mirror of
https://github.com/nhammer514/textfiles-politics.git
synced 2024-12-26 15:59:29 -05:00
58 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
58 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
ROUNDUP -- THE WORLD'S MOST POPULAR WEED KILLER
|
||
|
||
Eduardo Neaves was a healthy and happy twelve-year-old, the son
|
||
of migrant farm workers. But after swimming in a canal in Coral
|
||
Gables, Florida, he became a "total quadriplegic." The canal was
|
||
contaminated with four times the recommended-use level of Roundup, a
|
||
herbicide produced by The Monsanto Company. Toxicologists were not
|
||
surprised by the central nervous system damage that still afflicts the
|
||
boy five years after the incident but were unable to prove a
|
||
connection between Roundup and the paralysis in court.
|
||
But whether Roundup can cause damage to the central nervous
|
||
system may never be known. Although Monsanto's original neurotixicity
|
||
studies were ruled invalid by the EPA because of "extensive gaps in
|
||
the raw data supporting study findings and conclusions," there is no
|
||
requirement that a new study be made. However, Roundup is far more
|
||
dangerous than the public has been led to believe. Records of
|
||
pesticide poisoning compiled over the last five years by California's
|
||
Department of Agriculture show that among some 200 pesticides widely
|
||
used in the state, Roundup has been linked to the greatest numbers of
|
||
eye, skin, and internal injuries. The EPA's own Pesticide Incident
|
||
Monitoring System (which was dissolved by the Reagan administration)
|
||
recorded more than 100 cases of Roundup poisoning in 1980. Despite its
|
||
own findings, the EPA concluded the weed killer is "not a primary skin
|
||
irritant, and is only minimally irritating to the eye." That judgement
|
||
was based solely on data provided by Monsanto.
|
||
Dr. Ruth Shearer, a genetic toxicologist, charged that Monsanto's
|
||
claims about the safety of the product are dishonest because they are
|
||
based on phony studies on cancer and birth defects performed by the
|
||
now defunct Industrial Bio-Test lab (IBT). Once the nation's leading
|
||
generator of health effects studies for companies whose chemical
|
||
products require government approval, IBT was found to have conducted
|
||
shoddy tests and falsified results. Monsanto was IBT's biggest
|
||
customer, according to court documents, and was reported to be one of
|
||
four chemical companies that knew of IBT's fraudulent testing
|
||
practices. One IBT executive, Paul L. Wright, was employed by Monsanto
|
||
before and after his tenure at the testing lab. It was during
|
||
Wright's stay at IBT that the lab performed tests involving Roundup's
|
||
connection to mutation in mice and tumors in rabbits. Wright was
|
||
convicted of fraudulent testing in 1983. (The IBT story was the top
|
||
"censored" story of 1982.) Despite the known hazards, the danger is
|
||
compounded by the variety of new uses for which the herbicide is being
|
||
promoted. It is applied to citrus and grape groves in California,
|
||
soybeans in the Middle West, Christmas trees in Maine, coffee beans in
|
||
Brazil, as well as crops grown for vitamins and spices, house plants,
|
||
and government forests in the Pacific Northwest. In fact, Roundup
|
||
is the world's most popular brand-name herbicide. It is easily
|
||
Monsanto's most important product, the first herbicide to reach annual
|
||
sales of $1 billion. It is marketed in 120 countries and accounts for
|
||
more than half of Monsanto's foreign sales.
|
||
Given Roundup's fraudulent approval; its significant health and
|
||
environmental hazards; and that it is the most widely used brand-name
|
||
herbicide in the world, the issue deserves significant media
|
||
attention. At the very least, Monsanto should be required to redo the
|
||
studies that are now known to be invalid.
|
||
|
||
SOURCE: THE PROGRESSIVE, July 1987, "Weed Killer," by Anthony L.
|
||
Kimery, pp 20-21.
|
||
|