Medicosnext
More than 1,100 former banana workers in Panama say that a pesticide used by a leading fruit company on the plantations made them sterile. The pesticide, Di-bromochloropropane (1, 2-dibromo-3-chloropropane) or DBCP, targets microscopic worms that damage banana plants. Tens of thousands of former banana workers in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, also filed cases against the manufactures of DBCP (Shell, Dow Chemical, Occidental Chemical, and AMVAC), as well as against fruit companies that used it (Dole Fruit, Del Monte, and Chiquita) saying that the pesticide, used extensively in the 1970s, made them sterile. However, till date, there have been no successful litigations in the US, and now there are only two active cases ongoing on behalf of workers from Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Panama. Most of the cases were dismissed on either procedural matters, or because the companies settled out of court without accepting any liability.
While the United States banned its use on the US mainland because of the health risks, it continued to be used in Central America and South America. It was not that scientists were unaware that DCP could cause sterility. Exposure studies, as early as in the 1950s, by scientists at Dow and Shell on rabbits, rats, and mice had shown a reduction in sperm counts and even testicular atrophy in some cases. Even so, the pesticide label made no reference to possible impacts on male fertility when it was licensed in 1964. In 1977, DBCP was banned by the United States Environmental Protection Agency because of evidence of infertility in men and induction of a variety of tumors in laboratory animals.
