Over glyphosate? It’s safe to say this ruling is consistent with complete nonsense.
After more than a decade of campaigning against toxic agrochemicals, a group of women from a poor neighbourhood in the northern Argentine city of Córdoba have brought large-scale soybean growers to trial for the health damages caused by spraying.
The trial began in June, and the sentence is to be handed down on Aug. 21. In the dock are two soybean producers, Francisco Parra and Jorge Gabrielli, and the pilot of a spray plane, Edgardo Pancello.
The prosecutors are seeking four years of prison for Parra and three years for Pancillo. But the prosecutor’s office has not filed charges agaimst Gabrielli, due to the lack of clear evidence of his responsibility, and he is expected to be acquitted.
The court must decide whether there is enough evidence to link the spraying of agrochemicals with harmful health effects, and sentence accordingly.
“We are not satisfied with the sentences sought by the prosecutor. They have done so much damage to us, and we were hoping for more. But at least it will set a precedent in the country,” one of the plaintiffs, Sofía Gatica, told IPS.
Gatica won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize this year for her activity in defence of the environment and the lives of people in her working-class neighbourhood, Ituzaingó Anexo, on the outskirts of Córdoba.
Why is it nonsense?
It’s nonsense because glyphosate has been intensely studied for toxicity in mammals and exhibits virtually nil even at grams per kilogram dose rates – even then only by direct injection does it interfere with the effectiveness of detoxification in rat livers. It is just not particularly active in animals. Its mode of action is occupancy of receptors present in plants and some bacteria but not in mammals. It degrades easily and is non-reactive. There is simply no plausible biological mechanism for mutagenic or teratogenic activity.
If and unfortunately for these people it is a big if, if there is a case against agricultural activity then they need to look into potential use of solvents, surfactants or other compounds which may have been applied but glyphosate is not a winner for them.
Thank you.
I am against any unscientific scam, but I also like to know the grounds I am moving on.
I will look for some papers and/or studies on the web.
Maybe you have some useful link?
Any reasonable search engine should work for you, just try “mammalian toxicity” +glyphosate or some such combination – if you can’t access the journal studies you should be able to log in to any decent library and use their access.