Advocacy organizations in Taiwan have formed a coalition to monitor the activities of Taiwanese Multinational Corporations. This involves sharing strategies between campaigns, including workplace accidents at the Formosa Steel plant in Vietnam and toxic exposures at Samsung (see SHARPS and Kim et al 2021).
1. data injustice: the Cerda family did not have access to the data linking chlorpyrifos as a neurotoxin.
2. economic injustice: the Cerda family are agricultural workers and are exposed to pesticides like chlorpyrifos on a regular basis. Rafael Cerda's developmental disabilities will present barriers in economic and overall well-being.
3. epistemic injustice: Cerda family's complaints and allegations are not being considered by the pesticide manufacturers and sprayers
4. health injustice: Rafael Cerda's disabilities are a direct result of his in-utero and natal chlorpyrifos exposure
5. intergenerational injustice: Rafael Cerda's disabilities were caused in-utero as his mother was exposed to large amounts while she was pregnant with him.
6. media injustice: inadequate attention to the extent of harm this pesticide can cause
7. procedural injustice: ongoing lawsuit, result not yet known
8. racial injustice: the affected are Latino/a agricultural workers
9. reproductive injustice: exposure to Chlropyrifos in-utero
1. Scientists at Columbia university estbalished a link between exposure to chlorpyrifos and alterations in brain structure
2. California Gov. Gavin Newsom banned chlorpyrifos in the state in may 2019
3. EPA banned the chemical in 2015. Trump admin reversed the ban.
4. Cerda family: chronic exposure to chlorpyrifos, suing for general damages, compensatory damages due to Cerda’s loss in earning capacity, medical costs, and “punitive damages for the willful, reckless, and recklessly indifferent conduct of the Defendants,”
1. Seventeen-year-old Avenal resident Rafael Cerda Calderon: platiniff, impacted heavily by the pesticide Chlorpyrifos
2. Corteva, Inc.: multi-billion dollar agribusiness company;
3. pesticide applicators Woolf Farming Co. and Cottonwest, LLC
4. municipalities of Huron and Avenal
5. pesticide applicators Woolf Farming Co. and Cottonwest, LLC
6. attorney groups: Calwell Luce diTrapano PLLC of Charleston, West Virginia, and Bonnett, Fairbourn, Friedman & Balint P.C. of San Diego, and Phoenix.
1. The agricultural region's dependence on the pesticide Chlorpyrifos to "control insects that can attack almond orchards, cotton fields, and apricot trees, among other popular crops".
2. Deadly and insidous nature of the chemical: its effects are similar to sarin gas and "it gets everywhere... for a child living there, with every breath he takes, he’s getting a little dose. It’s very insidious"
3. Lack of protection for farmworkers: "His mother, Alba Luz Calderon de Cerda, handled citrus fruits and lettuce sprayed with chlorpyrifos as a packing house worker during her pregnancy. His father, Rafael Cerda Martinez, was a pesticide sprayer in agricultural fields, who often brought the chemical home, the lawsuit alleges.. The child and his parents were also exposed to the chemicals through the air in their home, the fields and packing houses where they worked, as well as in the water they drank, which was “loaded with chlorpyrifos and chlorpyrifos oxon,” according to the lawsuit."
17-year old Avenal resident Rafael Cerda Calderon suffers from severe seizures, autism, and a developmental disability. He was exposed in-utero and during infancy to the pesticide Chlorpyrifos, a neurotoxin that has been compared to Sarin for the health hazard that it imposes. The pesticide was developed by Dow Chemicals, now Delware-based Corteva Inc., in the 1960s as a substitute for DDT, and has been banned for nationwide use since 2001.
"the pesticide becomes a deadly neurotoxin when it comes into contact with water or sunshine or treated with chlorine, which is typically added to tap water. Chlorpyrifos oxon is 1,000 times more toxic than the original pesticide and was never registered with the EPA because it is so deadly."
“We found the stuff in cars; it gets in the dashboard, it goes anywhere the wind goes,” Calwell said. “We even sampled a teddy bear and even found it there. So for a child living there, with every breath he takes, he’s getting a little dose. It’s very insidious.”
The setting is the city of Avenal in the San Joaquin Valley in the Central Valley in California.
While the organization was founded by Taiwan's citizens to uphold environmental justice movements centered on Taiwanese citizens, its involvement in Vietnam's Formosa case signals that the organization itself may be broadening their scope in future endeavors. In leveraging its resources to seek redress for victims outside of Taiwan, ERF may need to extend their networks to international agencies as well as engage with communities not directly reachable to its workers. As Vietnam's Formosa case also concerns dealings with an authoritarian government, restrictions on speech, police brutality, and censureship on the part of Vietnam's government may render it difficult for ERF and affiliated agencies to obtain all relevant information pertaining to the case.
Website: https://erf.org.tw/about/
Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWiSqQq9d56aRjUabg3ZRfg
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ERFTW
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erftw/
Environmental Rights Foundation (ERF) was founded due to the result of the court settlement regarding the lawsuit on the 3rd phase expansion of Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP) between farmers and the government. As such, the organization’s focus remains centered on ensuring community members' environmental rights across different government development plans.