The banning of the carcinogen - glyphosate

Last year Ponsonby News featured articles for several months on the mounting evidence that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide, is a probable carcinogen for humans.

There is some evidence that the use of glyphosate in the Waitemata Ward has been reduced, and I am awaiting a report from Chair Pippa Coom on how far glyphosate use has been fazed out by the new contractor, Ventia, and what the next steps will be.

The council is also taking over some of the responsibilities for road spraying from Auckland Transport, which has been extremely reluctant to discuss how much glyphosate they are using.

Despite this possible progress, Auckland Council remains determined not to ban the use of glyphosate products.

One of the main reasons for this stance is that the controlling agency in New Zealand is the Environmental Protection Authority, which takes its cue from the United States EPA, which continues to assert that glyphosate is not carcinogenic. This stance is despite an important report of the prestigious, global, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), in 2016, declaring that “glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen.”

Now, a series of reports late last year and proposed law suits in California and San Franscisco, have brought sensational news about Monsanto’s manipulation of research papers, including having their own officers ‘ghost write’ papers and present them as independent studies.

Lawyers representing people with a range of health problems after exposure to Roundup and its carcinogenic ingredient glyphosate, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma, have filed a growing wave of law suits against Monsanto in the United States.

Internal documents from Monsanto, exposed after Freedom of Information lawsuit requests, have shown collusion between Monsanto executives and Environmental Protection Agency officers. The EPA has been a stalwart supporter of Monsanto’s claims that glyphosate is safe.

In a paper called Decades of Deception, Carey Gillam, has written about Monsanto’s "long-running secretive campaign to manipulate the scientific record, to sway public opinion, and to influence regulatory assessments."

Internal records also show Monsanto executives discussing multiple incidences of drafting and writing research papers that when published would appear to be authored by unbiased sources. This is known as ghost writing. In one email a Monsanto scientist suggested “we ghost write” certain sections of a paper just as they had “handled” an earlier paper supporting glyphosate safety.

In another case, Dan Jenkins, a senior Monsanto executive, discussed how the damning IARC document could be negated. Jenkins then talked to Jess Rowland a senior EPA officer about how to deal with fallout from the IARC report labelling glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic.” Rowland did his best for his Monsanto buddy, saying “if I can kill this I should get a medal.”

Jenkins in these internal emails went on to say, “Don’t get your hopes up. I doubt EPA and Jess can kill this, but it is good they are going to make the effort.”

In a 3 Sept email Jenkins told Monsanto colleagues: “Rowland is planning to retire in about five of six months, and could be useful as we move forward with ongoing glyphosate defence.”

These revelations are not gossip, they are from discovered internal documents which prove the EPA complicity in Monsanto’s deceptions.

Protecting corporate profits over public safety is a tried and true playbook for many powerful industries. But given the alarming evidence of scientific deceit now being revealed about Monsanto and glyphosate, it is imperative that our Environmental Protection Authority comes out from under the coat tails of it’s US counterpart, who is failing US citizens, and millions of others worldwide, who are suffering the adverse health effects of exposure to a now clearly designated human carcinogen. Our EPA must act in the interests of all New Zealanders and ban the use of glyphosate in New Zealand.

It’s time for the New Zealand Government to intervene if they do not. (JOHN ELLIOTT)