Agriculture Minister’s trust in pesticide safety puts public health at risk Richard Nankin
“ I say to all Australians all glyphosate products are safe. The standards and the labelling in the United States is different to Australia. The APVMA as the regulator makes sure the directions and the labelling on glyphosate products is quite clear. Our regulations, and our regulatory reform, is as robust as anyone in the world. I am confident the APVMA has provided the right directions, I am confident if Australians use it as per the label it is perfectly safe.” Federal Minister for Agriculture David Littleproud made these reassuring statements last year in response to news Bayer/Monsanto offered to pay over A$15 billion to settle thousands of class action lawsuits in the US, made by people who claim the company’s Glyphosate Based Herbicides (GBH) caused their cancers. Investigating the facts surrounding this massive settlement offer reveals Minister Littleproud’s reassurances are wrong on all counts. Judgements in the original US court case found the safety directions were not adequate and put users of GBHs at risk of serious injury even if the users followed the label’s safety directions in good faith. The jury concluded that unintended or accidental exposure to GBHs would have occurred, despite following the safety directions, and that exposure whilst following the directions caused or contributed to the plaintiffs’ cancers.1
APVMA’s dismal record The record of our pesticide regulator, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA), is not impressive. The APVMA has a shocking track record of keeping pesticides ‘under review’ and on the market long after comparable regulators remove them. Neonicotinoids are a current case in point. They have been banned in the EU, NZ and the US because they adversely impact pollinators such as bees, but the APVMA still argues they’re safe in Australia if used according to label directions.
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Chain Reaction #139
May 2021
In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and World Health Organisation (WHO) made a finding that long-term lowlevel exposure to GBHs was a probable cause of cancer. In response, the US Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) and Monsanto conspired together to discredit the IARC and debunk its findings. The APVMA followed in lockstep when it held its own behind-closed-doors review of the IARC/WHO findings. The APVMA findings from that review dismissed the IARC/WHO findings on the cancer risk with justifications identical to the US EPA’s.
Bad smell indicates rot The US glyphosate court case also found the US EPA acted in collusion with Monsanto and failed to do its regulatory job properly. Neither the APVMA, Littleproud, nor any other relevant ministers have properly addressed the damning court findings against both Monsanto and the failings of the US regulators. Surely our own National Audit Office has a responsibility to investigate the intimate working relationship between APVMA, the US EPA and Monsanto and the consistent failure of our regulator to fulfil its legislated requirements; especially to properly assess the toxicity of the formulations it approves for use in Australia, as the relevant legislation clearly states they are required to do. Australian pesticide labelling laws are not much better or different from those in the US. Has the Minister or his advisers ever had a serious look at the label on a bottle of Roundup? Whilst there are some minor differences in how toxic pesticides are labelled in each country, the safety information on the GBHs sold in Australia are woefully inadequate, outdated, obscure and technically wrong. The label invite users to go online to read a “safety data sheet”.2 How many people actually do this? These online guidelines are far more cautious and clearly contradict the inadequate and technically incorrect safety guidelines written on the product label. Worse still, this online Safety Data Sheet, information that the Australian regulator uses, are virtually identical to outdated and incorrect US Safety Data Sheets.
