I have no doubt that back in the day and that means early 60's that Monsanto ran an independent study on the toxicity of roundup. I am equally sure that the results were appalling but they took plenty of time to develop as has proven out. And just who is counting dead farmboys?
I am also sure we will never see that report as i am sure it has been destroyed. What was not destroyed was the leaderships's knowledge and that they had to prevent and discredit any such research. They still made one mistake. They chose to lawyer up when they prepared the labels which you would never do if you were confident regarding safety.
That is what tipped my father back in the day. You must admit that is a pretty high bar for protecting yourself.
Yet it is substantially worse than any imagined. Problem is we have no readily available system to replace it properly. And they have used it to anchor a take down of the GMOs as well. Both it and DDT need to be biologically available but is severely restricted protocols that include long five year rests at least....
The Monsanto Papers – Secret Tactics and Corrupted Science
October 26th, 2018
https://wakeup-world.com/2018/10/26/the-monsanto-papers-secret-tactics-and-corrupted-science/?
Known as “the Monsanto
papers”, the evidence presented in legal cases against Monsanto includes
email correspondence and corporate documents that create a
comprehensive narrative of the corporation’s malfeasance and collusion
with U.S. regulatory agencies.
The Australian documentary, “The Monsanto Papers” (featured below), reveals the secret tactics used by global chemical giant Monsanto (now owned by Bayer AG1,2), to protect its bestselling herbicide, Roundup.
The film starts out with a quick history
of Roundup and how its now-clearly absurd safety claims (such as “it’s
biodegradable,” “safe enough to drink,” and “safer than table salt”)
made it into the worlds’ most widely used weed killer, used by farmers
and private gardeners alike. Indeed, it was at one time known as “the
world’s most trusted herbicide,” but those days are now long gone.
Between 1974 — the year glyphosate
entered the U.S. market — and 2014, glyphosate use increased more than
250 fold in the United States. Today, an estimated 300 million pounds
are applied on U.S. farmland annually, and globally, nearly 5 billion
pounds (over 2 billion kilograms) of glyphosate are applied to some 70
types of farm crops each year.3
Roundup Is Far From Harmless
Mounting evidence suggests Roundup is
far from harmless, and evidence unearthed during legal discovery shows
Monsanto has been well aware of its product’s toxic nature, and has been
covering it up.
As previously discussed in many
articles, glyphosate and glyphosate-based weed killer formulations such
as Roundup have in recent years been linked to a wide variety of human
health consequences, including:
- Impairing your body’s ability to produce fully functioning proteins5
- Inhibiting the shikimate pathway (found in gut bacteria)
- Interfering with the function of cytochrome P450 enzymes, required for activation of vitamin D and the creation of nitric oxide
- Chelating important minerals6′
- Disrupting sulfate synthesis and transport7
- Interfering with the synthesis of aromatic amino acids and methionine, resulting in folate and neurotransmitter shortages8
- Disrupting your microbiome by acting as an antibiotic9
- Impairing methylation pathways10
- Inhibiting pituitary release of thyroid stimulating hormone, which can lead to hypothyroidism11,12
Monsanto Papers Reveal Company’s Efforts to Squash Evidence of Carcinogenicity
August 10, 2018, a jury ruled in favor of plaintiff Dewayne Johnson13,14,15,16,17 in a truly historic case against Monsanto. Johnson — the first of 9,000 pending legal cases — claimed Monsanto’s Roundup caused his Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Forty-six-year-old Johnson sprayed about
150 gallons of Roundup 20 to 40 times per year while working as a
groundskeeper for the Benicia school district in California, from 2012
through late 2015.18His lawsuit, filed in 2016 after he became too ill to work, accused Monsanto of hiding the health hazards of Roundup.
According to the ruling, Monsanto “acted
with malice or oppression” and was responsible for “negligent failure”
by not warning consumers about the carcinogenicity of this pernicious
weed killer. His court case, presided by Superior Court Judge Suzanne
Ramos Bolanos, began June 18, 2018, and ended August 10 with a ruling in
his favor.19
The jury ordered Monsanto to pay $289
million in damages to Johnson — an amount that effectively wipes out
Monsanto’s reserve fund for environmental and litigation liability
which, according to Bloomberg,20 totaled $277 million as of August 2018.
The evidence presented to the jury,
including email correspondence and corporate documents, create a
comprehensive narrative of corporate malfeasance and collusion with U.S.
regulatory agencies, and it was this evidence that ultimately led to
Johnson being awarded a quarter of a billion dollars in damages.
You can review many of these “Monsanto Papers“ on the U.S. Right to Know website.21 To learn more you can also read “Spinning Science & Silencing Scientists: A Case Study in How the Chemical Industry Attempts to Influence Science,”22 a minority staff report dated February 2018, prepared for U.S. House members of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology.
In “The Monsanto Papers: Poisoning the Scientific Well,”23 a
paper published in The International Journal of Risk & Safety in
Medicine, June 2018, Leemon McHenry describes the importance of this
cache of documents:
“The documents reveal Monsanto-sponsored ghostwriting of articles published in toxicology journals and the lay media, interference in the peer review process, behind-the-scenes influence on retraction and the creation of a so-called academic website as a front for the defense of Monsanto products …
The use of third-party academics in the corporate defense of glyphosate reveals that this practice extends beyond the corruption of medicine and persists in spite of efforts to enforce transparency in industry manipulation.”
The Monsanto Papers Documentary
What About the 800 Studies Showing Glyphosate Is Safe?
Following Johnson’s verdict, Monsanto
vice president Scott Partridge released a statement saying “more than
800 scientific studies and reviews support the fact that glyphosate does
not cause cancer.”
However, as noted by Brent Wisner, lead
trial counsel for Johnson and thousands of other plaintiffs, those 800
studies did not address carcinogenicity at all.24 Rather,
they were studies looking at safety issues such as whether the chemical
causes eye irritation or skin rashes and other random effects.
Only 13 animal studies and half a dozen
epidemiological studies have looked at the chemical’s carcinogenic
potential, and the vast majority of those studies actually show a
correlation between glyphosate — the active ingredient in Roundup — and
cancer. They show it causes tumors in mice, and that it causes
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma and genetic damage in humans.
It was evidence such as this that in
2015 led the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) — the
cancer research arm of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the “gold
standard” in carcinogenicity research — to classify glyphosate as a
“probable human carcinogen.”25,26
In response, Monsanto launched an
all-out attack on IARC and its researchers, and even lobbied to strip
IARC of its U.S. funding. The American Chemistry Council, of which
Monsanto is a member, also formed a front group called Campaign for
Accuracy in Public Health Research,27 for
the express purpose of discrediting the IARC and seeking to reform the
IARC Monographs Program, which evaluates and determines the
carcinogenicity of chemicals.28
Monsanto has also fought California’s
Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard
Assessment in court,29 trying to prevent the agency from adding glyphosate to its list of chemicals known to cause cancer.
Under California’s Proposition 65, all
such chemicals must bear a warning label informing consumers of the
potential risks. So far, the company’s attempts have all failed, and
glyphosate-containing products will indeed be required to carry a cancer
warning when sold in California.
Corrupted Science
The film also talks to Carey Gillam, a veteran investigative journalist and author of “Whitewash — The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer and the Corruption of Science“,
who has previously gone on record about how Monsanto tried to discredit
her for writing critical pieces about the company and its toxic
products.30
As noted by Gillam, scientific
corruption is widespread, and few of those 800 studies that Monsanto
clings to are in fact done by unbiased and independent researchers.
Doubts about the science actually arose as early as the 1970s, when
Monsanto hired a company called Industrial Biotech Laboratories to
conduct some of the safety research required for approval in the U.S.
The lab got caught up in a fraud scandal
as it was discovered the researchers had doctored much of the data.
After an investigation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
declared the study results invalid. A study done in the mid-1980s
subsequently led the EPA to classify glyphosate as “possibly
carcinogenic to humans,” but Monsanto refused to accept the findings.
After nearly a decade of strife, the EPA
decided to go against the findings of its own toxicologists and
declared glyphosate was not likely to be a human carcinogen. However,
several EPA scientists refused to sign that final report. Kraven
Laboratories, another lab hired by Monsanto to conduct its research, was
also caught falsifying test results, not only for Roundup but also for
other pesticides. Fifteen Kraven Lab employees were either fined or
imprisoned as a result.
Monsanto has long argued it was a victim
of fraud and had to spend large sums of money to redo the falsified
studies. However, according to Gillam, it’s extremely difficult to
ascertain which of those studies have in fact been redone, and which
studies our regulatory agencies have relied on. The film also reviews
how Monsanto pushed Roundup using false advertising that grossly
overstated its safety.
Monsanto Never Did Necessary Cancer Testing
The Monsanto Papers reveal the company’s
own employees were concerned about (and helped cover up) Roundup’s
potential risks for decades. For example, in a 2003 email, Monsanto lead
toxicologist Donna Farmer, Ph.D., writes, “You cannot say that Roundup
is not a carcinogen… we have not done the necessary testing on the
formulation to make that statement.”
In 2014, when Monsanto learned IARC was
planning to investigate glyphosate’s carcinogenic potential, Farmer
wrote, “… what we have long been concerned about has happened.
Glyphosate is on for an IARC review…” Internal documents also reveal how
Monsanto orchestrated the campaign to discredit IARC’s findings ahead
of time.
As noted in the film, if Monsanto was so
sure about the safety of its product, why would it preplan a campaign
to discredit the IARC’s findings before the scientific review was even
completed? In response, Partridge claims the company was simply
preparing to educate the public about the truth, as it knew glyphosate
“would be besmirched” by inaccurate conclusions.
IARC scientists disagree, saying they
were merely following well-established toxicology procedures; they
looked at the evidence, and came to a conclusion that fit the evidence
at hand. One of the tactics used to counter IARC’s findings was to
publish a ghostwritten review that supported glyphosate’s safety.
To this end, Monsanto convened a “panel
of independent experts” and tasked them with reviewing the data and
publishing an analysis of the evidence. However, email correspondence
reveals William Heyden, safety lead for Monsanto, actively wrote and
edited the review himself. All of this evidence was shown during
Johnson’s jury trial, and these outright lies are ultimately what
prompted the jury to award such extensive punitive damages.
How Monsanto Derailed EPA Action Following IARC’s Ruling
Part of Monsanto’s defense of glyphosate
still hinges on the EPA’s ruling that the chemical is “not likely to be
carcinogenic” to humans,31 but
evidence reveals Monsanto had a strong hand in shaping the EPA’s views
as well. Following strong criticism, the EPA convened a scientific
advisory panel to reanalyze the scientific evidence and evaluate the
strength of its decision that glyphosate is an unlikely carcinogen.
A four-day-long panel meeting was held
in December, 2016, and right from the start, some of the experts
expressed concerns about the quality of the EPA’s analysis.32 Some
said the agency had violated its own guidelines by discounting data
showing a positive association between glyphosate and cancer, while
others questioned exclusion of data showing statistical significance.
Pointed questions were also raised about
the chemical industry’s influence over regulators. As a general rule,
peer-reviewed, published research, especially by independent scientists,
tend to carry more merit than unpublished industry research.
But as discussed in the film, CropLife
America, which represents Monsanto and other agribusinesses, demanded
the EPA remove nationally recognized epidemiologist Peter Infante,
Ph.D., from the scientific advisory panel, claiming he was incapable of
impartiality because he would give more weight to independent research
than industry studies.
The EPA complied, booting Infante off
the panel. He still made an appearance at the meeting, though, and in
his testimony, Infante urged the advisory panel not to ignore
“impressive evidence” linking glyphosate to Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. In the
film, Infante says he agrees with the IARC review, which found evidence
of carcinogenicity, but denies anti-industry bias.
How Monsanto Killed Safety Assessment by US Health Department
The film also discusses email
correspondence showing an EPA official colluded with Monsanto to prevent
the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), which is
part of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, from conducting
an investigation into glyphosate.
The EPA official in question was Jess
Rowland, a key author of the EPA’s report that found glyphosate was
unlikely to be carcinogenic to humans.33 At the time, Rowland was the associate director of the EPA’s Pesticide Health Effects Division.34 Email
correspondence between EPA toxicologist Marion Copley and Rowland
suggests Rowland may in fact have colluded with Monsanto to find
glyphosate noncarcinogenic in the first place.35,36
In one email Copley cites evidence
showing glyphosate is toxic to animals, adding “It is essentially
certain that glyphosate causes cancer.” She directly accuses Rowland of
playing “political conniving games with the science” to help Monsanto
and other pesticide manufacturers. There’s also evidence showing Rowland
warned Monsanto of the IARC’s determination months before it was made
public,37which gave the company time to plan its attack on the IARC.
As for the ATSDR investigation, Monsanto
regulatory affairs manager Dan Jenkins recounts a conversation he’d had
with Rowland in an email, in which Rowland said, “If I can kill this I
should get a medal,”38,39 referring
to the ATSDR investigation. Jenkins also wrote, “I doubt EPA and Jess
can kill this, but it’s nice to know they’re going to actually make the
effort.”
As it turns out, his pessimism was
unwarranted. Another Monsanto memorandum notes the ATSDR “agreed, for
now, to take direction from EPA,” showing Rowland did in fact succeed in
his mission to thwart the ATSDR’s investigation of glyphosate.
By colluding with Monsanto to declare
glyphosate safe and stopping toxicology evaluations by other federal
offices, the EPA has used taxpayers’ money to hide the truth about a
dangerous toxin and prevent consumers harmed by the chemical from being
able to effectively prove their case in court. But despite such
collusion, Johnson was able to make his case against Monsanto, and he’s
not the only one. Another 9,000 plaintiffs are waiting for their day in
court.
Monsanto’s Toxic Legacy Remains
While the Monsanto name has been
retired, its toxic legacy will remain for decades to come. As noted by
Johnson’s attorney, Brent Wisner, nearly all chemicals produced over the
past 100 years that have been shown to be extraordinarily toxic can be
traced back to Monsanto, including DDT, PCBs, dioxins, Agent Orange and
now glyphosate. He explains:
“Monsanto effectively made a business out of poisoning people, and getting away with it.
“For the last 20 or 30 years, Monsanto has engaged in a systematic and deliberate campaign to attack any science that says their product is not safe, and to attack any scientist that has the courage to say something. They have a corporate culture that has zero interest in safety. It has only an interest in maintaining the ability of them to sell this product.”
Sources and References:
- 1 Fortune April 10, 2018
- 2 Justice.gov May 29, 2018
- 3 Healing Earth, Why Glyphosate Is So Bad — Dr. Zach Bush
- 4 The Lancet Oncology March 20, 2015
- 5 Interdisciplinary Toxicology December 6, 2013
- 6, 8 Surgical Eurology International 2015
- 7, 11 Entropy 2013, 15(4), 1416-1463
- 9 Environmental Health 2018
- 10 Food and Chemical Toxicology July 2017
- 12 Glyphosate Pretending to Be Glycine: Devastating Consequences, Stephanie Seneff
- 13 The Guardian August 11, 2018
- 14 Food Politics August 13, 2018
- 15 Democracy Now! August 14, 2018
- 16 Rising Up August 13, 2018
- 17 Sierra August 16, 2018
- 18 Eco Watch June 19, 2018
- 19 Organic Authority June 20, 2018
- 20 Bloomberg June 18, 2018
- 21 USRTK The Monsanto Papers
- 22 Spinning Science & Silencing Scientists: A Case Study in How the Chemical Industry Attempts to Influence Science (PDF)
- 23 The International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine, June 2018
- 24 The Highwire, Interview with Brent Wisner
- 25 The Lancet Oncology March 20, 2015
- 26 Institute of Science in Society March 24, 2015
- 27 Campaign for Accuracy in Public Health Research
- 28 Huffington Post January 31, 2017
- 29 Sustainable Pulse August 17, 2018
- 30 USRTK Twitter August 15, 2018
- 31, 33 EPA.gov, September 12, 2016, Glyphosate Issue Paper, Evaluation of Carcinogenic Potential (PDF)
- 32 Huffington Post December 16, 2016
- 34 US District Court, Case No. 16-md-02741-VC, Plaintiff’s motion to compel the deposition of Jess Rowland
- 35 Huffington Post February 13, 2017
- 36, 37 New York Times March 14, 2017
- 38 Bloomberg March 14, 2017
- 39 88.9 WEKU March 15, 2017
No comments:
Post a Comment