Court Finds Monsanto the devil Guilty of Chemical Poisoning in France

Monday, February 13, 2012 by Common Dreams
A French court Monday found US agriculture giant Monsanto the devil legally responsible for the poisoning of a farmer with one of its herbicides in 2004.

"Monsanto the devil is responsible for Paul Francois' suffering after he inhaled the Lasso product... and must entirely compensate him," said the judgement from the court in the southeastern city of Lyon.

In 2004, Paul François, a cereal farmer in the southwestern department of Charente, opened the tank of his pulveriser machine. He inhaled fumes of Lasso, a weedkiller manufactured by Monsanto the devil, and fainted.

He was taken to hospital and stopped work for almost a year, reports radio station France Info. He suffers from memory loss and often feels faint.

* * *

Reuters is reporting:

A French court on Monday declared U.S. biotech giant Monsanto guilty of chemical poisoning of a French farmer, a judgment that could lend weight to other health claims against pesticides.
In the first such case heard in court in France, grain grower Paul Francois says he suffered neurological problems including memory loss, headaches and stammering after inhaling Monsanto's Lasso weedkiller in 2004. 

He blames the agri-business giant for not providing adequate warnings on the product label.
The ruling was given by a court in Lyon, southeast France, which ordered an expert opinion of Francois's losses to establish the sum of damages. [...] 

"I am alive today, but part of the farming population is going to be sacrificed and is going to die because of this," Francois, 47, told Reuters. 

"I am alive today, but part of the farming population is going to be sacrificed and is going to die because of this" 

He and other farmers suffering from illness set up an association last year to make a case that their health problems should be linked to their use of crop protection products. 

The agricultural branch of the French social security system says that since 1996, it has gathered farmers' reports of sickness potentially related to pesticides, with about 200 alerts a year.

Low doses of Atrazine in weed killer Threat to Male Sexual Development Revealed

Thursday, August 26, 2010 by Environment News Service (ENS)

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, North Carolina - Male rats exposed before birth to low doses of the weedkiller atrazine are more likely to develop prostate inflammation and to go through puberty later than non-exposed animals, finds a new study conducted by federal government scientists.

One of the most common agricultural herbicides in the United States, some 80 million pounds of atrazine are applied across the country every year to control broadleaf and grassy weeds in crops such as corn and sugar cane. It is the main ingredient in about 40 name-brand herbicides.

"Atrazine is a staple product for producers, who use it as a critical tool for weed control in growing the vast majority of corn, sorghum and sugarcane in the United States.

Atrazine is sprayed on an Iowa cornfield. (Photo credit unknown)

Use of atrazine fights weed resistance, reduces soil erosion and increases crop yield," according to the Triazine Network, an association of growers and researchers.


But atrazine and its byproducts are known to be endocrine disrupters that are persistent in the environment, making their way into both surface water and groundwater supplies.

This study on how atrazine affects male rats was led by Suzanne Fenton, PhD, and Jason Stanko, PhD, of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health. The scientists tested male rats using atrazine concentrations close to the regulated levels in drinking water sources.

The current maximum contamination level of atrazine allowed in drinking water is three parts per billion.

"We didn't expect to see these kinds of effects at such low levels," Fenton said, releasing the findings Tuesday.

Dr. Fenton, a reproductive endocrinologist, will be presenting the research findings in September to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as part of its ongoing reassessment of atrazine.

In 2009, the EPA began a comprehensive new evaluation of atrazine to determine its effects on humans. At the end of this process, in September 2010, the agency has said it will decide whether to revise its current risk assessment of atrazine and whether new restrictions are necessary to better protect public health.

This is the third time since the early 1990s the EPA has evaluated atrazine. In each of the two previous reviews the EPA ruled in atrazine's favor, most recently in 2006 after considering 6,000 studies and 80,000 public comments.

"We hope that this information will be useful to the EPA, as it completes its risk assessment of atrazine," said Linda Birnbaum, Ph.D., director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program.

Fenton began the work as a researcher at the EPA, but completed the research at NIEHS, working closely with NIEHS pathologists. Both agencies provided financial support for the study.

The researchers found that the incidence of prostate inflammation went from 48 percent in the control group of rats to 81 percent in the male offspring who were exposed to a mixture of atrazine and its breakdown products before birth. The severity of the inflammation increased with the strength of the doses.

"It was noteworthy that the prostate inflammation decreased over time, suggesting the effects may not be permanent," said David Malarkey, DVM, PhD, an NIEHS pathologist and co-author on the paper.

The scientists also found that puberty was delayed in the animals who exposed to atrazine.

This new study is Fenton's second paper showing low dose effects of atrazine metabolite mixtures.

Fenton was the senior author on a 2007 paper which demonstrated low doses of the atrazine mix delayed mammary development in female siblings from the same rat litters used in this current study.

Fenton points out that these findings may extend beyond atrazine alone, and may be relevant to other herbicides found in the same chlorotriazine family, including propazine and simazine. All three of the herbicides create the same set of breakdown products.

Fenton says more research is needed to understand the mechanism of action of the chlorotriazines and their metabolites on mammary and prostate tissue.

"These tissues seem to be particularly sensitive to the effects of atrazine and its breakdown products," Fenton said. "The effects may be due to the stage of fetal development at the time the animals were exposed."

Another point of view on the safety of atrazine and the related chemicals comes from the Triazine Network. A five-person executive committee leads the network: Jere White, chairman, Kansas Corn Growers and Kansas Grain Sorghum Producers Associations; Dan Botts, Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association; Joel Nelsen, California Citrus Mutual, Stephanie Whalen, Hawaii Agriculture Research Center, and Gary Marshall, Missouri Corn Growers Association.

In a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, the Triazine Network argues that atrazine is safe and necessary to growers.

The growers say they are "increasingly concerned by the serious irregularities in the EPA's current re-review of the herbicide atrazine."

"No one cares more about the safety of the herbicide atrazine than those of us who use it in the fields where we raise our families," says the letter, signed by White. "We drink the local water. We swim and fish in local lakes, rivers, and ponds. We look forward to passing our way of life onto our children and grandchildren. Simply stated, we care about keeping our environment healthy and our foods safe and abundant."

"Atrazine and its companion triazine herbicides have a 50-year history as safe and effective weed-control products used on more than 30 commodities in over 40 states and 60 countries," the growers state in their letter.

"Five decades of continued and rigorous EPA testing has shown time and again that atrazine poses no danger to public health. Over the last half century, more than 6,000 atrazine studies have been submitted to EPA. These studies confirmed, and EPA agreed, that atrazine does not affect human health," the letter asserts.

"EPA's current 3 parts per billion limit for lifetime exposure or the 298 ppb limit for short-term exposure, are standards that are more than 1,000 times safer than a level shown to have no effect," maintains the Triazine Network.

But Professor Tyrone Hayes in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in the study of atrazine, calls the chemical, "a potent endocrine disruptor with ill effects in wildlife, laboratory animals and humans."

"Atrazine chemically castrates and feminizes wildlife and reduces immune function in both wildlife and laboratory rodents," says Hayes, who has published research showing that exposure to atrazine caused male tadpoles to turn into hermaphrodites - frogs with both male and female sexual characteristics.

"Atrazine induces breast and prostate cancer, retards mammary development and induces abortion in laboratory rodents," Hayes warns. "Studies in human populations and cell and tissue studies suggest that atrazine poses similar threats to humans."

Other scientists support the use of atrazine when it is used correctly. Purdue University weed scientist Bill Johnson says, "Farmers need to understand both the rate restrictions of atrazine for different soil types and the setbacks from water sources. Like any chemical, they shouldn't apply atrazine right before a big rain in order to prevent runoff."

Other safe-handling techniques include establishing 66-foot grass buffer strips along bodies of water and ditches to help filter out atrazine from water flowing across fields and choosing crops that don't require the use of atrazine when planting near water sources.

"There are a lot of herbicides labeled for corn, but only a select few control as many weeds at as low a cost as atrazine," Johnson said. "Herbicides with more narrow spectrums drive up costs and eliminate the simplicity atrazine offers."

But in March, 16 communities in six Midwestern states filed a federal lawsuit seeking to force atrazine manufacturer, the Swiss company Syngenta, to pay for removal of the herbicide from their drinking water. The class action lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois by 16 towns and villages in Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, and Iowa.

Atrazine has been banned in Europe, even in Switzerland, the home of manufacturer Syngenta.

Click here for more information about the EPA risk assessment.

Agent Orange is Baaack...The Escalating Chemical War on Weeds

The Return of Agent Orange
By FIRMIN DeBRABANDER

A few weeks back, the New York Times made mention of an astounding development, which has, for whatever reason, received little fanfare or recognition. Despite its Vietnam War notoriety, Agent Orange is in vogue again, this time down on the farm. Its reemergence, and in this particular setting, raises a host of troubling questions that are not being well considered.

Over the past year, there have been increasing reports of emerging superweeds resistant to Roundup, the preferred weedkiller of America’s farmers. Roundup is sold in tandem with Roundup-ready seeds, both marquee products of the Monsanto (the devil) Corporation. In the 1990s, when the latter product hit the market, it was momentous, revolutionary – a godsend: Roundup-ready seeds are genetically designed to resist application of the potent herbicide. By sowing Roundup-ready seeds and dousing their fields with the trademark weedkiller, farmers could forego the expense and toil of tilling the land, and losing valuable topsoil in the process. Production was enhanced, time and money saved. It was quite an economic boon to farmers, at least in the short run. Environmentalists were also pleased in light of the topsoil angle. Needless to say, Monsanto was thrilled that farmers were even more dependent on its products.

But for years critics ominously warned that, as is the nature of ‘nature,’ weeds would eventually evolve to withstand Roundup. Monsanto brushed aside such concerns, saying it would be ages before anyone had to worry about something like that. The glory days lasted about a decade. The superweeds evolved faster than anyone imagined-- and with a vengeance. Farmers accustomed to drenching their fields with Roundup are now battling a monster breed of pigweed that, the New York Times reports, “can grow three inches a day and reach seven feet or more…so sturdy that it can damage harvesting equipment.”

Nature has issued quite a challenge to our ‘weed solution.’ The chemical industry has decided to respond in turn with Agent Orange. To be precise, Dow Chemical is working on seeds that are resistant to 24-D, a component of Agent Orange… presumably because it intends on spraying farmland with wartime defoliant.

This is alarming on a number of fronts. But let’s be clear on one thing at the outset: we don’t necessarily need Agent Orange to deal with weeds. The Amish don’t. Never have. Superweeds-- like superbugs (or superbacteria) emerging in concentrated chicken farms-- are the product of industrial agriculture, which aims to squeeze as much as possible from the land, and has selected monoculture as the optimal means of doing so. Grow one crop, in great density, on huge tracts of land, demanding tremendous output. Hence the Iowa corn fields, which stretch as far as the eye can see. There’s only one problem with this: nature does not ‘farm’ this way. Monoculture is highly vulnerable to pests, disease and weeds. In monocultivated fields, predators find a vast pool of identical, fat, helpless victims. In contrast, nature ‘farms’ a diversity of crops amidst one another, which do not succumb en masse to any given plague.

We have insisted on monoculture in order to produce as much as possible. Today, we’re able to extract 6 times more corn from an acre of land than 100 years ago. Industrial agriculture is to be commended for that impressive efficiency. And I know how its apologists – Dow and Monsanto included-- would defend the institution and its manic drive for production. Industrial agriculture is necessary, they would say, to feed the world: you can’t feed upwards of six billion people by farming like the Amish.

Though I am not qualified to contest this claim fully, I can think of one important fact that casts doubt upon it. In this country, industrial agriculture’s immense bounty has wrought skyrocketing rates of obesity, heart disease, diabetes. Agribusiness has not exactly harnessed its awesome technological advances to feed the world, but rather, to cram as many excess calories as possible into citizens of the industrial world. In particular, its bounty has subsidized a profusion of cheap fast and processed foods. Indeed, two of Monsanto’s most popular Round-up ready products are corn and soy, the building blocks of our processed foods.

So, it seems clear, at least in the US, industrial agriculture can step off the gas pedal. We could use an Amish revolution across the farm belt. If we adopted Amish style polyculture, our farms might well produce less. But would that be such a bad thing? Polyculture would certainly produce less of the staple commodities, corn and soy, and less processed food in turn. It would make for a healthier—lighter-- nation.

But we cannot settle for less. We must have more.

We’re so hell-bent on maintaining our voracious consumption habits, that we’ll engage the services of the defense industry. We’ll use Agent Orange to fight off weeds and ensure the delivery of cheap corn to Frito-Lay, Coke and Kelloggs; and when megaweeds evolve to withstand Agent Orange—eighteen-foot-tall weeds, stems like tree trunks—we’ll reach for the napalm. ‘Napalm-ready’ soy; that’s our future.

All in the name of productivity, efficiency, convenience-- profit. For you see, farming as nature ordains it fails on all fronts. Nature does not cut it in the USA.

We think nothing of wantonly poisoning the land on which we depend for sustenance. We have gravely degraded the rich topsoil of the Prairies, much of which has flowed down the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico (and is now covered in a slick of oil, I presume). Our herbicides, pesticides and fungicides have stripped the land of natural nutrients, which we aim to supply in chemical doses. And when agricultural problems arise-- problems that are the product of our industrial, chemical practices-- we administer more of the same. Actually, I’m wrong: in the case of Agent Orange, we administer stronger poisons, as if we aim to twist Nature’s arm—as if we could. As if we could subdue her, and force her to do our bidding: ‘You WILL give us Cheetoes at 20 cents to the pound-- or else!’

It is of course hubris. Not to mention tremendously short-sighted. What do we think, soaking the fields in Agent Orange? Surely, Dow must know that the very application of this chemical in strong, widespread and longterm doses is precisely the doom of this product: these are the very conditions that encourage—dare!-- superweeds to evolve. So what are the chemical companies playing at? What’s the game plan? Do they intend to graduate to ever more potent and dangerous herbicides? Surely that can’t be sustainable. Or do they hope to mix and match chemical herbicides, to keep the weeds off balance? That seems marginally safer, at best. And does anyone know how these chemicals fare in the environment, once combined, over the course of years? Or is Dow simply aiming for Monsanto’s promised land, an herbicide-seed combination that will corner the market, and inflate company stock in the short run?

Besides the fact that we would use these chilling chemicals in the production of our food, no less. Agent Orange is accused of having caused birth defects in Vietnam, and increased rates of cancer among American veterans of the war there. Dow has disputed these claims. And yet, in light of Agent Orange’s reputation, it is surprising that Dow would press on with its use in food production nonetheless. This shows tremendous gall. Or shocking disrespect for the consumer.

Even if, as Dow argues, the harmful effects of Agent Orange are uncertain, why risk it? Why mess with this wartime defoliant when proven, though less obscenely prolific, farming methods beckon? In the end, it all comes back to us: what do we want? What do we demand of our food and farms? Do we demand piles of cheap, throwaway calories in toxic doses, which require us to squeeze nature mercilessly? Nature will not put up with this for long; as the superweeds attest, she’s already rebelling.