{"id":5949,"date":"2020-01-04T15:06:44","date_gmt":"2020-01-04T14:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/?p=5949"},"modified":"2020-01-05T18:49:19","modified_gmt":"2020-01-05T17:49:19","slug":"glyphosate-saga-a-nice-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/?p=5949&lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Glyphosate saga: a nice surprise!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The U.S.\nEnvironmental Protection Agency (EPA) has just sent the court an amicus\ncuriae<\/em> brief, written testimony in support of Monsanto to clarify the role\nof the company and that of the regulator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

http:\/\/www.glyphosatelitigationfacts.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/32.-United-States-Amicus.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monsanto\nwas convicted at first instance not for manufacturing a hazardous product but\nfor failing to inform the user (the plaintiff) of the dangers of the product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EPA explains\nthat it is its role to approve the label text and therefore the manufacturer\ncannot be blamed for hiding something or for not including other indications\nsuch as the possible carcinogenicity of the product. States, which are not\ncompetent to evaluate these products, do not have to require other label texts.\nBut California has a law (Prop 65) that requires substances known to the State to\ncause cancer to be included in a particular list (the gaieties of US\nfederalism).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EPA then\nexplains the approval procedure under FIFRA, the federal pesticide law, and\nreviews the history of glyphosate carcinogenicity assessments to conclude:\n\u00ab\u00a0In 2017, EPA concluded that \u00ab\u00a0the strongest support\u00a0\u00bb was for\na conclusion that glyphosate is \u00ab\u00a0not likely to be carcinogenic in humans.<\/em>\u00a0\u00bb\nThis was confirmed in writing on 7 August 2019 to all manufacturers (not only\nBayer\/Monsanto, the product is a generic substance).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based\nsolely on the hazard assessment of the International Agency for Research on\nCancer (IARC), classifying glyphosate as a probable carcinogen (2A), and\nagainst all other risk-based assessments made elsewhere, California, according\nto its law, has therefore misbranded the product. The EPA says this \u00ab\u00a0false\nand misleading<\/em>.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us\nremember that it is in no one’s interest that false and misleading warnings be\nmade at every turn, thus creating confusion and trivializing such warnings when\nthey are justified. This is a crucial point for any regulator in any field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rest of\nthe brief reviews the outstanding court cases to show that they are to be dismissed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is\nextremely rare for an administration to take such a clear position. It will be\ndifficult for a court not to follow the advice of that agency, which is\ncompetent under the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since you\nare sympathetic to what I am writing, you will have understood everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, I\ndoubt that it would interest an opponent of pesticides in general and of\ncapitalism in particular (or the opposite, I may be confused).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will be\nsaid that it is biased by Trump, that the EPA is sold to the interests of\nMonsanto (now a German affiliated company), etc. And they’ll be right, since\nthere is no need to prove it since it’s obvious. Isn’t it? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the\nEuropean (EFSA, ECHA), Canadian, Swiss, Brazilian and Chinese homologation\nagencies have an opinion identical to that of the EPA. They are of course also\nsold to capitalism and Bayer. Only the IARC has ruled differently, without\nconsidering the risk but only the potential danger, and did it in a very\nstrange procedure in which the environmental lobby played a decisive role. Even\nWHO, its supervisory authority, does not agree with IARC, and neither does FAO.
\nSo it is because IARC is right that everyone is wrong. Isn’t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironically\nalso, even if IARC were right to classify this substance as category 2A, it\nwould not change the insignificance of the risk of contracting cancer from this\nmolecule in the course of a human life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IARC classification: https:\/\/monographs.iarc.fr\/agents-classified-by-the-iarc\/<\/a>
Let us recall that in the probable carcinogenic to humans category 2A there are (my selection, arbitrary of course) red meat, hot drinks at over 85\u00b0C, occupational exposures of hairdressers and barbers, acrylamide (in fried potatoes and grilled meats). And among category 1 (carcinogenic to humans) there are, apart from tobacco and other really scary substances, processed meat, wood dust, alcohol, and solar irradiation. We all live quite well with this but we should better commit suicide before dying too prematurely from all of that. Wouldn’t we?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But go and\ntell that to emotional people no matter what. They’ll kill you, which isn’t\ncancerous, it’s just dangerous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has just sent the court an amicus curiae brief, written testimony in support of Monsanto to clarify the role of the company and that of the regulator. It recalls its jurisdiction in approving plant protection products and the text on their labels, reiterates that it evaluates glyphosate as \u00ab\u00a0not likely to be carcinogenic in humans\u00a0\u00bb and considers the illegal classification made by the State of California to be false and misleading. The pending court cases should therefore be dismissed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[41,39,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture-en","category-environment","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mr-int.ch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}