Image: My Florida Green
Vermont Governor Phil Scott signed H. 739 into law this week, delivering the first statewide ban on paraquat in America and forcing a direct challenge to the federal agencies and chemical interests that kept this neurotoxin on fields for decades. Farmworkers, rural families, and entire communities now face one less source of irreversible brain damage as the law takes effect November 1, with a narrow orchard exception running until 2030.
Federal Inaction Meets State Resistance
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency continues to authorize paraquat. Ray Dorsey, Todd Sherer, Michael Okun, and Bastiaan Bloem document this failure in their book Ending Parkinson’s Disease. They note that while 32 countries including China have banned the chemical, “the EPA has done little” and U.S. use has doubled over the last decade. Training requirements for applicators do nothing to address the core problem of widespread environmental and human exposure.
Clear Links to Parkinson’s and Broader Harm
An analysis in Healthy Living in a Contaminated World found that paraquat combined with fungicides maneb and mancozeb doubles the risk, while overall pesticide exposure across 104 studies raised disease odds by 33% to 80%.
Animal studies reinforce the danger. Research published in the Journal of Neurological Sciences showed that combined exposure to paraquat and maneb in developing subjects caused pronounced loss of dopamine neurons—the exact pathology seen in Parkinson’s. California regulators have linked the herbicide to thyroid disease, birth defects, reproductive harm, and threats to endangered species including the San Joaquin kit fox.
The Environmental Working Group’s April 2024 analysis revealed disproportionate impacts on low-income Hispanic communities in California, connecting paraquat to non-Hodgkin lymphoma, respiratory damage, kidney disease, and childhood leukemia. Internal Syngenta documents, released through litigation, showed what the Alliance for Natural Health described as a “decades-long strategy to protect sales of paraquat” even as evidence mounted.
Advocates Push for National Reckoning
The Michael J. Fox Foundation highlighted that more than 70 countries and now one U.S. state have banned the chemical, urging the EPA to act. In 2017 the Unified Parkinson’s Advocacy Council, representing multiple Parkinson’s organizations, formally asked the EPA to restrict paraquat dichloride.
Public Interest Research Group’s Luke Sacino argued states cannot wait for federal leadership to protect farmworkers and families. California, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania are already considering similar bans, showing Vermont’s move could trigger wider action.
This shift arrives as the Trump administration rolls back safeguards, including limits on PFAS “forever chemicals” in drinking water. When federal agencies prioritize industry access over human health, states are left to fill the void.
Power Returning to States and People
Vermont’s ban marks a concrete victory against the chemical saturation of American agriculture. It rejects the assumption that toxic exposure is the unavoidable price of food production. As more states follow, the pressure on Washington will intensify to finally remove paraquat and similar neurotoxins from use.
The human cost—Parkinson’s diagnoses, neurological damage, and generational health burdens—has been documented for years. Vermont chose evidence over industry inertia. Other states now have a model to do the same.
