In 2017, two United Nations experts called for a treaty to strictly regulate dangerous pesticides, which they said were a “global human rights concern”, citing scientific research showing pesticides can cause cancers, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and other health problems, the Guardian reported on Friday.
Source: The Guardian, By Carey Gillam, Margot Gibbs and Elena DeBre
Publicly, the pesticide industry’s lead trade association dubbed the recommendations “unfounded and sensational assertions”. In private, industry advocates have gone further.
Derogatory profiles of the two UN experts, Hilal Elver and Baskut Tuncak, are hosted on an online private portal for pesticide company employees and a range of influential allies.
Members can access a wide range of personal information about hundreds of individuals from around the world deemed a threat to industry interests, including the US food writers Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman, the Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva and the Nigerian activist Nnimmo Bassey. Many profiles include personal details such as the names of family members, phone numbers, home addresses and even house values.
The profiling is part of an effort – that was financed, in part, by US taxpayer dollars – to downplay pesticide dangers, discredit opponents and undermine international policymaking, according to court records, emails and other documents obtained by the non-profit newsroom Lighthouse Reports.
Test Yourself for Pesticides in Your Hair – Long-Term Exposure
It collaborated with the Guardian, the New Lede, Le Monde, Africa Uncensored, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and other international media partners on the publication of this investigation.
The efforts were spearheaded by a “reputation management” firm in Missouri called v-Fluence. The company provides services that it describes as “intelligence gathering”, “proprietary data mining” and “risk communications”.
The revelations demonstrate how industry advocates have established a “private social network” to counter resistance to pesticides and genetically modified (GM) crops in Africa, Europe and other parts of the world, while also denigrating organic and other alternative farming methods.
More than 30 current government officials are on the membership list, most of whom are from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Read the Full Guardian article here.
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