Birth Defect Cluster In FL Farmworkers Puzzles Health Officials

[hatrack]

IMMOKALEE - "The babies started coming the week before Christmas. First Carlitos, with the expressive face and limbless body. Next came Jesus, with an underdeveloped lower jaw and a swallowing problem. Then there was the infant with a missing ear, no nose and no visible sexual organs. This baby was named Jorge - Spanish for George. Three days later the infant died, and an autopsy revealed her gender. The death certificate renamed the child Violeta.

Three deformed babies born during a seven-week period to farmworkers in Immokalee. All six parents worked in the same tomato field on a farm owned by Ag-Mart Inc., a Plant City-based firm that is one of the largest produce operations in the state. The families lived within 100 yards of one another in the farm's migrant camp when the women became pregnant early last year.

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n Immokalee, there is no common birth defect and no isolated exposure to link them. Too many factors may have contributed. And too much time has passed since some unknown agent delivered the developing embryos a devastating blow.

``At the end of this, I predict that everyone will still be shrugging their shoulders and wondering what went on,'' said Gina Solomon, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council."

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http://news.tbo.com/news/MGBUP926S8E.html

[MuseRider]

1. More than 30 pesticides?

On one crop? My goodness, no wonder. I guess these are the jobs that Americans do not want to do? Can't say that I blame them but this company needs to be seriously taken to task after ignoring all those warnings.

These poor people. No recourse I assume.

[hatrack]

2. As noted in the article:

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"The investigation was started after a reporter from the Palm Beach Post brought the birth defects to Collier health officials' attention.

That angers some farmworker advocates.

``If it happened in a bank and three tellers in the same bank gave birth to severely deformed children within a month and a half, there would be instantly an investigation,'' said Brian Bennett, director of the Guadalupe Mission in Immokalee. ``But for some reason, as with so many issues, farmworkers are not given that same consideration.''

And yet, farmworkers might be the proverbial canary in the coal mine due to their regular and often intense exposure to chemicals that permeate the fabric of modern life, especially in Florida."

EDIT

[MuseRider]

3. hatrack,

I read a lot of what you post and I rarely post a response because what you post always upsets me so much. This is just beyond anything, well not really. I suppose this is the same thing that has been going on since, well forever.

Anyone who does not have the means of fighting back gets this kind of treatment. The environment gets it. WTF is wrong with us?

Of course it is what they have been exposed to, we are all exposed to it as well but not as constantly or in such a concentrated form. Why raise so much food if it is poison? Who are they planning on making their almighty dollars from when we are all too sick to shop and eat or are dead?

They are correct. If this had been in any other place happening to other people it would have been investigated, of course it would. It just makes me sick.....the reason I never respond to you.

Do know though that I appreciate your constant reports they are very important.

[MountainLaurel]

4. Grrr.

And then you've got the kids who seem normal now, but develop a rare form of cancer in their 20s and 30s that normally only affects women over 60, as happened to a former coworker who grew up on an Oklahoma farm.

Funny how the pro-lifers don't seem to care about these sorts of fetal protection issues?

:grr: