*FYI* Information on those who need to know..is ROUNDUP really safe? ===================================== P A N U P S *** Pesticide Action Network North America Updates Service http://www.panna.org/panna/ ===================================== January 10, 1997 Monsanto Agrees to Change Ads and EPA Fines Northrup King Monsanto Co. agreed to change its advertising for glyphosate- based products, including Roundup, in response to complaints by the New York Attorney General's office that the ads were misleading. Based on their investigation, the Attorney General's office felt that the advertising inaccurately portrayed Monsanto's glyphosate-containing products as safe and as not causing any harmful effects to people or the environment. According to the state, the ads also implied that the risks of products such as Roundup are the same as those of the active ingredient, glyphosate, and do not take into account the possible risks associated with the product's inert ingredients. As part of the agreement, Monsanto will discontinue the use of terms such as "biodegradable" and "environmentally friendly" in all advertising of glyphosate-containing products in New York state and will pay $50,000 toward the state's costs of pursuing the case. The Attorney General has been challenging the ads since 1991. Monsanto maintains that it did not violate any federal, state or local law and that its claims were "true and not misleading in any way." The company states that they entered into the agreement for settlement purposes only in order to avoid costly litigation. According to a 1993 report published by the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, glyphosate was the third most commonly-reported cause of pesticide illness among agricultural workers. Another study from the School of Public Health found that glyphosate was the most commonly reported cause of pesticide illness among landscape maintenance workers. (Both studies were based on data collected between 1984 and 1990.) In the first nine months of 1996, Monsanto's worldwide agrochemical sales increased by 21% to US$2.48 billion, due largely to increased sales of Roundup. EPA Fines Northrup King Also in November 1996, Northrup King Co. agreed to pay a US$165,200 fine to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for importing, producing, selling and distributing an unregistered pesticide P genetically engineered corn containing Bacillus thurgiensis (Bt). This was EPA's first legal action involving a genetically engineered plant pesticide. According to EPA, the company's activities violated the U.S. Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act and included failing to file with EPA the required paperwork for importing the Bt corn, and producing the pesticide at eight unregistered facilities during 1994-95. Northrup King, a Sandoz Seeds subsidiary based in Minnesota, maintains that they had been working with the EPA to obtain registration for their Bt corn and expected approval last spring. However, in order to have as much seed as possible to sell to U.S. growers, the company shipped seed to Chile for winter production and brought the increased volumes back to the U.S. for packaging and sale. A company spokesperson stated that the federal process took longer than expected, and therefore Northrup King was in "technical violation" by letting its production get ahead of registration. The originally proposed fine of US$208,500 was reduced by 20% because of what EPA officials called the company's "cooperation and good faith efforts to come into compliance." Northrup King's Bt corn, developed in collaboration with Monsanto using its Yieldgard technology, was registered on August 5, 1996, and the company has been selling seed to U.S. farmers since then for next season's plantings. According to reports, the company expected to sell out by the end of the 1996, and is projecting 500,000 to one million acres planted with the company's seed by next spring. Sources: Agrow: World Crop Protection News, November 15, November 29 & December 13, 1996; EPA News Release, Region 5, November 4, 1996; Minneapolis Star Tribune, November 7, 1996; The Gene Exchange, December 1996; Preventing Pesticide- related Illness in California Agriculture, William Pease, et al., 1993; Pesticides in the Home and Community: Health risks and policy alternatives, J.C. Robinson et al., 1994. 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