Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Prisiónverde, Fajardo's memory pointed toward a complex set of factors
that contributed to worker illness:
Look,people,maybealreadysickwiththefluorsomething...ifone
didn't report to work they'd fire you. People had to go to work out of
necessity. Before, there weren't any infirmaries or anything of the sort.
Many single people died because there was no one to care for them.
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Here, the image is less one of spray workers succumbing to exposure to
a toxic chemical than to a more general condition of deprivation char-
acterized by inadequate medical care, job insecurity, and weakened kin-
ship ties.
Bricio was not the only ex-worker to identify Bordeaux spray as an
occupational health hazard. Former Tela Railroad Company field hand
José Almendares Ortiz offered an analysis of the health risks associated
with spray work that interwove biomedical and social explanations:
Weak persons were harmed by the veneno. The spray contaminated
them and ruined their lungs. Yes, and the brain too; they operated
on one fellow and found that his brain was blue. He suffered from
headachesand[subsequently]died....Manypeopleworkedtoo
much and wore themselves out. The human body is a machine. If
the machine is overworked, it shuts down.
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In this case, a former worker drew a link between exposure to Bordeaux
spray and specific symptoms, including headaches and pulmonary dis-
orders. Almendares worked just oneyearon a spray gang before changing
jobs out of concern for his health. However, he commented that many
people''workedallthetime''andruinedtheirhealth.AccordingtoAlmen-
dares, sick workers often returned to their birthplaces in the highland in-
teriors of Honduras. Feliciano Núñez also linked Sigatoka control work
to respiratory illness: ''This spray was the reason why there were so many
cases of tuberculosis. They did not have any protection. Nothing.''
87
Sev-
eral other retired Tela Railroad Company workers drew connections be-
tween Sigatoka control work and the prevalence of tuberculosis. How-
ever, onlyone of the ex-sprayers interviewed recalled suffering from acute
and/or chronic maladies linked to Bordeaux spray.
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Not all ex-workers considered Bordeaux spraying to be hazardous.
Víctor Reyes, whoworked on a spray gang for fiveyears, recalled thework
with fondness (''era bonita'') and indicated that claims about its dangers
