WASHINGTON — Public health advocates and farmworkers called for a federal ban on a toxic herbicide they say led to their Parkinson’s disease during a Tuesday briefing for congressional staffers.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will determine next year if the herbicide, paraquat dichloride, should have its license renewed for another 15 years. The herbicide is used for controlling weeds in agriculture settings. It’s currently banned in more than 70 countries and has several serious health conditions it’s linked to, such as cancer and increases the likelihood of developing Parkinson’s disease.

Nora Jackson, a former farmworker of Indiana, said that her cousin, whose job it was to spray paraquat on farms, developed Parkinson’s at 55 years old. Signs of Parkinson’s usually appear around 60 years old.

“Farmworkers often have to do extremely risky jobs … but it doesn’t have to be that way,” Jackson said. “It is possible to have an agriculture system that does not depend so heavily on paraquat and it does not have to be a pesticide that puts so many people’s lives at risk.”

The disease has drastically affected his life, Jackson added.

“He now relies heavily on medication and uses a walking stick to be able to walk every day,” she said.

The briefing on the health risks of paraquat was hosted by the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, which is an alliance for farmworker women, and the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit that produces research and advocates for public health.

The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research was established by the actor who starred in blockbusters Back to the Future, Doc Hollywood and Teen Wolf. Fox was diagnosed with early onset Parkinson’s at the age of 29.

Ban necessary

The EPA has until Jan. 17 to make a decision on paraquat’s future availability.

Advocates at Tuesday’s event called for the agency to deny paraquat’s license renewal, saying other regulations to reduce exposure to the herbicide have come up short.

“Keep in mind that people have been using this chemical as directed, and are still developing Parkinson’s disease,” Scott Faber, Environmental Working Group’s senior vice president of government affairs, said. “So putting more restrictions on how it’s used, when it’s used, what equipment you use, and so on, is not the answer.”

EPA slow to suspend toxic herbicide tied to lifelong health issues

Parkinson’s disease affects the nervous system and causes unintended shakiness, trouble with balance and stiffness. There is no cure.

The California Legislature is moving to ban the herbicide. 

David Jilbert, of Valley City, Ohio, a former farmworker with a background in engineering, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2021.

“As a longtime environmental engineer, I understood the importance of personal protection equipment, and I particularly followed all safety protocols,” he said.

He sold his vineyard in 2019 because he wasn’t feeling well and his hands were beginning to move slowly.

“My diagnosis changed everything, affecting every aspect of my life, from physical capabilities to emotional wellbeing, financial stability,” he said. “There is no cure for Parkinson’s. It is degenerative and it will only get worse, not better.”

Charlene Tenbrink of Winters, California, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2020. She worked on her family farm from 1993 to 2000 where she would mix, load and spray paraquat.

Tenbrink said she felt let down by the federal government because she was unaware of the health risks that paraquat could pose.

“We’ve been trying to change this for a long time,” she said.

MADISON – Sarah Franklin has the ability to make the ridiculous seem routine.

Wisconsin volleyball’s senior outside hitter did it again Tuesday night, using an array of shots to put together a record-hitting performance in leading the team to a 3-1 victory over Marquette in front of a crowd of 15,084 at the Kohl Center.

Franklin finished with 33 kills, a program record for a four-set match, while posting a .517 hitting percentage. The performance broke Dana Rettke’s record of 30 kills against Minnesota during the 2018 season.

That said we didn’t know how impressive the night was until Badgers coach Kelly Sheffield explained the back pain his star player fought to compete.

The back issues explained why Franklin was often jogging on the court during timeouts and sometimes in between points.

“Trying to keep her back loose was an all-day thing and an all-match type of thing,” Sheffield said. “I’m sure she got an awful lot of steps in.

“To play that performance with her back as tight as what it was, (in) as much as pain as she was, she is an absolute warrior,” Sheffield said. “That is one of the best matches I’ve ever seen a player do under the circumstances. It was fantastic.”

Wisconsin improved to 4-3 with the 22-25, 25-20, 25-16, 25-22 victory. The win was marked not only by Franklin’s play, but senior setter Carly Anderson’s last-minute start at setter and season-high 15 kills for senior right-side/middle blocker Anna Smrek.

For Marquette, senior Carsen Murray finished with 12 kills and a .632 hitting percentage, while senior outside Aubrey Hamilton added 10 kills, posting six and a .462 hitting percentage during the first set.

Here are four takeaways from the night.

Sarah Franklin got better as the night went along

Judging by Franklin’s play, her back must have felt better as the night went along because she was at her best down the stretch.

Here are her hitting numbers set by set.

1 – five kills, zero errors, 13 swings, .385 hitting percentage.

2 – nine kills, zero errors, 16 swings, .563 hitting percentage.

3 – seven kills, one error, 14 swings, .429 hitting percentage.

4 – 12 kills, one errors, 17 swings, . 647 hitting percentage.

Franklin, who also recorded her 1,500th career kill during the match to move into fifth place all-time in the program, sliced shots cross court, went down the line and even had three or four of her tips drop. It was that kind of night.

Anderson assisted the bulk of Franklin’s points, but she showed her ability to connect with any passer. In the third set defensive specialist Gulce Guctekin had three assists and middle blocker Caroline Crawford and libero Lola Schumacher had one each.

“Sarah makes the game so easy for a setter and for the whole team,” Anderson said. “You saw that throughout the whole match, but at the end especially. You can give her the ball and she is going to score no matter what kind of ball it is. That’s some crazy game that she has. She had my back. Everyone had my back throughout the entire match, but she especially did and she’s awesome.”

UW doesn’t miss beat without Charlie Fuerbringer

Fuerbringer watched the action with walking boot on her right leg. It wasn’t until a few hours before the match that Wisconsin’s starting setter was ruled out.

Enter Anderson, who has set sparingly this season, but set 101 matches during her career at Montana. She stepped back into that role easily.

She tied Fuerbringer’s season-high of 51 assists but needed one fewer set to do it. UW finished the night with a season-high .355 hitting percentage.

“It’s why we brought Carly in,” Sheffield said. “She’s probably one of the most experienced setters in the country going into her fifth year … It’s not easy being told a few hours before match time that you’re running the show and we saw her composure and her connection. We hit for a pretty a good percentage as the match went on.”

MU’s Carsen Murray’s remained efficient

Murray didn’t have an error in 19 swings and posted a season-high .632 hitting percentage while also leading the Golden Eagles in blocks (four) and points (14½).

The performance marked the second time in three matches that she hit better than .500, work that pushed her season hitting percentage to .402. That would rank second in the Big East based on ranking entering the week.

Badger block helps change course of match

Marquette opened the match with a .348 hitting percentage that led to a first-set win. From there the Golden Eagles’ productivity dipped, going to .214 in the second set and .029 in the third before rebounding to .306 in the final set.

Key to the shift was the Badgers’ productivity with their block. UW is traditionally one of the top teams in the nation in blocking. The team hasn’t reached that level yet this season, but runs like they had during the final three set Tuesday will help their cause.

UW doubled its blocks from the first set to the second and tripled its production during the final two sets. Smrek finished the night with six blocks. Senior Caroline Crawford was next with four and senior Devyn Robinson, who didn’t play in the first set and for most of the second, had three.

Adjusting to the speed of Marquette’s offense was key.

“Marquette runs a really fast tempo and they have some really good, experienced outsides on their team and they’re dynamic attackers so we want to be more dynamic on our block than their attack,” Smrek said. “Getting good blocks, it just bring so much energy to the team, but we just stayed consistent.”

With the Tigers playing arguably their most-anticipated game in nearly a decade, many fans were in the dark for much of the first four innings Tuesday night.

As the Tigers were playing the Kansas City Royals while trailing the Minnesota Twins by 1.5 games for the final wild-card spot in the American League, the Bally Sports Plus app went down for many customers in the Michigan market, and in other markets across the country.

A Bally Sports Detroit exec said around 8 p.m. Tuesday, about 20 minutes following first pitch, that the operations department was aware of the situation and was working to fix it. Service was restored about an hour after the start of the Tigers-Royals game, Bally Sports told its customers on social media.

“Bally Sports is currently experiencing a streaming interruption across multiple platforms” read a message from Bally Sports’ X (formerly Twitter) account around 8:17 Thursday. “We know every moment matters. The Bally Sports operations team is working quickly to identify and resolve the issue.”

When some fans went to load the TV stream of the game, they were met with an error message: “We’ve encountered a problem leading your video. Please retry or contact customer care for help.”

Subscribers: Once again, Matt Vierling quietly in the center of another Tigers comeback win

Around 8:40 Tuesday, Bally Sports said on X service had been restored “across all regions.” Bally Sports said if customers are continuing to experience issues, they can contact the support staff at help.ballysports.com.

Many Tigers fans began subscribing to the Bally Sports Plus app (for more than $20 a month) earlier this season when Diamond Sports, the parent company of the Bally Sports stable of regional-sports networks, and Comcast, the parent company of Xfinity, hit an impasse in negotiations, and the RSNs were removed from Xfinity’s offerings on May 1.

Diamond Sports and Xfinity reached an agreement, and the Bally Sports RSNs returned to the cable giant’s lineup Aug. 1.

Counting Tuesday night’s game in Kansas City, the Tigers have 11 games left in the regular season as they try to make the postseason for the first time since 2016. The Twins were playing the AL Central-leading Cleveland Guardians.

The Tigers rallied to beat the Royals, 7-6, on Monday, to pull within 1.5 games of the Twins, who had an early lead on the Guardians but ended up losing, 4-3.

tpaul@detroitnews.com

@tonypaul1984