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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Environment
Shanti Das

‘My right side was paralysed, I was so sick’: the pesticide poisonings in Brazil that lead back to the UK

Tobacco farmer Valdemar Postanovicz, 45, was poisoned by diquat.
Tobacco farmer Valdemar Postanovicz, 45, was poisoned by diquat. Photograph: Marcelo Curia/Unearthed/Public Eye

Valdemar Postanovicz was at home after a day tending to his tobacco crop when his limbs seized up. “All of the right side of my body was paralysed. I couldn’t feel my foot and my hand. My mouth twisted to the right,” he says.

He feared it was a stroke. In fact, he was suffering ­symptoms of acute ­pesticide poisoning. Postanovicz, 45, had absorbed Reglone, a powerful herbicide based on the chemical diquat. “It was only one time in my life, but I felt so sick,” he says.

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