In recent times a subject of great concern for health has been that powerful multinational companies are introducing several products which are highly hazardous for people, exposing them to several serious ailments and diseases including cancer.

As the incidence of several serious afflictions and diseases including several kinds of cancer has increased at a very fast pace in several countries, several public interest groups have been seeking scientific help to find out if several products believed to be highly hazardous products are responsible for this. As a lot of scientific evidence has become available regarding highly hazardous products, cases which seek billions of dollars worth of damages have been decided in favour of persons whose health was damaged by hazardous products while even more cases are pending.

At the same time, powerful corporations have sought all kinds of devices to escape the responsibility, going to the extent of merging themselves in other companies. While this is the situation in some of the richest countries, the situation in several parts of the global south are even worse as some of the highly hazardous products that are banned or highly regulated in richest countries are exported to the global south where these are used much more indiscriminately. In the context of hazardous agro-chemicals and weed-killers or their ingredients, a lot of controversy has centred around cancer-linked glyphosate and Roundup.

Recent disclosure by leading environmental organization Friends of the Earth have revealed that Residential Roundup products are more toxic to consumers and the environment than ever before.

“Not only has manufacturer Bayer [OTCMKTS: BAYRY] failed to remove glyphosate from all Roundup products, as promised, but new formulations of Roundup are 45 times more toxic to human health, on average, following long-term, chronic exposure”, Friends of the Earth has stated in a press release dated October 22, 2024. They also pose greater risks to the environment.” 

This press release by Friends of the Earth (FoE) says,

“Bayer announced it would remove glyphosate from consumer products starting in 2023 in response to tens of thousands of lawsuits linking the weed-killer to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Friends of the Earth reviewed Roundup weedkillers for sale at the two largest U.S. home and garden retailers – Home Depot [NYSE: HD] and Lowe’s [NYSE: LOW] – to determine whether the company followed through as of October, 2024.”

FoE adds,

“Not only do several Roundup products still contain glyphosate, but eight new Roundup products contain chemicals of dramatically greater concern. With no requirement from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to warn consumers of the new dangers, people are unknowingly being exposed to higher risks.” 

According to the FoE statement,

“Roundup products sold to consumers now contain combinations of four new active ingredients as replacements for glyphosate: diquat dibromide, fluazifop-P-butyl, triclopyr, and imazapic. All four chemicals pose greater risk of long-term and/or reproductive health problems than glyphosate based on the EPA’s evaluation of safety studies. They have been linked to a variety of harms to human health, including birth and developmental abnormalities; reproductive dysfunction; kidney or liver damage; and irritation, inflammation, or allergic reactions affecting the skin, eyes, and respiratory system. The worst offender is diquat dibromide, found in all of the new Roundup formulations. It is 200 times more chronically toxic than glyphosate, is classified as a highly hazardous pesticide, and is banned in the European Union.” 

Further this statement says,

“In addition to the threat to human health, the new Roundup weed-killers also endanger animals and the environment. On average, they are more toxic to bees, birds, fish, aquatic organisms, and earthworms. They are also more persistent in the environment and more likely to leach into groundwater, increasing the risk of contaminating waterways and drinking water.” 

“The human toll of Roundup is enormous – tens of thousands of people have lost their lives and their health because of this toxic weed-killer. With the new formulations of Roundup, Bayer had the opportunity to make us safer, but it did the opposite,” said Kendra Klein, deputy director of science for Friends of the Earth. 

This statement adds,

“Internal corporate documents unearthed during the Roundup litigation show the profound extent of deceit and disinformation that Monsanto deployed to cover up the dangers of Roundup. Our analysis reveals that Bayer continues to mislead consumers, exposing them to far greater risks with no warning. While the new active ingredients are listed on Roundup product labels, as required by law, there is no language alerting consumers to the higher risks they pose. The average consumer – even if they notice the new ingredients – knows little about the toxicology of glyphosate compared to the new ingredients that are taking its place.” 

The FoE statement also informs us that as many as over 120 organizations have called on Home Depot and Lowe’s to take action to #RejectRoundup and make their garden product shelves safer overall.

At the same time concerns are also increasing in many countries regarding the agricultural use of chemical weed-killers as very serious health hazards could be seen in very remote villages where it will be difficult even to monitor and the linkages of highly hazardous products with serious diseases may be more difficult to establish, even though such diseases are certainly increasing in the wake of the wider spread of such products. Highly hazardous herbicides are being promoted as a package along with certain seed varieties and are an integral part of the spread of several GM crops which in themselves are also health hazards and ecologically disruptive, as pointed out by several senior scientists. So the real task and the real challenge before us is to work for the spread of natural farming ad ecologically protective farming so that health and sustainable livelihoods can be protected and at the same time biodiversity and environment can also be protected.

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Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include When the Two Streams Met (Freedom Movement of India), Man over Machine (Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas for present times) and India’s Quest for Sustainable Farming and Healthy Food. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Sustainable Pulse

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