EPA's glyphosate cancer finding not ready for primetime Presented by Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health

With help from Ian Kullgren, Catherine Boudreau and Helena Bottemiller Evich

EPA’S GLYPHOSATE CANCER FINDING NOT READY FOR PRIMETIME: The EPA has made a preliminary finding that glyphosate is unlikely to cause cancer in humans — but the agency isn’t ready to go public yet. The EPA briefly posted to the regulatory docket Monday and then pulled down an October 2015 final report from its Cancer Assessment Review Committee, which is made of up of staff, that concluded glyphosate is “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.” The committee said evidence from existing epidemiological studies and tests of lab animals doesn’t meet the bar for classifying the chemical as a carcinogen.


While the document is labeled as a final report, an agency spokesman said the review of glyphosate isn’t ready.

“Documents on glyphosate that are still in development were taken down from the agency’s docket because our assessment is still ongoing and not final,” said Nick Conger, a spokesman. “EPA has not completed our cancer review. We will continue to look at the work of other governments as well as work by HHS's Agricultural Health Study as we move to make a decision on glyphosate. Our assessment will be peer reviewed and completed by end of 2016.” Pros can see the report here.

The findings come amid a broad-scale attack on the herbicide. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, a panel of the World Health Organization, last year declared that glyphosate is a carcinogen based on its hazard assessment. Monsanto, which developed the pesticide, and other companies quickly cried foul, arguing that the IARC’s assessment was overly precautionary and failed to look at exposures and therefore overstated the potential risks from the chemical. But environmentalists in both Europe and the United States have used those findings to push for tighter controls on the pesticide. At least in Europe they have been successful. The European Parliament is pushing for glyphosate’s approval to be extended for just seven years instead of the standard 14 years, while the European Commission is considering pushing for just 10.

HAPPY TUESDAY, MAY 3! Welcome to Morning Ag. An Edgeley, N.D., farmer has plowed a tribute to Prince into a cornfield, which is an angle to the coverage of the musician's death that even MA didn’t see coming. You know the deal: Thoughts, news, tips, crop circle art? Send them to [email protected] and @jennyhops. Follow the whole team @Morning_Ag.

...CUE THE CELEBRATIONS: Final or not, the glyphosate cancer finding is getting cheers from Monsanto. In a statement, Hugh Grant, chairman and CEO of the company, said “this conclusion by the U.S. EPA once again reinforces” the safety of the chemical.

“Glyphosate has a 40-year history of safe and effective use. Unfortunately, last year’s inconsistent classification by IARC generated unwarranted concern and confusion about this important agricultural tool,” Grant said. “This rigorous assessment of the data by EPA builds on the sound conclusions of both the European and Canadian regulatory authorities and once again makes it clear that glyphosate does not cause cancer.” The statement is here.

PORK CHECKOFF SUIT TO CONTINUE DESPITE USDA AUDIT: The Humane Society of the United States says it’s not fazed by an outside audit — paid for by the Agriculture Department — that suggests $60 million was a fair amount to pay for the 20-year use of the slogan, “Pork, the other white meat.” The animal welfare group says it’s continuing with the lawsuit it filed against the USDA in 2012.

For years, critics have said the 2006 sale of the slogan by the National Pork Producers Council to the National Pork Board was a backdoor way to funnel money from the Pork Checkoff program to be used by NPPC for lobbying purposes. The checkoff program hasn’t used the slogan since 2011, though the $3 million per year payments have continued. But the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service says the audit, conducted by financial advisory service Stout Risius Ross and published earlier this month, shows “the value of the trademarks was worth more than the original price and the remaining principal balance.”

The finding “proves it’s just a move of the Humane Society to kill this program,” said Dave Warner, a spokesman for the NPPC. “We’re going to oppose bad legislation proposed by the Humane Society of the United States. And that’s the point of this lawsuit.”

But HSUS questions the methodology of the audit. “We’ll continue the legal challenge,” said Matt Penzer, the Humane Society’s attorney. “We don’t see anything in the evaluation that changes our position that they never should have entered into the contract in the first place.”

A stay on HSUS’s lawsuit was lifted Monday, and both parties are scheduled to file status reports on Thursday. More on the issue here.

PINPOINTING THE MASSIVE TTIP LEAK: Greenpeace leaked over 200 pages of documents from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which is said to reflect where things stood from just shortly before the 13th TTIP round in New York. But that appears not to be true for all of them. The leaked chapter on sanitary and phytosanitary measures does not include the EU’s proposal on fighting antimicrobial resistance, which was tabled during the 11th TTIP round in October last year. The document therefore appears to be older, raising questions as to whether other chapters might also indicate a much earlier state of negotiations than Greenpeace claims.

Still, the leaked sanitary and phytosanitary chapter covers some of the deal’s most controversial and high-stakes issues, increasing the likelihood that the knottiest items — from animal growth hormones to genetically modified organisms — are completely unsettled. While U.S. agricultural producers see the chapter as key to gaining market access in Europe, the EU’s concerns over animal welfare — proposing, for example, to “recognize that animals are sentient beings” — haven’t wavered. What’s more, neither side appears to have put forward an offer on its most sensitive agricultural tariff lines.

The leaked SPS chapter is here. For the more enterprising reader, TPP’s SPS chapter can be found here, for comparison purposes. More details for Pros courtesy of Pro Trade’s Victoria Guida here.

PIZZA PEEVED ABOUT MENU LABELING GUIDANCE: The FDA has posted its final guidance on how companies should go about menu labeling and the American Pizza Community is not happy about it. The group, which represents the likes of Domino’s and Papa John’s, said the agency’s guidance “confirms our worst fear: it remains as problematic today as it was at its inception.”

“Despite APC’s continued attempts to address concerns with the rule and provide clarity and sensible changes that take into account modern technology, FDA’s final guidance shows that it will continue to push for one-size-fits-all regulations that do little to enhance customer knowledge and create an undue burden on the backs of small-business owners,” the group argued in a statement Monday. APC is once again calling on Congress to enact the Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act (H.R. 2017, S. 2217), a bill that would allow takeout restaurants like pizza delivery joints to post their calories online instead of on in-store menus, among other things. The House has passed its version, but the Senate effort has not gained traction.

DOJ INVESTIGATING DOLE: The Department of Justice has launched an investigation against Dole, the company revealed late last week. Dole is pushing back against a report by Food Safety News that suggests the company knew about Listeria problems in its Springfield, Ohio, plant more than a year before a deadly Listeria outbreak: "Those FDA reports deal with issues at our plant that we have corrected," Dole said. "We have been working in collaboration with the FDA and other authorities to implement ongoing improved testing, sanitation and procedure enhancements, which have resulted in the recent reopening of our Springfield salad plant." Dole's statement is here.

FTC PUMPED ABOUT SCOTUS POM REJECTION: FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez is jazzed that the Supreme Court on Monday denied to hear an appeal from POM Wonderful over a long legal battle over the company's use of misleading health claims. The move upholds FTC's actions against the company in 2013.

“I am pleased that the POM Wonderful case has been brought to a successful conclusion,” Ramirez said. “The outcome of this case makes clear that companies like POM making serious health claims about food and nutritional supplement products must have rigorous scientific evidence to back them up. Consumers deserve no less.” The full statement is here.

REQUEST TO EXEMPT AG CHECKOFFS ATTRACTS NATIONAL MEDIA: The agriculture industry’s success in petitioning House appropriators to request that the USDA exempt checkoff programs from Freedom of Information Act requests gained national attention Monday, as media outlets like NPR, The Guardian and Fortune reported on the issue. A provision asking the USDA to recognize that checkoffs “are not agencies of the federal government, nor are Research and Promotion programs funded with federal funds” — and therefore shouldn’t be subject to FOIA — is included in a report accompanying the fiscal 2017 agriculture spending bill that was advanced by the House Appropriations Committee on April 19. The issue stems from emails obtained under FOIA that revealed the president of the American Egg Board pursued a campaign against the egg-free mayo producer Hampton Creek, which violates rules outlining how checkoff dollars can be used.

Some agriculture groups emphasize their status as either part of the federal government or private industry when it’s most convenient, suggested Parke Wilde, a specialist on food policy at Tufts University and critic of checkoff programs, to NPR. In 2005, industry groups argued checkoffs were government speech in order to defend against a challenge that reached the Supreme Court brought by farmers who didn’t want contribute to the programs. The Supreme Court sided with the industry groups. Now they want to be exempt from FOIA requests, highlighting checkoffs are funding and run by private industry.

USDA TO GRANT $6 MILLION TO ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE RESEARCH: The USDA on Monday said it is making $6 million available to fund research on antimicrobial resistance under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, which is authorized by the 2014 farm bill. The department outlined five problems in the effort to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the food chain that projects must address, such as understanding the ecology of microbes in livestock, crops or farm-raised fish, alternative ways to mitigate the emergence or spread of bacteria or studies that evaluate the impact of proposed research, education and outreach on the issue. Applications are due Aug. 3. The move is part of the USDA’s Antimicrobial Resistance Action Plan that supports the government-wide strategy to fight antibiotic resistance in both agriculture and hospital and outpatient settings. Read more here.

MA’s INSTANT OATS:

— Hillary Clinton staffers are buying lotsa hot sauce and Eater is on it.

— Advocates argue it’s a bad idea for the House to cut universal free meals for schools across the country in a Washington Post op-ed.

— A National Institutes of Health study has found that Biggest Loser contestants could become more obese after the show than they were before, the New York Times reports.

— A federal judge has ordered a farm labor contractor to pay more than $7 million to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, POLITICO Pro reports.

THAT'S ALL FOR MA! See you again soon! In the meantime, drop your host and the rest of the team a line: [email protected] and @ceboudreau; [email protected] and @jennyhops; [email protected] and @hbottemiller; [email protected] and @mjkorade; and [email protected] and @jsonhuffman; and [email protected] or @IanKullgren. You can also follow @POLITICOPro and @Morning_Ag on Twitter.

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