The Death of Ramon Gonzalez and the 21st Century Dilemma

study strongly suggests permanent nervous system damage done to children due to
pesticide exposure at sub-acute levels. Comparable studies done in Central America have
had similar results, with additional documentation of loss of reasoning and other mentalprocessing
skills in adults as well as children due to sub-acute levels of pesticide
poisoning. xxvii [here insert the line drawings from G.’s study]
These studies are most important because they demonstrate under actual field
conditions the fallacy of the view that acute exposure to organophosphate and carbamate
pesticides short of death would not lead to permanent or chronic health problems—if
recovery occurred, it would be complete, without further consequences. This was the
optimistic doctrine that reigned in pesticide toxicology when I did the original work for
The Death of Ramon Gonzalez. Subsequently, not only these field studies, but other
epidemiological, field, and laboratory studies have demonstrated a variety of permanent
and chronic health problems in humans and wildlife due to central nervous system
poisons widely used as pesticides. We will discuss this further below.
Frequent use of large quantities of highly toxic pesticides in ways that seriously
harm farmworker health has been documented recently in other Mexican regions. The
most thorough study comes from the coastal region just south of the state of Sinaloa, in
the states of Nayarit and Jalisco. This is tobacco country, with tobacco grown for
domestic and export markets under the supervision of transnational tobacco firms. xxviii
Most of the workers who cultivate and harvest the tobacco are Huichols, members
of one of the most remarkable ethnic groups in Mexicos. The Huichols, who mostly live
in the rugged mountains of western Jalisco and Nayarit, with some coastal settlements,
successfully resisted Spanish conquest. They also largely resisted outside control through