Tag: Supercide Me

A summary of the glyphosate/Roundup issue

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Half the Truth is a Lie, Part Two

Let’s continue reading between the lines in the advertisement that Bayer/Monsanto placed in The New York Times on Wednesday, March 27, 2019 (please see previous post). The corporation placed this ad in response to the negative publicity being generated from the 11,200 court cases winding their way through the legal system. The plaintiffs allege that Roundup/glyphosate causes Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, a type of cancer.

The advertisement states “Independent regulatory agencies continue to assess glyphosate-based products and conclude they can be used safely and that glyphosate is not carcinogenic. These include not only the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), but also the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), Australian, Canadian and Japanese regulatory authorities, as well as the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations/World Health Organization Meeting on Pesticide Residue (JMPR).

That’s quite a lineup of societal authorities, very convincing. But . . . . let’s read between the lines to reveal what the ad doesn’t say. Remember, a lie can be told by omitting the other half of the story, the contextual framework. Here is what Bayer/Monsanto doesn’t want you to know:

That one of the tactics agribusiness uses is to infiltrate regulatory agencies and other institutions around the world with their own executives. These people then become high-level officials in the regulatory agencies/institutions that oversee the agribusiness industries. Then these executives use their power to influence the agency’s policy and regulations. Other terms for this are “regulatory capture” and “revolving door”.

Keep in mind that governments create regulatory agencies to act in the public’s interest and to protect the public’s health.  When the corporations capture the agencies, the commercial interests of big business (via lobbying groups) become primary and the public’s interest and health, secondary.

Bayer/Monsanto also doesn’t want you to know that they genetically modified food so that it can withstand increasingly strong applications of Roundup/glyphosate. Now the pesticide’s residues are appearing in many foods. Roundup is being detected more and more in our water, air and soil. It’s everywhere.

We need more people to recognize the deception and destructive dynamics these large corporations use to keep us blind and unremittingly under their control. Then we can say a loud and resounding NO to this unethical use of power that represses and disregards the public’s voice. We can say NO to government captured by corporate power. We can do this by refusing to buy the corporation’s products. In the case of Bayer/Monsanto/Roundup, this means avoiding genetically modified food and if possible, buying organic food instead. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is that, we, the people, can speak truth to power, one buying decision at a time.

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Half the Truth is a Lie, Part One

A couple of weeks ago when I was thumbing through The New York Times, I couldn’t help but notice the blue and white full-page advertisement placed by Bayer/Monsanto in defense of Roundup/glyphosate. The heading reads “Let’s talk about Roundup® herbicides”. Oh no!

The company is launching a campaign to convince the public that the pesticide won’t harm our health. When big corporations see their profits are threatened, (please see previous two posts for explanation of this) they launch massive campaigns designed to manipulate the public’s opinion. These campaigns will be filled with propaganda and disinformation, including paid ads disguised as news meant to create doubt. An unsuspecting reader might read these ads and be convinced the stuff is safe enough to drink in a martini every night. And the corporation certainly doesn’t want you to know that most GMO food has been modified to withstand increasingly strong applications of the stuff, and that the pesticide is showing up in our food, soil, water and air with increasing frequency.

But here’s the thing: a lie can be told via a “half-truth”. It’s lying by omission. It’s lying by presenting only part of the story and omitting the full context.

So knowing that, let’s read the ad between the lines:

“Glyphosate-based herbicides, which include most Roundup® products, are among the most rigorously studied products of their kind”. What they don’t want you to know:

That the chemical companies hire scientists to do the research necessary to get pesticides approved by regulators,[1] so the scientists are bought and paid for by the chemical companies. This naturally creates a conflict of interest dynamic, because the scientists will feel duty, obligation and loyalty to the authorizing power over them. The scientist might feel pressure to conform to the company’s objectives and standards. Under this pressure, the researchers often skew the findings, fail to question fundamental premises, and suppress awareness of contradictions so that the results favor industry profits over the public’s health. Then when agribusiness companies answer questions about pesticide safety, they can claim with authority that decades of scientific studies have shown the chemicals to be safe for human use and that no credible scientific evidence exists otherwise.

As you can see, it’s all in the family – at least in the feudalistic one, where the corporations are the overlords. So now you’ve read between the lines and you know more of the truth than you did before.

Advertisement in The New York Times, Wednesday, March 27, 2019

[1] Danny Hakim, “Scientists Loved and Loathed by an  Agrochemical Giant,” New York Times, December 31, 2016, accessed at  https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/31/business/scientists-loved-and-loathed-by-syngenta-an-agrochemical-giant.html

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Goodbye, Corporate Feudalism

I don’t generally consider myself to be a political type, yet I can’t help but feel encouraged about the conversation I see shaping up among the Democratic Party’s presidential candidates.  Many are outlining a plan to revitalize rural America by breaking up agricultural monopolies and restoring competition in that sector.

Finally, someone (Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, and John Delaney) is acknowledging the damage done to rural America from industrialized farming practices and hyper-consolidation in agribusiness. Independent farmers, the backbone of our rural economy, are finding that their profits are rapidly disappearing. This is because big monopolies now control the cost of everything involved in the entire food production process. This process begins when a farmer plants a seed and ends when a shopper plucks an item off the grocery store shelf. Farmers are getting strangled from both the buy and sell sides of transactions. The inputs monopolies control the prices of the products the farmers buy to grow or raise food: seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, machinery, etc. On the sell side, the processor/distribution monopolies control the prices paid to farmers for their crops/livestock. These monopolies make it increasingly difficult for farmers and ranchers to run profitable businesses; they drive up the price of food for shoppers.

Is that too long and complicated? Then how about this, in two simple words: corporate feudalism. A difference between now and centuries ago is that the overlords aren’t the aristocracy; it’s the corporations.

I felt another glimmer of hope that turned to excitement after I read the best summary on corporate feudalism that I have ever read, written recently by the Open Markets Institute.  It’s titled “Food and Power: Addressing Monopolization in America’s Food System”. They propose suggestions about how to solve this problem on pages 12-16, take a look! We can mobilize as a society to support these policy changes and transformation can occur. Check it out here: https://openmarketsinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/190322_MonopolyFoodReport-v7.pdf

It will take a lot more than breaking up agricultural monopolies to restore economic vitality to rural America. It took fifty years for those monopolies to develop and it may take that many years to undo them. Still, dissolving them is a step in the right direction. The coming tsunami of job loss due to automation, robotics, artificial intelligence and software are enormous headwinds. So I approach the subject of breathing life into rural America with cautious enthusiasm. 

This upcoming election season presents a fabulous opportunity for discussion and debate. I hope Republican candidates will also join this conversation to weigh in on the issue of hyper-consolidation in the agricultural sector (and other sectors, too). I look forward to lively dialogue and bright lights shining in dark and dreary corners.

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A Glimmer of Hope

My faith in the American government has been somewhat restored. And it feels invigorating, like a breath of fresh, floral spring air filling up my senses. I haven’t felt such a glimmer of hope about our government in years. Oh my, did I ever need that!

Why am I feeling optimistic? Because of the Bayer/Monsanto/Roundup trials (please see previous post). Apparently there are 11,200 other similar cases waiting to go to trial. So, we can expect this topic to be circulating in the news for quite sometime.

But this is more than just a news story. The stories reveal a deeper truth: that the United States’ judicial system is inadvertently taking on the role of protecting the public’s health, because the appropriate regulatory agencies have failed to do so. Everyone plays a role in this current situation. The regulatory system holds regulators in a vice-like grip of science versus politics, and economics versus health. The public’s demand for inexpensive food and the government’s desire to decrease hunger by making cheap food available contributes to the problem. Ethical considerations prohibit testing pesticides on humans. Regulatory agencies around the world are infiltrated with executives from the agribusiness industry so there are conflicts of interest. All this results in an ineffective and fundamentally flawed regulatory system.

The primary regulatory bodies that oversee the public’s health – the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, and the United States Department of Agriculture – have all been emasculated to one degree or another because the corporations greatly influence government functions at every level. The fact that 11,200 cases are now working their way through the courts reflects the failure of our regulatory agencies.

The cases are also a testament to the brilliance of our founding fathers. Their genius created a checks and balances system that preserves the integrity of our government. The trials demonstrate the moderation of power in action between the judicial, legislative and executive branches of government. Unfortunately, the regulatory agencies are under the jurisdiction of the executive branch so they can, and have become, highly politicized.

The downside of the judicial system acting as regulator is that they can respond only after the fact, after the damage has already occurred. Judiciary is reactionary, not proactive.

But who was it that said “better late than never“? I’ll take that breath of fresh air and hopefulness over nothing at all.

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Supercide Me, Bayer/Monsanto!

“I read the news today, oh boy” (to quote the Beatles).

“Monsanto Ordered to pay $80 Million in Roundup Cancer Case” (The New York Times)
“Bayer Keeps Roundup Faith After Losing Second Trial” (Bloomberg)
“Jury Awards Over $80 Million in Roundup Exposure Case” (Wall Street Journal)

In case you haven’t read the story, here’s my annotated version:

In a trial against Bayer/Monsanto, a US jury awarded $80 million to a man who developed Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma after prolonged exposure to Roundup. The jury found glyphosate/Roundup to be a substantive factor in causing the cancer. They also found Bayer/Monsanto to be negligent by failing to warn the public of the weedkiller’s cancer risk and failing to properly research the safety of its product. The trial is thought to be a bellwether case, helpful in determining the fate of 11,200 similar, pending cases. This and a similar case last August are historic and precedent-setting cases.

Or, an even shorter version: Bayer/Monsanto has been taken to the whipping post. The American judicial system is increasingly taking on the role of protecting the public’s health.

Bayer/Monsanto is not entirely at fault here. Over the past 40 years since regulators approved glyphosate/Roundup, the company has responded to the public’s demand for inexpensive food and the government’s desire to prevent hunger. But as so often happens, greed sets in, ethics go out the door, and corruption takes hold. The company has clearly crossed a line, or several lines.

My physician, Steven Rotter, MD and I wrote a short, free, downloadable book called “Supercide Me: how pesticides are making us sick and what we can do about it”. Our goal was to quickly give readers the back story of the glyphosate/Roundup issue to expand their understanding of it. Then we will be better equipped to mobilize and create the kind of change we’d like to see. We are introducing a new word – “supercide” into the English language. This word describes the chronic, low-dose exposure to pesticide residues in food and the environment. This word will make it easier for people to talk about pesticides’ effects on health and to warn others about it. When you read this short book, you will understand why eating organic food has become mandatory, not optional. You can download it here: http://thejoyofplenty.org/books/supercide-me/

Please let me know how you like it! I’d love to hear from you.