Syngenta

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March 21, 2024

‘We are defending your products:’ Emails reveal coordination between US government, industry in foreign trade disputes

By Johnathan Hettinger and Carey Gillam

Against the backdrop of a fierce battle between the United States and Mexico over the safety of certain farming products, newly obtained government communications provide fresh evidence of how powerful corporate interests often drive US officials to meddle in foreign affairs.

The records are the latest to emerge that show how tightly the US government works with global crop and chemical companies to try to block other governments around the world from placing restrictions on pesticides and, as in the case of Mexico, on certain genetically modified crops.

The US is currently embroiled in a bitter trade battle with Mexico, but also has waged war against Thailand and the European Union over efforts to ban pesticides that are key to the corporate profits of companies such as Bayer and Syngenta.

The newly obtained emails add to earlier revelations, also found in government records, by providing greater detail about how the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), the federal agency responsible for American trade policy, works to benefit agrochemical companies while shrugging off evidence presented by foreign governments that pesticides are posing dire risks to the safety of their environment and their citizens.

Similarly, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are shown in the emails helping push back against countries that try to ban pesticides linked to human health issues and the demise of crucial species.

The latest batch documents were obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests by the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity and provided to The New Lede (TNL).

“Trade now poses one of the biggest barriers to keeping pesticides in wide use in the US, and pesticide companies are taking notice,” said Nathan Donley, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The US can’t keep using pesticides at this rate if other countries won’t buy our contaminated food, so the focus has now turned to quashing any attempt by smaller countries to protect their citizens and their food supply.”

“The push is coming from the US government but it’s at the behest of pesticide companies,” he said. “It’s basically soft imperialism with our government as the puppet and large corporations pulling the strings.”

February 6, 2024

For a second time, US court bans dicamba weed killers, finds EPA violated law

By Johnathan Hettinger

Dealing a blow to three of the world’s biggest agrochemical companies, a US court this week banned three weed killers widely used in American agriculture, finding that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) broke the law in allowing them to be on the market.

The ruling is specific to three dicamba-based weed killers manufactured by Bayer, BASF and Syngenta, which have been blamed for millions of acres of crop damage and harm to endangered species and natural areas across the Midwest and South.

This is the second time a federal court has banned these weed killers since they were introduced for the 2017 growing season. In 2020, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its own ban, but months later the Trump administration re-approved the weed killing products, just one week before the presidential election at a press conference in the swing state of Georgia.

But a federal judge in Arizona ruled late Monday that the EPA made a crucial error in re-approving dicamba, finding the agency did not post it for public notice and comment as required by law. US District Judge David Bury wrote in a 47-page ruling that it is a “very serious” violation and that if EPA did do a full analysis, it likely would not have made the same decision.

Bury wrote that the EPA did not allow many people who are deeply impacted by the weed killer – including specialty farmers, conservation groups and more – to comment.

The lawsuit was filed by farmer and conservation groups that said EPA violated two laws in its approval: the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act and the Endangered Species Act.

EPA spokesman Jeffrey Landis said the agency is still reviewing the ruling but declined to comment further.

“Time and time again, the evidence has shown that dicamba cannot be used without causing massive and unprecedented harm to farms as well as endangering plants and pollinators,” said George Kimbrell, legal director of the Center for Food Safety, which litigated the case.

December 13, 2023

Paraquat ties to Parkinson’s disease featured on Al Jazeera news

Evidence tying the popular weed killer paraquat to Parkinson’s disease is featured this week in an online news segment that includes fresh details about corporate influence over US regulators and suppression of scientific research.

Al Jazeera’s investigative show Fault Lines highlights the reporting of The New Lede (TNL) and the thousands of internal corporate documents obtained by TNL that reveal decades of efforts by Syngenta, paraquat’s longtime manufacturer, to conceal evidence of how chronic exposure to paraquat can cause Parkinson’s disease.

Last month, the “Paraquat Papers” reporting by The New Lede was also the focus of an ABC News Nightline segment.

The New Lede, in collaboration with The Guardian, first revealed a trove of internal Syngenta documents in October 2022 and followed up in subsequent stories, exposing years of corporate efforts to cover up evidence that paraquat can cause Parkinson’s disease. The documents obtained by The New Lede additionally showed evidence of efforts to manipulate and influence the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and published scientific literature. The documents also show how the company worked to mislead the public about paraquat dangers, among other secret strategies.

The Fault Lines piece adds to TNL reporting with several on-camera interviews.

November 22, 2023

Syngenta paraquat secrets featured on ABC News

By Carey Gillam and Shannon Kelleher

Decades of secret Syngenta documents revealed by The New Lede were the focus of an ABC News Nightline segment this week, highlighting how the company has worked to hide the risks of its paraquat herbicide.

The New Lede, in a co-publishing arrangement with The Guardian, first revealed a trove of internal Syngenta documents in October 2022 and followed up in subsequent stories, exposing years of corporate efforts to cover up evidence that paraquat can cause Parkinson’s disease.

The documents obtained by The New Lede additionally showed evidence of efforts to manipulate and influence the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and published scientific literature. The documents also show how the company worked to mislead the public about paraquat dangers.

Paraquat is one of the most widely used weed killing chemicals in the world, competing with herbicides such as glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup brand for use in agriculture. Farmers use paraquat both to control weeds before planting their crops and to dry out crops for harvest. In the United States, the chemical is used in orchards, wheat fields, pastures where livestock graze, cotton fields and elsewhere. As weeds have become more resistant to glyphosate, paraquat popularity has surged.

Though it is widely used, paraquat has long been known to be dangerous to ingest – a tiny swallow of the chemical can kill a person within days. Scores of people around the world have died from ingesting paraquat either intentionally or accidentally.

September 5, 2023

Letter from the editor: The saga of Syngenta, a scientist, and a subpoena

By Carey Gillam

Six months ago neurologist Dr. E. Ray Dorsey and a colleague authored an article titled “Paraquat, Parkinson’s Disease and Agnotology,” which spotlighted secrets unearthed from within the corporate files of paraquat maker Syngenta AG. The article was published March 6, 2023, in Movement Disorders, the official journal of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.

In the article, Dorsey and co-author neurologist Dr. Amit Ray pointed to stories I wrote for The New Lede and The Guardian that were based upon thousands of pages of the company’s internal documents dating back to the 1950s. Those files revealed many corporate secrets related to paraquat safety and the weed killer’s potential connection to the dreaded, incurable brain disease known as Parkinson’s.

“Knowledge of the toxic effects of paraquat is alleged to have been hidden for decades,” Dorsey’s article stated. “All the while, the manufacturer continues to maintain that paraquat does not cause Parkinson’s disease. Actions like these should be recognized for what they are: attacks on science, attacks on scientists, and attacks on the health of the public.”

“This report and the company’s own findings now indicate that we know what one cause of Parkinson’s disease is—paraquat,” the article stated. “With this conclusion, paraquat should be banned, and the search for other causative factors in the environment should accelerate.”

(Dr. E. Ray Dorsey)
The statements published in the article did not sit well with Syngenta, to put it mildly.

Syngenta has spent the last few months engaging in what Dorsey’s defenders say is the latest effort in a history of chemical industry actions to harass, or otherwise smear, scientists whose work threatens corporate interests.

Since the article’s publication, Syngenta has been demanding that Dorsey turn over his private files – emails, notes, article drafts, and other records. The company is publicly accusing Dorsey of publishing his article not as a sincere scientific commentary, but as part of a conspiracy to engineer evidence that could be used by plaintiffs in sweeping, nationwide litigation brought by people alleging they developed Parkinson’s because of exposure to Syngenta’s paraquat herbicide.

After Dorsey balked at Syngenta’s demands, citing the fact that he has no connection to the litigation, the company last month asked a federal judge to force Dorsey to turn over his files.

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June 2, 2023

Syngenta’s “SWAT” team- Internal files reveal secret strategies to influence science

By Carey Gillam
Global chemical giant Syngenta has sought to secretly influence scientific research regarding links between its top-selling weed killer and Parkinson’s, internal corporate documents show.

While numerous independent researchers have determined that the weed killer, paraquat, can cause neurological changes that are hallmarks of Parkinson’s, Syngenta has always maintained that the evidence linking paraquat to Parkinson’s disease is “fragmentary” and “inconclusive.”

But the scientific record they point to as proof of paraquat’s safety is one that Syngenta officials, scientists and lawyers in the US and the UK have worked over decades to create, and at times, covertly manipulate, according to the trove of internal Syngenta files reviewed by the The New Lede in a collaboration with The Guardian.

The files reveal an array of tactics, including enlisting a prominent UK scientist and other outside researchers who authored scientific literature that did not disclose any involvement with Syngenta; misleading regulators about the existence of unfavorable research conducted by its own scientists; and engaging lawyers to review and suggest edits for scientific reports in ways that downplayed worrisome findings.

The files also show that Syngenta created what officials called a “PQ SWAT team” to be ready to respond to new independent scientific reports that could interfere with Syngenta’s “freedom to sell” paraquat. The group, also referred to as Paraquat Communications Management Team,” was to convene “immediately on notification” of the publication of a new study, “triage the situation,” and plan a response, including commissioning a “scientific critique.”

A key goal was to “create an international scientific consensus against the hypothesis that paraquat is a risk factor for Parkinson’s disease,” the documents state.

In another example of a company tactic, an outside lawyer hired by Syngenta to work with its scientists was asked to review and suggest edits on internal meeting minutes regarding paraquat safety. The lawyer pushed scientists to alter “problematic language” and scientific conclusions deemed “unhelpful” to the corporate defense of paraquat.

October 27, 2022

Amid calls for ban on weed killer linked to Parkinson’s, a battle over science

By Carey Gillam

When US regulators issued a 2019 assessment of the widely used farm chemical paraquat, they determined that even though multiple scientific studies linked the chemical to Parkinson’s disease, that work was outweighed by other studies that did not find such links. Overall, the weight of scientific evidence was “insufficient” to prove paraquat causes the brain disease, officials with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared.

The EPA reiterated its assessment in a 2021 report. The agency said after extensive analysis of numerous factors, including concerns about Parkinson’s risk, it determined farmers could safely continue to apply the weed killer across millions of US acres to help in the production of soybeans, corn, cotton and an array of other crops.

The determination has been significant for Syngenta, the longtime maker of paraquat weed killers. The company is facing calls in the US for a paraquat ban, as well as more than 2,000 legal claims brought by farmers and others alleging they developed Parkinson’s disease because of their exposure to paraquat.

Syngenta cites the EPA assessment of the science on paraquat in defense of the pesticide, and says scientific research “does not support” a causal relationship between the chemical and the disease. On a Syngenta-run paraquat information website, the company highlights several studies it says also backs that position, including many conducted by company scientists or by outside scientists who received company funding for their work.

Last week the Guardian and The New Lede reported that internal corporate records show Syngenta had knowledge of science linking paraquat to Parkinson’s decades ago but sought both to refute the evidence with various secret tactics. The documents are available at the Paraquat Papers Media Library.

US farmworker, health and environmental advocacy groups say in contrast to the corporate science, research conducted by independent scientists provides abundant evidence of paraquat’s ability to cause Parkinson’s and other health dangers, and the EPA is improperly discounting that body of research.

More than 50 groups have called for the US to follow the lead of dozens of other countries in banning paraquat. The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research submitted a petition to the EPA with 107,000 signatories calling for a ban. The foundation cited a study that found people exposed to paraquat in their teens or as young adults had an increased Parkinson’s risk of 200 to 600 percent, depending on the overall exposure.

October 21, 2022

A human toll- paraquat users blame Syngenta for Parkinson’s disease

By Carey Gillam and Aliya Uteuova

When Illinois farmer Ron Niebruegge was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at the age of 55, he was certain it must be a mistake. Niebruegge had always been healthy and active, someone who loved horseback riding and taking his wife dancing on weekend nights.

But a dizzy spell and a fall in 2007 led him to visit a neurologist, and then another. Both doctors agreed that the little things Niebruegge had started to notice – a left arm that didn’t seem to work quite right, some stiffness in his joints – were undeniable signs of the onset of Parkinson’s, a progressive debilitating brain disease for which there is no cure.

Now 70 years old, Niebruegge lives a very different life: The horses he loved have been given away and the horse trailer sold. Dancing is a thing of the past; Niebruegge struggles simply to walk across a room. He uses a cane but falls so frequently and unexpectedly that he fears leaving home.

One recent fall left him with a dislocated shoulder that required surgery. And his wife of 49 years has transitioned from dance partner to caregiver.

Niebruegge is far from alone. More than 8 million people globally suffer from what scientists see as the fastest growing neurological disorder in the world. And while scientists see multiple toxins as potential causes, one pesticide popular with farmers across the US has been prominently linked to the disease: a weed killer called paraquat that has grown in use over recent decades.

The longtime manufacturer of paraquat, Syngenta AG, along with Chevron USA, the successor to a former US paraquat distributor, are now being sued by thousands of Parkinson’s sufferers. The plaintiffs claim scientific studies show that exposure to paraquat can cause, or significantly increase the risk of, Parkinson’s disease, but rather than warn users, the companies prioritized paraquat sales over human health.

October 20, 2022

Secret “Paraquat Papers” reveal corporate tactics to protect weed killer linked to Parkinson’s disease

By Carey Gillam and Aliya Uteuova

For more than 50 years, Swiss chemical giant Syngenta has manufactured and marketed a widely used weed killing chemical called paraquat, and for much of that time the company has been dealing with external concerns that long-term exposure to the chemical may cause the dreaded, incurable brain ailment known as Parkinson’s disease.

Syngenta has repeatedly told customers and regulators that scientific research does not prove a connection between its weed killer and the disease, insisting that the chemical does not readily cross the blood-brain barrier, and does not affect brain cells in ways that cause Parkinson’s.

But a cache of internal corporate documents dating back to the 1950s obtained by The New Lede in a reporting collaboration with the Guardian suggests that the public narrative put forward by Syngenta and the corporate entities that preceded it has at times contradicted the company’s own research and knowledge.

And though the documents reviewed do not show that Syngenta’s scientists and executives accepted and believed that paraquat can cause Parkinson’s, they do show a corporate focus on strategies to protect product sales, refute external scientific research and influence regulators.

In one defensive tactic, the documents lay out how the company worked behind the scenes to try to keep a highly regarded scientist from sitting on an advisory panel for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The agency is the chief US regulator for paraquat and other pesticides. Company officials wanted to make sure the efforts could not be traced back to Syngenta, the documents show.

And the documents show that insiders feared they could face legal liability for long-term, chronic effects of paraquat as long ago as 1975. One company scientist called the situation “a quite terrible problem,” for which “some plan could be made….”

May 10, 2022

Guest column: Syngenta’s paraquat product kills weeds, but also people

By Jon Heylings

From 1986 until 2008, I worked as the lead scientist on a project aimed at creating a “safer” paraquat-based weed killing product for what was then known as the ICI Central Toxicology Laboratory, which became part of Syngenta AG in 2000.