By Julie Kelly
Monday, October 23, 2017
The European Union is poised this week to enact a
continent-wide ban on glyphosate, a safe and popular weedkiller used by
millions of farmers around the world. The vote to outlaw glyphosate—better
known as Roundup to us city and suburban folk—will be the culmination of a deceptive
yet well-orchestrated effort led by “green” activists that has absolutely
nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with punishing U.S.
companies such as Monsanto, the maker of Roundup.
If the EU bans glyphosate, it will set the stage to enact
the same regulations here, which could be a devastating blow to American
farmers who rely on the herbicide to grow the world’s most abundant supply of
grains. Glyphosate is a key farm chemical that helps farmers control weeds and
boost yields. It is also used on public spaces, parks, and lawns around the
country. U.S. consumers are already being warned about “glyphosate residue”
showing up in food samples, breast milk, and drinking water. The scare campaign
is in full swing.
The EU ban looks very likely to pass. Germany, Italy, and
France are staunch supporters; French President Emmanuel Macron is lobbying
hard for its passage and has outraged his country’s farmers by capitulating to
Green Party bullies on this. (France is Europe’s top grower of wheat, corn, and
barley.)
Graeme Taylor, spokesman for the European Crop Protection
Association, said “glyphosate has been used safely for the past 40 years, and
I’m concerned that if we engage in this hysteria, inevitably what will happen
is that we will sleepwalk into a food crisis in Europe.” The United Kingdom,
Poland, and Spain oppose the ban.
The Crusade Rests
on Crumbling Science
As this calamity unfolds across the Atlantic, the
credibility of the scientific report central to the glyphosate-ban crusade is
rapidly disintegrating and Congress is continuing to investigate how the report
was handled. In March 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer
(IARC) issued a report concluding glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen.
IARC, under the purview of the World Health Organization, is the only major
scientific organization to make that claim and has since been heavily
criticized by other international scientific groups and governmental agencies.
Members of the IARC committee who worked on the report
have been exposed as environmental activists who cherry-picked questionable
data to reach a politically motivated conclusion. Congress is also reviewing
federal funding for IARC and investigating whether likeminded officials in
Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) colluded with IARC members to
help draft the dubious report.
Despite its weak scientific mooring and shady authorship,
the report has been widely embraced by the media and cited by activists as the
reason glyphosate use should be stopped. (This summer, California added
glyphosate to its Prop 65 list of possible carcinogens that must be labeled.)
It is also an evidentiary bonanza for law firms now trolling for litigants to
sue Monsanto and exploit cancer-stricken farmers and their families who now
believe glyphosate is responsible for causing the disease.
Key Figure Exposed
for Major Conflicts of Interest
But a funny thing happened on the way to the deposition.
A key figure in the IARC glyphosate committee, Christopher Portier, an American
scientist and environmental activist, revealed in testimony last month that he
was hired as an expert consultant nine
days after the glyphosate report was released, by one of the law firms
representing glyphosate “victims.” He signed a contract and collected a $5,000
retainer. Portier was the guy who pushed to have glyphosate evaluated by IARC.
He also admitted that he was in conversations with one of the law firms two months before IARC finalized the
report.
According to his testimony, Portier, a former employee of
the Environmental Defense Fund, has been paid $160,000 over the past two years
by law firms that are suing Monsanto. According to a blog post defending
Portier, he has another $30,000 in outstanding billable hours for his work on
these lawsuits and more pay dirt ahead as litigation continues.
As he sought to influence U.S. and European regulators
who were preparing their own studies on glyphosate, Portier failed to divulge
this egregious conflict of interest. His bottom-feeding benefactors made sure
of it: Portier signed an agreement that stipulated he would not disclose his
work “to media organizations, trade journals, professional publications,
members of the public or other purported experts.”
Asked during questioning whether, “in your submissions to
these regulators, you do not disclose your relationship as an expert in private
litigation against Monsanto, do you?” Portier answered, “I do not recall in my
letters to EPA whether I did such a thing.” Portier’s testimony also revealed
his ongoing contact with officials at Obama’s EPA. That agency repeatedly
delayed releasing its own final report on glyphosate, although two internal
studies concluded the herbicide is non-carcinogenic.
A Study ‘Based on
Predetermined Outcomes’
These latest revelations have not gone unnoticed by
Congress. “This new information heightens our concerns about the IARC report’s
objectivity,” Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Science Committee, told me via
email. “It also raises questions as to whether the study is based on scientific
facts or rather on pre-determined outcomes that advance the personal and
political goals of those involved.” The committee is already investigating a
sketchy Italian “scientific” organization with close ties to IARC that receives
U.S. tax dollars and of which Portier is a fellow.
But that’s not all. This week, a Reuters reporter
compared IARC’s draft with the final version and found edits were made to
support the conclusion that glyphosate was a probable carcinogen. Reuters
“found 10 significant changes that were made between the draft chapter and the
published version of IARC’s glyphosate assessment. In each case, a negative
conclusion about glyphosate [finding it had no harmful effects] was either
deleted or replaced with a neutral or positive one.”
It is now obvious that this outlier report was prepared
and promoted by dishonest activists to wage an international assault on a safe,
necessary chemical just because they hate the company that makes it. Even more
shameful is that EU leaders are capitulating to these charlatans, destroying
the livelihood of European farmers, disrupting the international food supply,
and potentially causing a food crisis in Europe. But they are not sleepwalking.
Their eyes are wide open to this sham.
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