The Biopolitics of Farmworker Health in Methyl Iodide Regulation and Adoption

了解化学品是如何和为什么被使用以及何时被停止使用是政策和科学社会研究的一个重要问题。考虑到对种植者、决策者、生产者、消费者和农场工人的利害关系，农用化学品是调查这些过程的一个特别关键的地点。本研究通过调查甲基碘的批准和随后撤回的原因，有助于理解这些动态。甲基碘是一种广泛用于草莓生产的土壤熏蒸剂，旨在取代甲基溴，计划在2015年逐步停止使用。众所周知，甲基碘对人体健康有负面影响，但它还是获得了批准。该研究调查了甲基碘对农场工人健康及其后代的影响的空间、化学和社会知识，以及替代品的可获得性如何进入监管和采用的辩论和决定。方法包括对公开听证会和公众评论的分析，对参与监管辩论的组成团体的采访，以及对草莓行业代表的采访。研究结果提供了新的理论工具，以理解如何科学知识，法规和伦理关注的生物后果的化学品交叉塑造化学品的商业可行性。更广泛地说，该研究阐明了化学品的空间分布和伦理问题如何影响化学品监管。研究成果被传播给政策制定者、农场工人和学术研究人员。研究成果的广泛传播使一系列行动者能够获得更有效地参与化学调节过程所需的知识。

Understanding how and why chemicals come to be used and when they are withdrawn from use is an important question for policy and for social studies of science. Agricultural chemicals are an especially critical site for the investigation of these processes, given the stakes for growers, policymakers, producers, consumers, and farmworkers. This study contributes to understanding these dynamics through an investigation of the causes of the approval and subsequent withdrawal of methyl iodide, a soil fumigant widely used in strawberry production that was designed to replace methyl bromide, which is planned to be phased out of use by 2015. Methyl iodide was known to have negative effects on human health, but was approved nonetheless. The study investigates how spatial, chemical and social knowledge of the effects of methyl iodide on farmworker health and their offspring and the availability of substitutes entered into regulatory and adoption debates and decisions. Methods include analysis of public hearings and public comment, interviews with constituent groups that participated in the regulatory debates, and interviews with representatives of the strawberry industry. The research results provide new theoretical tools for understanding how scientific knowledge, regulation, and ethical concerns about biological consequences of chemicals intersect to shape the commercial viability of chemicals. More broadly, the research illumiminates how the spatial distribution of chemicals and ethical concerns shape chemical regulation. Research findings are disseminated to policymakers, farmworkers, and to academic researchers. The wide dissemination of research findings enables a range of actors to have access to knowledge needed to engage the process of chemical regulation more effectively.