Syngenta Says Received US EPA Approval For Orondis
* Syngenta says receives us epa approval for new high performance fungicide
* First sales are expected in the 2016 season
* Syngenta says Orondis has a peak sales potential of more than $150 million Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (Reporting By Zurich Slot)
Originally Published: Reuters
By: Dr. Mercola
Worldwide, more than 5 billion pounds of pesticides are sprayed onto crops each year,1 and more than 75 percent of the US population has detectable levels of organophosphates (OPs), which are among the most commonly used insecticides on American farms.
Your diet is one of the most likely routes of exposure – unless you're a farmer or live near an agricultural area. For farm workers, their children, and those who live in farming communities, pesticide exposure is a fact of life, but one that puts their health in serious jeopardy.
The next time you’re at the grocery store deciding between organic or conventional strawberries, realize that the decision affects far more than your own health. For the farm workers spraying those fields, and the children living and going to school near them, the pesticide exposure will be far greater than it will be for you.
Most of the farm workers are forced to work in these hazardous conditions in order to feed their own families, but that’s because pesticide-laden conventional produce is still accepted and dominates the market.
Ultimately, a shift to an organic, more sustainable food supply would make all the difference – not only for the families that eat the food but also for the farm workers who grow it.
A recent report from Farmworker Justice highlighted just how bad the pesticide exposure has become.2 Up to 20,000 farm workers are poisoned by pesticides each year, according to data from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The actual number is likely far higher, as many of the workers may not seek medical care or may be misdiagnosed if they do seek treatment. There is also no coordinated national incident reporting system to track such exposures. Despite this, pesticide exposures cause farm workers more chemical-related injuries and illnesses than any other workforce nationwide. According to the report:3
“Farmworkers are exposed to pesticides in a variety of ways. Workers who perform hand labor tasks in treated areas risk exposure from direct spray, aerial drift, or contact with pesticide residues on the crop or soil.
Workers who mix, load, or apply pesticides can be exposed to pesticides due to spills, splashes, and defective, missing, or inadequate protective equipment.
Even when not working in the fields, farmworker families, especially children, are also at risk of elevated pesticide exposure. Workers bring pesticides into their homes in the form of residues on their tools, clothes, shoes, and skin. They inadvertently expose their children through a hug if they cannot shower after work.
The close proximity of agricultural fields to residential areas results in aerial drift of pesticides into farmworkers’ homes, schools, and playgrounds. Some schoolyards are directly adjacent to fields of crops that are sprayed with pesticides.
Pesticide exposure is an unavoidable reality for farmworkers and their families because pesticides are in the air they breathe, the water they drink, the food they eat, and the soil they cultivate.”
Health Impacts of Pesticide Exposures
There are both short- and long-term effects that occur from pesticide exposures. In the short-term, exposures can lead to rashes, blisters, stinging eyes, blindness, nausea, dizziness, headaches, coma, and death.
Some effects are delayed, however, and may not be immediately apparent. Such long-term effects include infertility, birth defects, endocrine disruption, neurological disorders, and cancer.
There are about 2.5 million farm workers in the US, about 60 percent of whom live in poverty. Most of them lack legal work authorization, which means they’re unlikely to report violations of workplace safety, abuse of protective regulations, or even seek medical attention for potential poisonings.
Further, some symptoms of pesticide exposure resemble the flu, so many workers aren’t aware of the exposure. There are also language barriers to factor in and the risk of employer retaliation if a farm worker challenges unsafe pesticide practices or seeks medical treatment for pesticide exposures. According to the report:4
“Rural and agricultural communities have been found to experience higher rates of leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and soft tissue sarcoma, as well as cancers of the skin, lip, stomach, brain, and prostate.
Workers who reported farm work as their primary occupation suffered elevated risks for prostate cancer, esophagus cancer, and oral cavity cancers. …
Pesticide exposure is attributed to higher rates of birth defects, developmental delays, leukemia, and brain cancer among farmworker children.”
Because the effects of pesticide exposure aren’t always immediate, it can be difficult to tie them directly to the health problems they cause. However, the CHAMACOS Study showed that very small amounts of pesticides may be harming kids’ brains.
It followed hundreds of pregnant women living in Salinas Valley, California, an agricultural mecca that has had up to a half-million pounds of organophosphates sprayed in the region per year.
The children were followed through age 12 to assess what impact the pesticides had on their development.5 It turns out the impact was quite dramatic, and mothers' exposure to organophosphates during pregnancy was associated with:6
Research published, ironically, the same day as the CHAMACOS study, also found that prenatal exposure to chlorpyrifos (Dursban, a pesticide once used to control cockroaches in inner cities) was associated with lower IQs and poorer working memory in three-year-olds.7
A senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, who is now an official at the California Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said the combination of studies come "about as close as I can imagine to absolute proof" of the damaging effects of pesticides on children's brains.8
It is this cumulative effect of numerous chemicals, particularly to developing children, that likely poses the greatest risks of all. Brenda Eskenazi, chief investigator of the CHAMACOS study, noted:9
"The other thing we don't know about is the combined effect of exposures … Throughout the course of a day, people may eat several different types of produce, each of which may bear traces of one or more pesticides. They encounter other types of chemicals as well — from antibacterials in soaps, to plasticizers in foodware, to flame retardants in the furniture… By day's end, you've got a combination of chemicals and an unknown level of risk."
This level of risk is heightened significantly among the children of farm workers who also live and go to school in close proximity to the heavily sprayed fields…
A federal law known as the Work Protection Standard (WPS) requires pesticide safety training for farm workers, notification of pesticide applications, and emergency medical assistance. However, it is weakly enforced and many workers only watch a 20-minute video about pesticide exposure symptoms once every five years.
Pesticide applicators are at heightened risk as well, since many speak Spanish but the pesticide labels (including the safety information and health risks) are written in English. Available safeguards, such as requiring pesticide applicators to sit in an enclosed cab with a ventilation system (as opposed to in the open cab of a truck) are not often used or required.
Many of the workers are simply not aware of the health risks posed by pesticides and are often unaware when exposures occur. Medical monitoring of workers who regularly handle neurotoxic pesticides, which allows overexposures to be identified before there is irreversible harm, has been shown to help reduce the risks – but it’s not required.
No-spray buffer zones around area homes, schools, and parks could help to protect workers and their families from aerial pesticide drifts… but perhaps the more pressing question is why we continue to use such toxic chemicals on agricultural fields in the first place.
In 1999, a civil-rights complaint was filed against the California Department of Pesticide Regulation. Farm workers in the strawberry fields near Oxnard, California were concerned the pesticides sprayed on the fields were contaminating nearby schools. And the complaint alleged that agricultural pesticides were being used more heavily around schools with mostly minority student populations.
After an investigation, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its preliminary finding and, in a first and only decision, ruled it a case of discrimination and settled with the state of California. The EPA touted this as a victory for the farm workers… but there were just a few problems… For starters, the EPA took more than a decade to issue their finding – in 2011. By that time, the children in the schools in question had long since graduated and some had even started families of their own. The terms of the settlement were also far from “victorious.”
The California Department of Pesticide Regulation, in exchange for admitting no wrongdoing, agreed to put an additional air monitor near a school. And the original complainants, who are supposed to be a part of the process, weren’t notified of the EPA’s discrimination finding until after the settlement with the state was announced; they had no input whatsoever.
The complainants tried to get the EPA to reopen the settlement negotiations, but the agency refused. One of them even filed a lawsuit against the EPA for the way it handled the investigation and settlement, but it was dismissed in 2014 (an appeal is pending). One of the main atrocities of the case is that it had mentioned, in 1999, the regular use of the fumigant methyl bromide, which was linked to neurological effects and lung and kidney damage. In 2005, the US agreed to phase the chemical out, but farmers were allowed to continue to spray it on strawberries until 2015.
By the time the EPA’s decision was made, methyl bromide was already being widely replaced… but the EPA didn’t factor in the chemicals being used to replace it. So while methyl bromide was certainly less of an issue, replacement chemicals, like 1,3-D, a probable carcinogen, should have been investigated – but were not. As reported by The Center for Public Integrity:10
“The settlement agreement didn’t take into account the chemicals that would spring up to replace methyl bromide. In fact, it focused only on the use of methyl bromide between 1995 and 2001 — the years leading up to when the case was filed, and later accepted for investigation. The EPA said at the time that it looked at methyl bromide because the chemical was specifically mentioned in the complaint. [Brent] Newell [legal director for the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment, which is one of the agencies that filed the complaint], called it a dereliction of duty.
‘I still do not know why EPA did not include the fumigants that were replacing methyl bromide,’ he said. ‘… Now, if they didn’t do it because they’re incompetent, that’s a problem. If they knew about it and they decided to deliberately restrict their investigation to only methyl bromide, then that’s an even bigger problem. They would be ignoring evidence that’s material to the investigation.’”
It’s not only pesticide-laden produce that is putting workers’ lives at risk; the cut flower industry is also among one of the worst for pesticide exposures. A 1990 study looking at the prevalence of reproductive problems in Colombian workers exposed to pesticides while growing flowers found that workers in the floriculture industry were exposed to 127 different types of pesticides.11 According to the study:
"The prevalence rates for abortion, prematurity, stillbirths, and malformations were estimated for pregnancies occurring among the female workers and the wives of the male workers before and after they started working in floriculture, and these rates were related to various degrees of exposure. A moderate increase in the prevalence of abortion, prematurity, and congenital malformations was detected for pregnancies occurring after the start of work in floriculture."
Years later, a study published in the International Journal of Environmental Health Research again assessed the risk factors associated with pesticide exposure among farmers of cut flowers — this time in the Philippines.12 Thirty-two percent of the workers reported pesticide-related illnesses since starting work in the flower business, which typically centered around their eyes, ears, nose, and throat. The most commonly reported symptoms were weakness and fatigue, muscle pain, chills and fever, blurred vision, dizziness, and headache.
In a flower-growing region in Northern Ecuador, where female employment in the industry is high, researchers found that “prenatal exposure to pesticides – at levels not producing adverse health outcomes in the mother – can cause lasting adverse effects on brain development in children.” They conclude that pesticide exposure may contribute to a "silent pandemic" of developmental neurotoxicity in school-age children.13
Your best bet for minimizing health risks from pesticide exposure is to avoid them in the first place by eating organic as much as possible and investing in a good water filtration system for your home or apartment. Alternatively, you can try growing some of your own produce using organic methods right in your own backyard. One of the benefits of eating organic is that the foods will be free of genetically modified (GM) ingredients – and this is key to avoiding exposure to toxic glyphosate.
Eating locally produced organic food will not only support your family's health, it will also protect the environment from harmful chemical pollutants and help shift the agriculture industry away from conventional farming with the use of toxic chemicals – a must for worker protection. As for cut flowers, you can sometimes find organic cut flowers for sale at farmer’s markets, flower shops, and health food stores, and they’re also available to order online.
In the absence of organic certification, you can also look for fair trade certification, as fair trade programs pay greater attention to protecting worker's health and wellbeing, and typically use fewer or less pesticides.
When consumers speak up, corporations listen. It’s because of consumer demand that we’re seeing major chicken producers nixing their use of antibiotics in chicken. If enough people demand organic, pesticide-free food, and other goods, the agriculture industry will have no choice but to listen. Finally, if you know you have been exposed to pesticides, the lactic acid bacteria formed during the fermentation of kimchi may help your body break them down. So including fermented foods like kimchi in your diet may be a wise strategy to help detox the pesticides that do enter your body.
Originally Published: Eat Local Grown
By: Jason Best
In June, the Environmental Protection Agency released the results of its assessment of 52 chemicals and the likelihood that any of them could be classified as endocrine disruptors—those substances known to interfere with the hormonal system and linked to such health ills as certain cancers, birth defects, and developmental disorders. On the list of chemicals the agency examined was glyphosate, which most Americans know better as Roundup, which is Monsanto’s trade name for what has become the most widely used herbicide in the world. In the United States, hundreds of millions of pounds are dumped on farmland annually.
And yet…
It doesn’t take more than five minutes poking around on Google or WorldCat to begin turning up fairly recent studies in peer-reviewed scientific journals that include sentences like “a growing body of knowledge suggests the predominance of endocrine disrupting mechanisms caused by environmentally relevant levels of exposure” to glyphosate-based herbicides. So how can the EPA be so certain glyphosate isn’t an endocrine disruptor?
Because, it seems, Monsanto and other chemical companies said so.
As Sharon Lerner revealed over at The Intercept this week, of the 32 studies the EPA used to make its determination that there is “no convincing evidence” that glyphosate is an endocrine disruptor, 27 were either conducted or funded by the agrichemical industry. “Most of the studies were sponsored by Monsanto or an industry group called the Joint Glyphosate Task Force,” Lerner wrote. “One study was by Syngenta, which sells its own glyphosate-containing herbicide, Touchdown.”
More telling, when Lerner reviewed the paltry five independently funded studies the EPA relied on for its determination, three of them concluded glyphosate could very well pose a danger to the endocrine system.
“Yet, of the 27 industry studies, none concluded that glyphosate caused harm,” Lerner added, even though “many of the industry-funded studies contained data that suggested that exposure to glyphosate had serious effects.” No less worrisome is that a majority of the studies were more than two decades old—thereby predating the existence of the term “endocrine disruption.”
Just last week, a senior researcher at the U.S. Department of Agriculture filed allegations that he was harassed after publicly voicing concerns about another popular class of pesticides. You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to wonder just how “independent” and “rigorous” our federal regulatory agencies are when it comes to evaluating the risks posed by all those agrichemicals out there coating all those amber waves of grain.
Originally Published: TakePart
By: Dan Charles
Ever been caught telling different stories to different people? It's awkward.
Dow AgroSciences, which sells seeds and pesticides to farmers, made
contradictory claims to different parts of the U.S. government about its latest herbicide. The Environmental Protection Agency just found out, and now wants to cancel Dow's legal right to sell the product.
The herbicide, which the company calls Enlist Duo, is a mixture of two chemicals that farmers have used separately for many years: glyphosate (also known as Roundup) and 2,4-D. It's Dow's answer to the growing problem of weeds that are resistant to glyphosate, which has become the weed-killing weapon of choice for farmers across the country.
The new formulation is intended to work hand-in-hand with a new generation of corn and soybean seeds that are genetically engineered to tolerate sprays of both herbicides.
When Dow applied for permission to sell Enlist Duo in 2011, it told the EPA that this mixture of glyphosate and 2,4-D is no more toxic than the two chemicals are, if considered separately. The EPA accepted that argument and approved the new herbicide just over a year ago. Dow began selling it, in small quantities, this year.
But the decision was controversial. Environmentalists argued that Enlist Duo would bring on a massive increase in herbicide use. Some farmers were concerned about the use of 2,4-D, because that chemical is known to blow into neighboring fields.
Several environmental groups went to court to overturn the EPA decision, arguing that combining these two chemicals could result in new "synergistic" toxic effects that the EPA had ignored. And in the course of that litigation, the EPA discovered that Dow had been telling the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office a different story.
When applying for a patent, an inventor needs to show that something is novel and useful. And Dow's patent application for Enlist Duo claims that this mixture of chemicals does, in fact, offer farmers something new: "synergistic herbicidal weed control."
Last month, the EPA asked Dow to explain these synergistic effects. On Nov. 9, the company responded with what the EPA calls "extensive information." Neither Dow nor the EPA has disclosed any details, but the EPA, after taking a look at the new information, decided to ask the court for a chance to reverse its approval of Enlist Duo until it had fully evaluated the new information. The agency suggested that it may require larger safety buffers around fields where Enlist Duo is used.
The EPA's decision stunned both foes and friends of the new herbicide.
The herbicide's opponents, among them the Pesticide Action Network, the Center for Food Safety and the Center for Biological Diversity, celebrated.
Dow, in a brief email statement, said that it is working with EPA to provide assurance that the product is safe and that "we expect that these new evaluations will result in a prompt resolution of all outstanding issues."
Originally Published: National Public Radio
By: Taylor Hill
One year after approving a powerful and highly toxic weed killer, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has reversed course, announcing on Wednesday it will revoke its approval of the product called Enlist Duo.
Dow AgroSciences created the herbicide cocktail. It is similar to Monsanto’s Roundup, one of the most widely used herbicides on genetically modified seeds, but designed to kill weeds that have developed a resistance to it.
Despite Enlist Duo’s potential for further decimating milkweed—the only plant that the world’s declining population of monarch butterflies lay eggs on—the EPA gave Dow AgroSciences the green light.
Environmental groups immediately petitioned for a reversal. The National Resources Defense Council, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Center for Food Safety, and other groups filed a lawsuit against the EPA, arguing that the agency had failed to show the impact the new herbicide would have on plants and animals surrounding crops.
The EPA’s reversal on Enlist Duo comes a few months after the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organization, released findings showing that 2,4-D was “possibly carcinogenic to humans” and demonstrating “strong evidence that 2,4-D induces oxidative stress, a mechanism that can operate in humans, and moderate evidence that 2,4-D causes immunosuppression, based on in vivo and in vitro studies.”
The EPA’s decision to “withdraw the illegally approved Enlist Duo crops is a huge victory for the environment and the future of our food," George Kimbrell, the Center for Food Safety's senior attorney, said in a statement. “We will remain vigilant to ensure industry does not pressure the agency into making the same mistake in the future."
Following the announcement, shares of Dow Chemical—Dow AgroSciences’ parent company—went down 2.7 percent in midday trading. The company said in a statement that it is working with the EPA to provide further assurances that Enlist Duo meets environmental safety requirements.
According to Pesticide Action Network Director Judy Hatcher, the product never should not have been given the go-ahead.
“EPA is taking a step in the right direction, but Enlist Duo shouldn’t have been given the green light in the first place,” Hatcher said. “Too often, [genetically engineered] seeds and the herbicides designed to accompany them are rushed to market without thorough evaluation of their real-world impacts on community health and farmer livelihoods.”
Originally Published: TakePart
By: Paul Ausick
It has been nearly 15 years since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned the insecticide chlorpyrifos for residential use. On Wednesday, the comment period ended for a total ban on the use of chlorpyrifos.
Since the ban on residential use, chlorpyrifos has been used on a variety of agricultural crops, and in 2007 an administrative petition was filed by the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) North America and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) requesting a ban on chlorpyrifos. In October 2015, a federal appeals court ruled that EPA had to get off the dime and issue a full and final response to the petition.
The pesticide is manufactured by the AgroSciences division of Dow Chemical Co. (NYSE: DOW) and sold under several brand names, the most common of which are Dursban and Lorsban. Dow is currently shopping its AgroSciences business as the company works on a merger with DuPont.
In a press release issued Tuesday, an Earthjustice attorney noted:
A total ban on chlorpyrifos is what farmworkers, agricultural communities and all consumers deserve. EPA’s and other independent findings show that chlorpyrifos causes brain damage to children and poisons workers and bystanders. It is imperative that EPA move quickly to protect workers and children by issuing a final and total ban to this widely-used pesticide.
In January of last year, the EPA released for public comment its assessment of the potential for human health risk from the use of chlorpyrifos:
In 2000, EPA banned household uses of chlorpyrifos, with the exception of ant and roach bait in child-resistant packaging. Between 2000 and 2002 EPA cancelled the use of chlorpyrifos on tomatoes and restricted use on crops including apples, citrus and tree nuts. In 2012, EPA imposed “no-spray” buffer zones around public spaces, including recreational areas and homes, and significantly lowered pesticide application rates.
On the other side of the issue, cotton farmers have raised questions about the EPA’s process in proposing a total ban of chlorpyrifos, which they say is used to control a variety of insects on cotton and other crops.
Originally Published: 24/7 Wall St
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on Wednesday that a preliminary risk assessment of the pesticide imidacloprid shows that the chemical poses a threat to some pollinators, specifically honeybees.
Imidacloprid is one of four neonicotinoid pesticides that honey producers and environmentalists have long suspected to be linked to rapidly declining bee populations in North America and beyond, a phenomenon widely known as colony collapse disorder. The EPA is in the process of reviewing the class of chemicals to determine whether they pose an ecological threat to pollinators, starting with imidacloprid.
Neonictonoids are nicotine-like pesticides that attack the central nervous system of insects and are commonly used to protect seed stocks and kill unwanted foliage-eating bugs like aphids and beetles.
The EPA's preliminary risk assessment of imidacloprid found that the pesticide "potentially poses risk to hives when the pesticide comes in contact with certain crops that attract pollinators," according to a press statement. The agency found that residues of imidacloprid with a concentration of 25 parts per billion or higher on flowering plants and their nectar are likely to have a negative effect on beehive populations.
Data shows that flowering crops such as cotton and citrus are likely to have concentrations of the pesticide above the 25 parts per billion threshold, while other crops, such as corn and leafy vegetables, either do not produce nectar that attracts bees or typically have residue levels below the threshold.
The European Union banned the use of neonicotinoids in 2013 despite considerable pushback from pesticide manufacturers, and environmentalists have urged the EPA to take action to limit use of the chemicals for years.
In 2015, the EPA temporarily halted the approval of new outdoor uses of neonicotinoid pesticides until the risk assessments are complete. The agency also proposed a ban on the use of pesticides that are toxic to bees, including neonicotinoids, when crops are in bloom and bees are being used to pollinate them.
"Delivering on the president's National Pollinator Strategy means EPA is committed not only to protecting bees and reversing bee loss, but for the first time assessing the health of the colony for the neonicotinoid pesticides," said Jim Jones, assistant administrator of the EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.
Bayer CropScience, the company that first introduced imidacloprid to the agricultural market in the mid-1990s, said in a statement released Wednesday that it is reviewing the EPA's assessment, but "at first glance it appears to overestimate the potential for harmful exposures in certain crops, such as citrus and cotton, while ignoring the important benefits these products provide and management practices to protect bees."
Pesticide manufacturers have furiously defended neonicotinoid pesticides in the face of widespread criticism, and environmentalists have accused the industry of ripping pages from Big Tobacco's PR playbook in the past.
After a 60-day public comment period, the EPA will finalize its risk assessment for imidacloprid and take regulatory action if necessary. The EPA's pesticide division produced the assessment in collaboration with state regulators in California and its Canadian counterpart, which reached the same preliminary conclusion.
The EPA plans to release preliminary risk assessments of three other neonicotinoid pesticides - clothianidin, thiamethoxam and dinotefuran - in December 2016.
Originally Published: TruthOut
By: Paul Koberstein
Numerous studies have shown that Chlorpyrifos causes serious harm to children and farmworkers
Scott Krogstad grows soybeans and sugar beets in the heart of the Red River Valley near Grand Forks, North Dakota. Like most sugar beet farmers in the Midwest, he wages a difficult war with the unpredictable infestations of the sugar beet root maggot. The maggot, the larva of a small two-winged fly, can completely sever the roots from a beet with its hooked mouth.
Meanwhile, a thousand miles away in fruit orchards near Provo, Utah, farmer Alan Riley fights off the San Jose scale, an aphid-like insect that sucks sap from his apple, peach, and cherry trees. It can turn apples from red to purple around feeding sites and result in small, deformed fruit.
Despite their many miles of separation, Krogstad and Riley have one key thing in common with each other and countless farmers across the country. They view the insecticide chlorpyrifos as indispensable in their respective battles with bugs. So naturally, they, and many other farmers are dismayed with the US Environmental Protection Agency’s recent proposal to ban chlorpyrifos because of the pesticide’s impact on the health of children and farmworkers who come in contact with it.
Chlorpyrifos is part of a class of chemicals, known as organophosphates, that was developed before World War II as a nerve gas that could halt neurotransmissions in a soldier’s brain. Chlorpyrifos kills bugs by disrupting their brain functions in a similar way.
The ban on the chemical was triggered by a lawsuit filed by NRDC and several other environmental and farmworker organizations.
Introduced by Dow Chemical in 1965 as an alternative to DDT, chlorpyrifos usage took off in the years following the EPA’s decision to ban DDT in 1972. It is now the nation’s most heavily used insecticide, and farmers fear a decrease in their incomes and the food supply would occur if the EPA forces them to abandon chlorpyrifos.
The most recent government statistics show that American farmers used about 6 million pounds of chlorpyrifos in 2012, according to the USGS. USGS data also show that farmers used about three times as much chlorpyrifos as any other organophosphate pesticide in 2009. California's Department of Pesticide Regulation reports that 1.46 million lbs. were used in that state alone in 2013.
In agency speak, the EPA’s proposal would technically “revoke all tolerances” for chlorpyrifos, which means that any use that leaves a residue of chlorpyrifos on food would not be allowed. A public comment period on the proposal expired in early January. If approved, the ban would go into effect in December 2016.
In comments submitted to the EPA, Riley said, “Without chlorpyrifos and the early control that it gives us, I'm afraid it will be necessary during the season to use more chemicals such as pyrethroids to get the same control.”
Krogstad told Earth Island Journal that he does not use chlorpyrifos every year, and tries to minimize its use. But in his comments to the EPA he said that “removing chlorpyrifos from the market will not reduce society's exposure to pesticides, it will increase it in my area.” He said that without chlorpyrifos, he would have to increase the use of other insecticides on his farm at a higher cost.
However, not all farmers are as worried about the ban. Indeed some see it as a welcome move given that the chemical is being identified in several studies as causing, even at very low doses, numerous health problems involving the brain.
Jean Edwards, a blueberry grower in Hillsboro, Oregon for instance, cited “several less toxic chemical options” that are available. “Although we struggle with spotted wing drosophila in our fields, and must use pesticides frequently, we prefer to limit EPA approved insecticides to less toxic options than chlorpyrifos for blueberries,” he told EIJ.
In a health assessment released in December 2014, the EPA cited three “strong” studies that showed that prenatal exposure to chlorpyrifos “likely played a role” in adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in children up to seven years old.
If anything, the EPA found that these studies underestimated the risk to children. In aggregate, the EPA said the research shows that chlorpyrifos exposure contributes to:
Delays in mental development in infants (24-36 months);
Attention problems and pervasive developmental disorders in early childhood; and
Intelligence decrements in school age children who were exposed to chlorpyrifos during gestationThe most recent of these studies, the University of California-Berkeley’s CHAMACOS study of farmworker children in the state’s Salinas Valley, found “a statistically significant 7 point” reduction in IQ among exposed children. The children were exposed through their diet, inhalation, skin, and “tracking in” of pesticide residues through shoes and clothing, augmented by poor hygiene practices. The other studies were conducted by New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Columbia University.
Other parts of young bodies may also be at risk from chlorpyrifos exposure. In December, another CHAMACOS study of farmworker children in the Salinas Valley found that chronic exposure to pesticides can damage a child's lung function by about as much as secondhand cigarette smoke does.
The news that the EPA would find that low-level exposure to chlorpyrifos can cause neurological problems in humans comes as no surprise. The agency has a history of questioning the chemical’s safety. In 2000, after exposure to very high doses of chlorpyrifos was found to cause horrific birth defects in children, the EPA banned all in-home uses of the insecticide, including as termite bombs.
The EPA is now conducting health assessments for all 22 other registered organophosphates on the market. The agency has already completed preliminary assessments for seven of these pesticides – dimethoate, dicrotophos, chlorpyrifos-methyl, tribufos, terbufos, profenofos, and ethoprop. Each inhibits the action of an important enzyme in human nerve cells.
A recent report by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation listed several pyrethroid pesticides that can be used as alternatives to the organosphosphates.. Pryethroids are synthetic compounds related to a natural extract of the chrysanthemum plant.
Unsurprisingly, chlorpyrifos manufacturer Dow AgroSciences believes that the EPA could protect the public from the chemical by taking actions that fall far short of a complete ban.
“Dow AgroSciences continues to believe that essentially all outstanding EPA regulatory issues relative to chlorpyrifos can be resolved with a more refined analysis of Agency exposure modeling data,” company spokesperson Garry Hamlin said in an email.
Meanwhile, food and farming activists in Hawaii fear that Dow and other companies conducting genetically modified seed research on the islands will try to continue using chlorpyrifos in their open-field experiments, given that seed crops are technically not considered food. According to the state Department of Agriculture, 7,282 pounds of chlorpyrifos were sold in Hawaii during 2014.
“Dow AgroScience, the largest supplier of chlorpyrifos in Hawaii, has no intention of stopping its use and will be fighting the EPA every step of the way,” said Gary Hooser, a member of the Kauai County Council.
But Hamlin said that, “given that EPA has not yet determined what action that it will take regarding chlorpyrifos, any conclusion about what effect that action might have on the use of chlorpyrifos on Hawaii would be entirely speculative.”
Originally Published: Earth Island Journal
By: Karl Plume
Monsanto Co stepped up its defense of a widely used weed killer on Thursday by filing a lawsuit in California seeking to prevent glyphosate, the main ingredient in its Roundup herbicide, from being added to the state's list of known carcinogens.
The seed and agrochemicals company said it filed the suit against the state's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) and the agency's acting director, Lauren Zeise, in California state court, according to the filing seen by Reuters.
California law requires the state to keep a list of cancer-causing chemicals to inform residents of their risks.
OEHHA said in September that it planned to add glyphosate to the list after the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified it as a probable human carcinogen last March.
Monsanto has disputed assessment, citing decades of studies deeming glyphosate safe, including a 2007 study by OEHHA that concluded the chemical was unlikely to cause cancer.
"The IARC classification of glyphosate is inconsistent with the findings of regulatory bodies in the United States and around the world, and it is not a sound basis for any regulatory action," said Phil Miller, Monsanto's vice president of regulatory affairs.
Monsanto's lawsuit argues that listing glyphosate under Proposition 65, as the state's law is known, based on IARC's classification cedes regulatory authority to an "unelected, undemocratic, unaccountable, and foreign body" that is not subject to oversight by any state or federal entity.
Monsanto argues that the lack of oversight violates the company's right to procedural due process under California and U.S. law.
A listing would also require Monsanto and others offering products containing glyphosate to provide a "clear and reasonable warning" to consumers that the chemical is known to cause cancer, damaging Monsanto's reputation and violating its First Amendment rights, the company said.
OEHHA did not comment, as it had not seen the lawsuit.
The case is Monsanto Company v. Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, et al, case number 16-CECG-00183 in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Fresno.
Roundup is used by farmers around the world, generating Monsanto $4.8 billion in fiscal 2015 revenue. Genetically modified seeds designed to tolerate glyphosate are immensely popular among corn and soybean growers.
But questions from environmentalists and other critics about the safety of the herbicide have dogged Monsanto for years.
Since IARC's classification last year, Monsanto has been named in numerous lawsuits accusing the company of knowing of the dangers of glyphosate for decades.
(Editing by David Gregorio and Dan Grebler)
Originally Published: Reuters
By: Steve Law
The city of Portland is teaming up with six other West Coast cities to separately sue Monsanto Co. for health and environmental damages caused by products containing polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs.
The City Council unanimously agreed Wednesday to authorize the city to sue Monsanto, the exclusive manufacturer of PCBs in the United States from 1935 until the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned their manufacture in 1979.
PCBs were widely used in electrical and other industrial processes, but have been shown to be highly persistent in the environment and a likely cause of cancer in humans and animals.
Documents show Monsanto knew as far back as 1969 that PCBs led to contamination of fish, oysters and birds, said John Fiske, a senior trial attorney with Gomez Trial Lawyers of San Diego, in a presentation before the City Council on Wednesday. The company realized its product might cause “global contamination,” Fiske said, yet continued to peddle its product, “choosing profits over environmental health.”
PCBs are among the most potent contaminants in the Willamette River bottom and are one of the main targets of the massive Portland Harbor Superfund cleanup project.
Though the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to release its proposed cleanup plan for the Superfund site as soon as the first week in April, that was not the reason the city decided to sue Monsanto right now, said Tracy Reeve, city attorney.
Rather, Portland had a chance to join the other six cities in a cooperative legal strategy.
The cities, which include Seattle, San Diego, San Jose, Oakland, Spokane and Berkeley, would each file separate lawsuits against Monsanto in federal court, but use the same two law firms, Gomez Trial Lawyers and Baron & Budd in Texas.
The law firms intend to file a motion March 31 in a proceeding in Santa Barbara, Calif., to ask that one judge handle all seven suits. The law firms would conduct discovery and other legal motions on behalf of all seven cities, saving on legal fees.
The two law firms also agreed to work on a contingency basis, getting a share of the penalties rather than charging on a per-hour basis.
As a result, Reeve said, this litigation will result in only minor administrative costs to the city.
In an email statement, Monsanto spokesman Sam Murphey said the St. Louis-based company is reviewing the lawsuit and its allegations, but isn't responsible for the alleged damages. The company has reorganized since it halted production of PCBs and has undergone a series of mergers, acquisitions and spinoffs, and says it's now a different company legally.
"Monsanto today, and for the last decade, has been focused solely on agriculture, but we share a name with a company that dates back to 1901," Murphey stated.
"That company manufactured and sold PCBs that at the time were a lawful and useful product that were then incorporated by third parties into other useful products," he added.
It's the third parties, including landfill operators, who bear responsibility for leakage of products containing PCBs into waterways, he said.
Originally Published: Portland Tribune
By SustainablePulse,
Genetically modified corn and soybeans were supposed to reduce chemical use on farms, but instead they’ve done the exact opposite by creating herbicide-resistant “superweeds” and increasing the use of Monsanto’s toxic weed killer Roundup. Now the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s internal watchdog wants to know how this chemical war on weeds is affecting human health and the environment.
The EPA’s Office of Inspector General said Friday it will open an investigation into the spread of superweeds, and how farm workers are affected by the toxic chemicals used to combat them.
Weeds are becoming resistant to glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup. These superweeds were spawned by overuse of the chemical on fields planted with herbicide-resistant crops, mostly GMO corn and soybeans from Monsanto. To combat superweeds, farmers have been spraying more and more of the chemical and are looking to new, more powerful chemicals and chemical mixtures.
THE GLYPHOSATE BOX
10 Things You Need to Know about Glyphosate
The investigation will look into the human health impacts of chemicals used to fight superweeds. Last year, glyphosate was determined to be a “probable human carcinogen” by the World Health Organization, a finding likely to play a key role in the Inspector General’s investigation.
In recent years glyphosate use has exploded. A study released in February found that glyphosate use by U.S. farmers rose from 12.5 million pounds in 1995 to 250 million pounds in 2014 – a 20-fold increase.
To fight the superweeds created by overuse of one herbicide, chemical companies’ solution is to use even more herbicides, combining mixtures of a number of different chemicals. Dow has introduced Enlist Duo a combination of glyphosate and an old herbicide called 2,4-D. The EPA recently retracted its approval for the use of Enlist Duo after the manufacturer, Dow AgroSciences, had withheld data showing it’s potentially more toxic than disclosed.
There’s already abundant evidence showing that GMOs haven’t been good for the environment or the health of farm workers. The Inspector General’s investigation is likely to add more proof.
Originally Published: SustainablePulse
By GMWatch,
GM soybeans that tolerate glyphosate, a probable carcinogen, are already imported into Europe. Now the European Commission is coming under US pressure to allow the import of GM soybeans sprayed with a second probable carcinogen. Ray Seidler, a former senior scientist with the US EPA, says Europe should just say no
ONCE AGAIN the US agribusiness lobby is trying to bully the rest of the world into approving GM crops. In the latest case, the American Soybean Association (ASA) is asking top US agricultural officials to help it push the EU Commission to approve new types of GM soybeans.
The two soybean varieties are genetically engineered to survive being sprayed with a combination of herbicides:
1) MON87708 x MON89788, engineered to tolerate Monsanto’s glyphosate + dicamba
2) FG72, engineered to tolerate Bayer’s glyphosate + isoxaflutole.
The herbicide mixtures are a response to the glyphosate-resistant weeds that are choking up farmers’ fields, thanks to the widespread planting of glyphosate-tolerant GM soy and maize. So much glyphosate herbicide has been sprayed on these fields that weeds have become resistant. So farmers are turning to other herbicides and combinations of herbicides to control them.
There are real dangers with the herbicide combinations used on these soybeans. Residues could turn up in food and feed supplies. Scientists don’t know if there are combined synergistic health effects when both chemicals are present simultaneously within one crop. The necessary studies have simply not been done.
I am especially concerned about the glyphosate and isoxaflutole mix, since both chemicals have been found to beprobable human carcinogens when analyzed separately. The World Health Organization’s cancer agency IARC classifiedglyphosate as a probable carcinogen last year and 94 international scientists agreed with the designation. And the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classified isoxaflutole a “likely” carcinogen as long ago as 1997. Pesticide Action Network has dubbed it a “Bad Actor” with regard to cancer, in the highest category of of toxicity.
The studies that have been done on glyphosate and isoxaflutole individually indicate that there is some overlap between their effects. This suggests that they could combine to cause more serious effects. For example, both are toxic to the liver and cause liver and thyroid tumours, as well as birth defects involving the development of the skeleton. That’s the finding of an analysis of the scientific data by the toxicologist Wolfgang Reuter for the German research organization Testbiotech. Reuter wrote, “Combined effects are neither assessed within the European pesticide authorization process nor during the authorization process for the two varieties of genetically modified soybeans under scrutiny.”
EU Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis has admitted that there are no methods in place in Europe to assess the combined and synergistic effects of pesticide residues. He wrote in a letter to Testbiotech and GeneWatch UK: “It is true that the legislation requires cumulative and synergistic effects of residues to be considered… but only when the methods for assessment will be available. This is not yet the case and the legislation recognizes that further work in this respect is needed.”
In February 2016, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published its peer review of the risk assessment of isoxaflutole. This only served to heighten previous concerns since:
• Isoxaflutole was confirmed as carcinogenic and a developmental toxin
• In soybean seeds three different metabolites of isoxaflutole were found
• Risk assessment for food and feed could not be completed , and no maximum residue level (MRL) could be determined, due to lack of data
• Numerous risks were identified regarding exposures to operators, workers, bystanders to spray events, consumers, non-target terrestrial vertebrates, other terrestrial organisms, and groundwater.
So EFSA has identified serious risks and data gaps, and EU Commissioner Andriukaitis is aware that there are no toxicological studies for the combined effects of glyphosate plus isoxaflutole – two probable carcinogens.
Yet in spite of all this, Andriukaitis says that the Commission wants to allow these soybeans to be imported into Europe.
I am shocked by this development. The lack of testing of the consequences to animals, humans, and the environment should be enough to disqualify the import of such soybean products until such assays are available. Whatever happened to the precautionary principle?
Isoxaflutole was conditionally registered in the US by the EPA in 1998. The registration was limited in time until 2001 and restricted to certain states. Also, farmers were restricted to one application per season.
The EPA explained its concerns: “Isoxaflutole demonstrates developmental toxicity and has been classified as a Group B2 carcinogen (probable human carcinogen)… Isoxaflutole is persistent and mobile, and may leach and accumulate in groundwater and through surface water.”
Because some corn growing states restrict or prohibit the use of isoxaflutole for fear of groundwater contamination, the herbicide is currently used on only 7% of the US corn acreage (roughly 7 million acres). Use of isoxaflutole on the FG72 soybean crop will increase its use within the US to a projected 50 million acres.
The EPA also noted several data gaps or unknowns, including studies in rats to test whether isoxaflutole affected brain and nervous system development, and tests on the chemical’s behaviour in groundwater and surface water. But the agency granted the conditional approval anyway as a restricted use pesticide. Now it appears that FG72 GM soy has become eligible for isoxaflutole treatment in an unrestricted fashion. In my view this is not an acceptable risk assessment decision. What happened to the EPA’s previous safety concerns?
In Europe, isoxaflutole will likely be found in food supplies in combination with another probable human carcinogen, glyphosate.
The European Commission must take seriously the potential risks to human health posed by these soybeans and their residues. It should not allow their import until suitable biosafety tests are in place. I am especially concerned that pesticide-contaminated FG72 GM soy could enter the food chain and be fed to infants in soy-based baby formulas.
Others who eat poultry, pork, or beef from animals fed with GM corn and soy could consume residues of endocrine disruptors active at very low levels, in the parts per billion. They could also be eating probable or possible carcinogens such as glufosinate, dicamba, 2,4-D, isoxaflutole, and glyphosate – all of which are used on GM herbicide-tolerant crops.
Because of weed resistance to herbicides, US agriculture is on a pesticide treadmill. Europeans should keep the products of that treadmill out of their food and feed supplies.
Dr Ray Seidler was formerly a professor of microbiology at Oregon State University and senior scientist at the US Environmental Protection Agency, where he wrote the EPA's Biosafety Plan.
Help stop the European approval for toxic soybeans – send an email to Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the EU Commission:
http://www.testbiotech.org/en/toxic-soy
Originally Published: GMWatch
By SustainablePulse,
The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology has launched an investigation into the ‘mistaken’ release of a draft report by the U.S. EPA on the World’s most used herbicide, glyphosate.
The EPA ‘mistakenly’ published a draft report online on April 29 by the Cancer Assessment Review Committee (CARC). The report stated that glyphosate is ‘not likely to be carcinogenic to humans’, which is in direct contradiction to the World Health Organization cancer agency IARC’s much more comprehensive report, which stated in 2015 that glyphosate is a ”probable human carcinogen”.
An EPA assessment on the herbicide atrazine was also posted on the agency’s website on April 29 but subsequently taken down. The documents are available here. The assessment said atrazine was found to cause reproductive harm to birds and mammals.
In a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy on Wednesday, committee chairman Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, announced his committee is launching an investigation into the matter.
“…EPA’s removal of this report and the subsequent backtracking on its finality raises questions about the agency’s motivation in providing a fair assessment of glyphosate — an assessment based on the scientific analysis conducted by CARC,” Smith said in the letter.
“Furthermore, EPA’s apparent mishandling of this report may shed light on larger systemic problems occurring at the agency.”
Smith has asked EPA to provide “documents and communications” from January 1, 2015, to the present between agency personnel on the glyphosate assessment to the committee by May 18.
THE GLYPHOSATE BOX
1o Things You Need to Know about Glyphosate
According to expert Sustainable Pulse sources in the U.S. the EPA allegedly attempted “to take the legal pressure off the pesticide industry and specifically large producers of glyphosate-based herbicides such as Monsanto,” by releasing the CARC draft report.
The legal pressure on glyphosate has come in the form of many lawsuits in the U.S. that have been started against Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide (a glyphosate-based herbicide), since the IARC classification of glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen last year.
Monsanto has repeatedly asked regulators to publicly protect their number one product, however the EPA has not been able to meet Monsanto’s timeline for a full re-licensing of glyphosate, which is now expected later in 2016 or even early 2017.
Sustainable Pulse Director Henry Rowlands stated; “The EPA’s ‘mistaken’ release of the main part of their report that is designed to protect the pesticide industry seems rather a strange coincidence.
“Glyphosate is now on the agenda for consumers and farmers across the World. The discovery of the herbicide in our bodies and our food at hormone hacking levels is very alarming. The EPA should be protecting us all by providing a fully independent scientific analysis of the chemical. However, this is not what is happening and the EPA is again working against public health protection,” Rowlands concluded.
Glyphosate: The Hormone Hacker
Stone-Age industry funded science suggested that the higher the dose of a chemical the more dangerous it was, however modern independent science has discovered that many toxic chemicals have as much or more of an influence on our health at low doses– these chemicals are known as hormone hackers (endocrine disruptors).
A study from March 2015 stated that the health costs to the European Union of hormone hacking chemicals is over $ 150 Billion per year! The study stated that lower IQ, adult obesity and 5% or more of autism cases are all linked to exposure to endocrine disruptors.
Glyphosate is likely to be one of these hormone hacking chemicals according to independent science. Find more information on this here.
Originally Published: SustainablePulse
By SustainablePulse,
A testimony to the US House Committee on Agriculture by the President of CropLife America, Jay Vroom, has caused outrage after he successfully pressured the Committee to investigate the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) review of the World’s most used herbicide – glyphosate.
In a scandalous testimony on April 27, Biotech industry leader Vroom complained that the decision by the World Health Organization’s cancer agency IARC to classify glyphosate as a ‘probable human carcinogen‘ had been reached with the involvement of an EPA representative; “Oddly, the US government’s representative to this IARC monograph came from EPA’s Office of Research and Development – not the Office of Pesticide Programs where the expertise in glyphosate resides.”
Vroom continued by suggesting that the EPA is breaking the law by not following the industry’s wishes to rush through the glyphosate re-approval; “Despite EPA’s significant deviations from process, science and, perhaps, even the law, the crop protection industry stands with farmers and rural communities as we all weather the uncertain economic and regulatory headwinds ahead.”
CropLife’s members include BASF, Bayer CropScience, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont, FMC Corp., Monsanto, Sumitomo and Syngenta.
Vroom concluded by showing the Biotech industry’s concerns that they may be losing control of the EPA’s decision on the re-approval of glyphosate; “EPA’s reluctance to defend its own scientific findings and the safe use of such an important, widely used and well-studied product, is very troubling.”
Two weeks after Vroom’s testimony the US House Committee on Agriculture sent a letter to the EPA announcing that they were launching an investigation into the glyphosate review, “in a move that shows just how much power the Biotech industry has over elected representatives in the U.S.”, according to Sustainable Pulse Director, Henry Rowlands.
THE GLYPHOSATE BOX
1o Things You Need to Know about Glyphosate
The House Committee on Agriculture is the second House Committee to have announced an investigation on this matter. Last week the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology launched an investigation into the ‘mistaken’ release of a draft report by the EPA.
The EPA ‘mistakenly’ published a draft report online on April 29 by the Cancer Assessment Review Committee (CARC). The report stated that glyphosate is ‘not likely to be carcinogenic to humans’, which is in direct contradiction to the World Health Organization cancer agency IARC’s much more comprehensive report, which stated in 2015 that glyphosate is a ”probable human carcinogen”.
An EPA assessment on the herbicide atrazine was also posted on the agency’s website on April 29 but subsequently taken down. The documents are available here. The assessment said atrazine was found to cause reproductive harm to birds and mammals.
The EPA have now stated that their full final report on glyphosate and atrazine may not even be published this year.
By SustainablePulse,
A new National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report “Genetically Engineered Crops: Experiences and Prospects” released today recommends pre-market safety assessments of GMOs, and it cites consumers’ social and economic choices as issues that policymakers should consider when debating mandatory labeling for GMOs.
Consumers Union, the policy arm of Consumer Reports, agreed.
“When it comes to GMO labels, the NAS report points out that there are value choices that consumers want to make when they shop for food. We’re pleased to see that the report cites the wealth of polling data showing consumers want GMO labeling,” stated Michael Hansen, Ph.D., senior scientist with Consumers Union.
The NAS report notes that “mandatory labeling provides the opportunity for consumers to make their own personal risk-benefit decisions,” but says ultimately decisions in this area are matters for policymakers and the public.
Consumers Union also praised the report for recommending premarket human and environmental safety assessments for a wider range of products than are currently getting regulatory attention. The report found that genetic engineering already employed in food crops, new “gene editing” techniques such as “CRISPR”, and older techniques such as mutagenesis, create similar changes in plant DNA and their safety should be assessed.
“We need FDA, USDA and EPA to step up and look carefully at all these gene altering techniques,” said Hansen.
The NAS report endorses government oversight, stating, “Not having government regulation of GE crops would be problematic for safety, trade, and other reasons and would erode public trust.”
The report also found there was no evidence that GMO crops have improved yields. The report found “no significant change in the rate at which crop yields increase could be discerned from the data.”
Hansen concluded, “Despite industry claims, these crops are clearly not the answer to world hunger. It’s equally clear that consumers deserve an informed choice about the products in the marketplace.”
Originally Published: SustainablePulse
By GMWatch,
A biotechnologist* says the media are misrepresenting the National Academy of Sciences report when it comes to GMO food safety
This week the Spanish newspaper El País published an article called "Science confirms that GMOs are as safe as other foods", commenting on the latest report by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), titled "Genetically engineered crops: Experiences and prospects”. However, the report paints a very different picture from the one portrayed by the headlines.
First, and most importantly, the NAS doesn't hold an "umbrella" view on the safety of GMOs. Along with many other international bodies, it recognises that such a view is untenable, given that the GM process can give rise to different and unpredictable effects in each case. The committee points out that it has received "impassioned requests" to give the public a simple, general, authoritative answer about GM crops, but that given the complexity of GMO issues, it did not see that as appropriate. Following that, in a 400-page document, the committee develops its view on the issue. That view is undoubtedly more favourable to the use of GMOs in agriculture than that of most environmental groups – but it is also much more conservative than that of many GMO promoters (including El País). Far from stating that "science has confirmed that GMOs are safe", the report could be more accurately summarised as stating, "There’s a lot that we don’t know, which isn’t surprising, because no one is looking."
To judge by the methodology described in the document, the committee has been respectful of the different views on this complex issue, and has made an effort to avoid different kinds of bias. However, one important bias remains, and this is the one emerging from the relationship of several of its members with important biotechnology companies and their associated organisations. For example, the director of the study, Kara Laney, used to work for the International Food & Agricultural Trade Policy Council (funded by Monsanto). Food & Water Watch has documented the links of at least twelve of the twenty-two members of the committee with the main global biotech firms, or organisations funded by them.[1]
The new NAS report, as with previous reports from the same body, has a noticeable "sandwich" structure: several chapters describe risks and perceived problems, limitations of the studies carried out so far, and causes for concern, in between initial and final chapters that show a much more favorable vision. It’s those initial and final chapters that have been mined, without the intervening nuances, by the main media and public relations agencies.[2]
This effect was already marked in the 1989 NAS report, which was also used to justify a scientific consensus on GMO safety, even though it limited its remit to experimental crops and microorganisms in the continental US (not even including Hawaii or Puerto Rico). In addition, this report only considered potential environmental effects, since no studies had been carried out on potential health effects. But these factors did not prevent numerous sources from amplifying the report’s reach to all possible applications of genetic engineering, which have apparently since then been blessed by "science" as "safe".[3]
This artificial amplification of the areas where there is scientific consensus has been happening since the very first applications of genetic engineering. For instance, in the 1970s and 80s, the technology’s proponents would repeatedly declare there was an expert consensus that GMOs are safe, even though there was no evidence that demonstrated safety and many scientists had strongly voiced their concerns.[4] This claim about the supposed scientific consensus regarding GMO safety continues even now, though it is blatantly false. A document signed by hundreds of scientists worldwide shows that the so-called scientific consensus doesn't exist.[5]
The lack of pre-commercialisation studies which could limit unpredicted effects from genetic engineering has been so severe that the first authorisation for unconfined cultivation of a GM maize, in 1980, was granted years before the first GM maize plant was even produced – let alone tested.[6] In the early years of this technology, many of its proponents argued that GMOs could not harm the environment because the genetic engineering would necessarily impair the transformed organisms and render them unfit to survive in the wild.[7] Some even argued that GM crops wouldn't be capable of cross-pollinating[8] or that any GM virus or microorganism would be safe if the parent line was safe. As still happens today, many of these statements were made with no studies whatsoever to back them up – and they have been shown, over time, to be false.
The NAS report recognizes and engages with the lack of scientific consensus about GMO safety and the possibility for unexpected changes due to the genetic engineering process. As in their last report, they point out that unexpected effects can also emerge from other techniques considered inside conventional breeding, like radiation- or chemical-induced mutation breeding (also called mutagenesis).
This technique has been used since the mid-20th century, and has been used to generate new elite crop varieties since the Green Revolution. Its possible adverse effects have not been studied. When writing the Directive 2001/18 to regulate GMOs, the EU determined that organisms developed through mutagenesis were considered GMOs, but that it was not necessary to label or test them before commercialisation because of their history of safe use. The questions of whether this decision was right, whether 50 years amounts to a history of safe use, and whether it would be possible to evaluate the possible effects of these crops after this period, are beyond the scope of this article.[9]
In any case, the 2004 NAS report describes how mutagenesis and different techniques used in genetic engineering give rise to unintended changes throughout the genome at much higher levels than other "classical" breeding techniques. So it is confusing that some of the statements in the new NAS report treat all conventional breeding techniques (including mutagenesis, which the EU considers to give rise to GMOs) as the same, since according to the 2004 NAS report there is such a big difference between mutagenesis and all other conventional breeding techniques.
The report describes two sources of unintended differences related to genetic engineering which could affect food safety:
1. Unintended effects of the targeted genetic changes on other characteristics of the food (for example, the intended presence of or increase in one compound in plant cells could result in changes in plant metabolism that affect the abundance of other compounds).
2. Unintended effects associated with the genetic engineering process (for example, DNA changes resulting from plant tissue culture).
This means that the introduced traits could have effects other than the desired ones, and also that the processes of transformation and tissue culture could give rise to changes in other areas of the genome.[10] When referring to the changes derived from tissue culture, the report talks about both genetic and epigenetic changes. Just as some years ago we wouldn't have thought about detecting epigenetic changes (and even today we know surprisingly little about epigenetics, according to the researchers involved[11]), it is possible that whole new levels of gene regulation could exist that we haven't discovered yet. Clearly we cannot measure the possible impacts with current techniques.
Since these effects could occur when using these techniques, the next logical question is if our methods to detect and avoid them are good enough. The idea that GM foods are analysed in a very strict and comprehensive way has been widely promoted. However, the report points out that current assessments have deficiencies. Examples given include:
• In a discussion about the evaluation of a Bt crop, the report says it's not the US EPA (a public body) that carries out the assays; they are done by the company, which sends its results to the EPA. The same thing happens in the EU with the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Raw data from these studies are not published or available to the scientific community and general public. In fact the committee points out that it too did not have access to these data, which are protected under commercial confidentiality agreements. In other words, for an adverse effect to have been found in a pre-commercialisation test, the very same company that intends to market the product would have had to detect the effect and notify the relevant public body. This makes no sense from a business point of view. The most logical thing, if a product had found an adverse effect in pre-commercialisation assays, would have been for the company not to have pursued the application, so we would have never know about it. Or if the effect was subtle and was not detected by the methods used (or chosen), the product would have passed the evaluation and entered the food supply.
• Internationally accepted protocols use small samples with a limited statistical power, which may not detect differences between treatments, or they might find statistically significant differences that then would not be considered biologically relevant.
• Data obtained by studying cattle for long periods of time, even if they do not reveal adverse effects, cannot be extrapolated to chronic effects in human beings, because of, among other reasons, the young age at which these animals are killed.
• Regarding the a priori evaluation of changes in the levels of "known" toxic substances: The toxic properties of some plant compounds are understood, but most have not been studied.
• Detection of allergies to new proteins (those produced by the introduced gene or by a different gene which has been altered as a result of the GM transformation and/or tissue culture process) cannot be guaranteed with the currently used methods; post-commercialisation studies would be needed.
• The studies which have been carried out have found differences between animals given GMO and non-GMO feed; these differences were statistically significant (i.e. they were not caused by chance but by the treatment), but they weren't considered biologically relevant. However, what would be considered "biologically relevant" was not defined beforehand, and the statistical power of the studies had not been calculated. The differences found could have meant that adverse effects existed yet the methodology wasn't able to detect them. So the report is right to say that even when no adverse effects have been found, this doesn't mean that they don't exist – a point ignored by many media headlines on the report. In one of the cases described in the report, in fact, a feeding study was carried out with a type of rice in which a gene had been introduced to produce a known toxin (as a positive control), and no adverse effects were found. Because of this, the report points out the need to carry out further studies with a corrected methodology: the studies done so far that are said to show no adverse effects cannot offer conclusive data regarding safety.
• Data and studies currently available cannot be used to draw conclusions on possible long-term effects on human health. However, and given the perceived concerns of people surveyed, the committee makes an effort to use the available data (which, they point out, are insufficient and cannot be used to obtain conclusive data) to detect possible changes in the incidence of different chronic diseases. However, as the committee points out, this is a very rough approach to detecting such problems. To reliably detect them, post-commercialisation studies would be needed, which control for a high number of variables so that the only difference between groups would be consuming GMO foods (or a particular GMO food) or not consuming them.
Several of these comments, and especially the last one, take us to what could be one of the key points of disagreement: current methodologies are not appropriate to guarantee safety (by “guarantee”, I mean a similar level of guarantee to the one we have with foods not obtained through techniques with a high probability of generating unintended effects, according to the scale in the NAS’s 2004 report). But guaranteeing this level of safety with the new techniques would be somewhere between very expensive and impossible. At several points, the report talks about "acceptable risks". But who decides what level of risk a given population is willing to accept? Is this necessarily a scientific decision? The decision must logically be supported by scientific data, among other things, but that doesn't mean that the whole decision-making process must confine itself to this area.
The report's position, and where it deviates from the view of many environmentalists, is that when confronted with this situation, the best thing we can do is to continue marketing these foods as we have done until now, perhaps with some additional technical means to detect possible adverse effects, in the hope that we can withdraw any products which might show adverse effects in the future.
This caution-risk trade-off has been the one followed for years with regard to pesticides, and synthetic chemicals. The twentieth century shows several cases of products and technologies for which scientists had not detected adverse effects (sometimes honestly, sometimes not), and which were thought to be perfectly fine – until they weren’t. With GMOs, this trade-off has taken us to situations like the proliferation of glyphosate-tolerant weeds described in the report, or cases of transgene propagation in nature, something that was claimed could never happen. That same trade-off has also resulted in our failing to recognise global climate change until a very late point.
An alternative view would be one that limited GM techniques to confined areas (with effective levels of confinement, control and information), where scientific research could lead us to a scenario where we know enough about living systems for the "unpredictable and unexpected" effects to stop being so. In these confined areas, the consequences of using a GMO, both good and bad, would affect only those taking the decision to use it (for instance, a patient willing to use insulin produced by a recombinant organism). Meanwhile there are enough alternatives for agriculture to move forward and face the challenges ahead without the need to add the job of continually putting out fires.
Originally Published: GMWatch
By SustainablePulse,
The amount of the herbicide atrazine that’s released into the environment in the United States is likely harming most species of plants and animals, including mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles, according to a risk assessment released Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The EPA assessment of atrazine will lead to tighter regulatory limits on the product, manufactured by Swiss-based Syngenta AG, which will ultimately prevent farmers from being able to use it to control weeds in the U.S..
Atrazine is also well known as a hormone disruptor that has been linked to birth defects and cancer in humans, and contamination of ground-, surface- and drinking-water supplies. About 70 million pounds of atrazine are used in the United States each year.
The second-most widely used pesticide in the United States and already banned in Europe, atrazine was found to cause reproductive harm to mammals and birds in real-world scenarios, with EPA “levels of concern” surpassed nearly 200-fold, according to the new EPA assessment.
Atrazine is present in water levels much higher than are needed to kill frogs and others amphibians, whose populations are currently in steep decline across the United States. Numerous studies have shown that atrazine chemically castrates and feminizes male frogs at concentrations lower than the level allowed in drinking water by the EPA.
“Anyone who cares about wildlife, people and the environment should be deeply troubled by this finding,” said Nathan Donley, a scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “When the government’s own scientists say there’s enough atrazine in streams and rivers right now to kill frogs and other imperiled wildlife, we should be worried. How many animals have to die before we do what Europe did 12 years ago and ban atrazine?”
“When the amount of atrazine allowed in our drinking water is high enough to turn a male tadpole into a female frog, then our regulatory system has failed us,” said Donley. “We’ve reached a point with atrazine where more scientific analysis is just unnecessary — atrazine needs to be banned now.”
The latest findings come as the EPA is in the process of “registration review” of atrazine, a process designed to determine whether the chemical can safely be used in light of new scientific study. The assessment will inform EPA’s decision on whether to allow atrazine to be used for the next 15 years. The last time the agency fully analyzed the threats posed by atrazine was in 2003; no new registration decision has been made so far.
Originally Published: SustainablePulse
By: Sustainable Pulse
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved nearly 100 pesticide products over the past six years that contain mixtures that make them more poisonous and increase the dangers to imperiled pollinators and rare plants, according to an investigation by the Center for Biological Diversity. These “synergistic” combinations have been widely overlooked by the EPA in its approval of pesticides for food, lawns and other uses.
The Center’s new report, Toxic Concoctions: How the EPA Ignores the Dangers of Pesticide Cocktails, involved an intensive search of patent applications for pesticide products containing two or more active ingredients recently approved by the EPA for four major agrochemical companies (Bayer, Dow, Monsanto and Syngenta).
“The EPA is supposed to be the cop on the beat, protecting people and the environment from the dangers of pesticides,” said Nathan Donley, a scientist with the Center and author of the report. “With these synergistic pesticides, the EPA has decided to look the other way, and guess who’s left paying the price?”
Synergy occurs when two or more chemicals interact to enhance their toxic effects. It can turn what would normally be considered a safe level of exposure into one that results in considerable harm. Pesticide mixtures are ubiquitous in the environment and also present in many products for sale on store shelves.
In late 2015, in preparing to defend itself against litigation on the registration of a pesticide product called Enlist Duo, the EPA discovered a new source of information on the product: the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Database, which contained a patent application indicating the two ingredients in this product, glyphosate and 2,4-D, resulted in synergistic toxicity to plants. This discovery ultimately led the agency to ask the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate its approval of Enlist Duo because it had not properly considered the potential adverse effects of this synergy on nontarget plants. It also highlighted a previously unknown source of much-needed mixture toxicity data: patent applications.
For this latest analysis, a Center scientist analyzed the patent database for other pesticide products approved in a similar manner.
Among the key findings in the examination of approvals for the four companies:
“It’s alarming to see just how common it’s been for the EPA to ignore how these chemical mixtures might endanger the health of our environment,” Donley said. “It’s pretty clear that chemical companies knew about these potential dangers, but the EPA never bothered to demand this information from them or dig a little deeper to find it for themselves.”
The EPA can only approve a pesticide if it will not cause unreasonable adverse effects on the environment. When a chemical company develops a new product, in addition to seeking approval for that product from the EPA, it will often apply for patent protection on the mixture. Such an application is typically accompanied by data that demonstrate synergistic toxicity to the organisms that are going to be targeted by the chemicals.
The EPA frequently claims it cannot evaluate potential synergistic impacts because it lacks data. But this report finds that the patent database contains substantial data on synergistic effects that can be used to fill some of the data gaps that exist on mixture toxicity to plants and animals. The fact that the EPA claims it just recently became aware of this data source indicates that pesticide companies are collecting information about the synergistic effects of products for submission to the U.S Patent and Trademark office that they are choosing not to share with the EPA.
“The EPA has turned a blind eye for far too long to the reality that pesticide blends can have dangerous synergistic effects,” said Donley. “Now that we know about all the data that are out there, the EPA must take action to ensure that wildlife and the environment are protected from these chemical cocktails.”
Originally Posted: Sustainable Pulse
By Americans Against Fracking
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board (SAB) today finalized its review of the EPA's June 2015 draft study of fracking's impacts to drinking water resources. For over a year, a panel of 30 scientists, engineers and industry consultants have reviewed the details of the 1,000-page draft report. The panel has taken particular issue with a finding that seemingly came out of left field: the agency's statement that fracking has not led to "widespread systemic impacts" in the U.S.
Tainted water collected from a private drinking water well in PA near a fracking site.
The EPA dismissed fracking's impacts with this line, without any clear, scientific basis of support, and now the EPA SAB has taken the agency to task. The EPA, and independent peer-reviewed studies, have identified many mechanisms of contamination, such as spills, well cementing failures below ground, and complications with waste disposal. For example, the EPA found there was on the order of 15 spills every day somewhere in the U.S., yet chose to dismiss those daily incidents as not a sign of "widespread, systemic" problems.
Affected individuals, public interests groups, and now the independent EPA Science Advisory Board, comprised of the EPA's own scientists, are calling on the EPA to "clarify" and "quantify" the controversial "widespread, systemic" line, or drop the language altogether. The panelists joined affected individuals and various independent experts who submitted comments in taking issue with how the agency ignored three high-profile contamination cases in its study—notably Dimock, Pennsylvania; Parker County, Texas; and Pavillion, Wyoming. The agency's omissions were contentious in part because in each case, the EPA prematurely abandoned investigations. Now, the EPA SAB has recommended that the agency include detailed summaries of these critical cases.
"By choosing politics over science, the EPA failed the public with its misleading and controversial line, dismissing fracking's impacts on drinking water and sacrificing public health and welfare along the way," Hugh MacMillan, senior researcher at Food & Water Watch, said.
"We are calling on the EPA to act quickly on the recommendations from the EPA SAB and be clear about fracking's impacts on drinking water resources. The EPA must prioritize the health and safety of the American people over the political interests of the oil and gas industry and its financiers, who have committed hundreds of billions to drilling and fracking in the coming decades. For climate reasons alone, that's a vision for the future that we can ill-afford."
The release of this final report comes on the heels of a massive March for a Clean Energy Revolution at the Democratic National Convention calling for a nationwide ban on fracking, a March 2016 Gallup poll showing that Americans oppose fracking 51-36 percent, and a July 2016 Johns Hopkins Study showing that fracking is linked to increased asthma attacks in Pennsylvania.
A recent peer-reviewed analysis of the science on unconventional oil and gas extraction, of more than 680 peer-reviewed studies, found that, "The great majority of science contains findings that indicate concerns for public health, air quality and water quality." In October of 2015, a partnership of prominent health organizations encompassing nationwide medical and public health experts and scientists released a Compendium of more than 500 peer-reviewed scientific papers, as well as numerous government reports and findings, demonstrating the risks of fracking to public health, air and water quality, birth and infant health, the environment and climate change.
Originally Posted: ECOWatch
Monsanto just made a massive mistake: One of its weed killers seems to be wiping out valuable crops, too. Oops.
Tom Philpott
Mother Jones, Aug 17, 2016
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/08/monsanto-mistake-dicamba
[links to sources are at the URL above]
A couple of weeks ago, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it had gotten an "unusually high number of reports of crop damage that appear related to misuse of herbicides containing the active ingredient dicamba." Complaints of drooping and often dead crops appeared in no fewer than 10 states, the EPA reports. In Missouri alone, the agency says it has gotten 117 complaints "alleging misuse of pesticide products containing dicamba", affecting more than 42,000 acres of crops, including peaches, tomatoes, cantaloupes, watermelons, rice, peas, peanuts, alfalfa, cotton, and soybeans.
The state's largest peach farm, which lies near soybean-and-cotton country, has suffered massive and potentially permanent damage this year—and suspects dicamba drift as the culprit, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
What gives?
The trouble appears to stem from decisions made by the Missouri-based seed and pesticide giant Monsanto. Back in April, the company bet big on dicamba, announcing a $975 million expansion of its production facility in Luling, Louisiana. The chemical is the reason the company launched its new Roundup Ready Xtend soybean and cotton seeds, genetically engineered to withstand both dicamba and Monsanto's old flagship herbicide, glyphosate (brand name: Roundup). Within a decade, the company wrote, the new GM crops will proliferate from the US Midwest all the way to Brazil and points south, covering as much as 250 million acres of farmland (a combined land mass equal to about two and a half times the acreage of California)—and moving lots of dicamba.
The plan is off to a rough start — which brings us back to those drooping crops in soybean and cotton country. The company elected to release Roundup Ready Xtend soybean and cotton seeds this spring, even though the EPA has not yet signed off on a new herbicide product that combines glyphosate and a new dicamba formulation. That was a momentous decision, because the dicamba products currently on the market are highly volatile — that is, they have a well-documented tendency to vaporize in the air and drift far away from the land they're applied on, killing other crops. Monsanto's new dicamba, tweaked with what the company calls "VaporGrip" technology, is supposedly much less volatile.
The trouble is that farmers have been planting glyphosate-tolerant cotton and soybeans for years, and as a result, are dealing with a mounting tide of weeds that have evolved to resist that ubiquitous weed killer. So they jumped at the new seeds, and evidently began dousing crops with old dicamba formulations as a way to knock out those glyphosate-tolerant weeds. Oops.
For its part, Monsanto says it expects the EPA to approve the new, improved dicamba formulation in time for the 2017 growing season, and that it never expected farmers to use old dicamba formulations on the dicamba-tolerant crops it released this year. If the VaporGrip formulation does indeed control volatization as promised, the drift incidents of 2016 will likely soon just be a painful memory for affected farmers. If not, they portend yet more trouble ahead for the PR-challenged ag giant.
Originally Posted: GMWatch
