18
Dec
Investigative Report Finds Canada’s Reversal of Neonicotinoid Ban Influenced by Bayer/Monsanto
(Beyond Pesticides, December 18, 2024) A bombshell investigation conducted by Canada’s National Observer finds that Bayer, which acquired the Monsanto chemical company in 2018, colluded with environmental and public health regulators in Canada to obstruct a proposed neonicotinoid insecticide ban originally introduced in 2018. Advocates were stunned back in 2021 when Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA)—the Canadian counterpart to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—reversed its decision to phase out imidacloprid, clothianidin, and thiamethoxam by 2023.
The weaponization of scientific institutions and regulatory processes is commonplace in the U.S. context, with U.S. Right to Know publishing a report earlier this year on the corrupting impact of pesticide manufacturers at the Entomological Society of America 2023 annual meeting. (See Daily News here.) There are numerous Office of Inspector General (OIG) reports signaling EPA corruption and failures, including persisting industry influence in the cancer risk assessment process, inadequate leadership in addressing community harms of a former creosote-treated wood preservative plant turned Superfund site in Pensacola, Florida, and failure to protect the public from endocrine-disrupting chemicals, to name several examples.
In a recent press release, the David Suzuki Foundation, alongside numerous medical, legal, and civil society organizations, is calling on Health Canada to engage in an independent review to correct for agency corruption and industry influence.
The capitulation of regulatory agencies to industry-funded studies and science undermines public trust in environmental and public health institutions at a time when robust action is necessary to preserve public health, biodiversity, and climate resilience.
Weaponizing Science, Undermining Regulation
Christy Morrissey, PhD, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan specializing in various disciplines including avian ecotoxicology, was shocked by PMRA’s reversal, considering her research on pesticide drift in prairielands and wetlands was cited in Health Canada’s 2016 announcement and in the proposal to ban imidacloprid, the most widely used of the synthetic neonicotinoid insecticides. According to the report, “[T]he professor and freshwater ecologist shared unpublished water sampling data she had collected from wetlands in Saskatchewan farmland with the federal pesticide regulator. The data complemented her published studies on neonic contamination, which the PMRA also reviewed.” (See her published research here and here.)
Federal officials with the PMRA, Environment and Climate Change Canada, and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada shared Dr. Morrissey’s unpublished data with industry representatives, including Bayer officials. According to the investigative report, industry representatives and regulators met for hours through a “multi-stakeholder forum” just one month after the proposed ban was made public in November 2016 to discuss ways to prevent it from moving forward. Released meeting minutes depict a “collegial” tone that is “deferential to industry and aimed at preserving neonic use.” One official commented that it was not the government’s objective to “take away products from agriculture.”
To the dismay of Dr. Morrissey, federal officials at PMRA shared her unpublished data from 2014 with Bayer despite an understanding that the pesticide regulatory body would not share the data with industry unless “they signed an affidavit to use it as a part of the registration process.” Dr. Morrisey’s data was derived from a monitoring sampling of 115 wetlands for bird breeding. “In contrast, Bayer replicated her tests during the end of summer when fields were dry and neonics weren’t running into the water,” Canada’s National Observer reports. “Instead of visiting and taking water samples from the sites, they relied primarily on Google Earth and Street View to find the wetlands Morrissey sampled and evaluate if they were relevant to the PMRA’s pesticide risk assessment. Bayer’s team only visited ‘a few sites’ in person,” the report says. In reversing the proposed ban, PMRA adopted Bayer’s critique of “relevant” sites in Dr. Morrissey’s aquatic risk assessment in its final decision to allow the continued use of imidacloprid. The Agency then went on to draw from 27 industry-run studies of mesocosms (simulated outdoor environments), even though “Environment and Climate Change Canada, the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, and European Union and Dutch pesticide regulators consider mesocosm studies too scientifically weak to set water quality guidelines for pesticides,” according to the report.
Industry Interference is the Status Quo
There is an extensive record of pesticide manufacturers’ (including Bayer) interference in regulatory and academic institutions to the detriment of public health and environmental stability.
The industry has advanced the idea that petrochemical-based products are integral to climate “solutions,” including carbon markets and regenerative agriculture. Bayer-Monsanto has faced public scrutiny across the globe for the harm that its products have caused to frontline communities and stewards. For example, in 2023 a collective of Mayan beekeepers (Colectivo de Comunidades Mayas) alleged that a mass die-off of more than 300,000 bees led to a financial loss of $633,000 US dollars (12 million pesos). Not to mention the proliferation of South Africa-based farmer protests in 2023, as toxic pesticides that are banned from use in the European Union continue to be imported into their markets.
In recent years, Bayer-Monsanto and Corteva have grown to become leading players in voluntary carbon markets based in the United States. Based on Civil Eats’ reporting, Bayer/Monsanto with Climate FieldView and Corteva chemical company (previously Dow chemical company and Dupont, known as DowDuPont) with its Carbon Solutions program, cite their pesticide products as tools for sustainable agricultural practices, bundling these toxic pesticides with sustainable practices like no-till/reduced-till agriculture and cover cropping that can be healthy components of organically managed systems. (See Daily News here and Civil Eats investigation here.)
In the context of regenerative agriculture, a study funded by CropLife America, the trade association for pesticide manufacturers, highlights Integrated Pest Management (IPM) as the ideal systems solution for improving soil health in vaguely defined “regenerative” agriculture, which it maintains necessitates the continuation of pesticide inputs. The study was written by four authors with varying levels of connections to the major agrichemical industry trade group, including academic researchers with funding from the pesticide lobbying group or direct employment. In the disclosure statement at the end of the article in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, the authors indicate that the work was supported by CropLife and then say, “No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).” (See Daily News here.) For more Daily News on greenwashing implications of regenerative agriculture, see here.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and EPA jointly released a report setting the stage for the expansion of genetically engineered crops and products that would further enrich corporations at the expense of long-term public health and ecosystem balance. (See Daily News analysis here.)
Courts have stepped in to act as a backstop to legislative and executive inaction. On July 10, 2024, the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) does not preempt pesticide exposure victims’ state law claims against pesticide manufacturers, based on reporting from The New Lede. This decision builds on years of judicial precedent from the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) that protects individuals’ right to use failure-to-warn claims against producers of toxic pesticides. (See Daily News here.) However, the chemical industry has moved the battle to state legislatures and the U.S. Congressional debate on the federal Farm Bill, where it is seeking through state and federal law to be shielded from liability for its failure to warn pesticide users about hazards.
Call to Action
Beyond Pesticides, in coordination with communities across the country, has called for the separation of corporation and state given the outsized impacts that various actors in the petrochemical and pesticide sectors have wrought on biodiversity, public health, and climate resilience.
In a study published in Frontiers in Toxicology, which builds on EPA data reports, all five neonicotinoids evaluated—acetamiprid, clothianidin, imidacloprid, thiacloprid, and thiamethoxam—are associated with significant shrinkage of brain tissue at the highest dosage. Neonics have also been linked to breast cancer, and developmental issues in the brain and nervous system, among other human health effects. There are already ten U.S. states that have restricted or banned the use of neonicotinoid insecticide products and the European Union banned neonics on all outdoor areas, only permitting their use in enclosed greenhouses. (See Daily News here, here, and here for the progression of policy changes.) For more coverage on neonicotinoids, see its dedicated Daily News section at the link above.
Join the battle to protect the right to sue when pesticide manufacturers fail to warn users about the hazards of their products. See previous Action of the Week to weigh in.
Beyond Pesticides called on Monsanto-Bayer to end its operations in Hawai’i after pleading guilty to multiple crimes, including pesticide use violations and putting field workers at risk. In both cases, they admit that they knowingly violated pesticide law and put field workers in harm’s way. (See Daily News here.)
In the spirit of moving beyond toxic pesticide reliance, Beyond Pesticides coordinated with the Center for Food Safety and numerous farmworker organizations to urge EPA to suspend the registration of glyphosate. (See Daily News here and petition here.)
While the future of EPA is in question under the Trump administration, the agency set in its suspension all uses of the weed killer Dacthal/DCPA last August, which Beyond Pesticides calls “The Dacthal Standard” because it recognized serious concerns about fetal hormone disruption and resulting “low birth weight and irreversible and life-long impacts to children [impaired brain development, decreased IQ, and impaired motor skills] exposed in-utero” and found that there are no “practicable mitigation measures” to protect against these hazards. Beyond Pesticides has launched campaigns to apply The Dacthal Standard to numerous pesticides, including atrazine and paraquat. Next up is chlorpyrifos, while we seek to apply The Dacthal Standard to additional toxic pesticides.
All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.
Source: Canada’s National Observer
