When you take a bite of food, you expect that the USDA, EPA and especially the FDA to have made sure it’s safe and wholesome. You are wrong. Dead (and dying) wrong.
Fourteen eminent scientists have released a devastating criticism of the supposedly “safe” levels of Roundup(R) and other glyphosate-based herbicides.* Glyphosate, which is now ubiquitous in our food supply, is a devastating, but significantly under-studied poison which is both the world’s most widely-used herbicide and a “potential cancer cause” according to WHO which announced that it was exactly that in March, 2015. Experts in the field disagree and say it is a known cancer causing agent. For example, the rate of Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma has doubled in the US as use of glyphosate has increased vastly.
Virtually all GMO crops have been modified to allow more of this compound to be sprayed on the crops assuring that we are getting more and more in our food.
It is also a known infertility agent, and a potent endocrine disruptor causing changes to sex organs, endocrine glands (like the pancreas) and function, damaging liver and kidney cells and more.
In fact, Sri Lanka and Guatemala have banned its use because Glyphosate was causing the death of so many male agricultural workers from kidney failure.
How are limits set by national regulators? Independent studies are conducted? Nope. The literature is examined for data on what is known about the compound? Nope. A panel of independent experts is convened to evaluate data? Nope. Experienced from other countries is examined to see what agricultural and health impacts show up in the real world? Nope.
The company seeking a permit (for example, Monsanto) for use of its agrochemical presents its own bought and paid for, edited and redacted studies, as a “trade secret” so no other scientists can see them, and evaluate them. There are no controls as to their methodology or honesty. Those studies can be rewritten, altered and changed in any way the company sees fit precisely as we now know Monsanto did, suppressing vitally important information on toxicity and dangers to the environment, people, plants and animals. They can, and do, deny those dangers and suggest limits to the regulators.
As an example, MON832 corn was fed to a tiny number of cows (2)for a couple of weeks. Monsanto told the EU regulators that the cows were in perfect health when Roundup Ready MON832 corn was presented to the EU regulators for approval. Based on the studies (no one examined the cows) the corn was approved for cultivation in Europe. However, immediately after the studies were over, both cows died. That data was not presented to the regulators.
MON832 was approved and is cultivated in the EU today with huge amounts of Roundup used each year.
The higher the limits set by the regulators, the more chemical sold. Remember, too, that the same companies that make agrochemicals also make drugs to treat you when you get sick from the agrochemicals. Win/win to the max.
During this process the regulators turn a blind eye to the “inert” ingredients in the mix they are being asked to approve for use on the food supply although they are often highly toxic in themselves.
Next, the regulators fail to look at the combinations of chemicals that will be mixed in the spraying tanks and pumped out into our food, bodies and planet although it is common knowledge that the mixture of these chemicals is happening very commonly since resistant organisms are an increasing threat to farmers and to economic survival. They are told that their only hope is to use more chemicals to combat the problem that the chemicals created in the first place.
Next, the regulators turn a blind eye to the fact that GMO crops are manufactured specifically to encourage the sale of more of the chemical so that the farmer will spray more, and more often, without killing the crop.
And then they turn a blind eye to the fact that killing broadleaved weeds in the fields with glyphosate used to be done before harvest but now farmers have been instructed by the companies they buy the poisons from, to spray it on their crops before harvest as well to dry the plants before harvest. This increases the amount of glyphosate and other toxins on the food itself.
They also turn a blind eye to the fact that toxicology assessment ignores completely the role of glyphosate as an endocrine disruptor with all the attendant biological havoc that this causes in living systems.
Why do they do that? Simple. Those initial secret “safety” “studies” (neither word is deserved) did not mention endocrine disruption, so that must be good enough.
Levels of Glyphosate in US food is 80 times higher than the next higher contaminant. Levels permitted in the US are orders of magnitude higher than in Europe and those are at least 3 times higher than even theoretically prudent.
Oh, perhaps we forgot to mention that although Monsanto no longer holds the 1974 patent, it sells the lion’s share of Glyphosate as Roundup(R) and the GMO plants that tolerate (and absorb) it as Roundup Ready(R) plants.
And that this week, FDA decided to address what it calls a “sensitive issue” and monitor SOME foods including corn and soy beans, for glyphosate residues. 43 full years after it approved the toxic brew.
Thanks, FDA, for safeguarding our children and us. Thanks, EPA, for safeguarding our children and us. Thanks USDA, for safeguarding our children and us.
Shame on you, regulators. Shame on your callousness and self interest. Perhaps you would like to nurse a child with lymphoma this weekend?
*http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/scientific-consensus-statement-reveals-roundup-herbicide-major-health-threat