Junk Science
Junk science is science. We all learned about the scientific method when we were young. And we learned that the results derived from using the scientific method were science until those results were disproven by science — even if you didn’t like the results.
The Wall Street Journal published an opinion in its “Review & Outlook” page on Monday, April 1, 2019 proclaiming that federal Judge Vince Chhabria “strictly limited discussion of the EPA’s analysis of glyphosate . . .because the primary inquiry is what the scientific studies show, not what the EPA concluded they show”, which was that glyphosates are safe at the levels to which humans are exposed. The WSJ entitled the article “Jackpot Junk Science”, thus siding with the Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) and the multinational conglomerate Bayer, parent of Monsanto.
But the six jurors, along with federal Judge Chhabria, decided in favor of human health and our environment. They realized, as do many Americans, that the scientific consensus for Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide is not safe, no matter that the Environmental Protection Agency concluded “glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic in humans”.
This is not the first time the EPA has given the nod to powerful pesticide industries instead of the health of its citizens. Way back in 1988, on October 11th, the “EPA weakened restrictions on cancer-causing pesticides in foods.1” Furthermore the EPA dubiously claimed that the “weaker but uniform standard” will reduce cancer risk.2 Ironically, unlike its stance today, The Wall Street Journal chastised the EPA on January 20th, 1989 stating that the Environmental Protection Agency seemed “incompetent, inactive, and incoherent”.3
While the EPA asserted that Roundup was safe for human health, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) came to a different conclusion in 2015. The IARC, a symbol of independence and integrity in science, brought together “around 20 researchers from different countries, selected not only for their experience and scientific competence, but for the absence of any conflicts of interest”.4 Moreover IARC bases its opinions on studies published in scientific journals and excludes confidential industry-sponsored studies.
So, when IARC announced that glyphosate, the most widely used pesticide on this planet, is genotoxic (causing DNA damage), carcinogenic to animals, and a “probable carcinogen” for humans, Monsanto viciously attacked calling IARC’s work “junk science”. Monsanto threatened and intimidated the scientists involved in the international study. Monsanto also sought to influence the regulatory process and instigated PR campaigns to defend Roundup.4
Again and again, Monsanto has placed profit ahead of human health. In the process, it has made a fortune selling Roundup and the seeds that go with it. Greed and the well-being of the corporation drives Monsanto forward. The destruction of the environment and the health of the humans and animals who inhabit the planet is meaningless to this faceless multinational.
IARC’s scientific consensus in 2015 concluded that the glyphosates in Roundup are harmful to human health and to our planet’s resources. With competence and integrity, the international group of IARC scientists repudiated the EPA’s questionable stance that glyphosates are safe. The IARC scientists based their conclusions on independent scientific studies — not on industry sponsored studies. Since 2015, Monsanto has been attempting to intimidate IARC and its scientists into silence.
Americans have had enough of big government and powerful conglomerates dictating what we should think. We’re tired of them trashing the environment. We don’t want our children and future generations living in a junk-filled environment, suffering from ill-gotten diseases.
Hip-hip hooray to the six jurors who decided that Bayer AG (parent of Monsanto) is liable for $80.3 million in damages for causing Edwin Hardeman’s non-Hodgkin lymphoma. These six jurors and Judge Chhabria spoke for humanity and for Americans — not for a faceless, powerful, huge multinational.
Mother Earth and its inhabitants are talking back. We’re tired of commercial greed and its destructiveness. We’re tired of being sold out.
Hey, Monsanto, Americans are not as stupid as you think!
References:
- Empty harvest: understanding the link between our food, our immunity, and our planet by Dr. Bernard Jensen and Mark Anderson, p.61. Avery Publishing Group, 1990.
- Ibid. p. 64
- Ibid. p. 64
- Monsanto Papers by Stephane Foucart and Stephane Horel. Published by Le Monde, France, 02/06/2017.
