Banning or reducing pesticide use? Companies lobby for incentives instead of legally binding measures

Bayer products have been the focus of four posts on this site and referred to in many others.  Like other pesticide manufacturers, it is stoutly resisting attempts to ban damaging products by hiring ‘influencers’ in France and other countries.

In the United States Bayer is facing thousands of cases claiming that Roundup’s active ingredient glyphosate caused cancer and other diseases and there are calls for a ban in Britain, the latest coming from Richard Bruce. who is working with his MP. 

In December 2022 a reader living in Wales drew attention to Reuters report that Bayer, France’s crop chemical and pharmaceutical group – after a 15-year legal battle – had been ordered to pay a ‘miserly’ compensation of 11,135 euros (£9565) to a French farmer who inhaled fumes from Bayer’s weedkiller Lasso, which caused neurological problems, including memory loss, fainting and headaches.

Francois’ verdict: Farmer Paul Francois (left) said “11,000 euros for so much sacrifice, 11,135 euros for 15 years of life put between brackets, of sleepless nights, I would perhaps have done better to use this time to play the lottery”.(France-Justice).This is a strong signal from our justice system in France: ‘We don’t touch these multinationals’.”

Vakita, an activist video-on-demand platform, reports that in 2021, a manufacturer of pesticides paid an Instagrammer with 700,000 followers to defend a herbicide, which the EU was threatening to ban due to its risk to wildlife and the environment.

A full data set of the evidence on this table is available on request from DeSmog. It can also be viewed in DeSmog’s Agribusiness database, which includes profiles of all the above listed companies.

Industry has lobbied hard to ensure these targets don’t become law

The Big Ag lobby in Brussels has repeatedly suggested that the EU should not focus on legally binding cuts in agrochemical use, and sought to replace the ambitious targets already agreed by the European Parliament with weaker alternatives.

While the industry states that it is not against the principle of setting targets, it has opposed them in practice, labelling EU targets in the “SUR” pesticides-reduction plan as “non-data based”, “unrealistic”, “pointless” and “counterproductive”.

In 2021, for example, farm lobby COPA-COGECA sent MEPs numerous industry-friendly amendments to the sustainable farming strategy – and suggested the removal of commitments that would make targets legally binding.

The message – which echoes positions often used by the fossil fuel lobby – is that EU policy should optimise incentives (see Discourses of climate delay, Cambridge journal opposite). As pesticide trade body CropLife Europe says: “let’s focus on transition, not just targets”. 

Meanwhile, as CPR reports, people will continue to suffer short-term health effects, including stinging eyes, rashes, blisters, nausea, dizziness , diarrhoea. Young children (EPA, p3), farm workers and pesticide applicators who  receive greater exposures are more vulnerable.

Chronic conditions due to pesticide exposure include cancers, birth defects, reproductive harm, immunotoxicity, neurological and developmental toxicity and disruption of the endocrine systemwhich are described on several US government websites (links above).

 

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Glyphosate, Roundup and the Failures of Regulatory Assessment: Dr Eva Novotny

Glyphosate, Roundup and the Failures of Regulatory Assessment

Dr Eva Novotny

 Dr Eva Novotny has responded to a recent post which concluded that successive governments have injured the health of their people by allowing harmful products to be manufactured and used instead of banning them:

“Contamination of our food must be an important contributor to illness (in addition to the nutrient-poor diets of many people). 

“Agricultural pesticides enter crops and residues can remain.  If the current UK Government proceeds to introduce genetically modified (GM) foods and crops into this country, there will be far more contamination of our diet.

Most GM crops have been designed to tolerate Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup (in fact, the original purpose for creating GM crops was to further the sale of Roundup after its patent expired — so much for the claim that GM crops would reduce pesticide use!).  The declared active ingredient in Roundup is glyphosate, but glyphosate has relatively little effect as a herbicide, while the other ingredients are far more powerful. .

“Gene-edited foods, despite the claims of safety, carry many of the same risks as the older GM crops plus additional dangers: the precision claimed refers to the ability to target a specific gene, which was not possible with the older GM methods.  However, the manipulation of the specific gene causes many additional, uncontrollable changes in the chromosome: insertions, deletions and scrambles of genetic material.  Then, once the specific gene has been edited, a multi-stage process is necessary to produce a whole new organism, just as in the case of the older GMOs.

“Unfortunately, regulators in the EU assess only the “active ingredient”, glyphosate, not Roundup, for harm to health and the environment.  The assessment procedure itself is corrupt.   I have published a paper on these topics.”

Glyphosate, Roundup and the Failures of Regulatory Assessment

Abstract

Roundup is the most widely used herbicide in agriculture. It contains glyphosate as the ‘active ingredient’, together with formulants. There are various versions of Roundup, with somewhat different effects depending on the formulants.

Most genetically-modified crops are designed to tolerate Roundup, thus allowing spraying against weeds during the growing season of the crop without destroying it. Having been so heavily used, this herbicide is now found in the soil, water, air, and even in humans worldwide. Roundup may also remain as a residue on edible crops.

Many studies have found harm to the environment and to health, making it imperative to regulate the use of Roundup and to ensure that its various formulations pose no danger when used in the long-term.

Unfortunately, regulators may only assess the ‘active ingredient’, glyphosate, and ignore the toxicity of the formulants, which can be far more toxic than the active ingredient. This omission is in violation of a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union. There are close ties between the regulators and the industry they are supposed to regulate.

Objectionable practices include ‘revolving doors’ between the regulators and the industry, heavy reliance on unpublished papers produced by the industry while dismissing papers published by independent scientists, and strong covert influence on the regulatory process by industry. Although this paper focuses on the European Union (EU), the situation is much the same in the United States.

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MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute), a publisher of open access scientific journals, published the full paper on a ‘free to read’ basis.

 

 

 

 

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Austrian ban on glyphosate delayed due to a procedural error

 Richard Bruce draws attention to disappointing news from Austria.

In July last year, EuroNews reported that lawmakers in Austria’s lower house had voted to ban the herbicide glyphosate from 2020.

The motion, proposed by the Social Democratic (SPO) party, planned a complete ban of glyphosate products as a “precautionary” measure. “The scientific evidence of the plant poison’s carcinogenic effect is increasing. It is our responsibility to ban this poison from our environment,” the SPO leader, Pamela Rendi-Wagner, said in a statement.

A large majority in the Austrian parliament and public (according to poll results) support banning the chemical because of fears it causes cancer and Austria devotes more of its farmland to organic agriculture than any other EU member state

In June, the Wall Street Journal published an undertaking by Bayer AG, that it would pay up to $10.9 billion to settle tens of thousands of lawsuits with U.S. plaintiffs alleging the company’s Roundup herbicide causes cancer

Law firm Baum Hedlund notes that the ban was scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2020, but the country’s caretaker leader, Chancellor Brigitte Bierlein (below left), a career judge who must sign bills for them to become law, refused to do this.

Francois Murphy, reporting for Reuters explains that the chancellor said, in a letter  posted online by the government’s spokesman, that the bill could not come into force because the European Commission was not properly notified under a process aimed at giving it and member states time to react: “Such a notification of a bill – required by European Union law and specified (in the bill) as a condition for it to take effect – was, however, not carried out properly”.

A number of European member states have partially banned glyphosate — a pesticide first marketed by Monsanto as Roundup — as concerns have been growing about the potential effect the herbicide could have on human health since a 2015 report by the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer which classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans“.

Despite their members’ feelings, the EU renewed its approval of glyphosate in 2017 until the end of 2022 and gave France, Hungary, the Netherlands and Sweden the task of assessing the herbicide for further use within the bloc.

 

 

 

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Pesticide use: the tide appears to be turning

Bayer, the German company which bought the US agrochemical firm Monsanto, acquired its lucrative portfolio of pesticides and genetically modified seeds – and more than 13,000 pending cases relating to glyphosate sold under the brand name Roundup. At its annual meeting in Bonn last month, in an unprecedented revolt, more than 55% of shareholders declared they had no confidence in management. The ongoing fall in its share prices has accelerated. (Reuters 14.5.19).

Prof. Ian Boyd, chief scientific adviser to the UK government points out that regulators around the world have falsely assumed it is safe to use pesticides at industrial scales across landscapes, that other research in 2017 showed farmers could slash their pesticide use without losses and quoted a UNGA report denouncing the “myth” that pesticides are necessary to feed the world.

Recent reports in the BMJ, the International Journal of Epidemiology and the European Food Safety Authority, add weight to Professor Boyd’s stance

• Prenatal and infant exposure to ambient pesticides and autism spectrum disorder in children: population based case-control study, BMJ, 20 March 2019 (open access) notes that common pesticides have been previously shown to cause neurodevelopmental impairment in experimental research and environmental exposures during early brain development are suspected to increase risk of autism spectrum disorders in children. The study’s findings suggest that an offspring’s risk of autism spectrum disorder increases following prenatal exposure to ambient pesticides (including glyphosate, chlorpyrifos, diazinon, and permethrin) within 2000 m of their mother’s residence during pregnancy, compared with offspring of women from the same agricultural region without such exposure. Infant exposure could further increase risks for autism spectrum disorder with comorbid intellectual disability.

• In February, researchers at the University of Washington (UW) published a new scientific analysis of glyphosate (PDF) (right), the active ingredient in Monsanto-owned Bayer’s Roundup, the world’s most popular weedkiller. They concluded that evidence supports a “compelling link” between glyphosate and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), a type of blood cancer.
• Glyphosate exposure increases cancer risk up to 41% according to a study published in the IInternational Journal of Epidemiology (March). Observations in this analysis of >300 000 farmers and agricultural workers from France, Norway, and the USA, included elevations in risks of non-Hodgkin lymphoid malignancies (NHL) overall in association with the organophosphate insecticide terbufos, of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma (CLL/SLL) with the pyrethroid insecticide deltamethrin and of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) with the organophosphorus herbicide glyphosate.

• More transparency sought: an EU court ruled on 7 March that the EU Food Safety Authority (EFSA) should publicise studies about Monsanto’s glyphosate weedkiller. The General Court’s statement said that it annulled decisions by the EU food watch agency “refusing access to the toxicity and carcinogenicity studies on the active substance glyphosate”.

• On March 29th – after safety officials reported human health and environmental concerns – EU states voted for a ban of chlorothalonil, a fungicide, after a review by the European Food Safety Authority was unable to exclude the possibility its breakdown products, cause damage to DNA. EFSA also said “a high risk to amphibians and fish was identified for all representative uses”. Recent research further identified chlorothalonil and other fungicides as the strongest factor linked to steep declines in bumblebees.

Reuters reports that a California jury found on Monday that Monsanto’s Roundup likely caused a couple’s cancer and awarded them a staggering $2.055 billion in damages, in a third consecutive Roundup trial loss for the Bayer-owned unit. In one trial last August, a US court in California awarded damages and costs against Monsanto to 46-year-old park worker Dewayne Johnson, who was diagnosed with cancer after using the chemical.

But there’s still way to go; Monsanto – apparently undaunted – offers another  product, said to have less damage potential

Monsanto is reformulating its dicamba pesticide which tended to drift and earlier damaged millions of acres of crops and wild trees in 2017.

Farmers in 25 states had submitted more than 2,700 claims to state agricultural agencies that year and it was banned in the state of Arkansas last year, where almost 900,000 acres of crop damage (above) were reported. Monsanto unsuccessfully sued the state in an effort to stop the ban.

A lower volatility formulation, M1768, ‘a product with less potential to volatilize and move off the target area’ has been approved by the EPA for use until 2020 – on corn, wheat, cotton, soybeans and other crops – though it has not been evaluated by experts independent of Monsanto. It was obliged by the American government’s Environmental Protection Agency to agree to registration and labelling changes for the 2018 growing season, including making these products restricted-use and requiring record-keeping and additional measures to prevent spray drift.

 

 

 

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Monsanto update

A Moseley reader draws attention to this Guardian article:

Opens:  

Monsanto has long worked to “bully scientists” and suppress evidence of the cancer risks of its popular weedkiller, a lawyer argued on Monday in a landmark lawsuit against the global chemical corporation.

“Monsanto has specifically gone out of its way to bully … and to fight independent researchers,” said the attorney Brent Wisner, who presented internal Monsanto emails that he said showed how the agrochemical company rejected critical research and expert warnings over the years while pursuing and helping to write favorable analyses of their products. “They fought science.”

Wisner, who spoke inside a crowded San Francisco courtroom, is representing DeWayne Johnson, known also as Lee, a California man whose cancer has spread through his body. The father of three and former school groundskeeper, who doctors say may have just months to live, is the first person to take Monsanto to trial over allegations that the chemical sold under the Roundup brand is linked to cancer. Thousands have made similar legal claims across the US  . . .

 

 

 

 

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GM news escalates: ‘whitewashing’ glyphosate, Monsanto papers, Michael Gove persuadable?

Der Spiegel reports that a court in San Francisco ordered U.S. agrochemical giant Monsanto to provide internal emails as evidence after about 2,000 plaintiffs demanded compensation from Monsanto in class-action suits. They claim that Roundup has caused non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a form of lymph node cancer, in them or members of their family.

More than 100 documents have revealed that Monsanto’s strategies for ‘whitewashing glyphosate’ have been revealed in internal e-mails, presentations and memos. They suggest the company concealed risks, making their publication a disaster for the company. The matter is also likely to be a topic of discussion at Bayer, the German chemical company in the process of acquiring Monsanto.

“The Monsanto Papers tell an alarming story of ghostwriting, scientific manipulation and the withholding of information,” says Michael Baum, a partner in the law firm of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman, which is bringing one of the US class actions. According to Baum, Monsanto used the same strategies as the tobacco industry: “creating doubt, attacking people, doing ghostwriting.”

On October 11th, the European Parliament’s Environment and Agriculture committee held a public hearing on The Monsanto Papers. 

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Despite this, the BBC reports that an EU vote has failed to resolve a controversy over the use of glyphosate, the world’s biggest-selling weedkiller. Glyphosate was introduced by US agrochemical giant Monsanto in 1974, but its patent expired in 2000, and now the chemical is sold by various manufacturers.

The European Commission said the vote fell short of the majority needed to renew the license for five years when it expires December 15, as only half of the 28 member states voted for its proposal. “Given that a qualified majority could not be reached … the result of the vote is ‘no opinion,'” said the commission, the EU’s executive and regulatory arm. An EU appeal committee will now try to rule on the issue. A qualified majority requires that 55% of EU countries vote in favour, and that the proposal is supported by countries representing at least 65% of the total EU population.

The UK was among the 14 states backing the Commission position on glyphosate. Nine voted against – including France and Italy. Germany was among the five who abstained.

But a reader sends the information that the environment secretary, Michael Gove, now says the UK will back a total ban on insect-harming pesticides in fields across Europe . . . Perhaps he can be persuaded to ban human-harming, resistance-forming glyphosate as well.

Crunch time: will fears of legal action by Monsanto sway the final vote on licensing glyphosate – a ‘probable’ carcinogen?

The FT reports that leading EU member states on Monday refused to extend a licence for glyphosate, the world’s most common herbicide. If there is no decision by the end of the month, glyphosate will lose its licence, raising the prospect of legal action by the industry.

The commission had intended to try to relicense glyphosate for 15 years, but the latest proposal was for a licence of only 12 to 18 months, while more research is conducted. This option has been rejected as Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Austria and Portugal and Luxembourg all abstained, meaning the necessary qualified majority could not be reached. Malta voted against.

Bart Staes, a Belgian MEP from the Green Party, warned the commission not to approve glyphosate unilaterally through a so-called “appeals committee”: “Such a move would raise major democratic concerns about the EU’s decision-making process”. More handsomely, the Guardian adds more from Staes:

“We applaud those EU governments who are sticking to their guns and refusing to authorise this controversial toxic herbicide. There are clear concerns about the health risks with glyphosate, both as regards it being a carcinogen and an endocrine disruptor. Moreover, glyphosate’s devastating impact on biodiversity should have already led to its ban”.

Glyphosate is the basis for Monsanto’s topselling weedkiller RoundUp, described in its annual report as “a sustainable source” of cash and profit. Last year more than 80% of Monsanto’s sales were in the Americas and under 13% in Europe.

Last month a report from the WHO and the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation concluded that the chemical was “unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk” through diet, but the WHO’s cancer agency last year had concluded that the product was “probably carcinogenic to humans”.

Prime movers in opposing the use of glyphosate are Sweden, the Netherlands and France – and over 1.5 million EU citizens who petitioned the parliament to ban it.

The German Social democrat environment minister Barbara Hendricks welcomed the decision in Brussels, saying: “Many member states would like the question of cancer risks to be clarified before glyphosate can again be spread on our fields.” But Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU bloc, which wants the chemical to remain in use, is frustrated. Peter Liese, a CDU member of the European Parliament, said Berlin must battle for the continued use of glyphosate, albeit under “strict conditions”.

The glyphosate task force, a consortium of companies including Monsanto, complained: “It is clear that certain member states are no longer basing their positions on scientific evidence, which is meant to be the guiding principle of the process”.

US officials said that they are “extremely concerned” about the EU’s action and accuse Brussels of failing to rely on “sound science”. EU officials respond that their “precautionary principle” of regulation in cases of doubt offers greater public protection.

 

 

 

Rebrand Monsanto? Will the 99% be fooled?

The FT reports that Bayer, which has made a bid to take over Monsanto, has a relatively squeaky-clean brand, with ‘lots of positive connotations’. This, despite the company being rocked by scandal in 2001 when its cholesterol drug Lipobay was found to have serious side-effects and its production of a neonicotinoid insecticide which may have contributed to the decline in the bee population.

“Its oldest brand is aspirin, after all,” says Torben Bo Hansen, head of Philipp und Keuntje, a German advertising agency, adding “But for large parts of the population Monsanto is evil personified.”

In another FT article, Dirk Zimmermann explains: “Bayer is by no means an exemplary company. After all, their business model is the same as Monsanto’s — they also sell genetically modified seeds that are resistant to the herbicides they produce. None of this is compatible with the idea of sustainable agriculture, or at least our understanding of it.”

Monsanto is opposed because of its leadership in producing and promoting genetically modified organisms – Germany is one ‘no-go’ area where 1m hectares of land are farmed organically. Countries producing GM crops are shown below (in dark blue):

Monsanto is also widely associated with the production and promotion of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, which the World Health Organisation said last year was probably carcinogenic. The EU is currently debating whether to relicence glyphosate, with many European governments opposed.

Countries banning or labelling GMOs (compiled by Canadian campaigner)

“One option for Bayer would be to drop the Monsanto name if the transaction went through”. Is rebranding the answer?

The Brand Failures blogspot recalls that when massive amounts of radioactive material were released from the UK’s Windscale atomic works in 1957, following a serious fire, the local community in Cumbria were understandably terrified about the health implications of uncontained radiation. Rather than close the plant down, the government believed the best way to put distance between the disaster and the nuclear plant as a whole was to change the name, from Windscale to Sellafield.

“The potential is definitely there for Bayer’s brand to suffer in a takeover,” adds Hansen. “One option for Bayer would be to drop the Monsanto name if the transaction went through, to prevent that “negative sentiment carrying over to the new company” said Jeffrey Stafford, analyst at Morningstar (investment management).

But as Brand Failures records, in many cases, including Windscale/Sellafield and the Post Office/Consignia, the 99% are no longer so easy to fool.

 

 

 

 

Why does the Chinese ministry protect Monsanto’s business secrets ?

The Chinese ministry of agriculture faces a lawsuit for refusing to publish a glyphosate toxicology report; GMO grain and food oil products have been banned from the diet of Guangzhou military units.

An earlier post published news of Monsanto exerting influence on WHO and an American health hazard assessment office. We now learn that China’s ministry of agriculture has refused to publish the toxicology report of glyphosate used in Monsanto’s products in order ‘to protect the company’s business secrets’.

Looking back over China’s GM grain & soy news, it is noted that:

• China has been ordering non-GM soy from Brazil from at least 2001;
• on this site in 2013, it was reported that China is increasing orders of non-GM soy from Brazil – link not good, ref here;
• and another post in 2014 highlighted a Bloomberg report that the Washington-based National Grain & Feed Association estimated the “zero-tolerance policy” of unauthorised GM grain imports by China had already cost $2.9bn in revenue, and may cost U.S. growers $6.3bn in losses through August 2015.

The Wall Street Journal reported on an English translation of an essay in a Chinese government weekly by Lt. Gen. Mi Zhenyu, the former deputy director of the Chinese Academy of Military Science, published by Chen Yiwen, a senior official with the China Association for Disaster Prevention, on Chen’s verified blog. More detail here. According to the translated version, Mi said that GM soybean residues crushed to manufacture soy oil has been to be causing birth defects, depression, infertility and ‘additional afflictions’ in Chinese citizens. Mi asserts that the fault lies with China’s largest supplier of oilseed – the USA.

Extract: “During recent years, as China’s grain and oil market has continuously developed, certain GMO grain and GMO food oil products have entered the market. In view that the safety concerns about GMO grain and oil products in China at present has not yet been determined, in order to overall assure the health of military members residing in our city and safety of their drinks and food, in accordance to the request from the Guangzhou Military Command Joint Logistics Department and the Provincial Military Grain & Food Oil Supply Center, from this date all military supply stations are allowed to only purchase non-GMO grain and food oil products from the designated processing enterprises. It is forbidden to supply GMO grain and food oil products to military units within their administration areas.”

Advisor Chen I-wan comments: “The army has established excellent model for people of the whole nation: No GMO staple food and GMO food oil should enter army food supply!”

Chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission inspects Guangzhou units in Guangdong province

Last year the ministry launched a media campaign to inform the public about the science behind GMOs after a wave of negative reports around the technology, but anti-GMO sentiment remains.

In February 2015, China’s Global Times reported that a Beijing court had accepted a lawsuit application filed by three residents against China’s Ministry of Agriculture for refusing to publish the test report of an herbicide used to treat genetically-modified (GM) soy beans.

Yang Xiaolu, one of the three plaintiffs, told the Global Times that they filed the lawsuit alleging lack of transparency in approvals of GMO and related products because the ministry refused to publish the toxicology report of glyphosate, a herbicide named “Roundup,” which was introduced in the market by the US-based agriculture company Monsanto, to protect the company’s business secrets. “Glyphosate on soy beans would affect women’s fertility, cause cancer, deform crops and harm the environment.” Yang said.

Reuter later reported that China plans to increase its oversight of genetically modified crops due to heightened public concern over Beijing’s ability to keep illegal GM products out of the food chain.

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Monsanto asks the WHO, and California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, not to list glyphosate as a carcinogen

Glyphosate is the key ingredient in Monsanto’s branded Roundup line of herbicides, as well as hundreds of other products, but many scientific studies have raised questions about the health impacts of glyphosate and consumer and medical groups have expressed worries about glyphosate residues in food.

In October, Carey Gillam reported for Reuters that California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), has been accepting public comments about its intention to list glyphosate as a cause of cancer.

Roughly 8,000 comments were filed regarding the state action, according to officials, including those from Monsanto. Several farming, public health and environmental groups sent a letter to OEHHA supporting the listing, and said that rising use of glyphosate presents a danger to people and animals.

The OEHHA gave notice in September that it intended to list glyphosate under proposition 65, a state initiative enacted in 1986 to inform residents about cancer-causing chemicals. State officials said the action is required after the World Health Organization’s (WHO) cancer research committee in March classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen.

As we reported in March, the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times reported Monsanto’s call for the World Health Organisation’s cancer agency to retract a report published in the journal Lancet Oncology by researchers for WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer.

The WHO’s research unit, however, said it had reviewed many scientific studies, including two out of Sweden, one out of Canada and at least three in the United States before making its classification.

Since the WHO classification, the New York-based mass-tort firm of Weitz & Luxenberg, and other firms representing U.S. farm workers, have filed lawsuits against Monsanto, accusing the company of knowing of the dangers of glyphosate for decades. Monsanto has said the claims are without merit

Monsanto has now urged California not to list herbicide glyphosate as carcinogenic.

It added, in its formal comment, that California’s actions could be considered illegal because they are not considering valid scientific evidence.

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