The B.C. Supreme Court has certified a class-action lawsuit against Syngenta, the maker of a paraquat-based herbicide that two representative plaintiffs are alleging caused their Parkinson’s disease.
The lawsuit filed by Wayne Gionet was brought on behalf of Canadian Parkinson’s patients who used the herbicide, often marketed as Gramoxone, since it was introduced in 1963. Anyone who used the products and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s can join the class action, as can a living spouse, child, grandchild, parent, grandparent or sibling of those who have died as a result of the degenerative disease after using Gramoxone products.
Gionet used Syngenta products extensively for decades in his role as an Agriculture Canada employee in Saanich. The litigation was introduced before Gionet’s death in August 2023 and is continuing on behalf of his estate.
Johannes Van Wijngaarden, who used Gramoxone products for decades before a Parkinson’s diagnosis in 2015, is also named as a representative plaintiff.
Syngenta Canada is in the business of agricultural technology including seeds and pesticides. An earlier incarnation of the company known as Imperial Chemical Industries developed paraquat and trademarked Gramoxone in Canada in 1963.
Paraquat dichloride is fast-acting herbicide used by farmers and other commercial and domestic users for weed control. Legislation dating as far back as 1927 regulates the sale and use of such pest control products.
All of Syngenta’s Gramoxone products sold in Canada between 1963 and 2017 that contained the chemical were registered and approved for use under the regulatory framework of the day, which has been updated several times over the years.
The claim covers six of Syngenta’s Gramoxone products over a 60-year period, some of which had active ingredients other than paraquat. The products had detailed instructions about how, where and when they were to be used and had warnings that they were “acutely toxic or hazardous and must be used strictly in accordance with the instructions.”
The plaintiffs are seeking damages and recovery of health care costs for Syngenta’s alleged battery, negligence, negligent design and failure to warn of its products’ potential link to Parkinson’s disease. A claim of “unjust enrichment” was rejected by the certifying judge, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Wilkinson.
The lawsuit argues “Syngenta’s labels make no mention of any implications of chronic exposure, nor do they make any reference to Parkinson’s disease.”
Hundreds of pages of supporting documents include expert testimony showing that prolonged exposure to paraquat is associated with a 250-per-cent increase in the likelihood of developing Parkinson’s disease.
The plaintiffs hired two experts in research linking paraquat exposure to its accumulation in a user’s brain and to Parkinson’s, Dr. J. Timothy Greenamyre of the University of Pittsburgh and Professor Myles Cockburn of the University of Southern California.
They also submitted a collection of internal corporate documents dating back decades that suggest “Syngenta’s public statements about Parkinson’s risk conflicted with its internal research.”
Syngenta responded to those medical experts with their own.
Dr. Mandar Jog of the London Health Sciences Centre and a professor of neurology at Western University said Greenamyre’s report was flawed and that there is no evidence of a link between paraquat and Parkinson’s. He argued that, despite extensive research into Parkinson’s, no definitive cause has been identified.
Jog argued animal testing is not relevant in part because only humans can develop Parkinson’s, and tests involved acute exposures such injecting paraquat directly into the bloodstream, which is very different from chronic exposure from using the toxic chemical.
Victoria Kirsh is a neurodegenerative disease expert and epidemiologist for an Ontario health study looking at “a wide range of health outcomes and risk factors over a long period of time” in that province’s population.
Kirsh said epidemiological studies have failed to confirm a “causal relationship” between Parkinson’s disease and paraquat, and referred to the studies produced by the plaintiffs as suffering from “methodological flaws, including recall bias” — a failure by participants to remember past events correctly.
None of the allegations in the lawsuit has been tested in court, and certification as a class-action lawsuit is not a judgment on the merits or chances of success of a claim.
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