by Carey Gillam
Vallianatos now writes and speaks publicly about what he says is a transformation of the EPA from a public watchdog to a “polluter’s protection agency,” and he cites numerous specific examples backed by EPA documents to support his claims. He compiled many of his observations in a 2014 book called Poison Spring: The Secret History of Pollution and the EPA.
Vallianatos sees Monsanto’s actions to defend glyphosate as similar to the story line that played out during his time at the EPA over dioxins, the toxic chemical contaminants that were formed in the production of Monsanto’s Agent Orange herbicide and other pesticides used in the United States and abroad. The EPA now acknowledges that dioxins are highly toxic and can cause cancer, reproductive and developmental problems, and damage to the immune system and can interfere with hormones. But for many years the agency aligned with Monsanto’s assurances of dioxin’s safety and relied in part on company-sponsored studies that showed human exposure to dioxin did not translate to increased cancer risks. Just as Monsanto has been trying to do with glyphosate, the company was able to leverage the EPA’s inaction on dioxins to defend itself against legal claims. Those studies were suspected to be fraudulent by EPA chemist Cate Jenkins, and her accusations triggered the EPA to launch a criminal investigation of Monsanto. But after two years, the investigation was quietly closed, with no action against Monsanto.
Monsanto ultimately was not able to dodge the dioxin issue, however, agreeing in 2012 to commit more than $90 million for cleanup of dioxin contamination in Nitro, West Virginia, and for medical monitoring of Nitro residents who had been exposed to the company’s contaminants. “The fear with dioxins was unprecedented toxicity. The strategy with glyphosate is protecting unprecedented profits,” said Vallianatos.
Certainly, the EPA’s job of overseeing the use of pesticides is not an easy one. As of September 2010, more than 16,000 pesticides were registered for use in the United States. That job is made harder by the fact that the agency’s workforce has been in steady decline over the past two decades, dropping from more than 18,000 employees in 1999 to roughly 15,300 in 2016.18 But still, the agency’s scrutiny of pesticides allowed on the market has been deeply flawed. An investigation by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) found that most of those 16,000 pesticides were approved under what is known as “conditional” registration, a streamlined process meant to apply only in rare circumstances. Conditional registration allows products to enter the marketplace even though some of the required data may not have been submitted or reviewed by regulators. Chemical companies are supposed to provide all the needed data within certain time frames, but a review by the GAO determined that the EPA database designed to track these conditional registrations was a failure.19
“The American public may think all pesticides receive rigorous health and safety testing before they hit the shelves for sale. But our investigation shows their trust is misplaced,” said the NRDC’s Jennifer Sass. “The EPA has casually approved more than 10,000 pesticides for use in consumer products and in agriculture…. They’ve done so without transparency or public comment, and, in some cases, without toxicity tests to determine safety guidelines for public use.”20
Questionable behavior by top agency officials has been seen time and again, particularly the prioritizing of secrecy over public accountability. Not only does the agency routinely fail to meet legal requirements for complying with FOIA requests to disclose records of its internal business, but top officials have also created alter ego e-mail addresses for conducting agency business, a practice that public interest groups feared was keeping agency work with corporate players away from the prying eyes of the public.
Obama’s top agency chief, Lisa Jackson, for instance, was caught using an e-mail account with the name Richard Windsor to correspond with other government officials. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank, sued the Obama administration in 2012 for access to those e-mails, and Jackson subsequently resigned. The EPA has maintained that there is nothing nefarious about the extra e-mail accounts and that administrators commonly use e-mail addresses separate from those known to the public so they can more easily conduct business. The EPA has said these e-mails are available through the FOIA, just as the official e-mails are. Still, an investigation by the Associated Press found that many government officials use these secret e-mail accounts in ways that complicate an agency’s legal responsibilities to find and turn over e-mails in response to congressional or internal investigations, civil lawsuits, or public records requests.21
The EPA’s handling of the new herbicide that Dow brought to market combining 2,4-D with glyphosate also raised eyebrows. An investigation by the Chicago Tribune found that the EPA intentionally downplayed the risks of the new herbicide and ignored a law that required an extra safety factor to protect children’s health. The Tribune’s Patricia Callahan discovered that EPA and Dow scientists had changed important analyses and a key measurement of toxicity in a pivotal rat study in ways that tweaked risk calculations just enough to allow for a dramatic increase in the use of the weed killer. Because much of the extra herbicide would be used on food crops, the EPA’s changes meant that children in the United States could start consuming levels of 2,4-D—in combination with glyphosate—that the World Health Organization, Russia, Australia, South Korea, Canada, Brazil, and China considered unsafe.22
It’s no secret that money talks in Washington. And it’s no secret that Dow, Monsanto, and many others spread a lot of it around. CropLife America, whose stated mission is to promote agricultural pesticides on behalf of its membership of chemical companies, also is a generous donor to the policy makers who influence agricultural and pesticide policies. When it’s all added up, many millions of dollars are spent each year on lobbying by the agrochemical companies and their associations. CropLife alone spends more than $2 million per year on lobbying, for instance.23 The group also shelled out more than $260,000 in political contributions in 2016. And, according to research by the Center for Responsive Politics, agribusiness interests spent more than $127 million on lobbying24 and donated more than $26.3 million to political campaigns in 2016, including those of several congressmen who are members of the House agriculture appropriations subcommittee.25
The organization frequently cites protection of farmers’ interests when lobbying, but it is clear where its loyalties lie; its board of directors is composed not of farming groups but of multinational chemical companies. And in its role as the lobbying arm for the farm pesticide industry, CropLife has immense power in Washington, wielding it to “advance policy that highlights the vital role of pesticides.” The EPA’s acquiescence to CropLife’s demands to remove Peter Infante from the Scientific Advisory Panel it convened on glyphosate in December 2016 was but one of many examples of CropLife’s power and its efforts to influence the EPA. Top CropLife officials have served on advisory committees for the EPA and provided guidance on such matters of regulatory law as the Food Quality Protection Act, which deals with health-based standards for pesticides used in foods. CropLife has argued that a variety of laws aimed at providing clean water and protecting endangered species are unduly burdensome, as are rules that aim to reduce pesticide drift. CropLife has been a key player in delaying EPA action to remove the dangerous insecticide chlorpyrifos from the market, shrugging off the research showing the risks to children’s brain development, and it has been a tireless champion of glyphosate safety, despite the many studies that indicate otherwise.
The organization has battled against EPA efforts to use epidemiology studies to analyze the safety of certain chemicals, instead telling the EPA it should continue to rely on industry-funded toxicology research. And it has pushed back on EPA efforts to heed scientists’ warnings that formulated herbicides, such as Roundup, may be more toxic than are the active ingredients alone. That strong-arming came in the summer of 2016, when the EPA said it was developing a research plan with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to evalu
ate the role of glyphosate in product formulations and the “differences in formulation toxicity.” Considering the growing body of independent science showing that product formulations—like Roundup—could be more dangerous than previously known, more research would seem to be an obvious move for the EPA. But not to CropLife. In a sharply worded letter to the EPA, the association criticized the agency for raising the concern and said that any data needed should come from the companies registering and selling the products.26 The EPA then quietly backed off the plan.
“They want no regulations at all so they can make as much money as possible,” said environmental lawyer Charlie Tebbutt, who has spent thirty years battling with chemical companies and organizations such as CropLife. He sees the agrochemical industry’s substantial power over regulators and lawmakers as “business as usual,” despite the obvious harm to people and the environment. “The public needs to know what they’re doing behind the scenes,” he said.27
There are real concerns that corporate influence could become even more pronounced during Donald Trump’s presidency. Many of Trump’s picks to oversee federal regulatory agencies have a record of siding with corporations on matters of public policy. Trump’s advisors have pushed for large budget and staff cuts at the EPA, and, notably, Trump’s pick to run the EPA, former Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt, has a long history of fighting environmental regulation. As Oklahoma’s attorney general, Pruitt sued the EPA several times over regulations dealing with air quality and pollution. He has primarily championed the interests of the oil and gas companies, which make up one of Oklahoma’s most economically powerful industries. But many fear that his affinity for industry will extend to the chemical companies peddling pesticides.
Even before Pruitt’s nomination was approved by Congress, during the first week of the Trump administration, EPA scientists found themselves effectively gagged—ordered not to talk with the public or the press about their research. The EPA’s public social media websites and press releases were frozen, and the communications director for Trump’s EPA transition team announced that scientific reports generated by EPA scientists would be reviewed by political appointees before being made public. The actions sparked such a strong public backlash that the administration retreated and said there would be no such mandate.
The obvious efforts to suppress science prompted environmental activists to scale a crane located near the White House on Trump’s fifth day in office and unfurl a large golden banner that featured black lettering proclaiming the message “RESIST.”
Fears were realized only a few weeks into the new administration when Trump unveiled a budget plan that would slash the EPA’s budget by 31 percent and cut roughly 3,000 employees from the agency. And the depths of allegiance to corporate interests was underscored when new EPA chief Pruitt overturned the agency’s proposed ban on chlorpyrifos, handing a hard-fought victory to Dow AgroSciences, the chief purveyor of the insecticide. The move stunned and outraged environmental and consumer advocates because it had taken them years to get the EPA to acknowledge the evidence of the harm chlorpyrifos has on children’s brain development. But over at the USDA, the move was applauded as a boon for farmers and agribusiness.28 Critics noted that Dow’s parent company, Dow Chemical, had donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, and shortly after the contribution Trump chose Dow Chemical’s chief executive officer to lead the American Manufacturing Council.29
If chlorpyrifos gets a pass, it’s unlikely that glyphosate or any other highly profitable pesticide will get serious scrutiny by the EPA anytime soon.
Such moves by government agencies are unsettling, and the future of scientific independence and integrity is an open question as I write this. Former FDA chief Robert Califf, a cardiologist who left the agency when Trump took the White House, and who himself had been criticized as being too close to the pharmaceutical industry, stressed the need for a clear separation between politics and the work that should be done on behalf of the public. “Political appointees … should not be interfering,” he said. “Once that happens for the wrong reason, how do you ever stop politics from dominating this arena?”30
In the view of Dr. Paul Winchester, medical director of the neonatal intensive care unit at the Franciscan St. Francis Health network in Indianapolis, Indiana, the EPA and other regulators are endangering generations of children by allowing pesticides such as glyphosate to become so pervasive. Research that he and other medical professionals are pursuing clearly shows correlations between pesticides found commonly in food and rising levels of chronic disease and neurodevelopmental problems in children as they grow into adults. He’s outraged at what he sees as the EPA’s complicity with corporations such as Monsanto to cover up the dangers of the pesticides they peddle. “This is a huge issue. We are convinced there is more than ample science to raise serious concerns over rising herbicide use and exposure, yet not nearly enough is being done to either dismiss such concerns or study them in a meaningful way. People think global warming is the biggest threat, but it’s not. This is.”31
CHAPTER 12
Seeking Solutions
If, having endured much, we have at last asserted our “right to know,” and if, knowing, we have concluded that we are being asked to take senseless and frightening risks, then we should no longer accept the counsel of those who tell us that we must fill our world with poisonous chemicals; we should look about and see what other course is open to us.
—Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
For Stephen Ellis, who grows wheat, barley, corn, and soybeans on 4,200 acres along Chesapeake Bay in Virginia, questions about glyphosate’s safety and effectiveness are part of a broad risk-versus-reward ratio that he and other farmers must calculate as they confront the constant challenges Mother Nature brings.
Ellis has used glyphosate for decades, and though he has studied the reports of the links to disease, he knows that other herbicides are clearly more dangerous. Like other farmers, he uses paraquat, for instance, despite knowing that a few drops accidentally ingested can kill quickly. The chemical corrodes the gastrointestinal tract and leads to kidney, liver, and respiratory failure within days. Comparatively, the possibility that glyphosate may cause cancer years down the road is a risk he considers worth taking. And Ellis is a businessman who believes that his farm income has benefited greatly from glyphosate—once Roundup Ready crops came along and he could spray glyphosate directly onto growing corn, he was able to put land that had become overrun with weeds back into viable production. He also counts as a reward the fact that glyphosate use made it possible for him to avoid tilling the ground, which helped control erosion and chemical runoff into the waters of the bay. Before glyphosate resistance became a problem, “life was good and easy,” Ellis recalled. Now, resistance is such an issue that he, like other farmers, is having to use additional chemicals to fight the weeds, and he is wondering how long glyphosate will last. Still, the chemical was a “godsend” for many years, he told me.1
For a lawyer like Charlie Tebbutt, who studies the impacts of chemical use on the environment and fights to hold companies and regulators accountable for pesticide problems, the fact that farmers have been big fans of glyphosate and other pesticides despite their harmful ramifications is not surprising. The chemical companies are “like the drug cartel warlords that get their people addicted to their drugs,” he says. “They then argue that farmers need their products once they’ve hooked them.”2 Arguments by companies, such as Monsanto, of altruistic goals to feed the world are almost laughable; money is the driver and always has been, as far as Tebbutt is concerned. The global market for pesticides is valued at roughly $65 billion per year and growing, with the countries that make up the Americas the largest buyers.3
There is no doubt that many millions of farmers around the world have found rich benefits in glyphosate and other common agrochemicals and have come to believe that those rewards are more than worth the risks. Even if glyphosate were to be banned, or sharply restricte
d, as many people around the world have demanded, substitutes are just as dangerous, if not more so. Whether they are coated on seeds or sprayed from the ground or the air, pesticides have become ubiquitous in agriculture. Many farmers know no other way.
Our dependence on chemically based agriculture is an unfortunate truth, but so is the fact that the modern agricultural practices so highly dependent on synthetic pesticides simply are not sustainable over the long term—not if we want to protect the health of our families and our environment. There is simply too much evidence that pesticides contribute to elevated rates of chronic diseases such as different cancers, diabetes, neurodegenerative disorders that include Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease, and reproductive disorders. Farmers are at higher risk because of their direct and repeated exposure to pesticides such as glyphosate and the many other herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides. But everyone who eats the foods produced with these pesticides is also at risk. And though the chemical agribusiness industry has long contended that low-level exposures pose no risk to human health, numerous scientists and medical professionals no longer are willing to accept that false assurance.
“Along with the wide use of pesticides in the world, the concerns over their health impacts are rapidly growing. There is a huge body of evidence on the relation between exposure to pesticides and elevated rate of chronic diseases such as different types of cancers, diabetes, neurode-generative disorders like Parkinson, Alzheimer, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), birth defects, and reproductive disorders,” an international team of toxicology experts wrote in a 2013 scientific research paper. The scientists said there also was circumstantial evidence on the association of pesticide exposure with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematous and rheumatoid arthritis. The scientists said improved policies for pesticide use were needed.4