The Whistle-Blower’s Confession

Victim #1

The Whistle-Blower’s Confession can best be compared to The Pelican Brief meets Silkwood. The story of Karen Silkwood, asserts that she was possibly murdered to prevent her from exposing blatant worker safety violations at the plant she worked at. In the fight against GMOs, there is a casualty that is sadly overlooked….the farmworker. Pesticide use grows heavier and heavier on most American farms, and agricultural workers are the first ones to be at risk. Often times, workers aren’t even warned about the chemicals that they are working with, and do not know they have been poisoned until they start vomiting or have trouble breathing. Their families are also at risk; workers are told not to hug their children when they get home from work until they’ve had a chance to shower and change their clothes. And being that scientific studies on the effect of pesticide exposure on farm workers is scarce, what we see is that workers and their children have suffered short-term symptoms such as vomiting, muscle cramps, skin rashes as well as long term problems such as leukemia, brain cancer, birth defects, nerve damage, and hormonal imbalances. As Chapter 2 starts, Kelley sees a farmworker getting out of a truck. She doesn’t know it yet, but their paths will cross again.