Must-read recap: The New Lede's top stories
Monsanto allegedly excluded non-US citizen from settlement; dry-cleaning chemical may cause Parkinson's; EPA proposes drinking water standards for 6 PFAS; pesticide impacts even worse than we thought.
Monsanto accused of excluding non-US citizen from Roundup settlement
(This story was originally published in Environmental Health News and is republished here with permission.)
Monsanto Co. and its corporate parent Bayer are facing a federal lawsuit for civil rights violations after they allegedly excluded a farmworker from a Roundup cancer settlement because of her immigration status.
According to the lawsuit, which was filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Virginia, plaintiff Elvira Reyes-Hernandez is a migrant farmworker who worked on Virginia tree farms between 2015 and 2018, during which she sprayed the herbicide Roundup regularly.
In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) listed glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Over the years, a wide body of scientific evidence has also pointed to glyphosate exposure as causing an increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Reyes-Hernandez was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2019 and subsequently sued Monsanto, claiming that Roundup exposure had a role in causing her cancer.
“Monsanto is very likely making calculated risks based on the characteristics of the people who are using their products,” said Katy Youker, an attorney for Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and a co-counsel for the case.
By excluding non-US citizens from the settlement program, she said, Monsanto is effectively putting up a huge barrier for migrant farmworkers — most of whom do not have citizenship but are at the forefront of Roundup exposure — from seeking restitution.
This case could send an encouraging message to migrant and undocumented farmworkers who wish to bring legal action against the company. However, legal experts and farmworker advocates are still pessimistic about the prospect of them coming forward, especially when facing a myriad of hurdles and obstacles.
In 2020, facing more than 100,000 similar Roundup cancer lawsuits nationwide, Bayer agreed to pay more than $10 billion to put much of the litigation to rest.
As part of the settlement program, the complaint noted, Bayer allocated $412.8 million to the three law firms that were representing Reyes-Hernandez. The funds were to be distributed among their more than 3,000 clients – an average of $120,000 per plaintiff.
Reyes-Hernandez accepted the settlement offer in late 2020. Months later, however, Monsanto pulled out of the deal because she was not a US citizen, the lawsuit alleged, and her lawyers “abruptly dropped” her as a client “without first asking her or obtaining her consent.” (Read the rest of the story.)
Common dry-cleaning chemical could be a cause of Parkinson’s disease, scientists say
A chemical commonly used to dry clean clothes could be contributing to a sharp rise in the spread of Parkinson’s disease, according to a paper published on Tuesday.
Twelve scientists specializing in medical research said they found important “circumstantial” evidence linking the chemical trichloroethylene (TCE) to the doubling of global instances of Parkinson’s disease over the past 30 years. In their paper, published in the Journal of Parkinson’s Disease, the scientists called for much more research and regulation of TCE, warning that “widespread contamination and increasing industrial, commercial and military use,” pose a dire public health threat.
“TCE may be the most important cause of Parkinson’s disease in urban environments in the US,” said Ray Dorsey, a neurologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center and the lead author on the paper.
TCE is one of multiple environmental pollutants implicated in the rise of Parkinson’s disease. Research has also linked particulate air pollution and certain pesticides, including paraquat herbicide, to the disease. Head trauma and genetic factors also play a role, according to research findings.
TCE has been manufactured and sold globally since the 1920s. The chemical is used as a component in multiple products such as paint removers, cleaners, and degreasers, and has even been used to decaffeinate coffee. Prolonged exposure to the chemical is linked to certain cancers, including liver and kidney cancer.
At the height of the chemical’s production in the 1970s, the US produced over 600 million pounds of TCE, and about 10 million Americans may have worked with the chemical on a daily basis. TCE contamination is documented at many industrial and military waste sites, and is found in half of federal Superfund sites, according to the authors. Exposure to TCE occurs through inhalation of contaminated air, use of contaminated drinking water, or contact with the skin.
One of the most widespread instances of TCE contamination happened at Camp Lejeune, a US Marine Corps base in North Carolina. For more than 30 years, residents of the base were exposed to levels of TCE and a related chemical in their drinking water at levels that were up to 280 times safety standards, according to a 2010 report by Congress. (Read the rest of the story.)
EPA announces proposed drinking water standards for six toxic PFAS chemicals
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday proposed national standards aimed at reducing levels of six harmful chemicals in drinking water. The move was applauded by health and environmental advocates who say the action is long overdue.
The agency said in a press release that if the rule is implemented it will “over time, prevent thousands of deaths and reduce tens of thousands of serious PFAS-attributable illnesses.”
The EPA action is part of a larger government move to respond to scientific evidence showing that certain types of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are associated with a range of health problems, including a heightened risk of developing cancer, birth defects, liver disease, thyroid disease, decreased immunity, hormone disruption and a range of other serious health problems. PFAS have become nearly ubiquitous in the environment, including in water sources.
The new standards target six types of PFAS. For PFOA and PFOS – types known to be particularly dangerous to human health – the agency said the new rule would require public water systems to ensure levels of PFOA and PFOS do not exceed a maximum contaminant level (MCL) of four parts per trillion (ppt). Additionally, the EPA would require public water providers to use a hazard index calculation to determine if combined levels of PFNA, PFHxS, PFBS, and GenX Chemicals pose a potential risk.
“Today we can celebrate a huge victory for public health in this country – US EPA is finally moving forward to protect drinking water across the United States by proposing federally-enforceable limits on some of the most toxic, persistent, and bioaccumulative chemicals ever found in our nation’s drinking water supply,” US attorney Rob Bilott said in a statement. Bilott has been calling for the EPA to address PFAS in US drinking water since 2001.
“It has taken far too long to get to this point, but the scientific facts and truth about the health threat posed by these man-made poisons have finally prevailed over the decades of corporate cover-ups and misinformation campaigns designed to mislead the public and delay action,” added Bilott.
If finalized, all public drinking water systems will be required to monitor for all six PFAS chemicals and to notify the public and reduce PFAS levels if they exceed the standards. (Read the rest of the story.)
Scientists warn pesticide impacts may be worse than we thought
In California, regulators have rolled out a plan to eliminate “high-risk” pesticides from agricultural and urban use. In Mexico, officials have announced a ban on the widely used weedkiller glyphosate. And in Canada, regulators have implemented some new pesticide restrictions and are reviewing the potential for others.
The moves, which are also playing out in various forms around the United States, have drawn opposition from chemical and farm industry forces. But supporters say they don’t go far enough to adequately protect human and environmental health.
Three University of British Columbia researchers recently published a paper that summarizes what they say is a growing body of evidence showing that pesticides are having harmful ecological impacts beyond what is already well understood, and that these impacts are not being recognized by current testing and regulations. The authors of the paper looked at dozens of studies to draw their conclusions.
The New Lede had a conversation with lead author Risa Sargent about the team’s findings. Sargent is an associate professor of applied biology within the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia. She and colleagues reviewed studies from around the world, finding alarming results.
Q: You note in your paper that pesticide use globally is on the rise and that in recent decades farmers have adopted “prophylactic” strategies, meaning they’re applying pesticides at or before they plant their crops. Indeed, according to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations as cited by the Global Change Data Lab, uses of herbicides, fungicides and insecticides are up significantly since 1990. Can you explain why this increased use is ecologically risky?
A: When we did our review of studies we found evidence that these previously thought-to-be-safe pesticides are actually having significant ecological harm. We have a picture emerging of anthropogenic threats for very, very important ecosystem players. We’re using more pesticides, and we are increasingly seeing impacts we had not expected – patterns of ecosystem disruption. There is this nice quote by E.O. Wilson: “It’s the little things that rule the world.”
Q: You make the point that overuse of pesticides can actually inhibit crop yields, making plants less healthy, less robust. Your paper states: “It is well established that pesticide use frequently exacerbates pest problems, increasing and entrenching pesticide dependency, referred to as the ‘pesticide treadmill’. Ultimately, this cycle can reduce agricultural profitability, sometimes even leading to regional collapse of a cropping system.” Can you elaborate on that, or provide an example?
A: The pesticide treadmill refers to the evolution of pesticide resistance, which is increasingly a problem. Once resistance evolve, growers either increase the amounts they use, or, sometimes turn to other pesticides, leading to the constant turnover of pesticides in the landscape. None of these are good for long term sustainability of our agroecosystems. (Read the rest of the Q&A.)