Dow AgroSciences, which sells seeds and pesticides to farmers,
made contradictory claims to different parts of the U.S. government
about its latest herbicide. The Environmental Protection Agency just
found out, and now wants to cancel Dow's legal right to sell the
product.
The herbicide, which the company calls Enlist Duo, is a
mixture of two chemicals that farmers have used separately for many
years: glyphosate (also known as Roundup) and 2,4-D. It's Dow's answer
to the growing problem of weeds that are resistant to glyphosate, which
has become the weed-killing weapon of choice for farmers across the
country.
The new formulation is intended to work hand-in-hand with
a new generation of corn and soybean seeds that are genetically
engineered to tolerate sprays of both herbicides.
When Dow applied
for permission to sell Enlist Duo in 2011, it told the EPA that this
mixture of glyphosate and 2,4-D is no more toxic than the two chemicals
are, if considered separately. The EPA accepted that argument and approved the new herbicide just over a year ago. Dow began selling it, in small quantities, this year.
But
the decision was controversial. Environmentalists argued that Enlist
Duo would bring on a massive increase in herbicide use. Some farmers
were concerned about the use of 2,4-D, because that chemical is known to
blow into neighboring fields.
Several environmental groups went
to court to overturn the EPA decision, arguing that combining these two
chemicals could result in new "synergistic" toxic effects that the EPA
had ignored. And in the course of that litigation, the EPA discovered
that Dow had been telling the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office a
different story.
When applying for a patent, an inventor needs to
show that something is novel and useful. And Dow's patent application
for Enlist Duo claims that this mixture of chemicals does, in fact,
offer farmers something new: "synergistic herbicidal weed control."
newe dow weedkiller teh cuman isu alias gosip, digosok makin sip
ReplyDelete