Vanguard
The Vanguard (The People's Vanguard) provides the Davis Community in Davis, California, with incisive in-depth coverage of local government on a wide variety of issues. They published several articles relating to David Bell's story, AgraQuest and Pam Marrone.
The Downside of AgraQuest and Biotech
By David Greenwald
August 6, 2013
In October of 2008, the Sacramento News and Review and the Davis Vanguard publication covered the story of David Bell.
David Bell said he was looking for a good and “honest” job with AgraQuest, as he was a semester away from earning his bachelor’s degree in biology from Sacramento State. It was 1998, three years after the founding of AgraQuest by Pam Marrone, who at that point was a respected entomologist, specializing in agriculture and insects at Monsanto.
Reported the News and Review, “Five months later, he came down with severe flu symptoms. His face and teeth grew numb. Breathing became difficult and he developed severe headaches. His nose bled and his sputum turned bloody.”
Mr. Bell would be laid off in June 1999, but according to the News and Review, he was unable to continue work.
He told the weekly publication, “I had to resign, due to uncontrollable throwing up traveling to and from work on [Interstate] 80.”
Ten years later, they continue, “Four sinus surgeries and numerous medical treatments later, Bell remains incapacitated by the illness, which he and his mother, Sandi Trend, of Citrus Heights, claim was caused by bacteria and fungi he was exposed to at AgraQuest.”
The travesty in this case is not that Mr. Bell got sick, it is how he was treated within the system – and not just by AgraQuest, but by the worker’s compensation system itself.
Read the article.
Did Davis Biotech Firm Expose Davis to Potentially Dangerous Pathogens?
By David Greenwald
October 17, 2008
Sandi Trend will be speaking about her son’s case at a screening of The World According to Monsanto, Saturday, October 18, 2 p.m., UC Davis, Chemistry Room 194.This week’s Sacramento News and Review featured a story by Seth Sandronsky which outlined the plight of former Sacramento resident David Bell, who worked for a Davis biotech firm, AgraQuest.
The Vanguard has been investigating this story for the last several months and is very concerned about the possibility that some of the microbes and bacteria that were used in this lab could have escaped into the Davis environment and exposed Davis residents to potentially lethal infections. One of the problems that David Bell faced was a broken Worker’s Compensation system. The main focus of the News and Review Article was the plight of David Bell and the problems in the Worker’s comp system.
Our concern however is also with the residents who live and work near 1105 Kennedy Place, in Davis, the original location of Agraquest. It is located near two school sites and surrounded by residential neighborhoods.
WHAT THE LAB CONTAINED AND THE OFFICIAL RESPONSE OF CAL-OSHA, according to the News and Review:
“AgraQuest was founded in 1995 by Pam Marrone, a respected entomologist who had specialized in agriculture and insects at biotech giant Monsanto. Bell was a semester away from earning a bachelor’s degree in biology from Sacramento State when he started at the company in 1998. According to the transcript from his first workers’ compensation hearing, Bell worked primarily on two biopesticide projects, Laginex and Serenade.
Laginex is the brand name of Lagenidium giganteum, a water mold (fungi), which infects and kills mosquitoes. In a series of experiments, Bell documented what happened in water with mosquito larvae and Laginex and how to lengthen the biopesticide’s shelf life.
Serenade is a biopesticide used to control insects on crops. Its active ingredients are the Bacillus subtilis bacteria, which AgraQuest first found in a Fresno peach orchard. Bell tested soil samples taken from locations worldwide, using a fermentation process to extract the bacteria. He and a co-worker filled 10-kilo bags of Serenade from a larger drum. Bell did not wear a respirator while loading the Serenade.”
David Bell visited the Mayo Clinic in Arizona and they discovered a whole range of possible infectious agents. Sandi Trend, Bell’s mother, was able to link many of the agents in the patents that AgraQuest was using to agents found in David Bell’s body over the course of the last decade.
One of the big problems was pointed out by esteemed Dr. Larry Rose, who was the last doctor that worked for CAL-OSHA. OSHA has increasingly relied upon industry doctors and more often they have simply looked at smaller technical problems. They simply do not have the expertise to examine and diagnose this sort of problem.
As Larry Rose pointed out during a video interview which also featured local Davis activists and author of “Death on the Job” Dan Berman:
“When you’re called in and a worker has possibly picked up a very serious infectious disease from the work process, you don’t just go in and measure a face velocity and give a tag. You’ve gotta do some… you know real investigation. Go over all the medical records and you’ve got to get the organism and submit it to the proper lab to determine it’s pathogenicity. In other words, there’s a series of steps you would take because you’re not only trying to protect all the workers there now and future workers, but you also have to protect the community when you’re talking about an infectious disease, this is a serious public health matter. So looking at what OSHA did [and] I’m just astounded that they had that kind of very weak response, inappropriate response according to the law.”
Read the
article.
Did Congressman Lungren Ignore Potential National Security Threat Posed by AgraQuest’s Importation of Foreign Soils?
By David Greenwald
October 22, 2008
Last week, the Sacramento News and Review reported that an AgraQuest worker David Bell contracted a series of respiratory infections during his time working for the company in 1999. Now nearly nine years later, he continues to suffer from the debilitating illness.
The Vanguard raised questions about the environmental impact at the Kennedy Place location for AgraQuest. Questions were most specifically brought forth from Mr. Bell himself who informed the Vanguard that as an employee of AgraQuest he was told to dispose of waste material on a concrete culvert. The Vanguard also showed photographic evidence taken from several years later that suggests the possibility of contamination of the outside worksite.
In a follow up interview with David Bell, he warned us that the ventilation system at the 1105 Kennedy Place office building needs to be fully investigated as well due to the activities that took place in the building and the possibility that microbes ended up in the ventilation system.
During the course of the investigation into both Mr. Bell’s health and the workplace conditions, the Vanguard has learned that AgraQuest may have been shipping soil and other biological samples into the United States on commercial flights without proper licenses. Moreover, David Bell reports that employees at AgraQuest at the time of his employment bragged about sneaking a green suitcase full of dirt past U.S. customs on a flight from Chile.
Doug Haney, an advocate for human and patients’ rights, who specializes in mold and microbe exposure, reported this to Congressman Dan Lungren in November of 2007 during a meeting with Gold River Field Office Staffers Alexandria Snyder and Michelle Panos. Congressman Lungren (R-CA) is the ranking Republican member on the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security. Interestingly enough, in 2006 he co-authored the SAFE Act (Security and Freedom Enhancement Act) with Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-CA), a bill that was designed to improve security at U.S. ports.
Despite warnings about the possible implications from such lax customs handling in our war on terrorism, it appears at least from Mr. Haney’s viewpoint that neither Congressman Lungren nor his staff followed through on these warnings.
There is a lengthy public record on AgraQuest’s practice of importing soils and other biological agents into the United States from across the globe.
The Wall Street Journal in 2005 reported:
“While many biopesticide makers tinker with microbes discovered on university campuses, AgraQuest is unusual because it searches fields and jungles for new compounds, often finding them in dead bugs. It’s painstaking work… Over the past decade, Dr. Marrone estimates she’s screened some 23,000 suspects. Tanks and storage boxes filled with rotting vermin line the hallways at AgraQuest’s headquarters.”
Read the article.
The Vanguard’s Article on AgraQuest Provokes Strong Response from Both County Health Director and Building Owner
By David Greenwald
October 23, 2008
Following Friday’s article on AgraQuest and the former office on Kennedy Place, Yolo County Health Director Bette Hinton was notified of the problem. As we now know, she actually learned of this problem a year ago.
Ironically, yesterday it was announced that Dr. Hinton would retire at the end of the year.
Here is Dr. Hinton's full response:
“Our department became aware of Mr Bell’s complaints in October of 2007. After review of a lengthy complaint document, the hazardous materials staff agreed that the Health Department had neither the technical expertise nor the regulatory authority to investigate the allegations. They made this decision after reviewing the Agra-Quest Hazardous Materials Business Plan, consultation with staff at the County Agriculture Department, the US Department of Agriculture, the Ca Dept of Food and Agriculture , the California Dept of Industrial Relations (Cal-OSHA) and with the US EPA. This matter was basically a workers compensation issue and a complaint that Agra-Quest dumped biological organisms with which they were working, into the soil around their facility. Additionally, the complaints were about an issue from 1998-1999 and there had been no other associated illnesses. In order to provide due diligence, we referred the complaint to USDA (which controls soil importation), California EPA and the California Department of Pesticide regulation. None of these agencies replied to us, but they may have investigated further.
With regard to the complaint of dumping biological material at the Kennedy Place facility, it would be extremely difficult to verify that now as the soil has been exposed for 10 years to any organism that might be found in our environment and many of the organisms that were used in the facility can be found elsewhere in our soil. Additionally, any pesticides which may have been successfully would probably be legal now for use on crops, etc. that surround us in an agricultural community. Personal contact with the soil would be necessary for harm to occur. This is not a chemical complaint where one might be concerned about water contamination or fumes from the site.
In summary, our hazardous materials specialist’s evaluation is that the health department has no regulatory authority in this case. It does not appear to be an “imminent threat to public health and safety”, which in the absence of clear regulatory authority, would be the only reason we could react.”
My basic concerns with this response are threefold.
- I fully understand that the Yolo County Health Department has “neither the technical expertise nor the regulatory authority to investigate the allegations.” However, I would like to think as Director of the Health Department in Yolo County her responsibility would extend past that and toward actually finding out who would have regulatory authority. This is a problem I have had at every level in this process and before me the family and consultants to David Bell. No one has had regulatory authority, but worse yet, no one in a position to help has taken the time to find out who does.
- Second, out of “due diligence,” they referred the complaint to the USDA, Cal-EPA and Department of Pesticides, however, while they never replied, she also never followed up with them. To me that indicates a lack of concern.
- Finally in response to the “imminent threat to public health and safety,” there is actually some evidence that at least 11 other workers have become sick from this lab.
As Doug Haney, an expert on molds, fungi, and microbes tells us:
“When investigating this matter I was informed that one witness has indicated that at the same time Mr. Bell became ill, eleven other employees became ill also and the laboratory was locked up and secured by the company Chief Executive Officer.”
Mr. Haney also takes issue with the claim that a sample taken ten years after the fact would not prove useful.
“To the contrary, and with the amount of chemicals and microbes that allegedly were dumped into the soil adjacent to the external wall directly behind the internal laboratory area, deep soil sampling 10 years later might render some very intriguing and revealing facts, especially those relating to microbial genetic mutational theory.”
Read the
article.
California Aggie Covers Issue of Agraquest; Yolo County Health Discounts Health Concerns
By David Greenwald
October 30, 2008
This morning, there is an article in the California Aggie about Agraquest and former Employee Davis Bell.
Of particular interest is a response from Jeff Pinnow, supervising hazardous material specialist for Yolo County Environmental Health. According to him, claims about the possibility of harmful microbes in local soil are unfounded.
There have been two concerns raised here. One is that materials were dumped onto the soil. A question that arises from that is whether people were exposed to this even ten years ago. As many who have followed the history of such problems are well aware of, symptoms tend to show up only years down the line.
The second issue that arises is the question of the building itself that used to house AgraQuest. The building owner suggests that the building has been refurbished at least three times since AgraQuest was there.
However, Doug Haney who has been researching molds, fungi, and microbes for over 20 years remains concerned that the building may not have been properly and thoroughly cleansed.
In an interview with the Vanguard last week, Mr. Haney suggested that without such specific procedures, the ventilation system in the building could still remain a threat.
It is interesting that Mr. Pinnow is willing to write off the threat without an sort of physical examination. And yet someone who has worked with molds and toxins for a number of years remains very concerned about the possibility of airborne exposure. The fact remains, no one really knows what was actually dumped on that spot.
The Yolo County Health Department is clearly trying to calm any concerns here, but to date, no one has looked at that building or the area around it to see if it represents a health threat.
Read the article.
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