Documenting the history of pesticide hazards in the United States
Posted by Jonathan Latham, PhD on
In their latest attempt to shield Monsanto from accountability, House Republicans have seized upon the flawed and biased reporting of a Reuters journalist whose work has emerged as a key lobbying tool for the embattled agrichemical company as it faces lawsuits, regulatory threats and a wave of awful press coverage about allegations of improper influence over research.
http://www.alternet.org/environment/republicans-rush-monsantos-aid-industry-biased-reuters-report
Posted by Allison Wilson on
“Monsanto continued to produce and sell toxic industrial chemicals known as PCBs for eight years after learning that they posed hazards to public health and the environment, according to legal analysis of documents put online in a vast searchable archive.”
The Poison Papers archive has been analyzed by Bill Sherman, the assistant attorney general for the US state of Washington. Washington state and various west coast cities are suing Monsanto for PCB contamination. Sherman is quoted as saying that Poison Paper documents provide “damning evidence” that was previously unknown to the state.
Due to their extreme toxicity to human and environmental health, by 1979 PCBs were banned in many countries.
“Yet a decade earlier, one Monsanto pollution abatement plan in the archive from October 1969, singled out by Sherman, suggests that Monsanto was even then aware of the risks posed by PCB use.”
To learn more about what Monsanto knew and hid about PCB toxicity read the full article “Monsanto sold banned chemicals for years despite known health risks, archives reveal” by Arthur Neslen on The Guardian (10 August 2017) go to: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/09/monsanto-continued-selling-pcbs-for-years-despite-knowing-health-risks-archives-reveal.
Posted by Allison Wilson on
For decades, the EPA has been assuring U.S. citizens that glyphosate formulations are safe to use despite a total lack of safety data on the “inert” ingredients, including polyethoxylated tallow amine (POEA). The latest FOIA documents released by U.S. Right to Know show EPA “scrambling” to get data on these chemicals, even as it continues to assure the public there is no cause for concern.
“And indeed, the EPA has been a stalwart supporter of Monsanto Co.’s claims of safety, assuring the public that there is nothing to fear from the company’s cocktail of chemicals. But internal agency documents, released in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, indicate that as recently as last year, the agency had holes in its data files when it comes to the actual Roundup formulations used by consumers, farmers and others around the world. The documents also raise questions about how and why regulators for years have failed to require robust testing on what is the world’s most widely used weed killer.”
Internal documents by Monsanto scientists also confirm a lack of safety testing on the other ingredients in glyphosate herbicides:
“In a 2002 email also obtained as part of discovery in the court case, a Monsanto scientist writes to a colleague, “we are in pretty good shape with glyphosate but vulnerable with surfactants. What I’ve been hearing from you is that this continues to be the case with these studies – Glyphosate is OK but the formulated product (and thus the surfactant) does the damage.” In another 2002 email between the same Monsanto colleagues, the scientist writes, “Even though no testing requirements have been implemented for several years now, this damn endocrine crap just doesn’t go away, does it.”
Read read this important Huffington Post article “Internal EPA Documents Show Scramble For Data On Monsanto’s Roundup Herbicide” written by Veteran Journalist and research director of U.S. Right to Know Cary Gillam (7 August 2017) in full at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/5988dd73e4b030f0e267c6cd
Posted by Allison Wilson on
Evaggelos Vallianatos worked at the EPA and knew Adrian Gross, whose letter describing the chemical testing company IBT features in the Poison Papers. Vallianatos describes Gross’s initial experience of IBT in 1976:
“You wait but no one shows up. You decide to explore the place. You enter a large room with the infrastructure of a lab: tables loaded with knives, glass tubes, chemicals, and equipment for operations and pathology studies. You immediately react, wishing to get out of the room. An awful stench is hanging in the air. A broken water sprinkler is throwing water over cages full of mice, rats, and dogs. Rats are running into a swamp: water mixed with animal excrement covering the floor. Then, astonishingly, you see a technician holding a canister of sleeping gas running after rats. You back off in horror and reenter the reception room where the calm receptionist is on the phone calling the police for an intruder, you.”
Read the full article “The Swamp” by Evaggelos Vallianatos (4 August 2017) on The Huffington Post at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-swamp_us_5984c3bde4b00833d1de27c4
Posted by Allison Wilson on
A law firm released documents indicating connections between Monsanto corporation and Henry I. Miller and other academics. They suggest academics either volunteered or were asked to ghost-write articles defending Monsanto products. Other documents revealed a contractual relationship between Monsanto and A. Wallace Hayes, the former editor of a scientific journal, Food and Chemical Toxicology. Hayes retracted a peer-reviewed paper showing glyphosate and GE corn could harm rats.
Read the full article, “Monsanto Emails Raise Issue of Influencing Research on Roundup Weed Killer” by Danny Hakim at the NYT (1 August 2017) : https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/business/monsantos-sway-over-research-is-seen-in-disclosed-emails.html?_r=0&module=ArrowsNav&contentCollection=Business%20Day&action=keypress®ion=FixedLeft&pgtype=article
Collusion between Monsanto and academics was revealed by previous FOIA requests, including documents released two years ago by the group US Right to Know. This story was covered by Independent Science News in: https://www.independentsciencenews.org/science-media/the-puppetmasters-of-academia-ny-times-left-out/