adminPANAMA CITY. — Tens of thousands of former banana workers say they were made sterile by a pesticide used by US companies on plantations in Latin America in the 1970s.
The United States restricted and then banned its use on the US mainland because of the health risks.
But, workers in Central America and South America continued to be exposed to it. Isabel Coba Mojica was 16-years-old when he got a job on a banana plantation in Panama’s Chiriquí province.
When he started working at the plantation in 1967, it was run by a subsidiary of the US fruit giant United Fruit Company, which has since changed its name to Chiquita Brands International.
Mr Coba was hoping to start a family with his girlfriend, but she did not fall pregnant. Eventually the couple split up and he met another woman, but his new partner also failed to conceive.
Three years into his 25 years at the plantation, Mr Coba sought medical advice. The doctor tested his sperm and told him that he could not have children.
“I couldn’t believe it. I went crazy, I didn’t think it was worth going on living. I felt sadness and loss,” he recalls.
Mr Coba was not the only banana worker to experience medical problems. Rafael Martínez González worked on two different banana plantations run by United Fruit in Panama.
Three years after starting work, Mr Martínez’s wife had a miscarriage when she was six months pregnant. The couple never conceived another baby.
Across Panama, there are more than 1,100 former banana workers who say that a pesticide used by United Fruit on the plantations made them sterile.
The pesticide, called Di-bromochloropropane or DBCP, targets microscopic worms that damaged banana plants. But it can also affect men’s fertility.
Mr Martínez thinks not enough precautions were taken when the pesticide — which had several brand names including Fumazone — was sprayed.
“I sprayed lots of chemicals. Normally when I sprayed Fumazone, they’d give me a mask, but they didn’t give me gloves, boots or any other protective clothing,” he says.
US lawyers helped Mr Martínez and Mr Coba, along with hundreds of other Panamanians, to launch lawsuits against Chiquita and the manufacturers of the pesticide, but the two men say they never found out what happened to their legal challenge and have never received any compensation. The problem is not restricted to Panama only. Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, tens of thousands of former banana workers have sued the companies that manufactured DBCP and the fruit companies which used it.
The fruit companies in question are Dole Fruit, Del Monte and Chiquita, and the manufacturers Shell, Dow Chemical, Occidental Chemical and AMVAC.
The lawsuits state there was evidence that DBCP caused sterility in animals as early as the 1950s.
Scientists working for two of the manufacturers — Dow and Shell — carried out exposure studies on rabbits, rats and mice, which showed a reduction in sperm counts and testicular atrophy in some cases. Dr Charles Hine, one of the scientists who carried out the tests, said in a 1961 draft report for US regulators that repeated exposure to DBCP could affect human reproduction.
But according to company correspondence seen by the BBC, Shell’s official in charge of registering chemicals with the authorities responded:
“Leave out speculation about possible harmful conditions to man. This is not a treatise on safe use.”
When the pesticide was licenced in 1964, the label made no reference to possible impacts on male fertility.
Dr Hine, who became a consultant for Dow and Shell, had also advised wearing impermeable protective clothing, but the pesticide’s label did not mention any need for protective gear.
Standard Fruit (now known as Dole Fruit) began using DBCP on banana plantations in Latin America in the 1960s, while Chiquita and Del Monte began in the early 1970s.
According to a lawsuit lodged in US courts, Dole and Chiquita continued to use DBCP in Central America after 1977, even though US regulators had restricted its use in mainland US because of the health risks. In that year, 35 workers at a DBCP manufacturing plant in California were found to be sterile. — BBC.
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