Aotearoa now has a leader respected around the world, and we are lauded for the strong, yet compassionate way we have dealt with the Covid-19 pandemic.
How wrong we were. Council’s recent Project Streetscape - Weed Management Report sets out the new guidelines. Glyphosate can still be used despite escalating world-wide proof of its carcinogenic properties.
Bayer of Germany recently bought Monsanto, the makers of glyphosate products, for $62 billion in cash!
As one article I read pointed out, Bayer will need some more aspirin to deal with the legal suits mounting up against them around the world. Following a 2015 report from the IARC (the WHO cancer committee of 15 reputable scientists), glyphosate was declared a ‘probable human carcinogen’.
Bayer is now trying to put out the fires raging about its continued use. They have paid $259 million to one non-Hodgkins leukaemia sufferer and have just announced an eye watering $10.9 billion to settle a large class action in the USA. Bayer stock has taken a huge nosedive on the share market, and they are trying to bury the ‘Monsanto’ name.
Glyphosate decimating monarch butterfly numbers and being found in mother’s breast milk are just two frightening occurrences being discovered around the world. Many cancers don’t emerge in the bodies of glyphosate users for years and years.
More and more countries around the world are banning, or drastically restricting, herbicides which contain glyphosate, but New Zealand won’t budge. Why not, you may well ask, if the science is so settled?
The decision on hazardous substances is handled by our EPA (Environmental Protection Authority). The New Zealand Authority takes its cue from the US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). The US EPA is a highly questionable organisation which has been proven in court to have been in league with Monsanto to deny any harm from glyphosate. It was, until recently, run by a Trump appointee who is a climate denier. Lawyers for cancer sufferers have obtained colluding internal emails between the EPA and Monsanto. It’s like the tobacco industry denials all over again. In fact, some of the tobacco protagonists have switched allegiance to the chemical industry and are producing the same old lying articles in defence of glyphosate that they used to write in favour of cigarettes.
New Zealand must break the ties with the unreliable US EPA and take on board more compelling international research which has proved cancer connections with glyphosate use.
As Weed Advisory member Hana Blackmore says, “That we fought so hard to take back our streets from Auckland Transport only to have Council take the axe to safe, non-chemical methodologies is outrageous and totally unacceptable. The fact that it will also result in the closing down of any innovation in this vitally important sector is doubly distressing and short-sighted.”
Auckland Councillor, John Watson, is upset Council will continue to use glyphosate on our berms and in our parks and reserves. He says, “The proposal seeks to lock in the use of glyphosate for the long-term while eliminating innovation and the use of alternatives. It’s a pro-glyphosate agenda.”
Glyphosate is now a proven carcinogen and, in Auckland, keeping our streets weed-free should not become ‘just a cost exercise’. Our health is at risk. Children who ingest glyphosate may not suffer the effects for many years, but experience around the world says they will suffer and probably die much sooner than they should. New Zealand’s EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has been proven incapable of protecting New Zealanders and should be ignored and probably closed down.
More careful and independent costings around alternatives to glyphosate must be investigated. Suitable products are available.
The time to ban products containing glyphosate is now. (John Elliott)
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