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Over 1 Million Call On DOJ To Block Bayer-Monsanto Merger

(NaturalBlaze) WASHINGTON – Over 1 million petition signatures were delivered today by farming, consumer and environmental groups to the U.S. Department of Justice calling on the department to block the proposed merger of Bayer (BAYN) and Monsanto (MON). The signatures were delivered as two new reports revealed irreversible impacts from the merger on consumers and farmers.

Tuesday, Friends of the Earth, SumOfUs and the Open Markets Institute released an analysis, “Bayer-Monsanto Merger: Big Data, Big Agriculture, Big Problems“, which explores the implications of a combined Big Data, chemical and seed platform owned by Bayer and Monsanto and how it may impact competition and farmer choice. The release of the analysis coincides with a hearing Tuesday on technology in agriculture and data-driven farming in the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation.

Consumer Federation of America released a report today, “Mega-Mergers in the U.S. Seed and Agrochemical Sector the Political Economy of Tight Oligopolies on Steroids and the Squeeze on Farmers and Consumers.” The report uses the concept of a “tight oligopoly on steroids” to examine how the unique characteristics of the Bayer-Monsanto merger magnify their market power in the seed/agrochemical sector and squeeze farmers and consumers.

On Tuesday, at the National Press Club, a panel of experts discussed the findings of these reports and explored the latest research indicating irreversible impacts from the merger to consumers, farmers and competition in the face of record-low commodity prices and struggles in rural America.

“The opportunity for every farmer, every business and every entrepreneur to have a fair shot at an open and just market is the core principle that built America and its people’s prosperity,” said Joe Maxwell, executive director of Organization for Competitive Markets. “Our government’s unwillingness to enforce our anti-monopoly laws and allow these mega-mergers to go forward is threatening our very democracy.”

Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science

“Bayer and Monsanto’s toxic mega-merger is a danger to our planet and everyone living on it,” said Erich Pica, president with Friends of the Earth. “Over 1 million Americans have called on the Department of Justice to protect our farmers and families from the consolidation of corporate power. Bayer and Monsanto’s merger is a direct threat to the future of people and our environment. The Justice Department must put on the breaks and stop this merger.”

“A merger between Bayer and Monsanto is a five-alarm threat to our food supply and to farmers around the world,” explained Angus Wong, Campaign Manager with SumOfUs. “This new mega corporation would be the world’s biggest seed maker and pesticide company, defying important antitrust protections, giving it unacceptable control over critical aspects of our food supply – undermining consumer choice and the freedom and stability of farmers worldwide.”

High Noon In Arkansas As They Stand Up Against Monsanto

A dried up dead plant in the middle of winter

(Natural Blaze by Heather Callaghan) If we don’t get a handle on it, our natural environment will not be the same. – Beekeeper, Richard Coy

Farmers across the Midwest are being divided – neighbor against neighbor as the dicamba crisis continues to mushroom.

Dicamba is an old herbicide, but it’s only recently that it’s been used on crops like soy and cotton thanks to biotech companies developing new genetically engineered crops able to withstand it. This year is the first that it has been legal to use dicamba during the summer, and this is the problem…

The pesticide drift travels far and is shriveling up non-GMO crops like soy, cotton, cucumbers, melons and wild vegetation. Sadly, the drift is destroying weeds and vines and that subsequently cuts supplies for bees to make honey. One Arkansas farmer saw his honey production drop to only 30-50 percent with the introduction of dicamba approval this year.

While ten states are currently affected by crop damage from drift (and 17 states are investigating), Arkansas has over 1,000 cases of crop damage. Millions of American acres are suspected to be damage by the vaporization of dicamba.

NPR reports:

The Arkansas State Plant Board now has taken the lead in cracking down on the problem. [Last] Thursday, it voted unanimously to ban the use of dicamba on the state’s crops from mid-April until November. This amounts to a ban on the use of dicamba in combination with Monsanto’s genetically engineered crops. It’s not a final decision: The governor and a group of legislative leaders have to sign off on the Plant Board’s regulatory decisions, but they usually do so. That won’t happen, however, until after a public hearing set for Nov. 8.

The board also approved a steep increase in fines — up to $25,000 — for farmers who use dicamba and similar herbicides illegally.

Monsanto insists that its version of dicamba, which the company has mixed with an additive that’s supposed to make it less volatile, does not drift from the fields where it is sprayed if farmers use it correctly. The company sent a delegation of five people, including Ty Vaughn, a top executive, to this week’s meeting of the Plant Board. They passed out binders and thumb drives filled with data from the company’s own tests — tests that convinced the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to approve the chemical on crops.

Monsanto has been fond of passing the buck of accountability to farmers and blaming them for misuse or not getting the “learning curve.” The problem is – how many times can a company do this before people realize that it’s the product? Despite Monsanto’s tired old lines, field tests conducted by University of Arkansas this summer showed that even new formulations of dicamba (also made by BASF) do indeed vaporize and travel to other land.

(To be fair, there were some farmers that used dicamba illegally last year, which even led to a murder case. But we aren’t talking about willful misuse.)

Poison Spring: The Secret History of Pollution and the EPA

Monsanto has a lot riding on their product working – they already sold enough dicamba-tolerant soybeans to cover 20 million acres this year. They expect that number to rise and the monolithic company has raised eyebrows that this whole thing – scandal included – was a ruse to get farmers to flock to the new dicamba-resistant GM crops in order to be “saved.” It is still anyone’s guess if Monsanto expected this much backlash – enough for states to outright ban an entire pesticide…

Still, Monsanto is defiant about the board’s vote and there’s talk of the corporation suing the state, showing what lengths they will go to once they grapple their roots into paying farmers.

The American Council on Science and Health is a Corporate Front Group

(U.S. Right to Know) The American Council on Science and Health is a front group for the tobacco, agrichemical, fossil fuel, pharmaceutical and other industries.

A leaked ACSH financial summary, released in 2013 by Mother Jones, revealed that the American Council on Science and Health receives funding from a large number of corporations and industry groups with a financial stake in the messaging ACSH promotes. The internal document further revealed that ACSH solicits corporate donations for specific product-defense science messaging campaigns. For example, the document outlines:

plans to pitch the Vinyl Institute which “previously supported chlorine and health report”;
plans to pitch food companies for a messaging campaign to oppose GMO labeling, and cosmetic companies to counter “reformulation pressures”; and
efforts to court tobacco and electronic cigarette (e-cig) companies.

Personnel

ACSH’s longtime “Medical/Executive Director” was Dr. Gilbert Ross.[2] In 1993, according to United Press International, Dr. Ross was “convicted of racketeering, mail fraud and conspiracy,” and was “sentenced to 47 months in jail, $40,000 in forfeiture and restitution of $612,855” in a scheme to defraud the Medicaid system.[3]

ACSH’s Dr. Ross was found to be a “highly untrustworthy individual” by a judge who sustained the exclusion of Dr. Ross from Medicaid for ten years.[4]

Hank Campbell took over ACSH leadership from convicted felon Dr. Gil Ross in June 2015. Campbell is a former software developer who started the website Science 2.0 in 2006. In his book, “Science Left Behind: Feel Good Fallacies and the Rise of the Anti Science Left” (2012), Campbell describes his background: “six years ago… I decided I wanted to write science on the Internet” and, “Six years ago, with nothing but enthusiasm and a concept, I approached world famous people about helping me reshape how science could be done, and they did it for free.”

Funding

ACSH has often billed itself as an “independent” group, and has been referred to as “independent” in the press. However, according to the internal ACSH financial documents obtained by Mother Jones:

“ACSH planned to receive a total of $338,200 from tobacco companies between July 2012 and June 2013. Reynolds American and Phillip Morris International were each listed as expected to give $100,000 in 2013, which would make them the two largest individual donations listed in the ACSH documents.”[5]

“ACSH donors in the second half of 2012 included Chevron ($18,500), Coca-Cola ($50,000), the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation ($15,000), Dr. Pepper/Snapple ($5,000), Bayer Cropscience ($30,000), Procter and Gamble ($6,000), agribusiness giant Syngenta ($22,500), 3M ($30,000), McDonald’s ($30,000), and tobacco conglomerate Altria ($25,000). Among the corporations and foundations that ACSH has pursued for financial support since July 2012 are Pepsi, Monsanto, British American Tobacco, DowAgro, ExxonMobil Foundation, Philip Morris International, Reynolds American, the Koch family-controlled Claude R. Lambe Foundation, the Dow-linked Gerstacker Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, and the Searle Freedom Trust.”[6]

ACSH has received $155,000 in contributions from Koch foundations from 2005-2011, according to Greenpeace.[7]

ACSH features prominently in a July 11, 2017 article in the Progressive by Paul Thacker detailing the chemical industry’s PR campaign to spin journalists on GMOs and discredit environmental health concerns. Although Monsanto denied funding other groups, Thacker reported, “Monsanto ignored repeated questions about their financial support for the American Council on Science and Health.” ACSH Director Hank Campbell responded with this comment about his corporate funding, “I don’t care. If a large food corporation, like Whole Foods, or a smaller one, like Monsanto, wants to buy an ad here, they can. We will cash that check.”

Ties to Monsanto

A 2017 Le Monde investigation into Monsanto’s “war on science” describes the American Council on Science and Health as a key player in Monsanto’s communication and lobbying network.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys suing Monsanto over glyphosate cancer concerns stated in a May 2017 brief that:

“Monsanto quietly funnels money to ‘think tanks’ such as the “Genetic Literacy Project” and the “American Council on Science and Health,” organizations intended to shame scientists and highlight information helpful to Monsanto and other chemical producers.

According to emails obtained by US Right to Know, Monsanto tapped ACSH to publish a series of pro-GMO papers written by professors and assigned by Monsanto.

In an August 2013 email, Monsanto executive Eric Sachs wrote to the professors: “To ensure that the papers have the greatest impact, the American Council for Science and Health is partnering with CMA Consulting to drive the project. The completed policy briefs will be offered on the ACSH website … CMA and ACSH also will merchandize the policy briefs, including the development of media specific materials, such as op-eds, blog postings, speaking engagements, events, webinars, etc.” The papers were eventually published and merchandized by Jon Entine’s Genetic Literacy Project.

Ties to Syngenta

In 2011, ACSH published the book “Scared to Death: How Chemophobia Threatens Public Health,” by Jon Entine, a longtime PR messenger for chemical industry interests. Entine’s book defends atrazine, a pesticide manufactured by Syngenta, which was funding ACSH.

A 2012 Mother Jones article about Entine describes the circumstances leading up to the publication of the book. The article, by Tom Philpott, is based in part on internal company documents, obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy, describing Syngenta’s PR efforts to get third-party allies to spin media coverage of atrazine.

In one email from 2009, ACSH staff asked Syngenta for an additional $100,000 – “separate and distinct from general operating support Syngenta has been so generously providing over the years” – to produce an atrazine-friendly paper and “consumer-friendly booklet” to help educate media and scientists.

A year and a half later, ACSH published Entine’s book with this release:

“The American Council on Science and Health is pleased to announce a new book and companion friendly, abbreviated position paper … authored by Jon Entine, a scholar with the American Enterprise Institute and highly regarded science journalist … ACSH compiled this resource book and position to educate legislators, industry, media, consumers and parents on the actual risks of chemical exposure and use in everyday products.”

Entine denied any relationship with Syngenta and told Philpott he had “no idea” Syngenta was funding ACSH.

Indefensible and incorrect statements on science

ACSH has:

Claimed that “There is no evidence that exposure to secondhand smoke involves heart attacks or cardiac arrest.”[8]

Argued that “there is no scientific consensus concerning global warming. The climate change predictions are based on computer models that have not been validated and are far from perfect.”[9]

Argued that fracking “doesn’t pollute water or air.”[10]

Claimed that “The scientific evidence is clear. There has never been a case of ill health linked to the regulated, approved use of pesticides in this country.”[11]

Declared that “There is no evidence that BPA [bisphenol A] in consumer products of any type, including cash register receipts, are harmful to health.”[12]

Argued that the exposure to mercury, a potent neurotoxin, “in conventional seafood causes no harm in humans.”[13]

ACSH in the Media

February 2017 letter to USA Today: Thirty health, environmental, labor and public interest groups wrote to the editors of USA Today expressing concerns that the paper is publishing science columns by members of the American Council on Science and Health without identifying them as a corporate front group. The editors have so far declined to stop publishing the column or provide accurate disclosures about ACSH’s ties to corporations.

Sources:

[2] “Meet the ACSH Team,” American Council on Science and Health website.

[3] “Seven Sentenced for Medicaid Fraud.” United Press International, December 6, 1993. See also correspondence from Tyrone T. Butler, Director, Bureau of Adjudication, State of New York Department of Health to Claudia Morales Bloch, Gilbert Ross and Vivian Shevitz, “RE: In the Matter of Gilbert Ross, M.D.” March 1, 1995. Bill Hogan, “Paging Dr. Ross.” Mother Jones, November 2005. Martin Donohoe MD FACP, “Corporate Front Groups and the Abuse of Science: The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH).” Spinwatch, June 25, 2010.

[4] Department of Health and Human Services, Departmental Appeals Board, Civil Remedies Division, In the Cases of Gilbert Ross, M.D. and Deborah Williams M.D., Petitioners, v. The Inspector General. June 16, 1997. Docket Nos. C-94-368 and C-94-369. Decision No. CR478.

[5] Andy Kroll and Jeremy Schulman, “Leaked Documents Reveal the Secret Finances of a Pro-Industry Science Group.” Mother Jones, October 28, 2013. “American Council on Science and Health Financial Report, FY 2013 Financial Update.” Mother Jones, October 28, 2013.

[6] Andy Kroll and Jeremy Schulman, “Leaked Documents Reveal the Secret Finances of a Pro-Industry Science Group.” Mother Jones, October 28, 2013. “American Council on Science and Health Financial Report, FY 2013 Financial Update.” Mother Jones, October 28, 2013.

[7] “Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group: American Council on Science and Health (ACSH).” Greenpeace. See also Rebekah Wilce, “Kochs and Corps Have Bankrolled American Council on Science and Health.” PR Watch, July 23, 2014.

[8] Richard Craver, “The Effects of the Smoking Ban.” Winston-Salem Journal, December 12, 2012.

[9] Elizabeth Whelan, “’Global Warming’ Not Health Threat.” PRI (Population Research Institute) Review, January 1, 1998.

[10] Elizabeth Whelan, “Fracking Doesn’t Pose Health Risks.” The Daily Caller, April 29, 2013.

[11] “TASSC: The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition,” p. 9. Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, University of California, San Francisco. November 21, 2001. Bates No. 2048294227-2048294237.

[12] “The Top 10 Unfounded Health Scares of 2012.” American Council on Science and Health, February 22, 2013.

[13] “The Biggest Unfounded Health Scares of 2010.” American Council on Science and Health, December 30, 2010.

USDA Drops Plan to Test for Monsanto Weed Killer in Food

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has quietly dropped a plan to start testing food for residues of glyphosate, the world’s most widely used weed killer and the key ingredient in Monsanto Co.’s branded Roundup herbicides.

(U.S. Right To Know – By Carey Gillam)

The agency spent the last year coordinating with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in preparation to start testing samples of corn syrup for glyphosate residues on April 1, according to internal agency documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests. Documents show that at least since January 2016 into January of this year, the glyphosate testing plan was moving forward. But when asked about the plan this week, a USDA spokesman said no glyphosate residue testing would be done at all by USDA this year.

The USDA’s plan called for the collection and testing of 315 samples of corn syrup from around the United States from April through August, according to the documents. Researchers were also supposed to test for the AMPA metabolite, the documents state. AMPA (aminomethylphosphonic acid) is created as glyphosate breaks down. Measuring residues that include those from AMPA is important because AMPA is not a benign byproduct but carries its own set of safety concerns, scientists believe.

On Jan. 11, USDA’s Diana Haynes wrote to colleagues within USDA: “Based on recent conversations with EPA, we will begin testing corn syrup for glyphosate and its AMPA metabolite April 1, 2017 with collection ending August 31, 2017. This program change will need to be announced at the February PDP Conference Call.” Haynes is director of a USDA Agricultural Marketing Service division that annually conducts the Pesticide Data Program (PDP), which tests thousands of foods for hundreds of different pesticide residues.

The USDA spokesman, who did not want to be named, acknowledged there had been a glyphosate test plan but said that had recently changed: “The final decision for this year’s program plan, as a more efficient use of resources, is to sample and test honey which covers over 100 different pesticides.” Glyphosate residue testing requires a different methodology and will not be part of that screening in honey, he said.

The USDA does not routinely test for glyphosate as it does for other pesticides used in food production. But that stance has made the USDA the subject of criticism as controversy over glyphosate safety has mounted in recent years. The discussions of testing this year come as U.S. and European regulators are wrestling with cancer concerns about the chemical, and as Monsanto, which has made billions of dollars from its glyphosate-based herbicides, is being sued by hundreds of people who claim exposures to Roundup caused them or their loved ones to suffer from non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Internal Monsanto documents obtained by plaintiffs’ attorneys in those cases indicate that Monsanto may have manipulated research regulators relied on to garner favorable safety assessments, and last week, Congressman Ted Lieu called for a probe by the Department of Justice into Monsanto’s actions.

Along with the USDA, the Food and Drug Administration also annually tests thousands of food samples for pesticide residues. Both agencies have done so for decades as a means to ensure that traces of weed killers, insecticides, fungicides and other chemicals used in farming do not persist at unsafe levels in food products commonly eaten by American families. If they find residues above the “maximum residue level” (MRL) allowed for that pesticide and that food, the agencies are supposed to inform the EPA, and actions can be taken against the supplier. The EPA is the regulator charged with establishing MRLs, also called “tolerances,” for different types of pesticides in foods, and the agency coordinates with USDA and FDA on the pesticide testing programs.

But despite the fact that glyphosate use has surged in the last 20 years alongside the marketing of glyphosate-tolerant crops, both USDA and FDA have declined to test for glyphosate residues aside from one time in 2011 when the USDA tested 300 soybean samples for glyphosate and AMPA residues. At that time the agency found 271 samples contained glyphosate, but said the levels were under the MRL – low enough not to be worrisome. The Government Accountability Office took both agencies to task in 2014 for the failure to test regularly for glyphosate.

Europe and Canada are well ahead of the United States when it comes to glyphosate testing in food. In fact, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is preparing to release its own findings from recent glyphosate testing. The CFIA also routinely skipped glyphosate in annual pesticide residue screening for years. But it began collecting data in 2015, moving to address concerns about the chemical that were highlighted when the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen in March 2015.

Canadian food activist and researcher Tony Mitra obtained more than 7,000 records from CFIA about its glyphosate testing last year, and claims that results are alarming, showing glyphosate pervasive in many foods. CFIA would not respond to requests for comment about its glyphosate testing.

One of the USDA’s explanation’s for not testing for glyphosate over the years has been cost – the agency has said that it is too expensive and inefficient to look for glyphosate residues in food headed for American dinner tables. And because glyphosate is considered so safe, testing would be a waste of time, the USDA has stated. That argument mimics Monsanto’s own – the company, which patented glyphosate in 1974 and has been a dominant provider of glyphosate ever since, says if the USDA did seek to test for glyphosate residues in food it would be a “misuse of valuable resources.”

FDA TESTS REMAIN IN LIMBO

The FDA began its own limited testing program for glyphosate residues – what it called a “special assignment” – last year. But the effort was fraught with controversy and internal difficulties and the program was suspended last fall. Before the suspension, one agency chemist found alarming levels of glyphosate in many samples of U.S. honey, levels that were technically illegal because there have been no allowable levels established for honey by the EPA. That revelation caused angst in the beekeeping industry and at least one large honey company was sued by consumer organizations over the glyphosate contamination. The same chemist also found glyphosate levels in many samples of oatmeal, including infant oat cereal. The FDA did not publicize those findings, but they were revealed in internal records obtained through a FOIA request.

Officially, the FDA was only looking for glyphosate residues in corn, soy, eggs and milk in last year’s testing assignment, though internal records discussed tests on sugar beets, popcorn, wheat and other foods or grains. Newly obtained FDA documents show the agency is engaged now in a “glyphosate collaboration” designed to validate the testing methodology to be used by multiple FDA laboratories.

“Once the first phase of this collaboration is completed and approved by quality control reviewers, the special assignment can be restarted,” said FDA spokeswoman Megan McSeveney.

CropLife America, an industry organization that represents the interests of Monsanto and other agrichemical companies, keeps a close eye on the government’s pesticide residue testing. Last year the organization sought to diffuse potential legal problems related to glyphosate and other pesticides in honey by asking EPA to set a blanket tolerance that would cover inadvertent contamination of honey by pesticides. Records show regulators have found 26 different pesticides in honey samples in past tests.

CropLife also has complained to USDA that data from its testing program is used by proponents of organic agriculture to promote organics over conventional foods. The group last year sent USDA a series of questions about its testing, and asked USDA: “What can we do to assist you in fighting these scaremongering tactics?”

The USDA’s most recent published report on pesticide residues in food found that for 2015 testing, only 15 percent of the 10,187 samples tested were free from any detectable pesticide residues. That’s a marked difference from 2014, when the USDA found that over 41 percent of samples were “clean” or showed no detectable pesticide residues. But the agency said the important point was that most of the samples, over 99 percent, had residues below the EPA’s established tolerances and are at levels that “do not pose risk to consumers’ health and are safe.”

Many scientists take issue with using MRLs as a standard associated with safety, arguing they are based on pesticide industry data and rely on flawed analyses. Much more research is needed to understand the impact on human health of chronic dietary exposures to pesticides, many say.

(First appeared in The Huffington Post.)

LEGO Reaches 100% Renewable Energy Goal 3 Years Early

LEGO met its goal to power all offices, factories, and stores with 100% renewable energy.

(True Activist by Amanda Froelich)

Victory! After four years and an astonishing investment of $6 billion, the LEGO group achieved its goal to power all of its offices, factories, and stores worldwide with 100% renewable energy. The best part? The monumental goal was met 3 years early.

The company’s most recent investment was buying a 25% share in the Burbo Bank Extension wind farm, when went live yesterday. Reportedly, the Liverpool, UK-based wind farm will generate clean power for more than 230,000 British households.

Said Bali Padda, CEO of the LEGO Group:

“We work to leave a positive impact on the planet and I am truly excited about the inauguration of the Burbo Bank Extension wind farm. This development means we have now reached the 100% renewable energy milestone three years ahead of target. Together with our partners, we intend to continue investing in renewable energy to help create a better future for the builders of tomorrow.”

To celebrate the achievement, the largest-ever LEGO brick wind turbine – which now holds a Guinness World Records title – was constructed. It is made out of 146,000 LEGO bricks and stands 650 feet tall. Additionally, children around the world have been encouraged to create their own renewable energy solutions.

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