Popular Weedkiller Dangerous For Pregnancy and Unborn Children

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday took the rare step of issuing a warning about “serious, permanent, and irreversible health risks” associated with a chemical used to kill weeds on farms and golf courses and athletic fields. Citing “significant health risks to pregnant individuals and their developing babies,” the agency said farmworker and others handling dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate, more commonly known as DCPA, were at risk, as are people who might play on courses or fields recently sprayed with the pesticide.  The most serious risks extend to the developing babies of pregnant women, especially those handling DCPA products.  The agency said pregnant women exposed to DCPA could experience changes to fetal thyroid hormone levels, which are linked to low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased IQ, and impaired motor skills later in life.  Though product labels say people should stay out of fields for 12 hours after they are sprayed with DCPA, the EPA said evidence indicates that in many cases, sprayed fields would be unsafe for 25 days or more.  The agency additionally said that mothers and their developing babies could be at risk if they live near areas where DCPA is used because the pesticide can drift. This ruling further reiterates the importance of avoiding exposure to environmental toxins, as well as drugs and medications during pregnancy.

Concerns about the safety of paraquat, another highly toxic weed killer / herbicide, pushed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2021 to ban its use on golf courses — but the weedkiller is still permitted for agricultural use, and a new first-of-its-kind analysis  released on March 27 shows that 5.3 million pounds of paraquat were sprayed over a five-year period in California, the only state with readily available figures on the herbicide.  Most of the weedkiller’s use was concentrated in central counties where farms produce almonds, walnuts, alfalfa and other crops.

Several deaths, at least one miscarriage and thousands of reports of severe adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination that occurred in February and March of this year are included in recently released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Vaccine -Safe database.  A January court ruling stemming from a freedom of information lawsuit against the CDC forced the agency to release the data.  The ruling, which is described as “ a huge win for transparency”,  requires the CDC to release all 7.8 million vaccine adverse event data entries for covid-19 by Jan. 15, 2025.

An attorney for the Children’s Health Defense organization (CHD) filed a motion in federal court on 4/2/2024 alleging lawyers representing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) fraudulently concealed evidence that vaccines can cause autism.  In a motion filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the attorney alleged that U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers who represented HHS in vaccine injury cases repeatedly defrauded the judicial system — from the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) to the U.S. Supreme Court.  That fraud led to thousands of families of vaccine-injured children being denied the right to compensation and the right to have their cases heard, according to the motion.

Author

Dr J. Zimmerman, Chiropractor Dr. Zimmerman is a practicing chiropractor from Galloway, NJ with 30 years of chiropractic practice.