Posted on 03/17/2002 3:48:14 PM PST by ATOMIC_PUNK
FRESNO, Calif. March 17 —
A state agency's study found that Hispanic farmworkers have higher rates of brain, leukemia, skin and stomach cancers than other Hispanics in California, a phenomenon their union blames on pesticide exposure.
Female Hispanic farmworkers also had more cases of uterine cancer than the rest of the state's Hispanic women, according to the Cancer Registry of California study, "Cancer Incidence in the United Farm Workers of America, 1987-1997."
The study, published in the November issue of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, doesn't directly link pesticide use to the higher rates of cancer.
Another study will examine what pesticides were used and how long farmworkers were exposed to them, said Paul Mills, the study's author and cancer epidemiologist at the Cancer Registry.
But the UFW believes there is a direct relationship between the chemicals and cancer, said Doug Blaylock, the union's medical plan administrator.
Bob Krauter, California Farm Bureau Federation spokesman, said that without discounting for family histories and lifestyles, there's no way to prove a direct link.
"Just because workers work in an agricultural setting where pesticides were used, they say, 'We're attributing this to pesticides.' I just don't see the connection there," he said.
Joseph Wiemels, a cancer epidemiologist at the University of California at San Francisco, cautioned that with general population studies like the registry study, "there are so many opportunities for bias because you're roughly putting data together."
The registry used data from 146,581 farmworkers who had been members of the union from 1973 to 1997 and compared it with the state's general Hispanic population.
It found that out of more than 140,000 farmworkers, 1,001 had been diagnosed with cancer from 1973 into 1997, and that there were 59 percent more reports of leukemia and 69 percent more reports of stomach cancers than there were in California's general Hispanic population.
The study found fewer incidents of breast and colon cancer among the farmworkers than there were in the state's general Hispanic population, but did not offer an explanation for the finding.
Mills said the study's results show the lack of health care and education available to the farmworkers.
The farmworkers were diagnosed at a later stage than most of the state's Latinos, according to the study. Many cancers, such as uterine cancer, are more treatable with early detection, Mills said.
Armando Sanchez, 66, who spent 40 years spraying chemicals on vineyards and citrus orchards in the Imperial Valley, blames the pesticides for his leukemia.
Employers provided workers with gloves and masks, but Sanchez said it was often too hot to wear them. Temperatures often rise above 100 degrees where he worked near Palm Springs.
Krauter noted that rates of pesticide injuries and illness have declined in the past 20 years. In 2000, the state Department of Pesticide Regulation recorded 893 incidents, down 1,201 from 1999, according to a recent report.
On the Net:
United Farm Workers:
California Cancer Registry:
California Farm Bureau Federation:
Topic: Senate & Foreign Farmworkers
Senate OKs Foreign Farmworkers. . .
Vote-Scam Again?
July 24, 1998 Vicki Allen - Reuters
Washington, D.C. --(Reuters) Citing a shortage of farm labor for peak harvest time, the Senate approved a program to bring more temporary foreign laborers into the country.
But critics said the plan pushed by agriculture groups would cause spiraling immigration and depress already dismal farm wages and working conditions.
The farm "guest worker" plan passed 68-31 Thursday as part of a $## BILLION approved to operate the Commerce, Justice and State Departments.
WHILE they were debating this little Bill, the Senate also included measures to protect children from the Internet and ban online gambling operations.
Senators said the current system forced farm illegal immigrants to register so they could be legally documented and crack down on the illegal immigrants. GET THIS: They also suggested that the 600,000 would be lost and already too small!!!
Their bill will create a new visa category to allow temp workers - to be set up with unavailable U.S. citizens.
It is supposed to improve living conditions by a prevailing wage and be given vouchers for housing.
Paul Wellstone and Ted Kennedy were both holding firey debates already demanding more comforts for these new recruits. Both thought these farm workers should not be on the lowest rung of the ladder.
Earlier this week, the Senate approved amendments to the Commerce, Justice spending bill to restrict children's access to harmful materials on the computer and declared they would not get federal funding unless they got more funds to block material deemed inappropriate for children> (Are WE the Children?)
The Senate also passed a ban on "virtual casinos" and other gambling enterprises to keep children from logging onto them.
If the Democrats don't kill their children before birth, they use them as political tools. Satans minions are in high Democrat places.
A friend of mine, had her younger sister die from leukemia, in a rural area of the miwest, during the 1950s...there were many people in the same general vicinity, who also had leukemia...
My own son had leukemia, diagnosed just 8 months after another student at his high school was also diagnosed with leukemia, and there was also a third student diagnosed during that year...more than would normally be found in a high school a relatively medium population...
Many of these cluster areas have been studied and studied, and as far as I know, there has never been any general consensus as to why these pockets occur...
I realize that these farm workers may not be in the same general vicinity of one another, but rather that they may have been exposed to some of the same products...It would be wonderful, if we could find some definitive answers as to why people get cancers with no obvious reason why...
The stomach cancers make me wonder if they are ingesting large amounts of something like unwashed sprayed fruits and vegetables in the field, or perhaps inhaling or swallowing while spraying goes on nearby. Common sense would say that it could be due to a pesticide or environmental cause, but one thing stops me in that regard. Are the farmers and their families living on the ranches getting cancers in the same percentages as the workers?
And if there IS a link to ag chemcial exposure, the story ends right there. This is NOT a case of "environmental injustice". Not if the protective gear wasn't worn. This is about as dumb as a soldier going into combat without his helmet and Kevlar jacket.
Ask anyone who has driven to the Imperial Valley one hundred miles east of San Diego in Southern California, a promary growing area of the nation's vegetables:
You begin smelling farm chemicals about 25 miles before you arrive, and the creeks and canals are so polluted with farm chemicals they are undrinkable even by animals. The chemicals are killing the fish and birds at the Salton Sea nearby into which almost all of it eventually drains.
Even the illegal aliens swimming across the canal on the border get sick.
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