There's a new pesticide on the horizon and Center for Food Safety (CFS) needs your help to stop it. GreenLight Biosciences is currently seeking US EPA approval for a new nano-scale, gene-silencing biopesticide called Calantha, which contains the active ingredient Ledprona, to combat the spread of the Colorado potato beetle. Ledprona already has EPA approval for experimental use on potatoes through an Experimental Use Permit (EUP) that doesn't expire until 2025, yet EPA is jumping the gun and attempting to approve Ledprona for widespread commercial use before they analyse all the data collected during the EUP period! It shouldn't have to be said: EPA should not rush to approve a novel pesticide for nationwide commercial use before all of the data about potential impacts is analysed. Can you submit a comment opposing Ledprona's approval to EPA today? CFS has already written a sample email for you. The deadline for public comments is October 13, so please act today. Center for Food Safety

 

 

In 2006, Sabine Grataloup was pregnant. She didn't know it when she sprayed her riding school with Glyper, a glyphosate-based herbicide. In May of the following year, she gave birth to Théo, who suffered severe malformations of the larynx, oesophagus and respiratory system. Almost sixteen years later, on March 10, 2022, experts from the Fonds d'indemnisation des victimes de pesticides (FIVP) recognised "the possibility of a causal link between the child's pathology and exposure to pesticides during the prenatal period due to the professional activity of one or both parents", thus entitling the family to compensation of around a thousand euros a month. Payment will be made by the Mutualité sociale agricole, the farmers' social security organisation. This is the first time in France that the herbicide has been officially considered as a potential cause of birth defects. The case has not yet gone to trial. The prospect of the European reauthorisation of glyphosate, to be discussed in Brussels on October 12 and 13 by the Commission and member states, is not unrelated to the publicity that the family now wishes to give to the FIVP decision. "We can't bear to see politicians, journalists and opinion leaders arguing for the renewal of glyphosate, claiming that 'science has spoken', that 'this product poses no problem' and so on," says Grataloup. The FIVP's decision is not a matter of militancy or compassion, but of scientific expertise." Le Monde (French language article, paywalled)

 

 

Back in 2012, GMWatch's Claire Robinson, along with Prof Michael Antoniou and other eminent scientists, were among the first to draw attention to the ability of glyphosate (even without the co-formulants present in the commercial formulations) to cause birth defects, as revealed in the pesticide industry's own studies. Their paper built on the research of the late Prof Andres Carrasco, published in 2010, which found that glyphosate-based herbicides caused birth defects in chicken and frog embryos. Carrasco and colleagues noted that the types of birth defects found in the animal embryos were the same as the defects observed in escalating numbers in the children of rural communities in Argentina, where glyphosate herbicides are sprayed on GM glyphosate-tolerant soy. GMWatch comment on paper in Journal of Environmental and Analytical Toxicology

 

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