jmpr

see ilsi<div>
</div><div><h6 style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); margin: 3rem 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.2;">Conflicts of interests</h6>Zaruk’s “work” was also cited in Forbes magazine in an op-ed signed by a biologist affiliated with the Hoover Institution, a think tank close to the Republican party. His name appears in declassified archives of the tobacco industry. At that time, this man would offer to write columns or land media appearances to “communicat[e on] risks and science”. Rates between $5,000 and $15,000.The attacks of the Brussels blogger were also echoed by well-known propaganda websites, such as the American Council on Science and Health and the Genetic Literacy Project. Fed by PR people linked to the pesticides and biotechnology industries, the latter published an article about Christopher Portier and IARC signed by Andrew Porterfield, who <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/351688010/Andrew-Porterfield-LinkedIn-Mai-2017" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">describes himself</a> quite simply as a “communications consultant for the biotechnology industry.”And what about the suggestion that Portier faces conflicts of interest? Did the Environmental Defense Fund—through him—weigh in in favor of IARC’s decision to classify glyphosate as a “probable carcinogen”? “Because he had a link to this organization, Portier had the status of ‘invited specialist’,” explains Kathryn Guyton, IARC’s scientist in charge of Monograph 112. This means that he was consulted by the working group but didn’t contribute to the decision to classify the chemical in one category or the other. Real conflicts of interest however exist—but elsewhere.In May 2016, while the press and the blogosphere were all out in relaying suspicions of malpractice at IARC, it was the turn of another group of UN experts to release their opinion. The Joint Meeting on Pesticides Residues (JMPR), a joint WHO and UN Food and Agriculture (FAO) organization group that rules on risks related to food (and not to exposure via inhalation, skin contact, etc) cleared glyphosate.Almost one year earlier, a coalition of NGOs had warned WHO about conflicts of interest in the JMPR. Three of its members collaborate with the International Life Science Institute (ILSI), a scientific lobby organization financed by major agribusiness, biotechnologies and chemical industries—from Mars to Bayer and from Kellogg to Monsanto.<h6 style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); margin: 3rem 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.2;">Serious allegations</h6>Toxicologist Alan Boobis (Imperial College, United Kingdom) was serving as copresident of JMPR but also chair of ILSI’s board of trustees. Angelo Moretto (University of Milano, Italy) was rapporteur in the JMPR while acting as an industry consultant and member of the board of trustees of a structure created by ILSI. Vicky Dellarco, also a member of JMPR, was an industry consultant and a member of various ILSI working groups.JMPR experts are supposedly subjected to the same independence rules—among the strictest in the world—as those applied at IARC, namely the WHO rules. Because it can alter the credibility of the institution and its decisions, an apparent conflict of interest is as serious as an actual conflict of interest. However, questioned by Le Monde, the WHO confirms that “no expert was deemed to have had a conflict of interest preventing their participation in the JMPR.”This answer left Hilal Elver and Baskut Tuncak dissatisfied; they are respectively the <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Environment/ToxicWastes/Pages/BaskutTuncak.aspx" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Special UN Rapporteur on right to food</a> and the<a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Environment/ToxicWastes/Pages/BaskutTuncak.aspx" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"> Special UN Rapporteur</a> on hazardous substances and wastes.“We respectfully call upon WHO to explain how exactly it came to the conclusion that the experts’ ties to industry did not present an apparent or potential conflict of interest under its own rules” is how these two experts reacted when questioned by Le Monde. “Strong, clear and transparent processes for conflicts of interest are essential for the integrity of the system” they said before “encouraging” the organizations of the United Nations to “review” them.These two experts wrote in their report on the right to food that some “serious claims” exist “of scientists being ‘bought’ to re-state industry talking points.” The report, which was handed over to the United Nations Human Rights Council in March 2017, also underlined that: “The pesticide industry’s efforts… have obstructed reforms and paralyzed global pesticide restrictions globally.” Throwing discredit on IARC, its working group experts and the quality of the scientific work accomplished—these “efforts” are of strategic importance, even vital necessity, to Monsanto.<h6 style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); margin: 3rem 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.2;">Court cases underway in the United States</h6>Close on Monsanto’s heels are several U.S. law firms representing victims or relatives of victims who have died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL), a rare cancer that affects white blood cells which they attribute to exposure to glyphosate. For their lawyers, IARC’s Monograph 112 constitutes an essential piece of evidence. For Monsanto, Monograph 112 could weigh heavily on the final verdicts. According to legal documents, the amount of damages and other payments in the U.S. could well amount to billions of dollars for the 800 plaintiffs—a number that will “probably” rise to 2,000 by the end of the year, according to Timothy Litzenburg, a lawyer at The Miller
Firm. Confidential memos, spreadsheets and internal briefs: all in all, ten million pages taken from the boxes in Monsanto’s archives and from entrails of its PCs. This is the amount of documents that the company has been forced to hand over to the court to date. In the U.S., a procedure called “discovery” allows this kind of raid on the adversary’s paperwork.From the mass of scanned documents, released drip by drip, that are the “Monsanto Papers”, the multinational’s response plan emerges. Take this “confidential” PowerPoint document dated March 11, 2015, with slides that develop a strategy of influence in the form of “Scientific Projects.” Among other ideas, a “comprehensive evaluation of carcinogenic potential” of glyphosate by “credible scientists,” and “possibly via Expert Panel Concept” is mentioned. That will be done.In September 2016, a series of six articles appeared in the scientific journal Critical Reviews in Toxicology. They exonerated glyphosate. But, as the publication was openly “sponsored and supported” by Monsanto, would anything other than this have been possible?The authors were <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/351691109/Panel-d-experts-Glyphosate-de-Monsanto" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">the sixteen members of the “glyphosate experts panel”</a> to whom Monsanto confided the task to “review the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) monograph on glyphosate.”Their recruitment was delegated to Intertek, a consultancy specialized in the production of scientific material for companies facing regulatory or legal difficulties related to their products. Monsanto and its allies also called on the services of Exponent and Gradient, two other firms engaged in the business of “product defense.”<h6 style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); margin: 3rem 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.2;">“Glyphosate task force”</h6></div>