United Farm Workers Vice President Giev Kashkooli issued the following statement today (July 25, 2017) from Washington, D.C. after Sens. Tom Udall (D-NM), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Edward J. Markey (D-MA) unveiled a first-of-its-kind bill, S. 1624, “The Protect Children, Farmers & Farmworkers from Nerve Agent Pesticides Act,” that would ban chlorpyrifos, a widely used agricultural pesticide linked to long-term damage in children’s developing brains, including reduced IQ and attention deficit disorder.
The United Farm Workers commends the efforts by Sens. Udall, Gillibrand, Booker, Blumenthal, Harris and Markey to protect farm workers and their families from this harmful brain damaging pesticide, chlorpyrifos. We know chlorpyrifos does neurodevelopmental harm in children and expecting mothers who are exposed to it, [produces] children with a lower birth weight, reduced IQ, loss of working memory, attention disorders and delayed motor development. Farm workers and their families’ health and lives should not be put in jeopardy.
Farm worker families are ready to fight back and speak out against the usage of chlorpyrifos until chlorpyrifos is banned. The UFW invites all people of goodwill to help.
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