These farmers have Parkinson’s disease – and claim a weedkiller is to blame
by Carey Gillam and Aliya Uteuova from US news | The Guardian on (#64ZDV)
One pesticide popular with US farmers has been prominently linked to the disease: a weedkiller called paraquat
When Illinois farmer Ron Niebruegge was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease at the age of 55, he was certain it must be a mistake. Niebruegge had always been healthy and active, someone who loved trail riding his horses and taking his wife dancing on weekend nights.
But a dizzy spell and a fall in 2007 led him to visit a neurologist, and then another. Both doctors agreed that the little things Niebruegge had started to notice - a left arm that didn't seem to work quite right, some stiffness in his joints - were undeniable signs of the onset of Parkinson's, a progressive debilitating brain disease for which there is no cure.
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