Slashdot Mirror
EU Drops Plans For Safer Pesticides After Pressure From US
An anonymous reader writes: The European Union recently published plans to ban 31 pesticides containing chemicals linked to testicular cancer and male infertility. Those potential regulations have now been dropped after a U.S. business delegation said they would adversely affect trade negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. "Just weeks before the regulations were dropped there had been a barrage of lobbying from big European firms such as Dupont, Bayer and BASF over EDCs. The chemical industry association Cefic warned that the endocrines issue 'could become an issue that impairs the forthcoming EU-US trade negotiations.'"
Dear EU sponges,
Shouldn't that be a good reason FOR pushing for this leglisation?
So, lemme recap, we not only don't get any protection from dangerous pesticides but we also get it so we can still have a trade agreement that has no beneficial effect whatsoever for EU corporations?
Thanks. Who are you working for again, just so we know? We're kinda confused.
signed, the idiots paying for you useless asshats.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Well, now it looks like US corporations are flexing their muscles in Europe, reducing democracy there after all but buying legislators here in the US.
I would quip that you should RTFA, but the relevant part is even quoted in the summary!
Just weeks before the regulations were dropped there had been a barrage of lobbying from big European firms such as Dupont, Bayer and BASF over EDCs. The chemical industry association Cefic warned that the endocrines issue “could become an issue that impairs the forthcoming EU-US trade negotiations”.
Dupont -- American
Bayer AG -- German
BASF -- German
Yes, American corporations pressured American politicians to pressure EU politicians. EU corporations were also pressuring EU politicians directly. EU politicians wussed out. This story is sensationalist because, of course, the EU politicians want to blame the US for their lack of spine and total subservience to corporations. Pot, meet kettle.
Yes, this is a very slanted article. Most of the lobbying companies were European, not American, and I don't think the US government was involved in the lobbying at all. No pesticide is completely safe, so they should be banned based on relative risk considering many factors: effectiveness, spectrum width, persistence, health effect on humans, health effect on wildlife, etc. The proposed ban was not based on sound science, just scare tactics from European greenies.
Yes indeed. Whenever I read a story in the press that asks me to believe that a large group of people are utterly, totally evil and get their rocks off by being malicious psychopaths, I go looking for a reality check.
Digging through apparently endless links arrives us at this quote:
In other words, the EU doesn't actually know these chemicals are dangerous to humans. They have some initial findings from animal studies that should be followed up on, and the chemical industry agrees with that, but heck if every mouse study translated directly to humans we'd all live a thousand years and be totally disease free by now.
So this entire dispute boils down to non-expert bureaucrats wanting to ban some chemicals early without clear evidence that they harm people, based on an abundance of caution, and the chemical industry saying "you should really prove your case first". Not entirely unexpected - EU regulators won't be the people who actually have to find alternatives and then do all the work to transition to them. They'll just issue a regulation, then go home and tell the wife/husband the story of how they fought the Big Chem to save helpless babies. The cost will get passed on the consumer. Skilled manpower and resources will be diverted from other things.
If they're right and the effects reproduce in humans - great, we got a few fewer years in which the chemicals were interfering with fertility. If they're wrong, well, the cost of that would be huge.
I don't see any clearly right or wrong side on this, which probably means the government should stay out of it. Mandate labelling at most, so consumers themselves can decide, at least until the scientific evidence of harm is stronger.
BASF is German. They rose to prominence by inventing the Haber process, which allowed Germany to start wars without naval supremacy. It also ushered in the development of industrial chemical processes, such as gun powder manufacture. These days BASF is multinational.
As far as safety, the burden should be on the manufacturer to prove their product is safe. We should not be beta-testers for multinationals, nor should the third world for that matter.
I used to write for an environmental magazine. I quickly found out that whenever you have a controversy over safety, the ultimate question is, "Who has the burden of proof?"
If you have the burden of proof to prove that a chemical is safe, you'll never prove it. Your opponents can simply raise the standard of evidence until you don't meet it.
If you have the burden of proof to prove that a chemical is dangerous, you'll (almost) never prove it. Your opponents can simply raise the standard of evidence until you don't meet it.
So you wind up having to make a judgment call on inadequate evidence. It's not as if there's a scientific argument on one side and ignorant anti-science people on the other.
But I think the Europeans should be able to make their own judgment calls. They're not luddites.
The proposed ban was suspended because researchers have, so far, been unable to find ANY actual causality. Yes, these pesticides are harmful if you mix them into a mouse's drinking water.
If you find that a chemical is harmful if you mix it in a mouse's drinking water, you've found causality -- in mice. That's not definitive evidence that it's harmful in humans, but it is evidence.
But that doesn't mean they are significantly harmful in the way they are actually employed in agriculture.
Yes, but that doesn't mean they're safe either. I think it's reasonable for Europeans to say that they don't want companies to go pouring a chemical in their environment until they've convinced people it's safe.
Even if they are harmful (and it is likely they are to some degree) that needs to be compared against the harm from the alternative chemicals that would be used instead.
Well, which is it? Are they significantly harmful? Or just a little harmful? Or not harmful at all?
What is the economic cost of the chemicals -- in dollars? What is the economic benefit -- in dollars? That's what you need to compare.
The truth is that you don't know. You're just making arbitrary assumptions.
Environmental regulations should be based on a deliberative scientific process, not on which interest group can shout the loudest.
Yes, that's what I say. There is some evidence that chemicals like phthalates can disrupt sexual development in human embryos. They've gone through a deliberate scientific process. They've concluded, "There's no conclusive evidence one way or the other." Then what?
It's perfectly reasonable for environmentalists to say, "We want convincing evidence of safety, the manufacturers haven't prove it, we can live without phthalates, so we don't want it in our environment."
If you think environmentalists are irrational and anti-science, you ought to see some of the industry's economists. I used to read Sam Peltzman's articles. He said that if a drug is successful on the market, it must be effective. You don't need scientific evidence. If a drug sells for $100, it must be worth $100, otherwise consumers wouldn't buy it.
Conservative economists (when they testify for the chemical industry) believe that the free market is perfectly efficient, so if they can make money doing something, it must be good.