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PA MISSISSIPPI WOMAN SENTENCED FOR PESTICIDE CRIME
Release Date: 06/26/98
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FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JUNE 26, 1998
MISSISSIPPI WOMAN SENTENCED FOR PESTICIDE CRIME
Margaret Stewart of Clarksdale, Miss., was sentenced on June 23, to one year in prison in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi in Oxford for violating the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act by illegally selling the pesticide Endosulfan in an improperly marked container. Endosulfan is an organophosphate pesticide which is highly toxic to the nervous system. Exposure to it can cause headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, tremors, convulsions, coma and death from respiratory arrest. When Endosulfan is mixed with water it turns a milky white color. Minnie Lou Rudd of Batesville, Miss., died after she mistakenly drank from a milk container purchased from Stewart which contained a mixture of endosulfan and water. The case was investigated by EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, the FBI and the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce.R-84 ###
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