Volunteers Test Zolone’s Effect by Picking Grapes Sprayed With Banned Bug Killer

A French pesticide company is paying volunteer field workers to harvest grapes sprayed with the insecticide Zolone, banned last fall after poisoning more than 80 San Joaquin Valley farm workers.

“The purpose of this study is to determine whether Zolone brand insecticide has any effect on your health,” said a consent form handed out to volunteers this week in Porterville.

The consent form said participants will cease participating in the study if they begin experiencing low blood pressure, twitching, trembling, slow heart rate, staggering, shortness of breath or other signs of illness.

Six Days of Work

The study, paid for by Rhone-Poulenc Ag Co., calls for volunteers to pick grapes for six days and provide blood and urine samples during that time. Volunteers have the option of quitting the survey at any time, and a physician will be on hand to monitor their health.

Rhone-Poulenc voluntarily pulled Zolone from use on grapes, stone fruit and citrus last fall after grape pickers in Fresno and Madera counties suffered from headaches, nausea and vomiting. The study is being conducted to determine the material’s safety in an attempt to let it be used again on grapes.

Under the study, one crew of volunteers will pick grapes treated with the pesticide and another crew will pick an untreated vineyard. The study calls for volunteers to enter fields 14 days after spraying, but the state Department of Health Services recommends a 35-day waiting period.

John Corkins, Tulare County Farm Bureau president, was questioned Thursday about the study after he and two other table grape growers held a press conference to rebut charges made by the United Farm Workers during the union’s grape boycott.

Corkins at first was reluctant to answer reporters’ questions about the study, which his firm, Research for Hire, is conducting under a contract with the manufacturer.

A reporter asked Corkins if the volunteers could be considered “guinea pigs” in pesticide-tainted fields.

‘Guinea Pig’ Label Denied

“A guinea pig is used in experiments or research. This is not research. This is a monitoring exposure study,” Corkins replied.

Later Corkins said he was so convinced of the chemical’s safety that he would let his family into Zolone-sprayed fields.

“Heck yes, I don’t have any concern about that. I myself will be in the field,” Corkins said.

“You call it a monitoring study. It’s just a euphemism,” said Judy Mae, a Porterville College student who attended an orientation session for the Zolone study. The college’s job placement office was used to recruit students to begin picking the grapes Monday because Corkins said students “might need extra money.”

Mae said after reading the consent form and attending the orientation, “I ran. I ran for my life.”

‘Too Healthy’

Mae approached the dean of instruction at the college about the tests and recalled being told, “Judy, you can’t kill college students. They’re too healthy.”