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Jeff Bragg
Jeff Bragg of Idaho and New Mexico
Jeff Bragg first reached out to Beyond Pesticides in late 2021 in search of any contacts to doctors, or
other individuals or organizations, that may be able to help with his ongoing, years of symptoms after
decades of working in the conventional farming industry.
Jeff was a conventional Idaho Potato farmer, soil sampler, and consulting agronomist, specializing
in potatoes. He worked for many years within the conventional industry and with it’s use of
pesticides. After years of many exposures and symptoms, he now works totally organic.
Jeff, who now lives with his wife in New Mexico has had skin and physical diseases for years in
connection to the long-term and direct exposures to the chemicals in the soils and potatoes with his
work. He’s searched for years for treatments, but nothing would completely help. It is common for people
who’ve had exposures and poisonings to be increasingly chemically sensitive over time.
We were able to connect Jeff with a doctor in New Mexico through our doctors lists we keep at
Beyond Pesticides. These lists include doctors who have shown some history in caring for patients with chemical exposures. The doctor who he was able to get connected with is treating him is in this case, giving services free of charge – except for needed lab testing which she cannot do for free and which exacerbates Jeff situation because of his limited resources.
As Jeff tells in his emails and phone calls with us at Beyond Pesticides, his history goes back to his
childhood where he was allergic to many types of foods, and which led to needed immunization shots three times a week. However, none of the food produced on their own farm at that time was ever a problem.
It was as an adult, within a beginning professional career in potato centric studies in 1980, and as a student intern where he says he was first exposed, within work at a soils and plant testing facility in
Southern Idaho. The second year, he explains, he became acutely sick from Thimet (Thiram), which
was applied into the soil with the seed.
Thimet, a product of the chemical Phorate, is an organophosphate compound still used on all
vegetable seeds of conventional production. Thimet either kills birds or makes the birds not eat the
seed. A 16th of a teaspoon is poisonous to humans. Beyond Pesticides webpage on Phorate in our
Gateway on Pesticide Hazards and Safe Pest Management gives the basics of this chemical and
gives additional links to the numerous studies showing the health and environmental effects of it. It
is known as being neurotoxic, toxic to birds, fish, aquatic organisms and toxic to bees.
Jeff explains he was hyper-exposed as he soil sampled in his work there for water, texture, and
nutrients. No information was ever given to him about the chemicals being used and what he was in
contact with by the company he worked for.
In Jeff’s work, he took between 2 and 300 leaf samples daily, during this time. He states, “My hands
were green from the chlorophyll of the potato leaf samples for fertility.” In this work, he began getting headaches. The headaches would leave by afternoon, but he explains that he realized he was sick.
It became much worse, however, when his hired help stepped into a pile saturated with the chemical
near a planter and then after got it into the carpeting of Jeff's pickup. From there, Jeff was
constantly exposed to it. Jeff was eventually diagnosed with Organophosphate poisoning in
Idaho Falls in the early 1980’s and was told it would be permanent and always stay in his fat
cells.
Later on, condensation issues, from within an “organic” storage area that had even been cleaned, and
that Jeff was sometimes within, was still susceptible to it’s lingering toxins from it and still created
the atmosphere to further exposures he experienced. “It only takes me 15 seconds to get a
headache from it.”
Jeff states “the smell is awful, and the tiniest exposure to it makes me ill.”
Jeff gave us an additional list of what he was regularly exposed to while in the conventional potato
industry including common insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, bio fumigants and sprout
inhibitors (the last of which, from its' wide and prevalent use, Consumer Reports found still shows up in all even organic potatoes to this day.)
Jeff became angry when watching the migrant workers leveling off the “Gandy” boxes of these pesticide mixes with simple cotton gloves, and not being told about the issues with working with these compounds.
Because of this, Jeff went actively to the Idaho State Department of Agriculture and worked on
getting worker safety standards.
Fast forward to 2020. In Jeff's continued work, they went to take these potatoes into where they did
their potato “seed cutting”, to sack up unwashed seed for a company and where they also house bad product . Here is where there is higher exposure to Fludioxonil, a fungicide used to coat the
seeds during storage. The chemical is shown to kill glutathione in our bodies, the compound that
gives us resistance. It is considered by Consumer Reports 2020 article to be one of the six most concerning pesticides. This product is widely used. Jeff spent January to April 2020 in this building. In 2017/2018 Jeff says he was exposed to similar conditions from an Oregon potato storage and had a rash develop on his right leg, but it went away.
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Jeff also cites through his work he has ingested this through his lungs the compound
Chlorpropham. Sprout Nip with Chlorpropham, a sprout inhibitor is applied on all non organic
potatoes. It was removed by the EU in October 2020 because it may interfere with hormones in the
body. In Consumer Reports 2020 edition they state that this compound is found in all
potato samples, including small amounts in all organic, because of cross contamination in storage
containers.
Jeff’s symptoms were diagnosed in New Mexico in by a paramedic. When Jeff contacted
Beyond Pesticides in 2021, he also sent multiple photos of his skin rashes, which he says he easily breaks out into
when in proximity to even small does in any building or near any old work materials including old
work clothing, including even an old leather belt.
Jeff went to San Juan Medical Center, where they sent him to a Dermatologist who took
analysis from the fat tissue in his stomach area, and other tests including an A1C, and cholinesterase test from his
blood. His A1C was normal. The doctor didn’t share the results with him, but said he was negative on pesticides. The dermatologist, found Thiram, and says he has an extremely rare autoimmune disease.
Although Jeff has left conventional potato farming, and resides also in New Mexico, he and his wife
continue to use their Idaho home for some of their business. It is when there that he can have a
return of headaches after just 15 seconds back into the home being near the residual chemicals on items or materials from their past decades there. His skin conditions will still flare up with
rashes all consistent with organophosphate poisoning. When using any older materials, including
clothing that has been around the property, he will have outbreaks.
He says he was back in the hospital in January 2023, with breakouts to cotton. Temik a product used in the past on potatoes is something Jeff was also exposed to and has said is a product that's now moved into use with cotton. He says he had an experience where he'd forgotten his Patagonia long underwear, and wore old cotton long underwear during cold harvest conditions. I broke out right to the line of the cotton- and saying thankfully he had a pair of nylon briefs under the cotton long underwear.
He continues to deal with skin rashes regularly and is what led for Jeff to reach out to us. He currently says if he ingests non organic food he breaks out. It is not uncommon for someone, once they’ve been hurt by a chemical exposure, to become that much more sensitive when they are around much smaller amounts of toxic chemicals.
See photos of Jeff’s skin reaction from 2020
See Jeff's Pesticide Incident Report
…..
Beyond Pesticides often provides callers like Jeff's with some of the following:
• Our lists of Doctors and Lawyers with history in helping people with chemical exposures that we have for each state.
• Our What To Do page as a checklist of items to keep in mind
• Our Tips on working with Lawyers including our attorney’s lists for the state the incidents
are happening in and who have a history of working on toxic tort cases
• Other lab and testing information
• Soil remediation option information
We also try to pass on information about detox clinics or doctor who are specializing in
helping those with chemical exposures, including doctors like Claudia Miller MD, MS, who also
spoke about pesticide poisonings and chemical intolerance in our most recent virtual forum. Dr.
Miller came up with the QUEESI test to help look at how to assess ourselves in regards to chemical
poisonings. You can find both video of Claudia Miller and a link to her QUEESI test here on our
website.
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