Global agrichemical giant Syngenta is at the centre of a legal battle with growers suffering from the neurological disorder Parkinson’s disease.

The growers claim there is a link between the disease and the weedkiller paraquat, which was widely used in the UK until it was banned in 2007 – a claim that Syngenta refutes.

Although paraquat, known as Gramoxone, is banned here, it has been manufactured in the UK since the 1960s. Production is based at Syngenta’s plant in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, and it is shipped via Hull, under strict licensing rules, to countries across the world.

US claim

About 80% of the shipments are to the US where paraquat is still widely used. And it is in the US where more than 900 farmworkers suffering from Parkinson’s have mounted a legal challenge.

The claimants allege Syngenta failed to warn them of a known link to the degenerative disease, which causes muscle stiffness and tremors.

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Part of their case is based on a study carried out by the US government’s medical research agency, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).

The findings, published in 2011, stated that people who used paraquat developed Parkinson’s disease 2.5 times more often than non-users.

But a subsequent study by the US Environmental Protection Agency failed to replicate those results and no clear link was established.

Claims rejected

Syngenta said it strongly rejected the claims over safety issues and any wrongdoing ahead of court proceedings, likely to take place in the US later this year.

Syngenta said its studies showed paraquat use had not increased the risk of developing Parkinson’s, and pointed to 1,200 separate safety reports that backed its case.

In a statement, Syngenta said: “All of our decisions are driven by the safety and efficacy of our products and based on the best available science.

“Our detractors have wilfully misrepresented and mischaracterised a limited number of documents, which ordinarily form part of an entire dialogue on product design, and focused on them, making false accusations related to the weight we give to cost when considering safety.”

Countryfile exposure

The looming US court battle has become more prominent in the UK since the BBC’s Countryfile programme featured Parkinson’s disease among British farmworkers on Sunday (3 April).

Among the cases featured was former farm manager Andy Pollard who, according to wife Sue, spent decades spraying the weedkiller before the UK ban was imposed.

Unaware of any risks, her husband didn’t use protective equipment, Mrs Pollard told the BBC. She said she knew a number of people with Parkinson’s disease – all of them farmworkers.

But Mrs Pollard said before the US case came to light she had assumed it was just a coincidence. She now believed otherwise.

Referring directly to the BBC Countryfile item, Syngenta UK said it strongly refuted claims made by the programme.

A statement expressed its sympathy with Parkinson’s sufferers, but repeated the findings of independently peer-reviewed, scientific research that found no causal link between exposure to paraquat and the disease.

“The largest, longest-term epidemiological study of agricultural workers and Parkinson’s disease in the US found no association between exposure to paraquat and Parkinson’s disease,” it said.

“Syngenta places safety as its highest priority and would not prioritise anything else, including profit, ahead of safety.”