Tag: monsanto

Congress Must Reject Monsanto-Bayer Plan to Avoid Liability for Poisoning Humans, Environment

Millions of American users of glyphosate-based Roundup have likely assumed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would never have approved the pesticide unless it was safe.

But the science-based truth has never been as cut and dried as the EPA and Bayer, which bought Roundup maker Monsanto in 2018, have made it sound.

In a series of trials across the country, juries — and the public –— have learned that despite the safety claims by Bayer and the EPA, hundreds of studies by independent scientists link glyphosate herbicides to serious health harms, including cancer.

Even though Bayer maintains that its glyphosate products are safe and not carcinogenic, the company has thus far agreed to pay out more than $10 billion in settlement costs to tens of thousands of glyphosate users suffering from non-Hodgkin lymphoma and thousands of lawsuits remain.

In an effort to block further litigation, the chemical giant has turned its focus to getting federal and state legislation passed to block Roundup users from suing the company for damages.

According to a recent Washington Post article, Bayer helped draft language for a legislative measure that would limit the types of lawsuits brought by Roundup users.

That measure is included in the U.S. House of Representatives version of the 2024 Farm Bill, which is slated to be finalized later this year. The company has also been pushing lawmakers in several states to pass similar measures.

Key to Bayer’s messaging to legislators is that, because glyphosate is EPA-approved, research showing its harms should be rejected. But the process by which the EPA approved glyphosate decades ago has never been reassuring to independent scientists such as myself.

EPA scientists conducting initial assessments of glyphosate in the 1980s discovered several mice dosed with the pesticide developed rare kidney tumors, prompting the scientists to confirm the pesticide’s link to cancer.

Then the EPA’s pesticides office did what it often does: It ignored the troubling research and the recommendation of its own scientists and approved the pesticide without acknowledging its documented link to cancer.

Even the EPA’s subsequent assessments and reapprovals of the pesticide, required every 15 years, have been plagued by questionable science. In 2022 a federal appeals court ruled that the agency’s finding that glyphosate has no link to cancer violated its own cancer guidelines and “was not supported by substantial evidence.”

Now it’s these problematic EPA endorsements that Bayer insists should be the basis for putting limits on the lawsuits glyphosate users can file.

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Genetically Modified Soil Microbes May Have ‘Irreversible Consequences’

A plan by major agrochemical companies to develop genetically engineered (GE) soil microbes, including bacteria and fungi, to act as pesticides and fertilizers is raising concerns about the unknown and potentially disastrous risks associated with the new organisms, according to a report published Tuesday by Friends of the Earth.

Bayer-Monsanto, Syngenta and BASF are among the chemical giants known to be developing the microbes which, according to the report, are fundamentally different from the already controversial genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that have existed for decades.

GE microbes are living organisms that share their genetic material easily with other species and travel vast distances in the wind. And because they are microscopic, their numbers are vast.

“An application of GE bacteria could release approximately 3 trillion genetically modified organisms every half an acre — that’s about how many GE corn plants there are in the entire U.S.,” said Dana Perls, food and technology manager at Friends of the Earth, in a press release.

Introducing GE microbes into agriculture represents an “unprecedented open air genetic experiment,” the report says. “The scale of release is far larger, and the odds of containment are far smaller than for other GE crops.”

Scientists understand the role and function of less than 1 percent of the billions of existing species of microbes or “biologicals.”

Yet the race is on by biotech and agrochemical companies to develop, modify and patent new microbes to capture a share of the biologicals market, which is set to triple in value to $29.31 billion by 2029.

At least two GE microbes, Pivot Bio’s Proven and BASF’s Poncho Votivo seed treatments, are already being used by U.S. farmers on millions of acres of farmland.

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New U.S. Government Research is Finally Admitting that Glyphosate Weed Killer Causes Cancer

If you have already had something to eat today prior to reading this article, chances are very high that you have already ingested glyphosate, the active ingredient in herbicides such as RoundUp, the most widely used agrochemical in the world.

Since I have earned my living for the past two decades by selling clean food, I have been warning the public now for many years about the dangers of these agrochemicals and the contamination of our nation’s commercial food supply.

If you do a search on “glyphosate” at Health Impact News, you will get search result list of over 380 articles that we have published during the past decade.

The advent of genetically modified (GMO) seeds in the late 1990s, particularly corn and soybeans, has allowed the agricultural chemical giants, such as Monsanto, to spray greater quantities of herbicides and pesticides onto the nation’s crops.

In 2014 we began testing commercial grain products to verify that North America’s wheat and grain supply was contaminated by the herbicide glyphosate, even though there are currently no GMO varieties of wheat or other grains.

We found it to be true, due to the practice of “desiccating” crops in the fall with glyphosate in the northern states and Canada to allow the farmers to harvest their wheat before the first snowfall.

Next, we tested our own USDA certified organic grains that we sold in our online store, and were shocked to find out that they were just as contaminated with glyphosate as non-organic grains. 

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Popular weed killer impairs insect immune systems, raising malaria risk

Unexpected new findings from researchers at Johns Hopkins University are indicating the world’s most commonly used herbicide appears to weaken the immune systems of insects. One experiment with mosquitos known to spread malaria suggests the chemical can increase the insect’s susceptibility to parasitic infection, possibly increasing risk of human disease transmission.

Glyphosate is a weed-killer that has been in wide agricultural use since the 1970s. It kills plants by disrupting a crucial metabolic process called the shikimate pathway. The pathway is only present in plants, so for many years glyphosate was thought to be an ideal herbicide – harmless to everything but plants.

Over recent years, however, concerns have been raised over the chemical’s effect on the surrounding environment and humans. Austria and Vietnam were two of the first countries to outright ban the herbicide, while several others are undergoing a staged phase-out of its use over the coming years.

The effects of glyphosate on insects is still a source of much debate. Studies have found the herbicide can disrupt gut bacteria in insects, and this can lead to behavioral or physiological changes. A new study is suggesting glyphosate could impair immunity in insects, and this may lead to damaging consequences for human health.

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Roundup causes high levels of mortality following contact exposure in bumble bees

Our results are the first to show that contact exposure to either consumer or agricultural Roundup® products at label recommended concentrations can cause high levels of mortality in bumble bees. The consumer product Roundup® Ready‐To‐Use caused 94% mortality at the pre‐mixed concentration, and still caused significant mortality at a quarter strength. The agricultural product Roundup® ProActive also caused significant mortality, although over a longer time period. Interestingly, Roundup® No Glyphosate caused 96% mortality while the generic GBH Weedol® did not significantly increase mortality. Together, this demonstrates that the co‐formulants in these Roundup® products, not the active ingredient glyphosate, are driving mortality. We suggest that the mechanism driving this mortality may be surfactants in the formulations blocking the tracheal system of the bees, which is essential for gas exchange. Given the hazard demonstrated here with all tested Roundup® products, and the extensive exposure of bees to such GBHs world‐wide, GBHs may pose a high risk to bees, and thus may be an as yet unidentified driver of the bee declines that are occurring around the globe.

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