California is pulling a infamous weedkiller from the market as households in a Southern California group proceed to demand solutions over a string of uncommon childhood cancers.
The California Division of Pesticide Regulation introduced Monday that the state’s final paraquat pesticide product has been canceled.
Present shares have to be offered or destroyed inside two years.
Paraquat is the energetic ingredient in heavy-duty business weedkillers like Gramoxone, Para-SHOT, Helmquat, Cyclone, and Firestorm.
The transfer follows years of strain from farmworker teams, environmentalists and well being organizations.
Paraquat has been linked to Parkinson’s illness and is banned in additional than 70 international locations.
It’s also thought-about one of the vital deadly herbicides accredited to be used within the US.
There isn’t a antidote for paraquat poisoning.
An Environmental Safety Act web site carries the stark warning: “Paraquat Dichloride: One Sip Can Kill.”
Publicity may cause critical well being issues even when it isn’t deadly, together with most cancers, coronary heart failure, kidney failure, liver failure and scarring of the lungs.
California is the nation’s largest person of paraquat, with greater than three-quarters of its use concentrated in eight San Joaquin Valley counties.
The chemical ranks among the many state’s 5 most-used pesticides.
The crackdown comes as pesticide use is already beneath scrutiny in Ladera Ranch, an prosperous Orange County group the place residents have raised alarms over a reported cluster of uncommon childhood cancers.
Since 2007, about 9 kids related to the group have been recognized with Ewing sarcoma, a uncommon most cancers that primarily impacts kids and younger adults.
Well being officers have stated no environmental trigger has been recognized, whereas households have questioned whether or not years of pesticide and herbicide use may very well be an element.
The toll has been devastating. Brody Matteson, 17, died in March 2026 after battling Ewing sarcoma for practically two years.
Lily Dalton, 23, died in January 2026 after battling the illness following her school commencement.
The Capistrano Unified College District lately introduced a 60-day pause on routine panorama chemical compounds, together with herbicides and pesticide sprays, whereas officers evaluate accredited merchandise.
The Ladera Ranch Upkeep Company additionally introduced a brief pause on sure panorama chemical compounds.
The native considerations haven’t been linked by officers to paraquat, however the timing has put a highlight on the broader query of pesticide publicity.
California started reevaluating paraquat after conservation and public well being teams sought to have its use banned. A.B. 1963, handed in 2024, required the state to proceed reviewing the herbicide.
The state’s preliminary evaluation discovered potential dangers to birds and mammals, together with the San Joaquin package fox and Swainson’s hawk.
Officers additionally warned that restrictions meant to guard wildlife could not work as a result of paraquat is so persistent within the atmosphere.
The evaluate discovered public well being considerations together with an affiliation between paraquat and thyroid illness, in addition to delivery and reproductive harms.
Farmworkers and agricultural communities can face higher publicity as a result of paraquat can unfold in mud blowing from fields into neighborhoods.
Researchers have discovered that publicity in California agricultural communities is related to elevated dangers of Parkinson’s illness and thyroid most cancers.
California’s transfer contrasts with the federal authorities’s strategy.
Vermont has already enacted the nation’s first paraquat ban, whereas the EPA lately introduced plans for a roundtable with stakeholders to debate regulation of the chemical.
“California and different states are taking aggressive steps to guard individuals from this harmful poison, however the EPA continues to spin an online of pink tape to obscure paraquat’s well-documented harms,” stated Nathan Donley, environmental well being science director on the Heart for Organic Variety.
“The writing is on the wall — paraquat is on its means out. The query now could be how lengthy it’ll take the EPA to truly do its job and begin defending individuals as a substitute of the earnings of pesticide corporations.”
Farmworker teams, environmentalists and well being organizations represented by Earthjustice sued the EPA in 2021 over its reapproval of paraquat
That authorized problem stays ongoing.
And the Ladera Ranch controversy has now reached Washington.
Final month, First Assistant US Lawyer Invoice Essayli requested EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to analyze whether or not environmental elements may very well be contributing to the reported most cancers instances and whether or not federal environmental legal guidelines could have been violated.
