Paraquat: Is it the missing link?

Wesley and his paternal grandfather Karl Dumire

So when I was diagnosed with Young Onset Parkinson's Disease (YOPD) at 34 years old I immediately thought back to this picture. This is the very first picture of me with my paternal grandfather - better known as Pap-pap. Now my Pap-pap had a farm in Upper Marlboro, Maryland growing up, and it was a magical place full of horses, cows, the errant pig…and my arch nemesis the peacocks and pheasants. (these will play a formative roles in my fear of birds). It was also the place where summers were filled with playing in the fields and eating tomatoes like they are apples fresh off the vine and the smell of patty pan squash frying.

Unfortunately, those summers were limited as my Pap-pap got sick and succumb to lung cancer and what was diagnosed at the time as multiple sclerosis in the summer between my fourth and fifth grades. Looking back on the time period, because this was the very early 90s misdiagnosis for Parkinson's disease as multiple sclerosis was more common. Apparently spraying fields with paraquat was more common too.

When I joined the Environmental Working Group’s team as a Strategic Creative Advisor I was shown an interactive map where you could look up not only your state’s usage of the pesticide but your county’s and it goes back 27 years from 2018 to 1990. Key formative years for me as a young kid growing up running around his Pap-pap’s farm and for his stepdad, who was an avid golfer, to bring back the very same pesticide on his golf cleats and clubs.

So looking back unfortunately I can't see what the usage of paraquat was from 1989 to 1983, but what I can gather is that the three specific counties where I spent most of my growing up averaged an estimated paraquat use of 10 to 13 lbs per square mile.

Now I'm not too sure on the science I'm still learning it, but it does make me wonder maybe me and Pap-pap had a genetic pre-disposal or marker for Parkinson's disease and maybe being surrounded by the pesticide only made it worse or more likely. Regardless one thing I do know about the science is that people who applied paraquat were more than twice as likely to develop Parkinson’s disease as those who applied other pesticides. Paraquat applied near homes or workplaces has also shown to increase a person’s odds of developing Parkinson’s disease.

I want to get Maryland, and the remaining 47 other states, to ban paraquat so that no one knows what it's like to lose their grandfather so young and so that no one in their 30s has to live with this diagnosis.