Never Heard of Isoxaflutole? That’s About to Change
Few outside agriculture industries has heard about isoxaflutole — and that’s exactly how EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler wants it.
Reprint of op-ed in Environmental Health News
Across the country, many people who’ve never stepped into a soybean or corn field are familiar with pesticides like the cancer-linked glyphosate in Roundup and drift-prone dicamba.
And that’s exactly how EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler wants it.
Pronounced EYE-sox-Ah-FLUTE-ole, isoxaflutole is a highly toxic pesticide the EPA has linked to cancer and liver damage. And much like dicamba, it’s well-known for its ability to drift more than a thousand feet from where it’s sprayed, creating potential for broad, unintended damage to nearby crops, backyard gardens and native plants.
The EPA’s announcement that isoxaflutole had been approved for use on millions of acres of genetically engineered soybeans without any prior public notice spotlights how aggressively the Trump EPA under Wheeler’s iron hand has moved to exclude the public and independent scientists from the pesticide approval process.
In making the EPA over in his own secretive, corporate image, the former coal lobbyist has broken with the decades-long practice of providing public notice of comment periods on pending pesticide decisions known to be of broad interest.
As a result, the agency received nothing but glowing reviews of its proposed action while the public and leading independent scientists were purposefully excluded from the approval process.
Far from an exception, the behind-closed-doors approach to approving dangerous poisons sprayed on America’s cropland has become business-as-usual under an autocratic Trump EPA.
Thereafter, to achieve its goal of re-approving sulfoxaflor, the Trump EPA made sure no one was able to register their complaints about the disturbingly pro-industry bias of its review by offering no public notice or chance for independent researchers to comment on the re-approval decision.
The massive expansion of isoxaflutole use vividly exposes the dirty secret of those who profit off pesticides and genetically engineered seeds: The push to facilitate the use of genetically engineered crops is increasingly accompanied by a dramatic increase in pesticide use.
The unavoidable truth is that it’s only a matter of time before plants will develop resistance to isoxaflutole-as they have already done for glyphosate and dicamba.
And that means it’s only a matter of time before those who profit off of pesticide-intensive farming will insist on adding yet another poison to the ever-growing number dumped on hundreds of millions of acres of U.S. cropland.
Nathan Donley, Ph.D. is a former cancer researcher who now works at senior scientist specializing in pesticide policy at the Center for Biological Diversity.
Originally published at https://www.ehn.org on April 24, 2020.
