Dole Gets Sliced for Pesticide Exposure
I haven’t been able to look at a Dole pineapple since I read Shark Dialogues
A group of workers in Nicaragua have brought a lawsuit against the company that says:
Dole Food Co. deliberately exposed unwitting Nicaraguan field hands to a pesticide that made them sterile so the company could boost profits on its banana plantations. - LA Times
The chemical in question is DBCP, the key ingredient in the pesticides Nemagon and Fumazone. Studies as early as 1950 linked DBCP to reproductive disorders as well as liver, kidney and lung disease. DBCP was banned in the continental United States by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1979. It’s use by Dole lingered in Nicaragua where DBCP was prohibited in 1981.
The current lawsuit dates back to worker exposure in the late 1970s. The workers have been pursuing legal action against Dole for decades amidst complex international laws. This past week jurors in a Los Angeles Superior Court found Dole and Dow Chemical Company, who produced the pesticide, liable:
for $3 million in damages to six Nicaraguan banana workers who were made sterile by exposure to the chemical DBCP…
Farmworker activists said the decision was the first from an American jury on liability claims over DBCP, which was widely used in Central America to destroy pests that attacked the roots of banana trees. Four thousand other Central Americans have lawsuits pending in Los Angeles courts and tens of thousands of workers have filed lawsuits worldwide. - LA Times
Two Nicaraguan courts had previously found both Dole and Dow liable for damages to workers in excess of $500 million but enforcing the rulings has been an uphill battle, mainly because the companies hold no assets in Nicaragua and fought the rulings - including a suit filed by Dole against workers and their lawyers in 2003.
- Barren Justice at Corpwatch
- Jury considers punitive damages against Dole at LA Times