Heavy Metal Florists: Mercury Toxicity in the US Floral Industry

Much has been written on the negative health effects of unregulated pesticides use on workers in the cut flower industry in South America and other developing countries. Close to 80% of all flowers and 92% of all roses are imported into the United States, with South America as the main source (Stewart, 2007; Bergman, 2008). There is no monitoring or regulation on the pesticide levels of imported flowers because flowers are not a food product. Flowers need only be free of pests and diseases upon importation into the US (Tenenbaum, 2002). The health effects of handling and smelling contaminated flowers per se on florist and consumer is not a readily available topic on the Internet or in a literature search.

Although no studies show that contaminated flowers have been shown to affect consumers, Bergman (2008) states that exposure to toxic substances in confined spaces like the average home may have an as yet unknown effect on health. The most found thus far in searching the internet for the effects on florists in this country is a reference to contact dermatitis in floral workers who handle contaminated flowers imported from South America (Harris, 2008). Sanborn et al (2007) discusses dermatitis as the most common health effect due to contact with pesticides, while acute and chronic exposure is known to result in neurological symptoms. As my friend Jill and other florists in two adjacent rural counties in Northern California have discovered, much more than dermatitis can result from handling pesticide-contaminated flowers. Jill is the second of seven long-time florists in Del Norte and Humboldt counties to experience symptoms and test positive for heavy metal toxicity. Jill is positive for an elevated mercury level, while the others have tested positive with combinations of elevated levels of the heavy metals lead, arsenic, cadmium, silver and mercury. The Pesticide Action Network (2009) searchable database for active ingredients in pesticides by chemical name lists 167 active ingredients containing heavy metals, of which 79 contain mercury.

Jill’s first symptom that something was badly wrong came on an ordinary morning in 2004, when she rolled over in bed, and suddenly the whole world whirled and kept on whirling. This is the feeling of severe vertigo, and Jill’s response was to throw up, again and again and again. Severe vertigo is “like being on a rollercoaster all the time” according to Jill. Jill had to be heavily sedated for that week until, just as suddenly, the vertigo, headaches and vomiting went away. Then it happened twice again in 2005. At first, an ear infection was suspected since Jill was a lifeguard as well as a florist, but this was ruled out each time. These acute episodes remained a mystery with a fast onset and end, till in January 24, 2006, when Jill rolled over in bed once more, and this time the vertigo did not go away.

Jill found that she could no longer work, could no longer stand, could no longer do much of anything other than lie in a darkened room with the covers pulled over her head to cut out all light. Her condition worsened. Her symptoms were unremitting and debilitating, and included severe vertigo with nausea, severe and chronic fatigue, constant migraines, memory loss, difficulty concentrating and lack of focus, heart palpitations, tremors, anxiety and excitability. There were psychomotor symptoms such as suddenly garbled speech and sporadic loss of handwriting ability. She was bewildered by the appearance of uncontrollable salivation as well as a metallic taste in her mouth. Jill, along with her husband and her family caring for her, felt that she was going to die. Jill did not know that her strange symptoms of uncontrollable salivation, tremors, and mood disorders were indicative of excessive mercury exposure. Meticulous about her dental health, Jill developed gingivitis and a sensation that her teeth were loosening up (Venes, 2001).

With her husband’s help, Jill determinedly made the rounds of the top medical schools in California, consulting a long list of doctors. She was tested in every imaginable way, with MRIs, EEGs, hormone checks, eye and ear exams, blood and urine testing etc. Finally in June of 2006, a provocated urine test for heavy metal exposure yielded the first abnormal result: very elevated mercury levels, which had not shown up on the initial blood tests. By September, Jill began chelating treatments to try to remove the mercury with a specialist at the Lifespan Clinic at Stanford, still without knowing what had caused the elevated mercury in her body. The usual suspected source of contaminated fish was not probable, since Jill was only an occasional fish eater. In addition, the organic methyl mercury from contaminated fish usually shows up in blood tests, not on urinalysis. Since mercury showed up on urinalysis only, this indicated another source for the mercury poisoning (Hightower, 2009).

In September of 2006, a visiting friend of a friend heard about Jill. She was Dr. Margaret Peet, author of “My Doctor Says I'm Fine: So Why Do I Feel So Bad?” She had recently read an article about the cut flower industry in South American countries entitled “Would a Rose Not Smell As Sweet” by David Tenenbaum (2002). Jill had been a florist for 37 years, the last 19 as a manager in the floral department at Safeway. Margaret connected the similarity in Jill’s symptoms and occupation to those of the South American workers, and sought Jill out to speak to her. She provided the missing link that Jill had needed to make sense of everything that had been happening to her.

Jill has been investigating possible sources of mercury in her workplace. She made contact with another florist in the area who had shown similar symptoms before Jill, as well as five other long-term floral managers who developed symptoms after her. Each showed the same constellation of symptoms, with some symptoms exacerbated by personal risk factors. For Jill, a family history of vertigo migraines contributed to her initial symptoms. For others, primary symptoms ranged from migraines to severe memory loss similar to Alzheimer’s Disease, and included kidney damage, seizures, chronic fatigue, cancer, and multiple sclerosis.

The questions cannot help but come up: Why here, in this small rural area? What is different in this area that has resulted in seven long-term floral workers testing positive for heavy metals? Why has this not shown up in urban areas, which do far more floral business? Perhaps a better question would be to ask, how were the seven women able to find out about each other’s similar symptoms? The answer lies in the nature of Jill’s small rural community, where residents know each other and share information readily. Watkins (2004) describes rural helping networks as a web of interconnections and personalized concern for each other, as opposed to urban networks with far fewer personal communications and concerns. Dr. Peet’s drop-in visit with Jill, after learning of her problems from a mutual friend, was an example of this extended helping network. My willingness to advocate for Jill and the others by researching and writing this blog to reach the cyberspace community is another. Each affected florist involved was able to use the extended networks found in rural communities and share information, in the process avoiding the common misdiagnoses commonly given to women from mystified doctors.

Pesticides are neurotoxic, and symptoms are widely variable (Kammel and Hoppin, 2004). Doctors are not trained to look automatically for the unusual, such as heavy metal toxicity, in the first place. It is not that florists from this rural area are any different from urban florists. It is that their interconnectedness provided the additional information that allowed for proper diagnosis of their condition. Florists in urban areas are also exposed, but when their exposure is high enough or of long enough duration for exposure to cause symptoms, they will go to their doctors with mystery ailments that defy diagnosis. They are not aware yet that pesticide exposure and resulting heavy metal toxicity exists in the workplace for florists.

It is worth noting here that heavy metals accumulate in the body, and their levels could be used to provide a persistent biomarker for pesticide exposure, if doctors and researchers are alerted to look for it. The title for this blog and symptom descriptions were chosen with care, in order to provide key terms likely to be used in an Internet search for those searching for such information. The purpose of this initial blog on mercury and other heavy metal exposure in the floral industry is to help Jill get the word out to others about the potential damage to those employed as florists in this country, as well as to those who purchase flowers. As for the rest of us, the only way to stop the use of banned pesticides and other practices in S. America, and anywhere else in the world, is to make it economically unsound by refusing to buy products not certified as safe. Bergman (2008) and Tanenbaum (2002) give information on certification programs in articles listed below.

In the interests of readability, additional events and information will be covered in another blog on this topic.

Jill can be reached at heavymetalflorist2@gmail.com

References

Bergman, C. (2008). A rose is [not] a rose [Electronic version]. Audubon 110, 46-53. Retrieved January 12, 2010, from http://audubonmagazine.org/features0801/organics.html

Harris, R. (2008). Think that your gift is pesticide-free? Give organic flowers and it will be. Retrieved January 14, 2010, from http://www.naturalnews.com/z023207_flowers_pesticides_Hawaii.html

Hightower, J. M. (2009). Diagnosis: mercury, money, politics & poison.
Washington: Island Press/Shearwater Books.

Kamel, F. & Hoppin, J.A. (2004, June). Association of pesticide exposure with neurologic dysfunction and disease [Electronic version]. Environmental Health Perspectives,112(9):950-8. Retrieved January 31, 2010, from http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2004/7135/7135.html#lowl

Pesticide Action Network (2009). PAN pesticide database – chemicals. Retrieved February 4, 2010, from http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Search_Chemicals.jsp

Sanborn, M., Kerr, K.J., Sanin, L.H., Cole, D.C., Bassil, K.L. & Vakil, C. (2007, October). Non-cancer health effects of pesticides: Systematic review and implications for family doctors [Electronic version]. Canadian Family Physician, 53, 1713-1720.

Stewart, A. (2007). Flower confidential. New York: Algonquin Books/Chapel Hill, Workman Publishing.

Tenenbaum, D. (2002). Would a rose not smell as sweet? [Electronic version].  Environmental Health Perspectives, 110(5), A240-A247.

Venes, D. (2001). Taber’s cyclopedic medical dictionary. (19th Edition, pp. 1279). Philadelphia: F.A. Davis Co.

Watkins, T.R. (2004). Natural helping networks: Assets for rural communities. In T. L. Scales & C. L. Streeter (Eds.), Rural social work: Building and sustaining community assets (pp. 65-76). Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Brooks/Cole/Thomson Learning.