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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.'"
Seriously. If I wanted to know about other people's political beliefs, I would be on Facebook.
it's not about politics but rather something that matters. if there is one thing that matters to everyone, it's the food supply.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
News like this makes me angry and sad at the same time. The problem is that it's all so complicated that one cannot really understand the matter without spending years of work and research on it, and even then a citizen only gets a subset of all information that was presented.
The chemical industry for sure had arguments and data that supported their case, in same way that the opponents of the pesticides have their arguments and data. It all comes down to spinning information and conveniently omitting some facts (for sure on either side). How anyone, who is not a subject matter expert, can make a decision in this is just beyond me.
Everything that is good for citizens is bad for TTIP and vice versa.
Tech is not only Si-tech, it is Chem-tech and Bio-tech too.
PS If your nerdiness ends by your keyboard, it is your own issue.
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.
No, apparently US business interests are far more important.
I think it's time the rest of the world told the US: we don't give a fuck about your business interests, we care about not putting toxic crap on our foods.
"Aggressive US lobbyists" should be told the STFU or simply shot.
Free trade with the US is "we will ignore any obligations, and we will cram our laws down your throat."
If diplomacy with the US is entirely about advancing US business interests to the detriment of local industry and environment ... the response should be a big giant "fo fuck yourself".
Because the US pushes for trade deals, and then still reuses to ignore them ... things like steel subsidies, massive corn subsidies, and country of origin labeling requirements are things they've repeatedly lost in WTO arbitration.
So why the hell do countries keep putting up with this shit?
Such horseshit. It's time the rest of the world stopped giving a shit about US business interests ... because they never actually coincide with domestic interests.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
In the politics section. About how US business interests are over-ruling domestic environmental laws.
If you don't want to read it, don't read the politics section.
The rest of us don't care what you feel should be here or not.
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.
Yes, aggressive lobbying form 'Merican companies like Bayer AG (oddly headquartered in Leverkusen, Germany) and the largest chemical producer in the world, BASF (again, oddly headquartered in Ludwigshafen, Germany).
It's really nice that the political class of the EU can rely on the old "blame the US" trick to convince Europeans to ignore their own indebtedness to European corporate interests. Always shocking to me to see propaganda work so well and so easily.
I respectfully disagree. This is an environmental issue. It is an important one but I do not feel it belongs an a tech news aggregator.
The TPP has serious technology implication in the means of enforcing IP provisions and other areas in addition to environmental issues. The main problem is though no one knows what is in it because the negotiations and text are being done in secret so, mainly, it's a structural issue of how law will be framed.
It's the deal to end all deals, where each country gets to sign away it's sovereignty. So, yeah, it's stuff that matters and completely appropriate to discuss.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I guess you win the turing test, everyone else is still wondering why you don't think an endocrine system is relevant to your existence.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The saying goes: You can have an as democratic election as you want as long as I can choose the candidates...
The TPP has serious technology implication in the means of enforcing IP provisions and other areas in addition to environmental issues.
This has nothing to do with TPP. TPP is the "Trans Pacific Partnership". Get out your globe and look at the big blue thing between America and Europe. That is the Atlantic Ocean, not the Pacific. This is about TTIP, not TPP.
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.
I'd expect that large European chemical manufacturers would also be against restrictions on chemicals. But you are implying that they are the prime lobbyists. Where is the evidence that AmCham were not the primary lobbyists?
The proposed ban was not based on sound science, just scare tactics from European greenies.
The proposed ban was largely the result of research showing that endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) have incredible costs to human health. We're not talking some vague feel-good argument about the birds and the bees -- we are talking about lost IQ points and health costs that run into the hundreds of billions:
The new series of reports by 18 of the world’s foremost experts on endocrine science pegs the health costs of exposure to them at between €157bn-€270bn (£113bn-£195bn), or at least 1.23% of the continent’s GDP.
As Ars points out, if even a fraction of the economic loss attributed to these chemicals could be reduced, the net result could easily be far more valuable than even the most wildly optimisitic projections for the value of the TTIP agreement.
Hey mate, spare a sig?
The new series of reports by 18 of the world’s foremost experts on endocrine science pegs the health costs of exposure to them at between €157bn-€270bn (£113bn-£195bn), or at least 1.23% of the continent’s GDP.
“The shocking thing is that the major component of that cost is related to the loss of brain function in the next generation,” one of the report’s authors, Professor Philippe Grandjean of Harvard University, told the Guardian.
“Our brains need particular hormones to develop normally – the thyroid hormone and sex hormones like testosterone and oestrogen. They’re very important in pregnancy and a child can very well be mentally retarded because of a lack of iodine and the thyroid hormone caused by chemical exposure.”
There's nothing desirable about reduced IQs and massive health costs (unless you make money on healthcare or benefit from a dumb populace, that is).
Hey mate, spare a sig?
The proposed ban was largely the result of research showing that endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) have incredible costs to human health.
No. 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. But that doesn't mean they are significantly harmful in the way they are actually employed in agriculture. 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.
Environmental regulations should be based on a deliberative scientific process, not on which interest group can shout the loudest.
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.
You could always try it over there in the States first. All we need to look out for is evidence of endocrine-related illnesses such as IQ loss and obesity among the citizens of the USA, and if we don't see such evidence, we'll know it is safe!
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. - Blake