$340 billion. That’s what diseases caused by exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals in our food, environment and household and personal care products cost the U.S. every year, says children’s environmental health expert Dr. Leonardo Trasande.

Trasande is the author of “Sicker, Fatter, Poorer,” a new book highlighting the harmful effects of thousands of endocrine disruptors, also known as hormone mimickers.

In a recent CBS News segment, Trasande said,  “Hormones are molecules that our body uses to signal and communicate, and hormone disruptors are chemicals that scramble those signals and contribute to disease.

Watch the interview and read ‘Gambling With Our Health: Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals Cost the U.S. $340 Billion a Year’

In November 2017, the European Food Safety Authority (Efsa) (the equivalent of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration) approved the use of glyphosate for another five years, despite calls for the herbicide to be banned. In December 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a risk assessment statement declaring that glyphosate is “not likely” to cause cancer.

Both the EPA and Efsa contradicted the findings of the World Health Organization (WHO), which in March 2015, classified glyphosate as a “probable human carcinogen.”  Instead of taking WHO scientists’ word for it, Efsa re-approved glyphosate based on a safety assessment conducted by Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR).

Now, the Guardian reports that BfR plagiarized chemical industry reports throughout that assessment—the one used by the EU’s food safety agency to determine glyphosate’s safety. According to the Guardian, the assessment contained  “copy-and-pasted tracts from Monsanto studies.”

And a new study in published in Environmental Sciences Europe says the EPA assessed the safety of glyphosate largely on the basis of industry studies, not independent peer-reviewed articles.

No wonder government agencies fail over and over to protect us from chemicals that shouldn’t be used at all, much less sprayed on our food.

And no wonder we have to use our own precious financial and human resources to keep educating the public about this Big Fail, and keep the pressure on corrupt corporations and their dubious influence over government agencies.

The U.S. EPA is supposed to rule on the safety of chemicals like glyphosate once every 15 years. For glyphosate, the deadline for that decision was December 2015. Yet here we are, more than three years later, with no decision.

While the EPA twiddles its thumbs—and continues to base its “safety” assessments on industry studies—glyphosate continues to poison our food and waterways.

Thanks to you, we’ll keep the pressure on the EPA (which likely is stalling because it doesn’t want to deal with your wrath), and on the corporations that continue to sell and use Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller.

Make a tax-deductible donation to OCA’s Millions Against Monsanto campaign

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Ever wonder how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could continue to support the use of glyphosate—even after 17 of the world’s best scientists at the World Health Organization (WHO) concluded that the key active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller is a “probable human carcinogen”?

A new study published this week in Environmental Sciences Europe answers that question. As it turns out, the EPA based its conclusions on unpublished industry studies—99 percent of which found that glyphosate doesn’t damage your DNA.

The scientists at WHO’s International Agency on Cancer Research (IARC), on the other hand, relied on non-industry, published, peer-reviewed studies—and 74 percent of those found that glyphosate does damage DNA.

Gee, wonder how that happened? Could Monsanto lobbyists have had something to do with which studies the EPA used, and which ones it ignored?

Reporting on the new study, the writers at GM Watch said:

The article shows that only by framing and constraining its genotoxicity assessment in a highly selective and biased way was the EPA able to conclude that glyphosate was not genotoxic. It also demonstrates that the EPA’s cancer classification – as well as EFSA’s, which was based on the same data and was reached in a similar way – is scientifically baseless. Overall, the article shows that the way pesticides are assessed for risk is not fit for purpose and exposes people and the environment to unacceptable risks.

Read ‘How did the U.S. EPA and IARC reach opposite conclusions about glyphosate’s genotoxicity?’

Read the full study

TAKE ACTION: Tell the EPA to ban Monsanto’s glyphosate

Make a tax-deductible donation to OCA’s Millions Against Monsanto campaign

The new Congress is busy setting its priorities for the 2019-20 session. That makes this a good time to let your representatives know how they can help the regenerative organic food and farming movement.

One easy thing Congress can do is to make it easier for farmers who produce pasture-raised meat to process their animals closer to home, and access new local markets by being allowed to sell their meat in neighboring states.

The benefit to consumers? More locally produced meat, at potentially more affordable prices.

Legislation that would accomplish these goals has already been written. Two bills, one in the House and one in the Senate, were introduced in past legislative sessions—only to stall. It’s time to resurrect them, and push them through!

TAKE ACTION: Ask your representatives in Congress to be original cosponsors of the New Markets for State-Inspected Meat and Poultry Act and the Processing Revival and Intrastate Meat Exemption (PRIME) Act

In the U.S., an insurgent slate of newly elected members of Congress, inspired by the Sunrise Movement and led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have generated headlines and popular support by calling for a Green New Deal (GND), a 21st Century upgrade of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal carried out during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Given the severity of the climate crisis, and the deterioration of the U.S. and global status quo (economic, political, health and environment), it’s no exaggeration to state that the GND is perhaps the most significant blueprint for system change in 100 years.

The GND’s call for a mass conversion to renewable energy and zero emissions of greenhouse gases in the U.S. by 2030, is in line with what most scientists say is necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change.

But what’s new, and long overdue in this evolving manifesto is that the GND also calls for the greening, “just transition” and elimination of greenhouse gas emissions from our multi-trillion-dollar food and farming system as well. That call is long overdue, especially given that our degenerative food system generates 44-57 percent of all global greenhouse gases.

Read Ronnie’s essay: ‘A Call for the Food Movement to Get Behind the Green New Deal’

Sign up to host a GND watch party

TAKE ACTION: Ask your members of Congress to support the Sunrise Movement’s Green New Deal!