Nicaraguan Judge Orders U.S. Companies To Pay $490 Million
Click
Here to Add Comment Subject: Nicaraguan Judge Orders U.S. Companies To Pay $490 Million
Date:
Mon, 16 Dec 2002 08:49:57 -0500
From:
Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide
Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
Dear Mr. Helliker, I thought you might like to read an article dated: Saturday December 14, 2002 - entitled: Lawyer: Nicaraguan judge orders U.S. companies to pay $490 million to banana workers affected by pesticide.
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) A Nicaraguan judge has ordered three U.S. companies to pay $490 million to 583 banana workers allegedly affected by the use of the pesticide Nemagon, a lawyer for the plaintiffs said Saturday.
The alleged victims sued Dow Chemical, Shell Oil Co. and Standard Fruit Co. in 1998 for using Nemagon in the banana fields of western Nicaragua despite the fact that the chemical had been banned for causing health problems.
Standard Fruit Co. is an affiliate of Dole Food Company, Inc. The company did not return phone calls Saturday to its headquarters in Westlake Village, Calif. Shell spokesman Tim O'Leary declined to comment on the ruling.
Dow spokesman Scot Wheeler said the judgment was ``unenforceable'' because the case was supposed to be moved to a U.S. court, and because the ruling was ``based on a law passed in Nicaragua that its own attorney general has called unconstitutional.''
Last year, congress passed a law that allows any Nicaraguan worker to sue a foreign company.
Lawyer Angel Espinoza the judge made the ruling on Wednesday. It was unclear how much each victim would receive, he said, calling the decision historic.
Some 3,000 banana workers in Honduras have filed similar lawsuits against Standard Fruit.
Nemagon contains the pesticide dibromochloropropane, and repeated exposure has been shown to cause cancer and sterility in laboratory animals and an increased risk of cancer in humans. The U.S. government banned the pesticide in 1977.
In 1993, more than 16,000 banana plantation workers from Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Philippines filed a class-action lawsuit in Texas against U.S. fruit and chemical companies for alleged illnesses as a result of exposure to chemicals.
The companies, including Chiquita, Dole and Del Monte, agreed to pay a total of $41.5 million in 1997 to those who proved they were sterile.
(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
http://cbsnewyork.com/international/Nicaragua-PesticideLa-ai/resources_news_html
Well Mr. Helliker, When people find out that there are and were safe and far more effective alternatives to your "registered" POISONS these actions will obviously increase and may even include/create criminal charges.
Respectfully, Stephen L. Tvedten
From Steve - Quotes to Ponder:
"The
first task is population control at home. How do we go about it? Many of my
colleagues feel that some sort of compulsory birth regulation would be
necessary to achieve such control. One plan often mentioned involves the
addition of temporary sterilants to water supplies or staple food. Doses of
the antidote would be carefully rationed by the government to produce the
desired population size." — Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb, p.135
"A
total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels,
would be ideal." — Ted Turner - CNN founder and UN supporter - quoted
in The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor, June '96
"Childbearing
[should be] a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a
government license ... All potential parents [should be] required to use
contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen
for childbearing." — David Brower - first Executive Director of the
Sierra Club; founder of Friends of the Earth; and founder of the Earth Island
Institute - quoted by Dixie Lee Ray, Trashing the Planet, p.166
"Truth
is not what is; truth is what people perceive it to be." -- Adolf Hitler,
Propaganda Maxim
If you would like to be included in our mailing list for continuing information on pesticides, please email us at list@safe2use.com.