Monsanto agrees to change Roundup ads
Monsanto Corporation has agreed to change its advertising for glyphosate-based products, including Roundup, in response to complaints by the New York attorney general's office that the ads were misleading.
The attorney general's office argued that the advertising inaccurately portrayed Monsanto's glyphosate-containing products as safe and as not causing any harmful effects to people or the environment.
According to the state, the ads also implied that the risks of products such as Roundup are the same as those of the active ingredient, glyphosate, and do not take into account the possible risks associated with the product's inert ingredients.
As part of the agreement, Monsanto will discontinue the use of terms such as "biodegradable" and "environmentally friendly" in all advertising of glyphosate-containing products in New York state and will pay $50,000 toward the state's costs of pursuing the case. The attorney general has been challenging the ads since 1991.
[In Australia, environmentalists have objected to the import from the USA of soybeans genetically engineered to be resistant to harm by Roundup, warning that such beans are likely to have a high level of contamination.]
According to a 1993 report published by the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, glyphosate was the third most commonly reported cause of pesticide illness among agricultural workers. Another study from the School of Public Health found that glyphosate was the most commonly reported cause of pesticide illness among landscape maintenance workers.
[From Pesticide Action Network North America Updates Service.]