Whitewash

by Carey Gillam

  About Island Press

  Since 1984, the nonprofit organization Island Press has been stimulating, shaping, and communicating ideas that are essential for solving environmental problems worldwide. With more than 800 titles in print and some 40 new releases each year, we are the nation’s leading publisher on environmental issues. We identify innovative thinkers and emerging trends in the environmental field. We work with world-renowned experts and authors to develop cross-disciplinary solutions to environmental challenges.

  Island Press designs and executes educational campaigns in conjunction with our authors to communicate their critical messages in print, in person, and online using the latest technologies, innovative programs, and the media. Our goal is to reach targeted audiences—scientists, policymakers, environmental advocates, urban planners, the media, and concerned citizens—with information that can be used to create the framework for long-term ecological health and human well-being.

  Island Press gratefully acknowledges major support of our work by The Agua Fund, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Betsy & Jesse Fink Foundation, The Bobolink Foundation, The Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation, Forrest C. and Frances H. Lattner Foundation, G.O. Forward Fund of the Saint Paul Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, The Margaret A. Cargill Foundation, New Mexico Water Initiative, a project of Hanuman Foundation, The Overbrook Foundation, The S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, The Summit Charitable Foundation, Inc., V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, The Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, and other generous supporters.

  The opinions expressed in this bookare those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of our supporters.

  Island Press’ mission is to provide the best ideas and information to those seeking to understand and protect the environment and create solutions to its complex problems. Join our newsletter to get the latest news on authors, events, and free book giveaways. Click here to join now!

  Copyright © 2017 Carey Gillam

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher: Island Press, 2000 M Street NW, Suite 650, Washington, DC 20036.

  ISLAND PRESS is a trademark of the Center for Resource Economics.

  Island Press would like to thank Deborah Wiley for generously supporting the publication of this book.

  Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in the book and Island Press was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in initial capital letters (e.g., Roundup).

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017940669

  All Island Press books are printed on environmentally responsible materials.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Keywords: agrichemicals, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), genetically modified organisms (GMOs), glyphosate, herbicide, Monsanto, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL), pesticide resistance, Roundup, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)

  For the farmers who have given me their time, shared their wisdom, and helped me understand the obstacles they face as they work to feed us all.

  Agriculture … is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals and happiness.

  —Thomas Jefferson,

  letter to George Washington, 1787

  Contents

  Preface

  Introduction: A Silent Stalker

  Chapter 1. What Killed Jack McCall?

  Chapter 2. An Award-Winning Discovery

  Chapter 3. The “Roundup Ready” Rollout

  Chapter 4. Weed Killer for Breakfast

  Chapter 5. Under the Microscope

  Chapter 6. Spinning the Science

  Chapter 7. A Poisoned Paradise

  Chapter 8. Angst in Argentina

  Chapter 9. Uproar in Europe

  Chapter 10. When Weeds Don’t Die, But Butterflies Do

  Chapter 11. Under the Influence

  Chapter 12. Seeking Solutions

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Notes

  About the Author

  Index

  Preface

  It’s been nearly twenty years since I first walked into the corporate headquarters of Monsanto Company, a visit that would become one of many over the course of my career as a national correspondent for Reuters, one of the oldest and largest news agencies in the world. Meeting with top executives, scientists, and marketing experts at Monsanto, perhaps the world’s best-known agricultural powerhouse, was part of a job that called on me to help keep international audiences informed about the ins and outs and evolutions of agriculture in the United States. The types of seeds farmers plant in their fields and the chemicals they use to treat their crops are big business, amounting to billions of dollars in revenues for Monsanto and the other companies that sell them. But the fundamentals of growing food ultimately have much larger implications. Not only do farmers’ choices influence commodity pricing and trade relationships, but they also ultimately affect the health and well-being of all of us. The food we eat, the water we drink, the landscape of our environment, all are connected to these seemingly simple choices made by farmers in their fields.

  Before my 1998 move to the farm state of Kansas to write about agriculture for Reuters, I spent a good deal of my journalism career delving into the financial wheeling and dealing of the big banking, commercial real estate, and insurance industries. I also spent a fair share of my time chasing chaos—I covered the death and devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina; floods, fires, and droughts; and the countless tornadoes that roared across rural America. And I was dispatched to duck bullets, bricks, and bottles in the race-torn riots of Ferguson, Missouri, and elsewhere.

  When assigned to cover the “ag beat,” I was at first a bit reluctant. I was skeptical that it could bring the intrigue and excitement I had experienced with the prior work I had done. And I had a lot to learn. My education in food production and farming meant not just sitting down with executives at companies such as Monsanto and its rivals Dow Agro-Sciences and DuPont but also listening to, and studying the work of, agricultural economists, soil and plant scientists, experts on seed germplasm, and—of course—farmers. My favorite times as an ag journalist have been spent in blue jeans and mud boots, traipsing through higher-than-my-head cornstalks with farmers and riding inside the cabs of combines alongside the hardworking, often tough-talking men and women who understand better than anyone the risks and rewards of modern food production. I have immense respect and gratitude for these farmers who devote their lives to toiling in unforgiving fields, where the harvest bounty often depends on the whims of Mother Nature and the bulk of the profits go to deep pockets much higher up the food chain. And I stand a bit in awe of the scientists who spend their careers studying how to do more with less, how to grow enough food for an expanding world population in ways that could not even have been imagined a generation ago.

  When I started down that reporting road, I was an eager student, nearly as impressed with the advanced technologies of modern agriculture as with the people who work the land. I was someone who had never given much thought to what went into the products I purchased at the grocery store. I didn’t buy organically grown produce, as it seemed too expensive, and I didn’t spend time fretting over invisible chemicals that might lurk in my lunch. The debate about the then-nascent technique of making transgenic changes to food crops was a mystery to me. And I was a devoted consumer fan of Monsanto’s hit herbicide product, Roundup, using it liberally in my suburban backyard to keep weeds a
t bay. Wide-eyed is the best way to describe my reaction to seeing Monsanto’s “corn chipper” in action and to those initial visits to biotechnology crop demonstration fields. I became a fan of the company’s chief technology officer, an engagingly brilliant, bald-headed scientist named Robb Fraley, and I always enjoyed my many chats with the affable Brett Begemann, who grew up on a Missouri grain and livestock farm before rising through the ranks to eventually become Monsanto’s president.

  But over the years, as my research and reporting expanded to include doubts about the benefits of genetically modified organisms and the risks associated with the chemicals used on them, I became a target of Monsanto’s ire. Company representatives and industry surrogates alternately sought to bully me, charm me, intimidate me, and cajole me to write news stories in ways that parroted industry talking points. They told me there was no justification for reporting both sides of the debates over Monsanto’s crops and chemicals because the science was settled, all was well, and anyone who questioned that was thwarting Monsanto’s mission to “feed the world.” When I would not adopt the desired narrative, surrogates attempted to assault my character and credibility and made efforts to derail my career. Monsanto executives and representatives from Monsanto-funded organizations sought unsuccessfully to convince my editors to yank me off my beat, to block further coverage of the issues. They could rarely, if ever, find errors in my reporting. The problem, they would complain, was one of “bias.”

  As you’ll see in reading this book, the only bias I hold is for the truth. What I’ve learned, what I know with certainty, is that when powerful corporations control the narrative, the truth often gets lost, and it’s up to journalists to find it and bring it home. That’s what I’ve tried to do with this book. For decades, companies have whitewashed many of the facts about the crops and chemicals that they have helped make a central part of modern agriculture. Yes, there are rewards, but there are also risks—many. And without transparency, none of us can make informed decisions about what we eat and what policies we do or do not want to support.

  My admiration for American farmers has never waned. But this journey through our nation’s food system has left me with a very real fear—for my children, for your children—over what the future holds. It is undeniable that we’ve allowed our food, our water, our soil, our very selves to become dangerously doused with chemicals, and one of the most pervasive of those pesticides is the subject of this book.

  Scientists call it glyphosate. Consumers know it as Roundup. It’s a weed killer, but it’s killing much more than weeds. And the regulatory agencies charged with protecting the public from these dangers have acted—intentionally or not—in ways that have protected corporate products and profits instead of people. It’s not a feel-good story. But it is one that has to be told.

  INTRODUCTION

  A Silent Stalker

  If we are going to live so intimately with these chemicals—eating and drinking them, taking them into the very marrow of our bones—we had better know something about their nature and their power.

  —Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

  Since the mid-1990s, one of the largest and loudest public policy debates in the United States and Europe has been over the introduction of genetically engineered crops. Questions about the safety of these crops—for humans, animals, and the environment—have raged across continents, roiling markets and dividing nations and states over how to view this type of tinkering with nature. The debate has led to increasing consumer awareness of, and activism against, the industrialized farming practices that produce our food, and numerous books have documented an array of concerns over genetically modified crops.

  But shadowing the controversy over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is what I believe to be the true health and environmental calamity of modern-day biotech agriculture—the flood across our landscape of the pesticide known by chemists as glyphosate and by the rest of us simply as Roundup. From the day genetically engineered crops were introduced, they were designed with one primary purpose in mind—to withstand treatments of glyphosate, the highly efficient and effective weed-killing ingredient in Monsanto Company’s Roundup branded herbicides. Farmers using Monsanto’s Roundup Ready seeds along with Roundup herbicide could knock weeds out of their fields without worrying about killing their crops. Then and now, most of the genetically modified crops grown in the world carry the glyphosate-tolerant trait, enabling and encouraging farmers to choose to use this herbicide over any other on their farm fields. It was a brilliant move by Monsanto and made the company billions of dollars in combined sales of seeds and herbicide. But it has cost the rest of us, and generations yet to come, in ways impossible to calculate.

  Just as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, or DDT—now banned because of environmental and health risks—once was widely used as an insecticide the world over and declared “a benefactor of all humanity,”1 glyphosate was heralded as a “one in a 100-year discovery that is as important for reliable global food production as penicillin is for battling disease.”2

  And just as the truth of DDT’s dangers eventually came to light, the devastation wrought by years of nearly unchecked use of Roundup and other glyphosate-based weed killers has emerged as another example of how influential corporate interests can trump protection of the public.

  The story of how this once obscure chemical became a common household name shows that the lessons of Rachel Carson and her book Silent Spring appear to have been forgotten as man-made dependence on glyphosate and other synthetic pesticides wreaks havoc on people, animals, and the land. As before, it begins with power, money, and politics, which have combined to accelerate glyphosate’s use to unprecedented levels and have inserted this toxic pesticide into the diets of people around the world. Many have suffered deadly diseases linked to glyphosate, while scientists who raise red flags about these risks have been bullied and ostracized. Their experiences are recorded in these pages, as are efforts by regulators to straddle the fence between protecting public health and appeasing moneyed interests. Internal documents and communications, obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, make clear how corporate players and a consortium of public and private scientists have manipulated regulators and lawmakers into green-lighting ever-higher uses of this chemical even as danger signs mounted.

  Amid the growing crisis, consumers are awakening to the fact that they must hold regulators and lawmakers accountable for the levels of glyphosate and other pesticides in the foods we all eat. Concerns about glyphosate residues were part of the push for GMO labeling, and they drove consumer and environmental groups to petition regulators in the European Union and the United States to block further use of the chemical in 2016. European Parliament members took the concerns so seriously that in early 2016 they had their urine tested for glyphosate—finding alarming results—and some U.S. moms and researchers started testing breast milk and an array of foods. Fears about glyphosate also have started to affect international trade. Oatmeal products from the United States were rejected in the spring of 2016 by food inspectors in Taiwan because they contained glyphosate traces. Glyphosate is such a hot topic that industry players established a Twitter feed for the pesticide in March 2015.

  Use of glyphosate has skyrocketed in the past twenty years, in part because as Monsanto’s patent on the chemical was nearing expiration in the year 2000, the company introduced glyphosate-tolerant soybeans, corn, canola, sugar beets, and other crops, linking its new crop technology to its older chemical agent. Genetically engineered alfalfa, a common food for livestock, is also regularly doused with glyphosate now. Monsanto also encouraged farmers to use glyphosate—not on top of crops but as a traditional herbicide—in the production of hundreds of other foods that are not genetically engineered, including wheat, oats, vegetables, fruits, and nuts. U.S. farmers alone applied about 276 million pounds in 2014, compared with 40 million pounds in 1995, according to published research, and use globally has more than doubled in just the pa
st ten years.3 Around the globe, glyphosate is now registered for use in 130 countries and is manufactured by dozens of producers following Monsanto’s lead. It is considered the most heavily used agricultural chemical in history.4

  The popularity of glyphosate has been a boon for companies using it in their herbicide products. But emerging research in recent years is showing a host of unforeseen problems for people and the environment, including evidence that glyphosate may be a human carcinogen and that residues of this potentially cancer-causing chemical are frequently found in an array of popular foods, including cereals and snacks. Heavy use of glyphosate has also been showing detrimental effects on soil biology, which in turn affects the health and nutritional profile of crops. And use of the chemical has spawned what scientists and farmers have nicknamed “superweeds”—weeds that can grow several feet tall, choking off important food crops, and that are largely impervious to efforts to wipe them out. These superweeds now cost U.S. farmers billions of dollars per year in added labor and chemicals and lost production. The evidence is still evolving but already makes it clear that this weed killer, which for decades was believed to be benign—“safe enough to drink,” according to some promoters—is endangering public and environmental health much more than the altered DNA of the crops it is tied to. It is not the most inherently dangerous of pesticides on the market, but its broad use for everything from farm fields to golf courses gives it a reach into every avenue of our lives, far deeper than that of other agrochemicals.

  Indeed, recent government and academic research shows that glyphosate is pervasive in water, in air, and in our food. Just how much of the pesticide we’ve been consuming has been hard to determine, thanks largely to a U.S. regulatory community that has repeatedly said there is no need to test for glyphosate because the agrochemical industry has proven it to be so safe. In fact, glyphosate stands out as the one widely used pesticide that has not been included in years of annual government surveys of pesticide residues in food. Both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) annually test thousands of food products for hundreds of different types of pesticide residues, but both routinely have refused to test for glyphosate.