Methyl iodide is used to cause cancer in laboratories, and was approved as a pesticide by the EPA under the Bush administration.
The agency agreed last year to reopen this decision, and California is currently deciding whether or not to allow use of methyl iodide primarily on strawberries. No surprise that corporate influence has played a role in what many see as an otherwise obvious decision to outlaw its use.
But while the battle continues, so do scientists, and a new study of the pesticide's effects in Florida shows some frightening results: groundwater contamination and high concentrations of the fumigant found in the air.
The contamination is especially risky for children. From the Pesticide Action Network:
Children drinking water with this level of iodide contamination could receive 1.2 times the tolerable upper limit of iodide exposure defined by the Centers for Disease Control and the National Academy of Sciences of 0.20 mg/day. Excess iodide exposure is associated with pre- and post-natal developmental toxicity and autoimmune thyroid disease, and possibly impairment of childhood cognition and postpartum depression.
Excessive levels of iodide can cause thyroid disease in adults as well, along with miscarriages and fetal death.
Yet California, the country's leading producer of strawberries, may go ahead and approve methyl iodide, apparently with support by people who claim it's impossible to grow strawberries without it. That's untrue of course (organic strawberries have been found to be tastier, more nutritious, and healthier for the soil), and of course they do not explain how strawberries have been grown for so many years before methyl iodide was available.
Ironically, PAN also points out, Washington state recently denied approval of methyl iodide as a soil fumigant—based on what California found in its own review of methyl iodide toxicity.
