Investigate Midwest (https://investigatemidwest.org/tag/bayer/)
Large donors can put universities in potentially awkward positions when faculty conclusions conflict with the interests of those benefactors. Data collected by Harvest Public Media and Investigate Midwest shows corporations have given at least $170 million to ag colleges in the past decade.
The company behind the popular Seresto flea-and-tick collar has filed a lengthy defense of the safety of its product amid calls for federal regulars to ban over concerns of harm and death to the pets who wear it.
The maker of a popular flea and tick collar did not report thousands of adverse incidents to federal authorities as required until after an investigation by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting (Investigate Midwest) and USA TODAY was published.
In summer 2020, a federal court ruled the EPA showed too much deference to Bayer when it approved the company’s dicamba herbicide. This invalidated the approval. But, weeks later, Bayer began working the EPA again, according to newly obtained emails.
As early as 2015, the EPA identified that Seresto "ranked #1 by a wide margin" when it came to incident reports of pet death and harm.
The petition comes about four months after an Investigate Midwest and USA TODAY story found the popular flea and tick collar had been linked to about 1,700 pet deaths and more than 75,000 incidents of harm.
The lawsuit raises the question of what’s next for specialty crop farmers, many of whom have said dicamba damage limits their ability to grow their products and make a living.
EPA data has linked Seresto flea and tick collars to about 1,700 pet deaths.
We now have an admission of guilt from EPA that it wrongly issued 2018 dicamba registrations for Bayer's XtendiMax herbicide, BASF's Engenia herbicide and Corteva's FeXapan herbicide. New acting assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Michal Freedhoff said as much to EPA staffers in an internal e-mail on March 10 that read in part:
The lawsuit cites reporting from the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and USA TODAY that showed the EPA has received tens of thousands of reports linking the collar to incidents of injured pets.