Fighting for justice for Nicaraguan Banana workers

Profit over protection. Pesticide companies supplied Central American farms with pesticides banned in United States.

Pesticide sterilized banana workers abandoned. Fighting for justice for Banana workers.

A Sacrificed Generation

Trying to maximize profits, banana pesticide companies and producers chose to use United States banned pesticides to kill parasitic worms in Central America. They knew it causes male sterility by killing and deforming sperm. But they chose to use it regardless of the effect on the farm hands who would likely be exposed to the chemicals. They never warned them. They never gave them protection from the exposures. What did they cause? A lost generation of families of the farm workers. Without children, the workers are doomed to decrepit and unsupported older years in a country lacking in social support.

After a long legal fight, the farmers have won reparations. Now the pesticide companies not only abandoned them after they harmed them, but they make them victims again by using every legal obstruction to preclude paying these victims the judgments which they obtained. They come to France, a sister under the Napoleonic Code of law, to enforce and compel their just compensation for the lost generation.

1,234

The number of Nicaraguan banana workers affected by sterility hoping to seek justice in France.

DBCP, A US Banned chemical since 1977

The discovery chemistry of DBCP occurred in 1955. It is a persistent compound in the environment. By 1975 more than 25 million pounds of DBCP was used in U.S. Agriculture annually. It began to be found as residues on consumable crops and in watersheds. During the early 1960’s animal studies showed that the chemical decreases sperm quality, motility, and production leading to sterility and to mutations in offspring. In 1977, many of the employees at the Occidental Chemical plant in California who had handled DBCP were found to be azoospermic or oligospermic…clear evidence of sperm damage causing male sterility. Surveys at other plants confirmed similar findings with those workers handling DBCP.

DBCP’s Effects on health

sterility
skin cancer
blindness
respiratory diseases
precancerous legions
lung, liver, kidney damage
damage to the reproductive organs in the women
congenital deformities in their children
and many other serious deseases…

In 1977 OSHA and the U.S. EPA placed restrictions on the use of the chemical. This occurred long after the manufacturers knew or should have known of the harmful effects caused by exposure to this chemical. In 1979 the EPA banned most agricultural uses of the chemical.

The name of the pesticide active ingredient applied in the banana plantations was “DIBROMOCLOROPROPANE”, and its formula is: 1,2-DIBROMO-3 CLOROPROPANE also known as “DBCP”, this product was used under the names of:
• “NEMAGON” manufactured by “SHELL OIL COMPANY”(Delaware,USA);
• “FUMAZONE” manufactured by “ THE DOW CHEMICAL COMPANY” (Delaware, USA);
• “DBCP” manufactured by OCCIDENTAL CHEMICAL CORPORATION (USA)

Distribured in Nicaragua until 1985

These multinational defendant corporations, knowing the research on the chemistry, knowing the reasons for the banning of the product sale and use in the United States, and knowing the consequences of its application on exposed humans, still sold these products to the banana corporations to be applied in the banana plantations in Central America. Banned in the United States, but no problem sending it for use in Central America where people must be worthless. No warning or protection was given regarding the consequences of exposure to the banana workers. The barrels of the pesticide imported directly or indirectly from the manufacturers’ companies and traders of the fumigant NEMAGON and FUMAZONE did not come with any warning label.