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Ag-Mart sued over birth defects

Immigrants whose son was born without limbs sue the produce company they worked for picking tomatoes.

MIAMI - A farmworker couple whose son was born without arms or legs after they were exposed to pesticides have sued a Florida agricultural company, their attorney said Wednesday.

Francisca Herrera and Abraham Candelario, both from Guerrero, Mexico, picked tomatoes in Florida's agricultural hub of Immokalee and in North Carolina for the Plant City-based Ag-Mart Produce before and after Herrera became pregnant with their 1-year-old son Carlos. Carlos was also born with spinal and lung abnormalities.

An attorney for the couple, who are illegal immigrants, filed the suit Tuesday in Tampa. It accuses the company, which markets its produce under the brand Santa Sweets, of negligence in its use of the pesticides and seeks unspecified damages.

Their attorney Andrew Yaffa said the case was the first of several pesticide-related suits he plans to file against Ag-Mart but added that the misuse of pesticides is a problem throughout the industry.

He said many workers are afraid to complain about working conditions because they are working in the United States illegally and fear deportation.

"These folks along with hundreds of others working in the fields are exposed to all kinds of pesticides that cause birth defects, respiratory problems, skin ailments, headaches, nausea - and it's being disregarded. This needs to stop," Yaffa said, during a news conference in his Miami office.

Last year, North Carolina and Florida handed Ag-Mart a record nearly 400 citations and fined the company about $300,000 for misusing pesticides between 1999 and 2003. The company is a subsidiary of the Philadelphia-based conglomerate Procacci Brothers.

Ag-Mart owner Don Long has denied wrongdoing and said his company has made strides in recent years to reduce the number of pesticides it uses.

"We are deeply saddened by what Carlitos and his family have endured over the past year; it's a heartbreaking experience for any family," Long said in a statement released Wednesday through his lawyer.

"From the beginning, we cooperated fully with authorities conducting two independent investigations into this case, one by the Collier County Health Department, and the other by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Both investigations, which were exhaustive and thorough, found no link between pesticides and birth defects in children including Carlitos," he said.

Yaffa said he does not believe the investigations were thorough enough. He also called it a conflict of interest to charge the Department of Agriculture to investigate whether it sufficiently enforced its own regulations.

While Ag-Mart has reduced its reliance on some of the most dangerous pesticides, it continues to use methyl bromide, according to Yaffa. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had ordered the toxic chemical phased out by 2005, except for "agricultural users with no technically or economically feasible alternatives."

Herrera said she picked tomatoes during her pregnancy. When she wasn't in the fields, she washed the clothes her husband wore while he worked in the fields.

She said the doctor told her when she was sixth months pregnant that her child might have problems.

"But not like this," she said, as Carlos smiled and made helicopter noises for reporters. "I didn't know how to feed him, how to bathe him. I am scared for him all the time."

Carlos' case has drawn significant media attention and prompted several major supermarkets to stop offering Ag-Mart's tomatoes. "That shocking picture of that young child without arms and legs, that was burned into our minds," said Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, who is pushing a bill to add 10 farm inspectors to the state's 20.

But Arturo Lopez, head of the Coalition of Florida Farmworker Organizations said he has yet to see a consensus for real change in Florida.

"It's still mostly talk. I don't think that a lot of companies that are using the pesticides think that the pesticides are the cause of the deformities," he said. "What would be better is if the Department of Agriculture would ban some of the pesticides that may be connected to the birth defects."

[Last modified March 2, 2006, 01:32:18]