140,393 Americans urge USDA to stop censoring science
by Tiffany Finck-Haynes, food futures campaigner
The USDA is supposed to protect our food system, not Big Ag’s profits, but recent reports document that the USDA has silenced its own scientists and censored their research which could hurt pesticide giants like Bayer and Syngenta.
More than 10 scientists filed a formal petition last year detailing a pattern of harassment for simply doing their jobs. These brave whistle-blowers explained their work has been censored or suppressed for calling into question the safety of chemicals used widely in agriculture. These scientists all worked on issues related to bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides or glyphosate (a.k.a. Roundup) — a leading driver in monarch butterfly declines.
Friends of the Earth and a coalition of beekeeper, food safety, consumer, and environmental groups sent a letter to USDA last May calling for USDA to conduct a thorough investigation into the matter, make the investigation publicly available once it is complete and take necessary steps to ensure that the USDA maintain scientific integrity.
More than 50 groups sent a follow-up letter last week, urging the USDA to publicly investigate these allegations, and make immediate binding reforms to the agency’s scientific integrity policy.
In February, USDA Inspector General Phyllis Fong told a U.S. House subcommittee USDA plans to open an investigation into the complaints.
We’re glad to see USDA is taking our request seriously because it is alarming the agency is censoring its own scientists. However, it is critical that an independent third party evaluate scientific integrity complaints because the agency shouldn’t be expected to police itself.
If the USDA is censoring and suppressing its own scientists who are calling into question the hazards of these dangerous pesticides, how can we expect it to implement policies that truly protect bees, butterflies, the environment, our health and our food system and not just the profits of the pesticide industry?
Fortunately, Friends of the Earth activists are fighting back. In early March, Friends of the Earth and allies delivered 140,393 petition signatures urging Catherine Woteki, Under Secretary for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Research Education and Economics mission area, who is ultimately responsible for this suppression, to resign her post immediately.
Just a day following the delivery, the GAO released a report sharply criticizing USDA for failing to adequately address threats to bee populations. The report points to the USDA’s failure to identify threats and implement measures to protect native bees. It also notes the EPA’s failure to identify the risks posed to bees by the most common pesticide mixtures.
Just last week, Nature released a report saying that these iconic pollinators would need nearly a five-fold increase to return to safe levels. Why have they declined so much? Because glyphosate (aka Monsanto’s Roundup®) — the most widely used herbicide in the world — is wiping out milkweed, which monarchs rely on for food!
Monsanto is doing everything it can to try to convince our regulators not to do anything about Roundup® by using snazzy PR tactics to appear concerned and “help” address the problem: They have contributed $3.6 million dollars in grants to conservation and biodiversity initiatives to help reverse monarch decline and filed a lawsuit against California to stop the state from adding glyphosate to its list of known carcinogens! The USDA is dragging its feet on testing for and regulating Roundup® while it censors its scientists for raising questions and concerns about these chemicals.
The next step is to push for an investigation by the Government Accountability Office — the agency responsible for ensuring that agencies like the USDA act in the public interest. Already, more than 40,000 people have called for an investigation. We need to keep the pressure on for the sake of bees, monarchs, our food system and our democracy.
Take action: Tell the GAO to investigate the censorship of bee-saving science!
