Unsealed Documents Raise Questions on Monsanto Weed Killer
Last edited Wed Mar 15, 2017, 09:48 AM - Edit history (1)
Source: NY Times
The reputation of Roundup, whose active ingredient is the worlds most widely used weed killer, took a hit on Tuesday when a federal court unsealed documents raising questions about its safety and the research practices of its manufacturer, the chemical giant Monsanto.
Roundup and similar products are used around the world on everything from row crops to home gardens. It is Monsantos flagship product, and industry-funded research has long found it to be relatively safe. A case in federal court in San Francisco has challenged that conclusion, building on the findings of an international panel that claimed Roundups main ingredient might cause cancer.
The court documents included Monsantos internal emails and email traffic between the company and federal regulators. The records suggested that Monsanto had ghostwritten research that was later attributed to academics and indicated that a senior official at the Environmental Protection Agency had worked to quash a review of Roundups main ingredient, glyphosate, that was to have been conducted by the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
The documents also revealed that there was some disagreement within the E.P.A. over its own safety assessment.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/business/monsanto-roundup-safety-lawsuit.html?_r=0
Gee, if this is the EPA before the coming budget cuts......
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)March 11, 2017
FRESNO, Calif.. March 11, 2017 A court has ruled that the state of California can move forward with plans to designate glyphosate the main ingredient in Monsantos widely used herbicide Roundup as a known carcinogen.
The Friday decision, which finalizes a preliminary ruling, sets the stage for the California Environmental Protection Agency to be the first regulatory body in the United States to recognize glyphosate as a carcinogen...
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2017/03/13/18797380.php
Orrex
(63,207 posts)The famed Proposition 65 List names a wide range of "known" carcinogens, including nitrous oxide, wood dust, ethanol in alcoholic beverages, chloroform, testosterone and the ever-terrifying progesterone.
The inclusion of a substance on that famous list does not, in itself, mean that the substance is hazardous in any particular dosage. Certainly the list includes a number of obviously toxic substances, but it's a broad spectrum requiring us to assess each entry individually.
On edit: (That link is a TinyURL because I couldn't get the direct wiki link to format correctly)
woundedkarma
(498 posts)Can someone please fix that?
Direct link without the ads...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/business/monsanto-roundup-safety-lawsuit.html
burfman
(264 posts)My original link was not to an ad, I don't know what happened, but I changed the link in the original article.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/business/monsanto-roundup-safety-lawsuit.html?_r=0
sinkingfeeling
(51,448 posts)the poisoning of wildlife.
fleur-de-lisa
(14,624 posts)not fooled
(5,801 posts)The next DDT
(in terms of gradually being revealed as not innocuous, despite long-term industry-driven propaganda to the contrary, and then eventually removed from the market).
Monsanto is raking in the profits for now. And, undoubtedly, calculating the small % they will need to pay back as legal settlements after the negative consequences of drenching the planet in this stuff become apparent.