Euros Cave to Big Ag
The full force of the United States has been thrown behind the effort to force our destructive agricultural model on the world, in the name of “free trade”.
The European Chemicals Agency on Wednesday said glyphosate, the key chemical in Monsanto Co.’s flagship herbicide, doesn’t cause cancer, but the agricultural giant is facing new questions in the U.S. over the safety of the weedkiller.
Emails among company employees, released this week as part of a continuing lawsuit over the herbicide, reflect what the plaintiffs’ attorneys say was the company’s inappropriate role in shaping research and a cozy relationship with regulators at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Monsanto argues the emails were taken out of context.
Glyphosate, which Monsanto invented and has marketed since 1974 under the Roundup brand, is the world’s most widely used herbicide. Its use proliferated with the advent of corn and soybeans genetically engineered to survive the spray. It has been deployed to destroy everything from illegal coca crops in Colombia to weeds sprouting among railroad tracks. Monsanto generated $3.5 billion in sales last year from its agricultural-productivity division, which largely reflects its Roundup business.
Scrutiny of glyphosate has grown since 2015, when the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organization, said glyphosate likely can cause cancer in humans. That finding ran counter to earlier conclusions by the EPA and other chemical regulators, and was rejected by Monsanto and agriculture groups.
On Wednesday, Monsanto said the European Chemicals Agency’s finding matched the view of every other chemical regulatory body world-wide.
Monsanto’s internal emails were released as part of a case, brought in a federal court in California by a group of farmers and farm workers, that alleges that Monsanto failed to warn of glyphosate’s alleged cancer risks. In one email chain, a Monsanto employee related how a senior EPA official told Monsanto how he wanted to block a planned glyphosate review by another government agency
EPA representatives didn’t comment immediately.
Other emails include a 2015 message from William Heydens, a senior Monsanto regulatory scientist, who suggested to colleagues that “we ghost-write” sections of a potential study on glyphosate. He suggested a 2000 study had been handled similarly. Lawyers pursuing the case against Monsanto argue that the communications prove the company’s “deceptive authorship practice” for scientific reviews.
Monsanto denied that its scientists secretly wrote review papers. In court testimony released by Monsanto, Mr. Heydens said he made “minor editorial contributions to that 2000 paper that do not mount to the level of a substantial contribution or an intellectual contribution.” Monsanto said he was recognized in the paper’s acknowledgments, rather than as an author.
“These were unfortunate words, but this is not substantive,” said Scott Partridge, Monsanto’s vice president of global strategy. He said Monsanto would continue to fight the case.
In a separate case spurred by the IARC classification, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, which evaluates hazardous substances, moved to list glyphosate among chemicals known to cause cancer and require a warning label on jugs containing the chemical.
Monsanto contested that move in state court, but suffered a setback on Friday when a judge dismissed Monsanto’s case.
A company spokeswoman said Monsanto plans to appeal.
“The allegation that glyphosate can cause cancer in humans is inconsistent with decades of comprehensive safety reviews by the leading regulatory authorities around the world,” a Monsanto spokeswoman said.