Herbicide banned in 70 countries to be pulled from sale in Australia by chemical maker

Paraquat, a herbicide banned in more than 70 countries, has been produced by the Swiss company Syngenta for decades, but has long been linked to Parkinson’s disease in users. Photograph: Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters View image in fullscreen Paraquat, a herbicide banned in more than 70 countries, has been produced by the Swiss company Syngenta for decades, but has long been linked to Parkinson’s disease in users. Photograph: Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters Herbicide banned in 70 countries to be pulled from sale in Australia by chemical maker Syngenta says it will stop selling paraquat in Australia after new regulations on chemical linked to Parkinson’s disease Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Syngenta, the producer of a herbicide banned in more than 70 countries and which has been linked to Parkinson’s disease , will stop selling paraquat in Australia, saying new regulations has made it “commercially unviable”. The decision to pull the product follows new restrictions on the highly poisonous chemical announced by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority in June . A global threat for millennia: experts warn Australia’s nuclear submarine legacy will be weapons-usable uranium cache Read more Paraquat has been produced by the Swiss company for decades, but has long been linked to Parkinson’s disease in users . It is banned in more than 70 countries and has been prohibited in the European Union since 2007. It cannot be used in domestic settings in Australia, but is still widely used in agriculture, particularly broad-acre cropping like grains, sugarcane and cotton. The APVMA assessed that the weight of evidence does not show that paraquat exposure through approved uses increases the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease. But it did impose new restrictions to address acute exposure and risks to animals. The company said the decision to pull the products followed a commercial review carried out in the wake of the APVMA’s rules. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email Syngenta ANZ’s managing director, David Van Ryswyk, said the company will manage the phase-out of its paraquat products in strict alignment with the APVMA’s designated sell-out and use-by timelines. “Regulatory constraints, combined with a highly complex and increasingly expensive supply chain, have made the paraquat herbicide products commercially unviable,” Van Ryswyk said. The new restrictions on the herbicide required that backpack sprayers be phased out, mandate additional personal protective equipment for users and set a much lower maximum rate of application per hectare. At the time of the APVMA’s decision, Syngenta said the pesticide “does not cause an unacceptable environmental impact” and that the regulation would limit its use in a significant number of crop use cases. The company had planned to continue supplying through a third-party manufacturer, but on Friday it said the new regulations and an increasingly expensive supply chain had made t