This newspaper has been reporting on the very real dangers of glyphosate - and its commercialised formulation, Roundup - since at least June 2013.
That has been six full years of highlighting the carcinogenic dangers of the weed killer that has been used so liberally across the country by public workers for so many years on end - from our roundabouts to our public gardens to road centre strips and just about anywhere else that a weed grows..
Now after years of campaigning by NGOs and the underscoring of the dangers of the chemical by the media, the government has now said a legal notice is imminent banning glyphosate from all public areas, including near schools, hospitals and other public areas.
This is most welcome news but there are questions lingering. One major question is why had it taken so long for the government to come up with this legal notice? How many people have suffered the ill-effects of the exposure to glyphosate between 2013 and now?
Back in 2013, Malta had widely accepted and supported the continued use of the chemical, but by 2016 Malta had done an about-face and joined a group of 10 EU members states dead set on banning it from EU territories. The block did not work and the licence was extended across the EU.
Now it seems as though the government has found a way to enact a ban for Malta without running it through the entire EU red tape machine. That is a wonderfully positive development that shows Malta can lead the way in environmental matters.
An American jury recently delivered an $80 million award against Bayer AG after finding that the glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup had caused a man’s cancer. The case has been appealed and on Monday one of the jurors wrote to a presiding judge pleading with him to uphold the decision, saying that the huge payouts ‘were no accident’ and were the result of ‘meticulous planning’ by the jury.
Following a four-week trial, a federal jury in March awarded $5 million in compensatory and $75 million in punitive damages to the man, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2014. Bayer is still facing cancer lawsuits by more than 13,400 plaintiffs.
Also on Monday, a town council in Sydney, Australia said it would start testing alternative herbicides after 500 workers went on strike due to safety concerns over the use of Roundup, refusing to continue spraying glyphosate and urging the city’s management to follow the lead of the several other city councils that have phased out Roundup and started to use other herbicides. Why has there never been any walkout in Malta, one wonders.
And that, coupled with the news from Malta, is just what happened on Monday.
It is reported that Environment Minister Jose Herrera had taken the bull by the horns to see this particular impending ban through.
He now has another bull’s horns to grapple with, and this one may very well put up way more of a fight: the persisting use of glyphosate in agricultural production in Malta, which, one can safely assume, presents an even more sinister health prospect than merely spraying it on the roadsides, because it all the more easily winds up in the food we eat and even the water we drink.
This is the next logical step: the chemical must now be banned now from the local food chain.