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From CredoAction.com:
In case you weren’t sure yet if the massive use of the herbicide glyphosate – also known as Monsanto’s Roundup – was cause for concern, here’s the sobering takeaway from an MIT senior researcher who just conducted a review of the stuff:
“I’m certain at this point that glyphosate is the most important factor in an alarming number of epidemic diseases.”
The introduction of Roundup in 1973 has corresponded with a rise in conditions including celiac disease (gluten intolerance), autism, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, obesity, pancreatic cancer, thyroid cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Parkinson’s and others.
And its use – along with the rates of many of these diseases – has gone stratospheric over the last 15 years, with the approval of Monsanto’s GMO “Roundup Ready” crops specifically engineered to tolerate massive exposure to glyphosate. Roundup is now used all over the world on staple crops like wheat and soy, and has become the most widely used herbicide in the US.
Despite these trends, the EPA and FDA still consider glyphosate to be relatively safe and harmless – based largely on unpublished, industry-produced studies. That position is looking increasingly dangerous, and possibly wrong.
Of course – just because two trends match does not mean those two things are related. And in the eyes of the scientific process, just because something looks, swims and quacks like a duck, doesn’t make it a duck.
But in the case of glyphosate, there are many reasons to believe it could be related to higher incidence of many diseases.
Glyphosate doesn’t just kill weeds. It is an antibiotic (which kills the gut bacteria that make up a significant portion of our immune system and digestive function), a chelator (which strips the body of nutrients needed to fight disease other essential functions), an endocrine disruptor (which affects hormones and leads to birth defects), and impairs the liver’s ability to detox (allowing heavy metals to build up in our bodies). And we put nearly 200 million pounds of the stuff on our food each year!
Even worse, the so-called “inactive” ingredients in Roundup may be amplifying the toxic effects of glyphosate by orders of magnitude. One new study found Roundup’s overall concoction to be up to 1000 times more toxic than glyphosate alone. Yet Roundup’s approval is based on tests of only glyphosate, and does not take into account it’s possible interaction with other chemicals EPA considers safe.
Another recent study has challenged Monsanto’s claim that glyphosate doesn’t accumulate in our bodies — the cornerstone of our government’s finding that Roundup is safe — finding glyphosate levels in breast milk up to 1,600 times higher than the level Europe allows for individual pesticides.
I share this with you because you have the right to know what giant corporations are doing to your food. Monsanto has be one of the most amoral companies on Earth- they are constantly putting profits before people, and we’ve got to stop letting them get away with it.
The least we can do is be informed. But we can also act- sign this petition that will go directly to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA).
Great post, Tanya. Monsanto is so out of control it’s frightening.
Thanks!
Reblogged this on Ann Novek–With the Sky as the Ceiling and the Heart Outdoors.
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I’m going to reblog this but first, may I ask you to explain ‘glyphosate levels in breast milk up to 1,600 times higher than the level Europe allows for individual pesticides’? Which European law is that and is it about breast milk in particular, or something wider eg all human body fluids? Which ‘individual pesticides’ is that law about? And which population’s breast milk was tested for that study? As you know, I have access to an academic library so I’d read the original paper if I knew who wrote it.
Hi,
Here are some links provided by the organization that sent me the information for this post:
http://sustainablepulse.com/2014/04/06/worlds-number-1-herbicide-discovered-u-s-mothers-breast-milk/#.U3P4zljqdc8
From Biomed Research International– http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3955666/
http://www.outsideonline.com/fitness/bodywork/performance-plate/Your-Food-Is-Poisoning-You.html?utm_campaign=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=xmlfeed
http://grist.org/news/is-monsantos-roundup-linked-to-a-deadly-kidney-disease/
Reblogged this on Science on the Land and commented:
argylesock says… This is one of the reasons I fear the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) now being negotiated between the European Union and the United States. I don’t want the TTIP to provide a back door for Monsanto to gain more control over European farming than it already has.
Thanks for the reblog!
I’ve read about the TTIP. It does sound like it may allow U.S. companies to side-step European laws. European laws on food and chemicals are much more strict than in the U.S. I’ve always said that America’s laws and guidelines on food and chemicals in cosmetics, etc. should be as strict as in Europe because a lot of dangerous stuff gets into our products in the US that shouldn’t. The TTIP would be a step backwards for everyone.
i live in france and to be truely honest here in this agricultural area is like living with death.. There are hardly any insects in my garden – just a few snails… No wild-life seems to live at all in this region. They are here but hidden and unseen and afraid. I have never lived anywhere else with such a lack of concern for insect life or any life come to that. I don’t use herbicides often.. I had not used them in 6 years but now I need to sell my house, I have to deal harsely with brambles and all hardy weeds growing in the undergrowth, cos the French want care free gardens. The smell of the in the insecticide is awful.. I wish I did not have to use it but in this case I do.. thanks for post. eve
“harshly” – oopsie.
Is there a lot of pesticide use in France? That is so strange that there are very few insects in your garden. Here in New York, there are very mosquitos in recent years since the government started wide use of a spray to kill mosquitoes because they were carrying West Nile Virus and biting people. The spraying was only for a year or two, and that was about 10 years ago. The mosquito population seems to have never fully recovered.
Reblogged this on Vegan Lynx.
Thanks!
You’re welcome. 🙂
Reblogged this on U.S. Constitutional Free Press.
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Reblogged this on Johnsono ne'Blog'as.
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roundup has led to the rapid decline of the pheasant populations all across the Midwest. In the past twenty years.
Pingback: New Séralini study shows Roundup damages sperm | Science on the Land
Today, I went to the beach front with my children. I found a
sea shell and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.” She put the shell to her ear and
screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it
pinched her ear. She never wants to go back! LoL I know this is
completely off topic but I had to tell someone!