TAMPA - A boy with no eyes. A girl with kidney failure. Men, women and children with aches, pains, nosebleeds, respiratory problems, cancers.

And a widow haunted by a Christmas tree.

Nearly five years after Benlate 50 DF was last applied to Florida crops and ornamental plants, these are the people who still want to know if the funngicide's legacy extends beyond the devastation it is said to have wreaked upon nurseries and farms in 40 states.

Florida Agriculture Commissioner Bob Crawford dubbed

"the worst man-made agricultural disaster in history."

But a larger question remains: Could the chemical blamed for massive crop failure have affected human health as well?

For Donna Lloyd it's a question that comes to mind every time she looks at the seven-foot cedar that guards the front gate of her Thonotosassa Christmas tree farm.

The tree - the sole survivor among hundreds planted in this field - is a study in lush, green symmetry. But it should be twice its size, says Lloyd.

She considers it a miracle that it lives at all. Its presence is a perpetual reminder that her husband, Fred, does not.

"I look at it every day and I wonder if there's some connection" to her husband's death four years ago, she said.

Among those who believe they may have been injured by Benlate exposure:

-- The family of a 5-year-old South Florida boy, born without eyes, who is the subject of the first Benlate-related personal injury lawsuit set for trial.

-- Four state employees who have reported adverse health effects after visiting Benlate-treated sites in Central Florida.

-- A scientific research team that became ill while collecting samples from a Wauchula greenhouse more than two years after Benlate had been applied.

-- People, pets and livestock living or working on Benlate-treated land who have experienced miscarriages and birth defects.

-- More than 100 growers and farmworkers who have contacted state agencies to report symptoms ranging from headaches and nosebleeds to cancer and respiratory problems.

Dupont, the fungicide's manufacturer, steadfastly denies that Benlate poses any risk to human health.

"They were exposed to everything under the shining sun," DuPont toxicologist Robert Gibson said of affected farmworkers and growers

On this point DuPont and agencies investigating the medical mystery agree: The sheer number of chemicals used in agriculture is a confounding factor in isolating a cause.

Only one thing is certain: People are sick. Some are dying. And no one knows why.

The possible connection to Benlate was not immediately made by many of those who now believe the fungicide may be responsible for their medical problems.

When 5-year-old John Castillo Jr. was born without eyes, his family didn't know what to think, said attorney James Ferraro. It was not until the boys mother joined a support group for children who shared the birth defect - called anophthalmia - that she heard reports of cases in Great Britain, where health investigators were looking at Benlate as a possible cause.

The Castillo family lived next to a Homestead farm where the fungicide was used, Ferraro said.

For Dade City Christmas tree grower Debbie Harris, the connection came after a visit to Lloyd's farm in the fall of 1992.

Harris' 6-year-old daughter had been hospitalized earlier that year with kidney and liver failure and respiratory problems, days after the appearance of a rash that covered the child's body.

Doctors were unable to settle on a diagnosis, said Harris. Months of dialysis put the little girl on the road to recovery, she said.

Fred Lloyd had experienced kidney failure and respiratory distress before he died, his widow told Harris.

"The thing that stuck with me was when Donna Lloyd mentioned that her husband had pains in his joints before he got really sick," said Harris. "Sarah had terrible joint pains."

Circumstantial link: The seedlings were the first to go.

The Lloyds watched the baby cedars begin to wither and die in February of 1991, shortly after Fred Lloyd sprayed them with BenlateDF a granulated form of one of the most widely used fungisides in the world.

"A DuPont representative came out to look at the seedngs," said Donna Lloyd. "He sat at my kitchen table and said, 'Mrs. Lloyd, your whole nursery is going to die. I've seen it before.'"

"Before" was 1989, when similar crop damage prompted a limited recall of batches of Benlate DF that Dupont said was contaminated with traces of a weed-killer called atrazine.

Dupont initially fingered atrazine as the culprit in the 1991 recall. But the company soon announced that the amount of atrazine found in some boxes of Benlate DF was not enough to kill plants.

The official cause of death? Unknown, said DuPont, which nonetheless began writing checks to compensate growers for their losses as it did in 1989.

But this time the damage was more dramatic and far more widespread.

Farms and nurseries in 40 states reported stunting, deformities and plant death. All said they had used Benlate DF.

Florida, Puerto Rico and Hawaii were particularly hard-hit.

Berries, cucumbers, tomatoes and other food crops sprayed with Benlate sustained some of the damage. But the most damage occurred at ornamental nurseries and greenhouses where the fungicide was not only sprayed on leaves, but drenched into the soil - a common practice in Florida.

Most of the health complaints came from these kinds of operations, where human contact with the treated plants was more intimate than with field crops.

In September 1991, six months after the recall, DuPont revised the Benlate label to omit the fungicide's use on ornamental and potted plants, in greenhouses, or as a soil drench.

But the company said it still had not discovered what was killing the plants.

Two months later, the health complaints began to trickle into Florida's agriculture department. Four more months passed before Crawford asked the state's Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services to investigate them.

By then, many growers were discovering that the land itself seemed sick, producing weird and stunted growth in new, untreated plants - if it produced anything at all.

On April 29, 1991, 57-year-old Fred Lloyd was hospitalized with failing kidneys and labored breathing. The diagnosis multiple myeloma, a rare form of blood cancer.

I remember them questioning him about the chemicals he used," said Donna Lloyd, who would become a widow 37 days later.

Many of the stricken growers report similar inquiries about toxic exposure when they sought medical help.

HRS files document those who turned to the state health agency for an explanation.

One Homestead nursery owner reported that her four children experienced "horrifing" nosebleeds and recurrent headaches after playing in Benlate treated greenhouses and fields. The family pet died of' poisoning," according to a veterinarian, she said.

A Jacksonville family of four reported suffering sore throats, headaches and "mysterious" rashes that became more intense after working in fields and greenhouses. The family dog died.

A Defray Beach greenhouse operator said she suffered frequent sore throats, nausea and aching joints. A puppy, chronically ill for seven months, was recovering after being banished from the greenhouse, she said.

Leo Fish, a Glen St. Mary hydroponic tomato grower, wrote to state agencies about his family's continuing health problems, which included nosebleeds, swollen joints and glands, fatigue, nausea and memory loss. Fish added: "We've had two cats to die, which was unexplainable. We put our dog in the hospital. They said it looked like he was poisoned with something.... There were no live insects inside or around the greenhouses when we shut them down nine months ago."

Roger Inman, chief toxicologist for FIRS, said he takes the complaints seriously. "Do I believe there's something there? Yeah, but I can't prove that it's Benlate. Therein lies the frustration."

Information withheld: By autumn of 1992, HRS had completed a telephone survey of 75 people - mostly growers and their families - who reported health effects they believed might be related to Benlate.

The agency concluded that the complaints needed more study "considering the reported extent of the health problems, the fact that these symptoms tended to fall in three broad disease clusters and the inability to explain crop damage."

Eight cases of cancer were reported among those surveyed. But these were not included in the final results because the long latency period of most cancers made it unlikely that they were related to the Benlate DF formulation, which was introduced in 1987.

Still, the report noted that other forms of Benlate had been used extensively for 20 years and "scientists must consider whether the newer [DF] formulation could be the cause of both plant and animal effects or whether a steady accumulation over many years of use caused the problems."

The survey was followed by a review of the medical records of 28 of the 75 particinants,which provided no additional insight into the reported health effects.

"The problem is there was no common test done," said Inman "One guy and his wife may have had blood work and some en~rrnes done and maybe the next couple didn't."

Litigation further complicated investigative efforts, said Inman. ".An along we've had trouble with the fact that many people who settled with Dupont [for crop damage) signed nondisclosure statements. They are cautious about releasing information for fear they might have to pay the money back," he said.

Litigation also prompted DuPont - the subject of more than 600 crop damage lawsuits - to circle its wagons. There are still 120 pending lawsuits, including 14 for personal injury.

The company eventually provided the state with some 60,000 documents related to past Benlate studies. But when asked by regulatory agencies for details of its ongoing studies and analysis of samples from Florida farmlands, the company refused, citing ongoing litigation.

A 1992 HRS status report noted that "state statutes apparently are inadequate to force the company to reveal this and other essential information."

Meanwhile, state agencies fielded inquiries from Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, where Benlate had become the focus of health complaints.

Little investigation: In Florida - the eye of the Benlate storm - the three-year medical inquiry has generated more heat than light, with angry growers suggesting that corporate cover-up and regulatory impotence may have buried the answers to the riddle beneath a mountain of confidentiality.

"Does Duponts influence with our government and university so outweigh the interest of the growers and the public that you are paralyzed?" said Charlotte County grower Shirley Smith in a letter to Crawford.

For the most part, it has been lawyers representing growers in personal injury suits who have pried documents from the reluctant Delaware-based chemical company. They have pursued theories ranging from toxic gas to mutant microbes.

A Crawford-appointed health effects team concentrated on the known effects of benomyl - the fungicide's active ingredient - and the breakdown compounds it produces when reLeased into the environrnent.

Regulators paid little or no attentton to the role that contaminants might have played

The health effects committee in 1993 asked the state Legislature to appropriate $60,000 to perform medical tests on 40 affected growers and farmworkers, but the money never materialized.

A federal study in 1994 concluded that Benlate's active ingredient could be absorbed through skin into the body.

To date, no agency - state or federal - has conducted a systematic examination of anyone who has reported adverse effects from exposure to the fungicide.

According to Ramana Dhara, a specialist in occupational environmental medicine, the investigation has not even begun.

"If there is a medical problem at all it has to be pursued. But even the initial step in the pursuit - a systematic clinical evaluation of the people with the problems - has not taken place," said Dhara, who was appointed by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to consult with the states health effects team.

Nor, say the growers, has anyone taken a serious look at what was in the Benlate box.

State and federal agencies report that a variety of contaminants were present in some boxes of Benlate DF in varying quantities, including one pesticide not approved for use in the United States.

For years, officials seemed satisfied with DuPont's assurances that the compounds appeared in insignificant "trace" amounts.

Only under continuing pressure from growers have regulators begun to take more than a cursory look at the contaminants.

"Benlate is a Pandora's box, Dupont has created a monster,' said Raymond Sibley, a liflisborough County grower who believes that Benlate has seriously affected his family's health.

But Dupont stands by its product.

"We've stated before and we will absolutely not waver from our belief that when used according to label, Benlate does not cause any adverse health effects," said one spokeswoman Pat Getter.

Since Novernber of 1992, DuPont has maintained that the fungicide did no damage to plants, either.

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ars in voluntary crop damage settlements - most of it to Florida growers - the chemical giant closed the cash drawer and announced that its research absolved Benlate of any role in crop damage.

The company's position angers Donna Lloyd.

"In the beginning they admitted and paid me and others for damage done to our nurseries. When the health question came up they all of a sudden began to deny any wrong doing and stopped payments to growers for damaged plants," Lloyd said in a recent letter to Crawford.

"Enough time has passed and by now we should have had some answers to the questions being asked over four years ago," she wrote.

Some of those answers maybe buried within the corporate files of Dupont.

Thousands of confidential company documents have recently become unsealed. One of them - known as "Path Forward' - offers insight into the company's efforts to manage a growing financial and public relations disaster.

"I think there's a ton of information sitting in Delaware, just waiting," said Camille Godwin, a Tallahassee attorney representing six Florida growers.

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