Erin Brockovich: The weedkiller in our food is killing us
On a recent Saturday
afternoon, in an estuary near Tampa Bay, Florida, I watched airboats move up
and down the river banks, spraying massive plumes of weedkiller on to the
vegetation. The state of Florida was trying to control and kill off scores of
plant species. Nearby, children were lying out in the sun, though they knew
better than to swim in the water, which has recently been blooming with toxic
algae. Mists of weedkiller drifted downwind toward them.
The main active
ingredient in that mist, and in the weedkiller being sprayed throughout Tampa
Bay, is glyphosate, one of the most widely used herbicides in the US. First
registered for use here in 1974, it is now an ingredient in more than 750
products, including the most widely deployed herbicide in the world, Monsanto’s
Roundup. For more than a generation, Americans have been using Roundup and
other glyphosate-based chemicals to improve agricultural yields, manage
forests, ripen fruit and kill the dandelions sprouting from our front lawns.
This August, the jury
in a civil trial found Monsanto, which was acquired earlier this year by the
German chemical behemoth Bayer, guilty
of causing the cancer of Dewayne Johnson, a school groundskeeper. The
jury awarded Johnson $289m (a judge later reduced the award to $78m, citing
statutory limits). Roughly 8,700
similar cases against Monsanto are also before the courts...
read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/06/the-weedkiller-in-our-food-is-killing-us
