Here is a start. We need to send the right messages, and defeat the Monsanto PR team. If you have additional ideas for messaging, please include them in comments.
Myth 1: The pesticide bill is only to create a uniform standard and label throughout the United States.
Response: The uniform standard is being created by the EPA, yet its top officials tend to be former lobbyists for the industries they now regulate. Their uniform standard is intended to loosen safety standards, as they serve their masters, who will pay them handsomely when they move back to industry from the EPA. The former lobbyists include:
Douglas Troutman: assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention on Thursday. Troutman most recently served as an interim CEO and lobbyist at the American Cleaning Institute, an organization that represents that supply chain of cleaning products and frequently pushes back against the regulation of chemicals, and questions science that finds cleaning chemicals harmful to health.
In his role at the EPA, Troutman will be helping oversee the regulation of pesticides and harmful chemicals, including managing the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). While he was leading the American Cleaning Institute, the organization criticized the EPA for imposing “overly conservative assumptions and data requirements” through TSCA and lobbied extensively for TSCA reform.
Nancy Beck: a former chemical industry executive with the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and now the office’s principal deputy assistant administrator;
Lynn Ann Dekleva: formerly with DuPont and the ACC, and now the office’s deputy assistant administrator for new chemicals; and
Kyle Kunkler: most recently with the American Soybean Association, who lobbied to bring back dicamba, and who joined the office as the deputy assistant administrator for pesticides in July.
Myth 2: This bill is not about a liability shield for pesticides.
Response: Then why does the bill specifically say that US courts will be prohibited from considering any evidence [regarding injuries from pesticides] that is in any way different than what is on the EPA-approved label? If this bill was not about preventing lawsuits, why does it specifically limit court cases? See the bill language:
https://agriculture.house.gov/uploadedfiles/fb26combo_02_xml.pdf page 685
Myth 3: If the bill fails, farmers will be restricted in the tools they will have available.
Response: No one is taking away any agricultural tools or pesticides from farmers. This is a false narrative that Bayer/Monsanto has used to scare farmers in its efforts to drum up support. Even if Bayer stops did stop selling glyphosate, there are many Chinese manufacturers.
Myth 4: Agricultural inputs and food prices will rise tremendously if the bill fails.
Response: Monsanto has been drastically raising the prices of farm inputs, including glyphosate, unrelated to the cost of production. If Monsanto decides to raise prices for its products, farmers can purchase them elsewhere. For example, glyphosate has not been under patent protection since 2000 and is produced by many other companies. In 2010, Monsanto was able to reduce the price of glyphosate by 50% to compete with Chinese suppliers. This reveals that the product sold at a very high margin. “The price decrease coupled with restructuring of the product value proposition resulted in an increase of gross profit by 46% in 2010.” If prices rise, it will be because Monsanto wants more profit.
Myth 5: Glyphosate and the other registered pesticides are safe, and the EPA has confirmed this.
Response: We challenge this claim, since Monsanto was caught ghostwriting the pivotal scientific paper on glyphosate, a review, that claimed safety. This paper was recently retracted because it was ghostwritten. Monsanto has polluted the science on glyphosate—and this bill is designed to prevent truly independent scientific studies from ever reaching a courtroom.
The paper in question was authored by three scientists presented as independent experts — Gary Williams of New York Medical College, Robert Kroes of the University of Utrecht, and Ian Munro of Cantox Health Sciences International. It reviewed glyphosate safety and quickly became a cornerstone reference for regulators assessing the herbicide’s health risks: Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology Volume 31, Issue 2, April 2000, Pages 117-165
The paper delivered an unequivocal safety verdict that regulators relied on — The authors concluded glyphosate posed no risk to human health, including no cancer, reproductive, developmental, or endocrine harm in humans or animals. Regulatory agencies worldwide, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), have cited this paper as evidence that glyphosate-based herbicides are safe for continued use.3
Monsanto secretly authored the paper while outside scientists signed off — Internal company documents released during litigation in 2017 showed Monsanto scientists wrote the paper themselves, while the named academics served only as editors and signatories. In one particular email from 2015, William Heydens, a Monsanto scientist, suggested the company could “ghost-write” another paper using the same playbook.
MONSANTO EMAIL: “[W]e would be keeping the cost down by us doing the writing and they would just edit and sign their names so to speak. Recall that is how we handled Williams, Kroes, and Munro, 2000,” he wrote.4
Internal emails show deliberate manipulation of the scientific record — After the paper’s publication, Monsanto government affairs official Lisa Drake sent an email praising seven Monsanto employees for their “hard work over three years of data collection, writing, review, and relationship building with the papers’ authors.” She made clear why the ghostwritten paper mattered so much, saying:
MONSANTO EMAIL: “This human health publication on Roundup herbicide and its companion publication on ecotox and environmental fate will undoubtedly be regarded as ‘the’ reference on Roundup and glyphosate safety. Our plan is now to utilize it both in the defense of Roundup and Roundup Ready crops worldwide and in our ability to competitively differentiate ourselves from generics.”5
Response #2: If glyphosate was so safe, why has Bayer/Monsanto removed it from products sold as “Roundup” for use by homeowners? It remains available for use by farmers with their “Roundup Ready” GMO seeds.
IPAK-EDU is grateful to Meryl’s CHAOS letter (Critical Health Analysis and OpinionS) as this piece was originally published there and is included in this news feed with mutual agreement. Read More
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