"EU court bans toxic weedkiller paraquat on Swedish plea"

BRUSSELS, Belgium: A European Union court on Wednesday banned Syngenta AG's toxic weedkiller paraquat, accepting Swedish arguments that it does not meet EU health standards.

The Court of First Instance criticized EU regulators for not checking more carefully whether paraquat was safe for human and animals before it authorized it for sale in 2003.

The ruling is a victory for Sweden — supported by Denmark, Austria and Finland — which was angered by having to lift some of its strict environmental controls when it joined the EU in 1995 to conform with EU free trade rules.

Paraquat, a weedkiller in use for more than 60 years, attacks the green part of a plant, drying the leaves out to kill it without affecting the roots of crops below ground. It is the main ingredient in Swiss-based Syngenta's Gramoxone — one of the world's three most widely used weedkillers — but it also sold under other brand names.

Syngenta said it was surprised by the "unprecedented decision" to annul an existing authorization.

It said more than a half-million European farmers use paraquat, and it has been approved for use in more than 100 countries, including the United States and Canada.

The court said the European Commission — which is in charge of clearing herbicides and pesticides for sale — was wrong to say there were no signs that the chemical could cause diseases of the nervous system such as Parkinson's...
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Recently a study was published linking paraquat with Parkinsons...

Exposure to iron during the first weeks of life in combination with exposure later in life to a common herbicide may contribute to the subsequent degeneration of brain cells associated with the onset of Parkinson’s disease (PD), according to a new study in mice. The findings also showed that a compound that protects cells in the body from damage from certain forms of oxygen, a kind of antioxidant, could suppress such neural degeneration.

Previous studies indicated that both early exposure to iron and later exposure to the herbicide paraquat independently increase oxidative stress in dopamine-producing regions of the brain, areas that are affected by PD.

Julie Andersen, PhD, and her team at the Buck Institute for Age Research found that feeding iron to newborn mice made them more susceptible to paraquat, which increases levels of harmful forms of oxygen and damages dopamine-producing neurons as they grew older. The study appears in the June 27 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience...