A recent Monsanto lawsuit opens a scary window into the industry of junk science.

A recent lawsuit against Monsanto offers a clear and troubling view into industry strategies that warp research for corporate gain. In a lawsuit regarding the possible carcinogenicity of the pesticide Roundup, plaintiffs’ lawyers suing Monsanto charge the company with ghostwriting an academic study finding that Roundup’s active ingredient, glyphosate, is not harmful. Glyphosate is the world’s most widely used weed killer and is critical for successful cultivation of genetically modified crops such as corn and soybean, which are resistant to the pesticide.

Osborn & Barr, an advertising firm based in St. Louis, Missouri, is facing more than 130 lawsuits over the link between its former client, Monsanto, and cases of cancer associated with Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide, marketed as Roundup.

The lawsuits were filed last week in the 22nd Circuit Court in St. Louis against Creve Coeur-based Monsanto, naming Osborn & Barr as a co-defendant, for its role in promoting the glyphosate-based herbicide.

According to the filings, Monsanto’s Roundup is carcinogenic—a designation the company adamantly disputes–and connected to non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which many of the plaintiffs were diagnosed with.

“While existing lawsuits focus on holding Monsanto liable for cancer allegedly linked to glyphosate, the inclusion of the advertising agency that helped market Roundup is a different approach in the legal battle,” St. Louis Today reports.

At March's Natural Products Expo West trade show, Cargill (Minneapolis) announced major moves aimed to demonstrate the company’s growing commitment to non-GMO traceability. At the show, the firm announced 13 new Non-GMO Project Verified Ingredients. It also rolled out the branding of its KnownOrigins identity-preservation process.

Growing Commitment to Non-GMO

The company announced that these 13 ingredients have now been verified non-GMO by the Non-GMO Project: stevia sweeteners, dry corn (mill, grits, flour), glucose heirloom syrup, corn syrup solids, dextrin, maltodextrin, modified food starch, native starch, mid-oleic sunflower oil, Clear Valley high-oleic canola oil, soybean oil, chicory inulin, and erythritol (using corn feedstock).

“The significance of this is that this particular group of products getting verified are from high-risk crops,” said Lea Buerman, Cargill’s food safety, quality, and regulatory manager. “The majority of them are from corn or soy, and as you know in the U.S., the majority of corn and soy crops are GM.”

Abstract

Use of glyphosate-based herbicides (GBHs) increased ∼100-fold from 1974 to 2014. Additional increases are expected due to widespread emergence of glyphosate-resistant weeds, increased application of GBHs, and preharvest uses of GBHs as desiccants. Current safety assessments rely heavily on studies conducted over 30 years ago. We have considered information on GBH use, exposures, mechanisms of action, toxicity and epidemiology. Human exposures to glyphosate are rising, and a number of in vitro and in vivo studies challenge the basis for the current safety assessment of glyphosate and GBHs. We conclude that current safety standards for GBHs are outdated and may fail to protect public health or the environment. To improve safety standards, the following are urgently needed: (1) human biomonitoring for glyphosate and its metabolites; (2) prioritisation of glyphosate and GBHs for hazard assessments, including toxicological studies that use state-of-the-art approaches; (3) epidemiological studies, especially of occupationally exposed agricultural workers, pregnant women and their children and (4) evaluations of GBHs in commercially used formulations, recognising that herbicide mixtures likely have effects that are not predicted by studying glyphosate alone.

Few things on Earth are as miraculous and vital as seeds. Worshipped and treasured since the dawn of humankind, these subtle flecks of life are the source of all existence. Like tiny time capsules, they contain the songs, sustenance, memories, and medicines of entire cultures. They feed us, clothe us, and provide the raw materials for our everyday lives. In a very real

sense, they are life itself.

Yet in our modern world, these precious gifts of nature are in grave danger. In less than a century of industrial agriculture, our once abundant seed diversity—painstakingly created by ancient farmers and gardeners over countless millennia—has been drastically winnowed down to a handful of mass-produced varieties. Under the spell of industrial “progress” and a lust for profit, our quaint family farmsteads have given way to mechanized agribusinesses sowing genetically identical crops on a monstrous scale. Recent news headlines suggest that Irish history may already be repeating in our globalized food system. Articles in the New York Times and other mainstream sources report the impending collapse of the world’s supplies of bananas, oranges, coffee and coconuts—all due to a shortsighted over-reliance on a single, fragile variety. Without seed diversity, crop diseases rise and empires fall.

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, wrote

environmentalist Rachel Carson in 1962 in her book

Silent Spring, which hauntingly described the damaging

effects of indiscriminate pesticide use in agriculture

on animals and people in the USA. 55 years later, a new

report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food

and the UN Special Rapporteur on toxics, presented to the

Human Rights Council on March 7, details the health and

SALEM, Ore. — The controversy over genetically modified organisms is back in the spotlight at the Capitol.

Legislative committees held public hearings Thursday to discuss two new bills.

Farm advocates say they’re designed to protect family farmers from genetically engineered crops.

One bill would hold GMO companies accountable for contaminating traditional crops.

The other bill allows local governments to adopt their own laws to protect farmers from unregulated GMO companies, reversing a law banning local governments from regulating crops or seeds.

Court Documents Reveal EPA Official May Have Suppressed Evidence that Roundup Causes Cancer

FINLAND, Minn. – The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) today called on members of Congress to launch a full investigation into whether or not some EPA officials conspired with Monsanto (NYSE:MON) to suppress legitimate scientific evidence of Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller’s potential to cause cancer.

The OCA, whose US network includes more than two million consumers, also called on Congress to immediately suspend all sales of Roundup until the investigation has been completed.

“Consumers are told to rely on the EPA to determine the safety of chemicals like glyphosate, and products like Roundup,” said Ronnie Cummins, international director of the Organic Consumers Association. “When credible sources indicate that EPA officials have deliberately compromised the safety of the public, consumers have a right to know. Monsanto should not be allowed to continue to profit from sales of a product that some EPA scientists, and scientists at World Health Organization, have determined is likely to cause cancer.

“Congress should immediately launch a full investigation into this new evidence of collusion. And until the truth is known, sales of Roundup products should be banned.”

Monsanto suffered a major setback Tuesday when a federal judge in San Francisco unsealed documents that call into question the agrichemical giant's research practices and the safety of its best-selling herbicide, Roundup, the world's most-produced weedkiller. The documents counter industry-funded research that has long asserted Monsanto's flagship product—used by home gardeners, public park gardeners and farmers and applied to hundreds of crops—is relatively safe.

The reputation of Roundup, whose active ingredient is the world’s most widely used weed killer, took a hit on Tuesday when a federal court unsealed documents raising questions about its safety and the research practices of its manufacturer, the chemical giant Monsanto.

Roundup and similar products are used around the world on everything from row crops to home gardens. It is Monsanto’s flagship product, and industry-funded research has long found it to be relatively safe. A case in federal court in San Francisco has challenged that conclusion, building on the findings of an international panel that claimed Roundup’s main ingredient might cause cancer.