Page A20 of the June 11, 2019 Wall Street Journal is a full page “Roundup is safe” advertisement by Bayer. It begins — “Tested for 40 years. Approved for 40 years. Used safely for 40 years.” We’ve posted an image snapped with an iPhone from our copy of the WSJ at the bottom of the post so you can see the full ad.
The text of the ad is Bayer boilerplate running consistently through the trials, and the company’s PR efforts. Nothing new nor unexpected.
But a block of text, presented in a much larger, bold font appears mid-way down the left side of the full page ad. It is striking and unprecedented and states:
“There’s no risk to public health from the application of glyphosate.”
— Alexandra Dunn, Assistant Administrator for the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention
This is the single most inappropriate, and simply ignorant statement I have seen in 40+ years of following all-things-pesticides in EPA. Where to start?
Well, first, no one applies glyphosate, so I guess Assistant Administrator Dunn is technically correct.
In the event she intended to state that there’s no risk from “the application of Roundup,” she would at least be discussing a herbicide people buy, apply, and are exposed to.
“There’s no risk to public health” from glyphosate/Roundup is flat wrong, and is contradicted even in EPA’s deeply flawed analysis of Roundup exposure and toxicity.
EPA’s oft-quoted clean bill of health for Roundup is actually based largely on studies of pure glyphosate. EPA’s risk assessment largely ignores the well-accepted fact that Roundup is a mixture of chemicals, and the mixture is much more hazardous to people that pure glyphosate.
During each of three Roundup-non-Hodgkins lymphoma (NHL) trials lost by Bayer/Monsanto, the juries heard over a month of detailed scientific testimony on the differences between the toxicity and properties of pure glyphosate versus formulated Roundup.
After all the evidence was presented and the lead attorneys had delivered their closing statements, jurors obviously agreed with the plaintiffs experts and attorneys that EPA’s safety judgement was flawed, and moreover did not apply to the much, much higher exposures of the plaintiffs — DeWayne (Lee) Johnson, Edwin Hardeman, and Alva and Alberta Pilliod.
EPA’s safety judgement is clearly limited to “typical,” “expected” residues of glyphosate in food, and hence typical exposures to the general public via diet. As made clear in all EPA glyphosate risk assessment reports, EPA’s judgement does NOT apply to the much higher exposures experienced by people applying Roundup using handheld and backpack sprayers, or ATV or truck-mounted sprayers.
And especially people that spray Roundup several hours per day, over dozens of days per year and for many years, as part of their job or in order to control weeds on their rural properties or farms.
But the most outrageous feature of this ad is the fact that Alexandra Dunn, the senior Presidential appointee in the EPA who oversees the Office of Pesticide Programs, would allow such a statement to appear in an advertisement.
Larry Kier served as a senior Monsanto scientist working on pesticide safety for many years, and later as a consultant. He co-authored several peer-reviewed papers arguing that current uses of Roundup posed no significant risks (but not no risk).
In an email exchange with a journal editor and co-author in 2015, Kier objected to a Monsanto-drafted set of “talking points” highlighting key findings reported in a paper about to be published. In Kier’s email, he objected to the use of “inappropriate absolutes” in describing his paper’s findings and conclusions.
Anyone who cares about, or depends on the integrity of pesticide regulatory decision-making in the U.S. EPA (i.e. all of us) should hope that Alexandra Dunn has a chat with Larry Kier, who can clearly point out the “inappropriate absolutes” contained in her outrageous June 11th quote.
