US lawmakers call on EPA to ban pesticide linked to Parkinson’s disease

Politicians say use of common yet toxic paraquat can’t be justified due to apparent health and environment risks

More than 50 US lawmakers are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to join dozens of other nations in banning a widely used weed killer linked to Parkinson’s disease and other health dangers.

In a 31 October letter to the agency, seven US senators said that paraquat, a weed killer commonly applied on US farms, was a “highly toxic pesticide whose continued use cannot be justified given its harms to farmworkers and rural communities”. The call for a ban from the senators came after 47 members of the US House of Representatives sent a similar letter to the EPA calling for a ban earlier in October.