Aug. 15, 2024 The Midwest Center For Investigative Reporting
Confidential settlement approved for workers’ and their children exposed to pesticides
After a group of nearly 100 seasonal agricultural workers were sprayed twice with pesticides in central Illinois in 2019, the companies responsible have agreed to a confidential settlement.
According to the lawsuit, the companies that employed the workers, Corteva and Pioneer Hi-Bred, failed to provide them with facilities to wash off the chemicals after being sprayed, ordered them to go back into the fields still enveloped by the toxic compounds, and lied to them about what had been sprayed.
Thirty-two of the migrants and their children filed a lawsuit in 2021 seeking damages of more than $75,000 for each of the plaintiffs. While Corteva and Pioneer settled the lawsuit, the case against the pesticide applicators is still ongoing.
The Illinois Department of Agriculture has already taken action against the companies that operated and owned the planes to the extent they were able to under the law at the time. The companies were fined $750 each.
This story looks at the lawsuit and the case that spurred a change in the law, which now issues stiffer penalties to those responsible for exposing people to pesticides.
—- Jennifer Bamberg, Investigate Midwest
Corteva, Pioneer Hi-Bred settle lawsuit with farmworkers sprayed with pesticides
By Jennifer Bamberg, Investigate Midwest
A group of migrant agricultural workers who were sprayed with pesticides while working in a central Illinois cornfield in 2019 reached a confidential settlement late last month with Corteva and its subsidiary, Pioneer Hi-Bred International, ending a three-year lawsuit with the seed giants. The case against the companies that owned and operated the aircrafts that sprayed the workers is ongoing.
Attorneys for the migrants and their children sought compensation for damages and attorney fees, and claimed that the companies committed battery and assault.
Federal and state investigations, investigative reporting and public outrage around the case helped spur a change in the law that passed in June 2023 and increased penalties for applicators who expose humans to the harmful chemicals.
“I really wish I would have been a fly on the wall to know what that settlement was, but in my personal opinion, there’s nothing that can compensate for the blatant disregard for humanity that occurred,” said Sen. Karina Villa, a West Chicago Democrat who fought to pass the legislation for years in the state senate.
Read more.
GRAPHIC: Nearly one-third of Midwest ag exports sent to Asian markets
By Mónica Cordero, Investigate Midwest.Report for America
The majority of Midwest-produced agriculture exports remain in North America, but nearly one-third are sent to Asia.
The Midwest exported $13.28 billion in agricultural products in 2023, according to U.S. Census Bureau trade data, which categorizes the Midwest as 12 central states.
Illinois led the region for agriculture exports, contributing one-third of the total Midwest exports, followed by Iowa and Kansas, which accounted for 11% and 10%, respectively.
Search the graphic.
ICYMI: How Illinois’ ‘fragmented system’ of monitoring pesticide exposure ‘allows individuals to get poisoned over and over without any brakes’
By Sky Chadde, Investigate Midwest and Amanda Perez Pintado, Investigate Midwest/Report for America
Note: Occasionally we will reshare a previous investigation from our archives. This story originally published in 2022.
The farmworkers flocked to the two emergency rooms in Urbana, Illinois, the night of Aug. 5, 2019, their kids in tow. Numbering about 20, their skin had rashes, their eyes were red and they were vomiting. Though at two different hospitals, doctors arrived at the same conclusion: “chemical exposure.”
The doctors had a litany of instructions, according to discharge paperwork obtained by Investigate Midwest via a public records request. If your four-month-old is having trouble breathing, return to the emergency room right away, one doctor told a young mother. Return in a week so we can check on your four-year-old, another said. “Your clothing is still contaminated,” yet another doctor wrote. “You need to wash the clothing carefully.”
Hours earlier, a yellow plane flew over the corn field the workers were in and sprayed them with pesticides, according to allegations made in legal and state records. It flew so low that some clocked its tail numbers. But at the worksite, they said later, their employer had not provided facilities so they could wash the chemicals off — a federal violation. When some picked up their kids later, they hadn’t been able to decontaminate.
It was the second time in two weeks the workers said they’d been sprayed.
Read more here.
OPINION: Government should resist Bayer efforts to end glyphosate litigation
By Dave Dickey, Columnist
Ever since Bayer purchased Monsanto in 2018, glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup weed killer, has been an albatross around its neck. The German pharmaceutical company is losing billions of dollars in court verdicts finding glyphosate contributing to non-hodgkin's lymphoma.
The federal courts have consistently ruled against Bayer's efforts to show such lawsuits are, in fact, preempted by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. Plaintiffs routinely argue that Bayer’s glyphosate labels fail to warn that product usage could potentially lead to non-hodgkin's lymphoma. Plaintiffs then say that FIFRA outlaws the sale of any pesticide that has been misbranded, suggesting Bayer has a legal duty to warn about the dangers of glyphosate usage.
Read more.
News from our partners
Michigan lands a victory in effort to rein in polluting farm waste. By Keith Schneider, for The New Lede
Wisconsin town of Eureka sued over large farm regulations. By Bennet Goldstein, Wisconsin Watch
Louisiana advocates ‘gobsmacked’ by decision halting massive grain terminal. By Terry Jones, Floodlight
Investigate Midwest is an independent, nonprofit newsroom. Our mission is to serve the public as a watchdog over influential corporations and institutions through in-depth and data-driven investigative journalism.
