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herbicide
Watchdogs Upset EPA Has 'Once Again Failed' to Limit Dicamba Herbicide Harm
"EPA has clear, damning evidence its mitigation has utterly failed to protect farmers, the environment, and endangered species," said the Center for Food Safety legal director.
Feb 17, 2023
"I call bullsh*t."
That's how Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, responded Thursday to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issuing limited restrictions for the use of over-the-top dicamba herbicides in four states.
Noting that it has been over a year since the Biden administration released a report "detailing just how incredibly devastating the 2020 dicamba approval has been," Donley said, "And now we're supposed to believe that four states not being able to use dicamba for two weeks in June accomplishes something?"
Under the EPA's rules for the 2023 season, farmers in Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa can't apply the herbicides Engenia, Tavium, and XtendiMax after June 12 or the V4 growth stage for soybeans and first square for cotton—whichever comes first. The previous end date for those states was June 20, which is the new cutoff for South Dakota, where farmers previously had until June 30.
Some experts warn that the timing of the EPA's move is "troubling" given the proximity to soybean planting. University of Illinois weed scientist Aaron Hager told FarmProgress that "it's going to be a challenge. I'm afraid for soybean farmers who have already made their seed and herbicide purchases for the 2023 growing season."
Meanwhile, longtime critics of the herbicide like Donley and George Kimbrell, legal director at the Center for Food Safety, called out the EPA for continuously failing to go far enough to limit harm from dicamba, given concerns about drift damage.
"This marks the fifth time in seven years EPA has made changes to dicamba's registration," Kimbrell said in a statement. "Yet faced with a mountain of data that its past measures have utterly failed to protect farmers, the environment, and endangered species, EPA once again failed to make meaningful changes."
"What EPA revised only affects four of 34 states, offers nothing to admitted continued risks to endangered species, and makes a label that already was impossible to follow in real-world farming even more impossible to follow," Kimbrell added.
"If allowed to stand, EPA's capitulation to pesticide companies will condemn many thousands of farmers to another year of devastating dicamba clouds injuring their crops, endangering their livelihoods, and tearing apart their rural communities," he warned, vowing to continue doing "everything we can to stop this harm."
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Biden EPA Admits Faulty Glyphosate Review Under Trump But Still Won't Take It Off US Market
"Time to face the music, not run and hide," said one critic of the agency's latest legal maneuver.
May 19, 2021
The Center for Food Safety on Wednesday denounced the Biden administration's Environmental Protection Agency for arguing that Roundup should remain on U.S. shelves for an undisclosed period of time even after admitting that the Trump-era review of glyphosate--the key ingredient found in Roundup, the world's most widely used herbicide--was flawed and requires a do-over.
"We will ask the court to deny this extraordinary request to paper over glyphosate's ecological harms only to approve it anyway down the road."
--George Kimbrell, CFS
In its federal court filing (pdf) requesting to redo the Trump administration's faulty assessment of glyphosate, the EPA failed to provide a deadline for a new decision; instead, the agency maintained that Roundup--created by agrochemical giant Monsanto, which was acquired in 2018 by the German pharmaceutical and biotech company Bayer--should stay on the market in the meantime.
The EPA's request comes as it faces two lawsuits, including one brought by a coalition of farmworkers and environmentalists represented by the Center for Food Safety (CFS), that seek to reverse the Trump EPA's approval of glyphosate, a decision that was made despite evidence that the substance--described by the World Health Organization as "probably carcinogenic"--poses threats to human health and to pollinators such as bumblebees and monarch butterflies.
"Rather than defend its prior decision, at the 11th hour EPA is asking for a mulligan and indefinite delay, despite having previously spent far too long, over a decade, in re-assessing it," CFS legal director George Kimbrell said Wednesday in a statement. "Worse, EPA admits its approval risks harms to farmers and endangered species, but makes no effort to halt it."
According to CFS:
EPA is required by law to re-assess each pesticide every 15 years in a process known as registration review. EPA completed part of its registration review of glyphosate in 2020, designating it an "interim" decision because it had failed to assess glyphosate's impacts to endangered species, or complete other key assessments, such as glyphosate's potential to disrupt hormonal systems and harm pollinators. The 2020 interim decision represented EPA's first comprehensive assessment of the herbicide since 1993.
After the ongoing lawsuits and the agency's most recent biological evaluation identified the deleterious social and environmental impacts of glyphosate, the EPA "admits it can no longer affirm glyphosate's putative benefits outweigh its risks and costs, or that measures imposed to mitigate risks are at all effective," CFS noted.
Some of the harmful effects of glyphosate, according to CFS, include a heightened risk of cancer among farmworkers and others who spray glyphosate-based herbicides or are nonetheless subjected to it as a result of "off-field drift." Moreover, farmers must contend with the development of glyphosate-resistant superweeds, the organization said.
In addition, CFS noted, because Roundup kills the milkweed on which monarch butterflies rely for survival, it poses a danger to the once-ubiquitous pollinators. And before it suggested that Roundup continue to be sold in the U.S. for an unspecified period of time, the EPA found that the herbicide is likely to adversely affect 93% of exposed species under the Endangered Species Act as well as 96% of their critical habitats.
In his statement, Kimbrell said that "we will ask the court to deny this extraordinary request to paper over glyphosate's ecological harms only to approve it anyway down the road."
"Time to face the music, not run and hide," he added.
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EU Moves to Reapprove Monsanto's Toxic Glyphosate
Europe plans to re-approve "probable carcinogen" for another 15 years—just as traces of the toxin are discovered in major brands of feminine products
Feb 25, 2016
In defiance of popular sentiment and scientific warnings, the European Commission plans to re-approve the use of controversial weedkiller glyphosate, a "probable carcinogen" according to the WHO, for another 15 years, according to a draft regulation (pdf) obtained by Bloomberg BNA.
The herbicide, the key ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup, is already so widely used in Europe that two-thirds of bread loaves sold in Britain contain residue from the toxic chemical, the Guardian reported in 2014.
The European Commission's plans, which will be voted on at a meeting on March 7th and 8th, were announced on the heels of a report published on Tuesday by the French magazine 60 Millions de Consommateurs. The report found traces of glyphosate and other industrial toxins in five out of eleven brands of feminine hygiene products.
The Roundup chemical was even discovered in so-called "organic" panty liners made by the French feminine product company Organyce. The company has pulled 3,100 boxes of its products from stores in France and Canada "as a precautionary measure" after internal tests confirmed the herbicide's presence in its products, an Organyce spokesperson told the Independent.
The European Commission's plans to approve the toxic chemical followed the EU ombudsman's strong critique (pdf) of the body's regulatory process, published just this week. The commission's drafted regulation "flew in the face of a censure of the commission by the EU ombudsman," environmentalists told the Guardian.
The ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, found that the commission may have been too "lenient in its practices," risking the health of humans, animals, and the planet.
Bloomberg BNA reports:
In a Feb. 22 decision, the Ombudsman said that in some cases, the commission granted pesticide approvals through a so-called confirmatory data procedure, under which applicants were asked to provide additional risk assessments and other data on the potential risks of substances. Still, the commission allowed the approvals anyway while waiting for the additional information.
The Ombudsman said a 1991 EU law on pesticide authorizations (Directive 91/414/EEC) "does not contain an express legal basis" for the use of the confirmatory data procedure, and by using the procedure, the commission may have acted in a way that was "unlawful and contrary to the principles of good administration."
A 2009 EU regulation on pesticide authorizations (Regulation 1107/2009) that replaced the 1991 directive did include a firmer legal base for the procedure. Still, the procedure should be used only in "exceptional cases" when the likelihood of a pesticide evaluation being changed was "minor," the Ombudsman said.
Pesticide Action Network (PAN), a coalition of over 600 NGOs and institutions worldwide working to replace harmful pesticides with ecological alternatives, brought the original complaint about the commission's approval process to the ombudsman.
In a press release on Tuesday, PAN Europe's chemicals coordinator argued that the commission had "let the interests of industry and farmers prevail over the interests of the public in allowing harmful pesticides on the market with data gaps and high risks. This structural violation of the rules implies that the pesticides currently on the market are unsafe."
Martin Hausling, the agriculture and public health spokesman for The Greens/European Free Alliance, argued that "[g]iven the serious health concerns and conflicting scientific advice, the commission should be respecting its duty to apply the precautionary principle and not steamrolling through approval of this highly controversial substance."
The commission has agreed to submit a report demonstrating that it has taken action to make the ombudsman's requested fixes to its approval process in two years--but with its proposed new 15-year lease, glyphosate would not be up for regulatory consideration again until 2031.
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'On the Offensive' Against Monsanto, France Removes Roundup from Store Shelves
Monsanto product will no longer be sold in aisles of nurseries frequented by amateur gardeners
Jun 15, 2015
France will cease over-the-counter sales of agrochemical giant Monsanto's weedkiller brand Roundup, following a recent United Nations report that found the active ingredient, glyphosate, was "probably carcinogenic to humans."
It's the newest development in the growing international movement against Monsanto in general and Roundup in particular. French Ecology Minister Segolene Royal announced on Sunday that she had instructed garden centers to stop putting the herbicide on the shelves of their self-service aisles, stating, "France must be on the offensive with regards to the banning of pesticides."
Colombian officials made similar statements in May when they put a halt to U.S.-backed toxic fumigation of coca fields in the country, noting that a previous ruling by the Colombian Supreme Court called for an end to the aerial spraying program if health concerns over glyphosate were discovered.
They were. As Common Dreams reported in March, the UN's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which is based in France, found in its study that:
"[L]imited evidence" exists to show the herbicide can cause non-Hodgkins lymphoma in humans and additional "convincing evidence" that it can cause other forms of cancer in both rats and mice. Researchers noted that glyphosate has been found in the blood and urine of agricultural workers, showing the chemical has been absorbed by the bodies of those who work most with it.
The new policy reportedly came in response to the French consumer protection group Consommation Logement Cadre de vie (CLCV) asking French and European officials to prohibit the sale of glyphosate-based products to amateur gardeners, according to Agence France-Presse.
In addition to its ban on Roundup, the health ministry also said it would only allow the sale of phytosanitary products, which are used to control plant diseases, through an "intermediary or a certified vendor" starting January 2018.
Bill Freese, science policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety, told Common Dreams that it was important to note that France only banned the use of Roundup for homeowners rather than the agricultural sector. "CFS supports France's prudent decision to prohibit homeowner use of glyphosate, given both the World Health Organization's finding that glyphosate is probably carcinogenic to humans and the deceptive claims about its supposed safety," Freese said. "However, the great majority of glyphosate use is in agriculture, driven by genetically engineered, glyphosate-resistant crops. 'Next-generation' GE crops resistant to 2,4-D, dicamba and other chemicals will dramatically increase use of multiple herbicides. We must move agriculture away from pesticide-intensive GMOs towards sustainable weed control that eliminates or greatly reduced use of weed-killers."
Mary Ellen Kustin, senior policy analyst at the Environmental Working Group, added that the U.S. should take its cues from France. "By banning glyphosate from garden centers, the French government is taking steps to protect its citizens," she told Common Dreams. "In the U.S., most glyphosate is sprayed on farmland--roughly 280 million pounds annually. Blanketing genetically engineered [GMO] crops with glyphosate accounts for the vast majority of the toxic herbicide's agricultural use. But without requiring labels on GMO foods similar to labeling laws in France and 63 other countries around the world, the U.S. leaves its consumers confused as to whether or not they're buying GMO foods."
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$34.4 Million Can't Seem To Buy Prop 37 Opponents Their Own Facts
Oct 01, 2012
Apparently $34.4 million in pesticide and junk food money can't buy the opponents of Proposition 37 their own set of facts.
Case in point: A new L.A. Times poll shows Prop 37 winning by more than a 2-to-1 margin among registered California voters. And, according to the recent Pepperdine poll the opposition's support actually dropped four points over the past two weeks.
So while their treasure trove of special interest money can pay for an endless supply of tired, discredited talking points, it can't seem to convince consumers we don't deserve to know what's in the food we eat.
It's not hard to understand why. The companies bankrolling the opposition campaign - including pesticide giants Monsanto ($7.2 million) and Dupont ($4.9 million) - will say and spend anything to prevent the kind of transparency that labeling of genetically modified foods (GMO's) would provide. And without transparency there can be no accountability.
Here ARE a few facts: A growing body of research links GMO foods to potential health risks, increased pesticide use, biodiversity loss, the emergence of "super bugs" and "super weeds" and the unintentional contamination of conventional crops.
What Prop 37 will do is add a line of ink to a label -- as is currently required for 3,000 other ingredients -- so consumers know which products have been altered in a laboratory. That's why the vast majority of Californians support this common-sense measure, and it's why 50 other countries already require that GMOs be labeled.
But that's not all: This summer, Monsanto began selling its first GMO sweet corn product at Walmart. The sweet corn is engineered to withstand the herbicide Roundup and also contains an insecticide (Bt toxin) within the cells of the corn.
Are your children eating Monsanto's latest concoction? You won't know because we don't require labeling. In response to Walmart's decision to undermine the will of its customers, the Yes on 37 campaign released a new ad highlighting the fact that California children are eating unlabeled GMO sweet corn without their parents knowing it.
And now, the recently published (in the highly regarded journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology), first long-term, peer-reviewed animal study involving GMO corn found massive tumors, organ failure and premature death in rats. The findings have prompted the French government to call for an investigation into GMOs, and Russia to suspend imports of GMO corn.
The study was roundly criticized by Monsanto's band of scientists, who were out in force trying to discredit the study design - but what they failed to mention is that Monsanto's own studies that supposedly indicate "safety" are based on the same study design: similar size study, same rats. The only real differences are the French study was free of industry influence and pressure, was more comprehensive and stringent, and was long-term rather than short.
The most shocking thing of all about the French study is that it is the first long-term feeding study on genetically engineered corn that has been on the American market for more than 15 years. So where's the science? The reason we have been denied such critical information is that biotech companies like Monsanto have controlled and suppressed research.
We need, and deserve, more independent research in this area. In the meantime, we have a right to know and to decide for ourselves whether we want to eat Monsanto's corn. Prop 37 will give us that right.
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