Florida decision doesn't settle pesticide case with N.C. ties.

State vows to still pursue case involving pesticides.

State labor officials say the workers -- who pick grape tomatoes for Ag-Mart, a Florida company with large farms in Eastern North Carolina -- were crowded into the building with no hot water, no shower and not enough beds.

Grower also wants evidence ruled out.

Training and gear found lacking.

It could be a father hugging his children after a day's work in the tobacco field, or pesticide residue on his clothing washed with family laundry. Maybe it was children playing in farming fields outside their homes.

Researchers say the company had a hand in a state report on pesticide exposure.

A link is possible between pesticides and the births of three severely deformed children to farmworkers who labored in Eastern North Carolina, state officials say, although they don't have the data to prove it definitively. But a report released Tuesday says the children's problems -- and the lack of information about what caused them -- should be a call to action.

Tomato grower Ag-Mart has said for months that pesticides are not to blame for severe birth defects in children born to three of its field hands. A company spokesman says he has another theory: thalidomide. But he has no proof.

Ag-Mart worker says he was denied protective gear while he worked with a pesticide.

Here are some words the N.C. Department of Labor things the public shouldn't see: tomatoes, landlord, Mexicans, workers.

Violators face little punishment in state's enforcement system and rarely pay more than a few hundred dollars for their illegal acts, a records review shows.

Grower says that none of its workers were illegally exposed to pesticides and that the Agriculture Department misinterpreted its records.

Tomato grower faces record fine.

The parents of a boy born with no arms and legs filed suit this week against the company they say caused his birth defects.