equipment

called a " mule train " with a team of 25 other workers. Some

picked the sweet corn from Lake Apopka's muck fields. Some packed the

corn. built the boxes to hold the ears.

Those boxes became 's only protection when the crop-dusters

swooped down and showered a chemical spray on his section of field.

Others dived into the corn rows or found shelter under the mule train.

Nothing really worked.

They carried the residue home on their clothes, which had to be washed

over and over again to get rid of the stench. They brought home empty

chemical containers, using gallon-sized jugs for drinking

water and larger barrels to store clothes and food.

, who worked the fields for nearly 30 years until 1991, accepted

daily exposure to pesticides and fertilizers as part of his job.

" When all the spray comes down on you, there ain't nothing you can

do. You get that stuff in your skin, you'll never be right no more, "

said , who's now 57. " But you got to live; you got to work

somewhere. "

can't work anywhere, anymore. He's permanently disabled with

rheumatoid arthritis. He depends on a walker and a wheelchair to get

around.

He is among a group of farm workers, their children and residents who

grew up around the farms and now all ask the same question: Did the

chemicals used on the fields make us sick?

The Orlando Sentinel found a variety of illnesses in 50 people tied to

the muck farms, which are now fenced off with signs in some places that

warn of " Danger " and " Hazardous Waste. " The most

common problems are rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, crippling diseases

that result when the body attacks its own tissues. Other complaints

include cancers, asthma, respiratory problems and rashes.

It's not clear whether this number represents a few people -- or a lot.

And it's not clear whether any of their illnesses are related to the

fields. All that's clear is that most of them believe the chemicals used

on the farms could have made them sick.

The last of the farms were closed four years ago, after taxpayers shelled

out $100 million to buy the land and stop the agricultural runoff that

transformed Lake Apopka from a pristine bass-fishing

haven into a polluted stew. In the years since, millions more have been

spent to study how farm chemicals poisoned the lake, deformed its

alligators and killed its birds.

But not one penny has gone to look for potential human health hazards,

despite budding scientific evidence linking pesticides to certain

diseases.

and others want to know: What about the people?

Prized muck

When farming drove the economy of northwest Orange County, crops wrapped

around the northern shore of Lake Apopka like a fertile crown stretching

for 20,000 acres.

Thousands of rows of sweet corn, celery, lettuce, broccoli, carrots and

greens sprouted out of the rich, black muck -- some of the most prized

soil anywhere on Earth. Lake Apopka's muck farmers fed America.

The fields were carved out of marshland, a dense web of shrubbery and

water that is part of the natural cleansing system for the 50-square-mile

lake, one of the largest in Florida. Water from the

lake seeped into the marsh, trickled through its saw grass and eventually

filtered back into the lake. Centuries of decomposing vegetation

fortified the wetlands.

This left the marsh with a black soil called muck, which first drew

farmers to the shores of the lake even before the 1900s.

As demand for produce increased by the 1940s, so did the farmers' ability

to harness the land. They created an elaborate infrastructure of levees,

canals and pumps to drain water from the soupy land and make the most of

its precious soil. By the 1990s, 12 major farming companies worked the

north-shore muck, employing 2,000 workers at peak season.

But even the good earth needed help. Farmers relied on regular

applications of pesticides to fight insects and fertilizers to maintain

productivity.

At the end of every growing season, the farmers would flood the fields

with lake water, then drain them again before planting the next crop.

That drainage carried traces of chemicals back into the

lake, which eventually became one of the most polluted in Florida.

By the time the state finished buying out the farms, the damage was

extensive. There had been algae blooms, fish kills, sick alligators and

massive bird die-offs in 1998 and 1999 prompting an ongoing

federal criminal investigation.

In a report last June, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service blamed the

deaths of 1,000 birds on pesticides that included DDT, toxaphene and

dieldrin. All three chemicals have been banned or discontinued because of

environmental and health hazards.

'Toxic soup'

Advocates for the farm workers have been trying for years to get

scientists interested in studying health trends they're seeing in the

community.

Jeannie Economos used to work for the Apopka office of the Farmworker

Association of Florida during the mid- and late 1990s. She started

noticing health conditions among the workers even before the muck farms

closed.

" They were exposed to a toxic soup of many chemicals, " Economos

said. " This issue hasn't been looked at seriously enough to say

there are no problems. "

Her successor at the Farmworker Association, Liz Buckley, started making

connections between the environment and farm-worker health early last

year and then began studying the relationships more

closely after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service linked pesticides to the

bird deaths.

Beyond the farmland, she learned of the two federal Superfund cleanup

sites that sit on opposite ends of the lake, including one on the edge of

the muck blamed for groundwater contamination.

Early on, Buckley began hearing about dozens of cases of heart disease,

asthma, cancer and skin problems in the farm-worker community. She saw

people in their 40s and 50s suffering strokes and

multiple heart attacks.

Then, during a community meeting last summer, Buckley heard the first

mention of lupus among farm workers and their families.

" You couldn't write off that situation quite so easily, " she

said. " There was just a lot of confirmation of that. That was the

tipping point. "

Bird studies. Alligator studies. Water-quality studies. Buckley thought

someone should study whether the area's environmental contamination was

harming the people.

" You can't just ignore these problems because it's difficult to do

the testing, " she said. " They [pesticides] kill life. They kill

insects, but for us to think they don't have an impact on human life

is, I think, a little bit naive. "

With the help of the Farmworker Association, the Sentinel interviewed

people in the Apopka area with health problems that may be connected to

the farms. More than 70 people were interviewed.

In the end, the reporting documented 20 cases of lupus, 16 cases of

rheumatoid arthritis and one case of the rare autoimmune disorder IGA, or

immunoglobulin antibody deficiency. Those without autoimmune disorders --

more than a dozen -- suffer myriad problems.

Three additional cases of lupus and one case of rheumatoid arthritis have

been identified by the Farmworker Association but not independently

confirmed by the Sentinel.

Most people were found by word of mouth and through the help of the

farm-worker group or the Lupus Foundation of America's office in Apopka.

Some people called in and reported their illnesses after reading a

Sentinel story on the subject last December.

Overall, those on the list range in age from 23 to 70. They were exposed

between the early 1950s and the late 1990s.

Some of the women interviewed also had a history of stillbirths or

miscarriages while working the fields. Many feel strongly that their

illnesses are somehow linked to the farms.

So far, however, neither the medical-research community nor national

farm-worker advocates have taken an interest in the cases. Even if they

did, there is no guarantee of answers. Scientists say it is

extremely difficult to connect pollutants with any given illness.

" In these situations, expectations of the community become very high

that you're going to find a silver bullet, " said Tom Sinks,

associate director of science at the National Center for Environmental

Health, a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

" But history tells us there is usually no silver bullet. "

Kids played as planes sprayed

Farm workers say they know one thing for certain: They were exposed

routinely to heavy doses of chemicals, many applied from the air.

" When you would go home and take a shower, you could smell the

poison come off your body as soon as the hot water would hit you, "

said Geraldean , a farm worker for 30 years. " It would just

bring it out. "

worked in the fields while she was pregnant with two of her

daughters, now in their early 30s. Later, she brought the young girls to

the farms every day because of a lack of affordable day care. Today, both

have lupus.

They weren't the only kids left to romp in the fields while their parents

worked.

" We would chase the airplanes. I used to think it was fun, "

said Whiley, now 37 and suffering from arthritis. " The game

was to try to stay in the mist. "

While pesticides can be applied from the ground, crop-dusting was -- and

still is -- the preferred method because of its efficiency. A good

crop-duster can cover 200 acres in about two hours.

A long list of chemicals was used during the life span of the farms, many

of them discontinued or banned over the years. The combination of

chemicals would make it hard to isolate one source of exposure.

But soon after the state's St. s River Water Management District took

over stewardship of the former farms, the bird deaths occurred. In

extensive soil testing across the farmland, the district found a range of

pesticides, including dieldrin, toxaphene and DDT and its

derivatives.

DDT was banned in 1972 because of its threat to wildlife and humans.  It

is thought to affect the human nervous system and liver and is suspected

of causing cancer.

Toxaphene, one of the most heavily used insecticides in the country, was

banned in 1990. It is considered a lethal chemical that could damage the

lungs, nervous system and kidneys, according to the Agency for Toxic

Substances and Disease Registry.

Dieldrin was commonly used on corn and cotton crops from the 1950s to

1970, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture banned it. Moderate

exposures could cause headaches, dizziness and uncontrollable muscle

movements. It is a probable human carcinogen.

The St. s testing found the chemicals dispersed across the farms,

most at levels considered safe for wildlife. But the water district found

an 11-acre hot spot containing toxaphene levels 500 times

higher than considered acceptable. That was in 1999, nearly a decade

after toxaphene was banned.

Because the farms no longer exist, it's difficult to obtain detailed

information on how they used pesticides and fertilizers.

Only one former Lake Apopka farming company, A. Duda & Sons Inc.,

agreed to discuss the issue in depth. A spokeswoman for the leading

national farming business said the health of company farm workers was

always a priority.

" The idea that someone would spray pesticides on anyone to me is

outrageous, " spokeswoman said. " We have always

conducted business in the same manner for 76 years, with

integrity. "

But Duda, which employed 320 workers during peak harvest times at Lake

Apopka, did suspect its laborers might be getting exposed to unsafe

levels of pesticides. The company ran blood tests for toxins on farm

workers from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s.

Dr. Larry Beasley, Duda's vice president of technical services, said the

company was looking for high exposure to a class of chemicals known as

organophosphates.

These substances include widely used pesticides such as diazinon and

malathion, as well as the nerve gas sarin. These insecticides work by

disrupting the function of a key enzyme in the nervous system called

cholinesterase, which is present in people as well.

" We felt like it would be the progressive thing for us to do, "

Beasley said. " We made it clear what we were doing, why we were

doing it and that it was for their [the workers'] protection. "

He could not say how many Duda workers were tested or provide the results

of those tests. But some workers were moved to different jobs when they

appeared to show high pesticide exposures, Beasley said.

Ultimately, Duda abandoned the testing because it was proven unreliable.

Exposure to common drugs not found on the farms also could affect the

results and make it look as if workers had high

exposures when, in fact, they did not, Beasley said.

It wasn't until 1994 that the federal Environmental Protection Agency

enacted standards for farm workers that dealt specifically with health

and pesticides. The regulations required the posting of

pesticide spray areas in Spanish and English and the delay of workers'

return to treated fields. And the rules set up decontamination sites

where workers could wash off chemicals.

Hank , president of Long & Farms, which grows corn on

sandy soil near the former muck farms, said he has heard about the

farm-workers' health complaints but doubts the farms were the source of

their illnesses.

" I think they're looking for something that's not there, "

said.

said he employs people who flew the crop-dusters and mixed the

chemicals at the muck farms, and they show no signs of autoimmune

disease.

" These are people that did the applications and had their hands in

it [the chemicals], and they're not the ones complaining, "

said.

Her world slowed down

Lee is lying on her couch with her eyes closed. She is not

asleep.

Lupus keeps her awake. It lives as an aching pain in her knees and

ankles. She doesn't cry. Silently, she prays for relief.

" It's like my legs are throbbing with a toothache, " Lee said.

" I don't sleep regular. I'm mostly up at night, and I nap during the

day. "

The 50-year-old Apopka woman does not leave her home much these days. But

for 27 years, she pulled vegetables from the ground near Lake Apopka. She

packed corn, picked tomatoes and cut cabbage until the dirt covered her

hands like a pair of gloves.

Sometime in the 1980s, she started to feel poorly. Her legs were

especially sore. The sun was so irritating, it made her skin burn

intensely.

" I just couldn't do as much, " Lee said. " It was like my

whole world was slowing down. "

It slammed to a stop in 1990, when Lee fell sick enough to be put in the

hospital for a week with kidney problems. She first heard the word lupus

when the doctors stood around her bed one morning and named her pain. She

has lived with it every day since.

" Some days I do pretty good; I can walk a bit, but I never do a

whole lot anymore, " said Lee, who takes 15 medications to treat her

lupus and its complications.

Lupus is among the about 100 conditions lumped into the category of

autoimmune diseases. The disorders stem from the immune system, which

normally acts as the body's defender from bacteria, viruses and other

dangers.

In lupus sufferers, the system has broken down, and the body attacks

itself. The skin, joints and many organs come under assault.

Researchers disagree on how common lupus might be in the population,

offering estimates ranging from 14.6 to 50.8 cases per 100,000 people.

The Lupus Foundation of America estimates that 1.4 million people

nationwide suffer from the disease.

But it's impossible to figure out a rate for the area around Lake Apopka

because there's no way to count every single case of lupus, especially

among highly transient farm workers.

People often suffer from symptoms for years before doctors consider

lupus. Mild cases can be treated with over-the-counter drugs such as

ibuprofen, while more-serious cases require prescription steroids and

drugs that suppress the immune system. The worst cases might be treated

with chemotherapy, which squelches the body's internal attack.

Lupus isn't usually fatal, but serious complications such as kidney

failure or brain infections can bring death.

" I'm dealing with it, you know what I'm saying? " said Lee, who

dropped from 230 pounds to 154 after getting sick. " My plan was to

work until I was 60 or 65 and then sit down and rest. But I plan one

thing, and the Lord plans another. Now I'm just taking it one day at a

time. "

Rheumatoid arthritis can be just as life-altering. Nationwide, it affects

about 2 million people. It occurs when the immune system eats away the

protective capsule surrounding a joint. In advanced stages, the

destruction infiltrates the joint itself, damaging bone and

cartilage.

No two people are affected the same. Some suffer mild pain, tenderness

and stiffness but live normally. Others are crippled by pain and

inflammation that confines them to bed.

Betty of Apopka started getting sick while she still worked on the

farms. She ended up wearing elbow braces to ease the pain in her joints

and bagging carrots from a stool. At night, would sit on the side

of her bed, crying and rocking in pain.

Everything hurt: her back, both shoulders, both wrists, both knees.

Rheumatoid arthritis always spreads its destruction in pairs. If the

right elbow is aching, so is the left.

, 48, had to leave the fields altogether by 1994. She retreated to

her bedroom, hobbling out only to get something to eat or use the

bathroom. Fatigue colored everything.

" If I went to the kitchen and put a bowl of soup in the microwave, I

was too tired to eat it, " said , who walks in tender steps,

stiff and halting.

Today, manages her disease with an aggressive drug regimen that

includes steroid injections. She is never without pain, though she tries

to defy it. She lives in slow motion.

" I can do just about anything, " she said, " as long as I

don't do it too fast. "

Looking for answers

Doctors think lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, like all autoimmune

diseases, are caused jointly by genetics and environment, said Virginia

Ladd, president and founder of the American Autoimmune

Related Diseases Association.

People are born with a tendency for a certain disease etched into their

genetic makeup. But they do not develop the problem unless they are

exposed to an external trigger, Ladd said.

As yet, scientists cannot say what many of those external factors are.

Some think pesticides could be instigators, and it already has been shown

that certain drugs can trigger lupus.

" If lupus symptoms could be caused by taking medications, I think

it's logical to wonder if they could be caused by other kinds of

chemicals, " said Duane s, a spokesman for the Lupus Foundation

of America. The group opened an office in Apopka to provide services and

information in the community. " I think it's an area that needs more

attention. "

It's already caught the eye of epidemiologist Glinda , who studied

cases of lupus in 60 rural counties of North and South Carolina to see

whether the sick had exposure to pesticides. Her work

from 1997 to 1999 suggested that people with heavy exposure to pesticides

were eight times more likely to have lupus than other people.

Even so, said, the research does not prove that pesticides can

trigger lupus.

" It's a suggestive link, but it's still very preliminary, " said

, who works at the National Institute of Environmental Health

Sciences, a branch of the National Institutes of Health. " So little

work has been done with pesticides and lupus; it's an angle that needs to

be explored. "

Some more work is being done at the University of Florida in Gainesville,

where toxicologist has been doing mouse studies on

pesticides and lupus for four years.

The animals are bred to develop lupus in time, but those exposed to

pesticides get sick more quickly, he said. thinks it's too early,

though, to say whether lupus and pesticides are connected.

" The issue of looking for environmental causes of lupus is fairly

recent, " said. " It's basically something that people

have just started looking for. "

If he can get funding, may join the local Farmworker Association

in a study of the sick people in the Apopka area that would involve

taking blood tests to check for lupus.

In any case, Buckley said, her group intends to conduct its own health

survey of at least 250 former farm workers and Apopka-area residents by

July.

In the only inquiry to date, local health officials examined the lupus

connection to Apopka after the Sentinel ran its first story in December.

They found nothing remarkable.

To do so, they studied hospital discharge records from every hospital in

Florida for people from Apopka, Zellwood and Plymouth who sought

treatment for lupus-related problems. They focused on three specific ZIP

codes for the years 1992-98.

The analysis found that 5.84 out of every 100,000 people discharged from

those regions had been hospitalized for a lupus-related problem.

Statewide, that rate is 5.33 per 100,000. Statistically, the

differences do not indicate that more people in the Apopka area are

dealing with lupus.

Bill Toth, an epidemiologist with the Orange County Health Department,

said local health officials are not inclined to look at the problem

further.

" I know that doesn't sit well with the population out there, but

given the data we have, I just don't see that it's necessary, " Toth

said. " There's just no real evidence to support that there's

anything going on there at this point. "

But advocates for the farm workers contend that officials will not find

answers with their standard methods. Scientists normally look for

connections between a single toxic substance and one particular health

problem, said King, an activist on environmental health hazards who

is working with the Farmworker Association.

She said such relationships are not so easily discerned when people have

been exposed to a mixture of substances during a long period of time.

Scientists have a much easier time seizing upon the

environmental consequences of chemical pollution but they shy away from

the health aspects, King said.

" Human health is the last frontier; it is the hardest hurdle to

overcome and the one that the government is most afraid of because if

they have to admit someone is sick, " she said, " they have to

admit

someone is at fault. "

Enduring reminders

This weekend in the tiny hamlet of Zellwood, sitting just across U.S.

Highway 441 from the old farms, they're celebrating the Zellwood Sweet

Corn Festival. Although the corn no longer comes from the muck, the

festival is perhaps the most enduring tribute to the community's

agricultural past.

The town's Avenue neighborhood was the childhood home of Buck,

53, and her sister Harriet Stutzman, 55.

They can remember the dust from the fields blowing in the wind and

collecting on their windowsills and doorsteps. They can still recall the

thick chemical odor that hovered in the air where they played.

Both sisters now have lupus.

And over the years, they've learned that their next-door childhood

neighbor, Sharon Willicome, 50, also has lupus. And two other middle-aged

women they know who grew up on their street have

rheumatoid arthritis.

They cannot accept the expert conclusions insisting it is very difficult

to prove that an environment scarred by agribusiness had something to do

with their illnesses.

" Almost every female that grew up there in that time period and on

that street, we have all suffered autoimmune disease, " said

Willicome, who now lives in Canada. " It's not a coincidence.

Something's strange. "

Just a few miles down the road from Zellwood, Charlie , once a

hulking presence of a man, now spends his days sitting in a big chair in

his small home in Plymouth.

At 57, an age when many men are enjoying an early retirement or even a

second career, shuffles down his hallway, using a walker like

someone in his 80s.

His knees are protruding deformities -- round and painful-looking knobs.

His lower legs are scarred from scratching a persistent rash.

" I used to be a good man, " says. " If I didn't have

any health problems, yeah, I'd still be working. But there's a lot of

people that died behind that spray. That spray will kill you. "

Colarossi can be reached at

acolarossi@...

or 407-420-6218. Robyn Suriano can be reached at rsuriano@... or 407-420-5487.

PHOTOS

Daily exposure to pesticides. (JESSICA MANN/ORLANDO SENTINEL) May 19, 2002

Managing the pain. (JESSICA MANN/ ORLANDO SENTINEL) May 19, 2002

Throbbing aches. (JOE BURBANK/ORLANDO SENTINEL) May 19, 2002

PHOTO GALLERY -   MUCK FARM ILLNESSES? (ORLANDO SENTINEL)

GRAPHICS

Lupus: An immune-system disease (KNIGHT-RIDDER TRIBUNE) May 19, 2002

A common thread. (ORLANDO SENTINEL) May 19, 2002

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/custom/science/orl-lakesick19051902may19.story

 

Well Mr. Helliker,  Like Moses, everyone in the POISON bu$INess apparently is in De Nile.  To admit that anyone could be harmed or get sick from your " registered " POISONS would also require " someone " to be liable and responsible. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, why no, you could not possibly be ill from your exposure to our " registered " POISONS.

 

Respectfully,  L. Tvedten

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