GLYPHOSATE* & other poisons in the news — and in your body.
*Roundup’s™ main ingredient —but not its only toxic one — is made by Monsanto (now Bayer). It’s the world’s most widely used pesticide, it’s carcinogenic, and it’s inside the bodies of millions of us humans.
The World Health Organization categorizes glyphosate as carcinogenic.
Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of U.S. urine samples – 1/3rd in kids age 6-18.
The report by a unit of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that out of 2,310 urine samples, taken from a group of Americans representative of the U.S. population, 1,885 — 81.6% — had detectable traces of glyphosate. Almost 1/3rd of the participants were children [age] 6 to 18.
In 2015, the World Organization determined glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic to humans.”
In 2017, glyphosate was added to California’s Proposition 65 list of chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm
Glyphosate is the active ingredient in herbicides sold around the world, including the world’s most popular herbicide brand, Roundup®.
READ Guardian article by Carey Gillam, July 9, 2022
By definition, ALL pesticides, herbicides and insecticides are poisons.
POISON /’poiz(ə)n/ noun 1. a substance capable of causing the illness or death of a living organism when introduced or absorbed; a substance with an inherent property that tends to destroy life or impair health.
93% of people in U.C. San Francisco study have glyphosate in their urine.
Glyphosate, the world’s most used herbicide, was found in the urine of 93% of those tested in a unique project began in 2015.
Labeled a ‘Probable human carcinogen’ by the World Health Organization’s IARC cancer agency in 2015, glyphosate is revealed to be ubiquitous in the first ever comprehensive and validated LC/MS/MS testing project carried out across America.
Glyphosate-containing herbicides are sold under trademarks such as Monsanto ‘Roundup’. (And glyphosate is only one of Roundup’s toxic ingredients.)
READ Detox Project ARTICLE: https://detoxproject.org/1321-2
READ Guardian ARTICLE: You have pesticides in your body. But an organic diet can reduce them by 70%
The DDT Octopus
by E.G. Vallianatos
June 7, 2022
Like a gigantic octopus, the chemical industry put its tentacles all over Congress, the White House and land grant universities.
No wonder most toxic chemicals have been entering the market without being tested for health and environmental effects.
Rachel Carson, [Silent Spring author] a biologist who worked for the U.S. Dept. of Fish & Wildlife… denounced the hegemony of chemical pesticides, “the sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world – the very nature of its life.”
She said America’s single-crop farming clashes with how nature works. Instead, “we allow the chemical death rain to fall…. The crusade to create a chemically sterile world seems to have engendered a fanatic zeal on the part of many specialists and most of the so-called control agencies… there is evidence that those engaged in spraying operations exercise a ruthless power.”
Fish, marine mammals like dolphins and sea lions, and fish-eating eagles and condors and fish-eating people have been suffering and dying from the poisoning the ocean waters and fish with DDT. It’s becoming clear that the dumping of DDT was the “most infamous destruction [of ocean wildlife and nature] off the coast of Los Angeles,” wrote Roseanne Xia of the Los Angeles Times on October 25, 2020.
READ Counterpunch ARTICLE: https://off-guardian.org/2022/02/01/the-agriculture-cartel-cotton-concentration-camps-and-conspiracies/
The Agriculture Cartel: Cotton, Concentration Camps and Conspiracies
Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG, more commonly knows as IG Farben was a German chemical and pharmaceutical giant formed in 1925. IG Farben was formed from a merger of 6 separate chemical companies – BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, Agfa, Chemische Fabrik Griesheim-Elektron, and Chemische Fabrik vorm.
Some years after partnering with Standard Oil, IG Farben helped found the Auschwitz concentration camp, where they used Jewish prisoners as slave labour to produce synthetic rubber and liquid fuels.
At the end of the war, the Nuremberg War Criminal Tribunal convicted 24 IG Farben executives for crimes against humanity including mass murder and slavery. However, most of them were released within 2-6 years and immediately began consulting for American agritech companies.
IG Farben and its partner corporations, which included Bayer, were Hitler’s suppliers of Zyklon-B, a cyanide-based pesticide that was used to murder Jews in the extermination camps.
In 1948, IG Farben bigwig and Nazi party member, Fritz ter Meer, was convicted of “mass murder and enslavement” and sentenced to 7 years in prison. After his early release in 1950, he became chairman of the board of directors for Bayer, a position he held until 1964.
READ OffGuardian ARTICLE: https://off-guardian.org/2022/02/01/the-agriculture-cartel-cotton-concentration-camps-and-conspiracies/
Bayer-Monsanto Agrees to $10 BILLION Settlement With Victims Poisoned by Roundup® – June 26, 2020
The most damning revelations in this case uncovered, through the company’s own internal documents, the extent to which Monsanto-Bayer recognized early on the risk of cancer and other health problems posed by glyphosate and its commercial formulations.
Monsanto-Bayer aggressively conspired for decades to withhold or lie about the evidence to the public and to regulators, while relentlessly attacking scientists and organizations that sought to tell the truth about the company’s products.
This damning information only became public because plaintiff’s lawyers pried it out of the company in court and made it public. That coverup killed the company’s integrity as systemically as its chemicals kill plants. Monsanto-Bayer’s dissembling for profit at the expense of public health is a permanent stain on its reputation.
Nothing in this settlement amends the conclusion that this is a company that simply cannot be trusted.
– Ken Cook, President, Environmental Working Group
Roundup gave me cancer. The Monsanto settlement is a slap in the face. – June 30, 2020
EXCERPTS: I’m one of the thousands of people who filed suit. The news of the settlement ruined my birthday. I have to inject myself with needles just to stay alive.
Still, Bayer will continue to sell Roundup, and refused to label it as carcinogenic.
Christine Sheppard, Roundup victim
An agricultural agent at the College of Tropical Agriculture advised us to use a backpack sprayer of Roundup to deal with the weeds. The agent told us it was safe enough to drink. We sprayed it for the next five years.
This settlement offer by Bayer is a pathetic and insulting PR effort. The company’s attempt to paint themselves as responding to the suffering of thousands of people is so inadequate a response as to make me even more angry.
– Christine Sheppard, grandmother, retired, living in southern California
READ Guardian ARTICLE, June 30, 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/30/monsanto-settlement-roundup-cancer-lawsuits
Court overturns EPA approval of popular herbicide [dicamba] owned by Monsanto/Bayer/BASF – June 4, 2020
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) broke the law in approving agricultural weedkilling products sold by Bayer and two other chemical giants, ignoring clear evidence that the new herbicides would cause widespread damage to crops, a federal court ruled…
In a stinging rebuke, the court said it had no choice but to cancel the EPA’s approval of the herbicides because the agency had strayed so far from its duty to properly assess the dangers presented by the “new use” of dicamba.
“Today’s decision is a massive win for farmers and the environment,” said George Kimbrell of the Center for Food Safety, lead counsel in the case. “It is good to be reminded that corporations like Monsanto and the Trump administration cannot escape the rule of law, particularly at a time of crisis like this. Their day of reckoning has arrived.”
READ Guardian ARTICLE: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/04/monsanto-herbicide-court-overrules-epa?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other&fbclid=IwAR3PnTX2d4aOuGWOsEQF27nVkPs-U5UhwVcylWYXTs64tJrq9scWHzVs_6c
Monsanto (and BASF) knew their chemicals would damage U.S. farms – March 20, 2020
The U.S. agriculture giant Monsanto and the German chemical giant BASF were aware for years that their plan to introduce a new agricultural seed and chemical system would probably lead to damage on many US farms, internal documents…show.
Risks were downplayed even while they planned how to profit off farmers who’d buy Monsanto’s new seeds just to avoid damage, reveal documents unearthed during a recent successful $265m lawsuit brought against both firms by a Missouri farmer.
Several million acres of crops have now been reported damaged by dicamba, according to industry estimates. And more than 100 US farmers are engaged in litigation in federal court alleging Monsanto and BASF collaboration created a “defective” crop system that has damaged orchards, gardens and organic and non-organic farm fields in multiple states.
Three juries so far have found that Roundup is carcinogenic and that Monsanto hid the risks.
READ blistering Guardian ARTICLE: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/30/monsanto-crop-system-damage-us-farms-documents
Weed-Whacking Herbicide Proves Deadly to Human Cells
…Roundup has long been a top-selling weed killer. But now researchers have found that one of Roundup’s inert ingredients can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells.
But in the new study, scientists found that Roundup’s inert ingredients [the solvents, preservatives, surfactants and other substances that manufacturers add to pesticides – Ed.] amplified the toxic effect on human cells—even at concentrations much more diluted than those used on farms and lawns.
One specific inert ingredient, polyethoxylated tallowamine, or POEA, was more deadly to human embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells than the herbicide itself – a finding the researchers call “astonishing.”
“Moreover, the proprietary mixtures available on the market could cause cell damage and even death [at the] residual levels” found on Roundup-treated crops, such as soybeans, alfalfa and corn, or lawns and gardens.
…inert ingredients have been found to potentially affect human health. Many amplify the effects of active ingredients by helping them penetrate clothing, protective equipment and cell membranes, or by increasing their toxicity.
READ Scientific American ARTICLE: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weed-whacking-herbicide-p
U.S. uses 388 million pounds of hazardous pesticides banned in China, Brazil and Europe (E.U.). – June 6, 2019
85 pesticides either banned, or being phased out in these nations because of their harmful effect on humans and/or the environment are still in widespread use across America.
1 in 10 pesticides used in the U.S. contain ingredients either banned, or not approved in China, Brazil or the E.U. Many are linked to lung damage, respiratory failure, convulsions, coma, even death.
“The USA is generally regarded as being highly regulated and having protective pesticide safeguards in place. This study contradicts that narrative and finds that in the last couple of decades, nearly all pesticide cancellations in the USA have been done voluntarily by the pesticide industry,” said Nathan Donley with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Without a change in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA‘s) current reliance on voluntary mechanisms for cancellations, the USA will likely continue to lag behind its peers in banning harmful pesticides. A combination of weak laws and the EPA’s broken pesticide regulatory process has allowed the pesticide industry to dictate which pesticides stay in use. That process undermines the safety of agricultural workers and anyone who eats food and drinks water in this country.”
READ: Center for Biological Diverstiy PRESS RELEASE
READ: Environmental Health scientific abstract (paper): “USA lags behind other agricultural nations in banning harmful pesticides”
California jury orders Monsanto to pay $2 billion in punitive damages to couple with cancer caused by Monsanto Roundup. – May 13, 2019
“Monsanto has never had any interest in finding out whether Roundup is safe,” said plaintiff attorney R Brent Wisner. “Instead of investing in sound science, they invested millions in attacking science that threatened their business agenda.”
“We were finally allowed to show a jury the mountain of evidence showing Monsanto’s manipulation of science, the media and regulatory agencies to forward their own agenda despite Roundup’s severe harm to the animal kingdom and humankind.”
READ article: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/may/13/monsanto-cancer-trial-bayer-roundup-couple
Federal jury awards $80 million to California man whose cancer was caused by Monsanto Roundup. – March 27, 2019
The 70-year-old plaintiff used Roundup to kill weeds and poison oak on his property for 26 years. In 2015, he learned he had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The next year, after the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer declared glyphosate a probable carcinogen, he sued Monsanto for failing to put warnings on its label.
Over 11,000 people with non-Hodgkin lymphoma have pending Roundup lawsuits.
New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/27/us/monstanto-roundup-california-verdict.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
Green Matters article: https://www.greenmatters.com/p/monsanto-ordered-to-pay-dollar80-million-to-man-who-got-cancer-from-roundup?gm&fbclid=IwAR2eNrs7fvLYlz2L6CBCT8vn053em6i9pf4MtmsO8TsERT0CWMuZKxr5D2Q
“Bill Gates is continuing the work of Monsanto,” Vandana Shiva tells FRANCE 24 (French public TV)
JULY 2017: Chemical industry giants like Bayer — which just purchased Monsanto — Dow, Syngenta, BASF have, for decades, influenced the EPA to downplay, hide and deceive the public about the toxicity of their products, which are literally poisons. All this is revealed in 20,000 internal documents released in “The Poison Papers” cataloging the clandestine concerns of both the industry and its regulators over the hazards of pesticides and other chemicals, and their efforts to conceal their concerns.: https://www.poisonpapers.org
“The “Poison Papers” represent a vast trove of rediscovered chemical industry and regulatory agency documents and correspondence stretching back to the 1920s. Taken as a whole, the papers show that both industry and regulators understood the extraordinary toxicity of many chemical products and worked together to conceal this information from the public and the press.” – Dr. Jonathan Latham, Executive Director of the Bioscience Resource Project READ MORE
Chemical companies propagate the non-science ideology of “INVASION BIOLOGY.”
Millions of chemical industry dollars invested in decades-long public relations campaigns have paid off. Millions of people, including self-identified environmentalists, and even environmental groups including The Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy, and The Audubon Society now buy into (have been sold into) the notion of categorizing wild plants and animals as “native,” “non-native,” “invasive,” and “noxious. ” Most misguided, exaggerated, conflated — and destructive — of all, chemical giants have convinced people that many so-called “non-native” organisms are “invasive” and should be killed — with guess what: chemical company poisons. Monsanto’s (et. al.) motivation in spreading the “invasion biology” ideology is selling literally billions of dollars of poisons around the world every year.
READ ALL ABOUT INVASION BIOLOGY
Herbicides… (CLICK)
We already learned how harmful pesticides are — 60 YEARS AGO.
HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING since Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” was published in 1962? Over six decades ago, Carson revolutionized America’s understanding of the environment, highlighting an interconnected web of life, and popularizing the reality that we can’t poison one living entity without affecting others because all life forms are interconnected. Today, we all learn this in grade school. And yet…
“Silent Spring’s” extensive research, observations, and conclusions about pesticide’s harmful effects — and the chemical industry’s tactics to hide them — have only expanded. As has pesticide use: 300,000 million pounds of glyphosate was used on U.S. crops in 2013.
“Silent Spring” REVIEW excerpt:
The overriding theme of Silent Spring is the powerful—and often negative—effect humans have on the natural world. Carson’s main argument is that pesticides have detrimental effects on the environment; she says these are more properly termed “biocides” because their effects are rarely limited to the target pests. DDT is a prime example, but other synthetic pesticides—many of which are subject to bioaccumulation—are scrutinized. Carson accuses the chemical industry of intentionally spreading disinformation and public officials of accepting industry claims uncritically. Most of the book is devoted to pesticides’ effects on natural ecosystems, but four chapters detail cases of human pesticide poisoning, cancer, and other illnesses attributed to pesticides.
GLYPHOSATE* & other poisons in the NEWS
*Monsanto Roundup’s main — but not only — toxic ingredient.
AUG 10, 2018: LANDMARK $289 million award to 42-year-old man dying of CANCER (non-Hodgkins lymphoma) CAUSED BY Monsanto Roundup®.“The jury found Monsanto acted with malice and oppression because they knew what they were doing was wrong and doing it with reckless disregard for human life,” said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of Johnson’s attorneys, according to the Associated Press.”
Monsanto plans to, of course, appeal the decision. And even if Roundup® is eventually banned as a toxic carcinogen harming and killing tens of thousands of people slowly over decades, the chemical giant will simply swap in another toxic concoction. Anyone who says these chemicals are safe either has a financial stake in Monsanto or is willfully ignorant of facts, as in this precedent-setting case.
READ NPR STORY: https://www.npr.org/2018/08/10/637722786/jury-awards-terminally-ill-man-289-million-in-lawsuit-against-monsanto
White Wash details decades of Monsanto environment and health-damaging practices
“Whitewash reads like a mystery novel, as Gillam skillfully uncovers Monsanto’s secretive strategies to convince countries around the world that its Roundup products are safe. The book unravels a tapestry of pesticide industry tricks to manipulate the scientific truths about their products while placing profits above human health and the environment.”
– Erin Brockovich, consumer advocate
VIDEO: “Poisoned Fields: glyphosate, the underrated risk?” The World Health Organization (WHO) has suddenly announced it is calling for an all-out ban on glyphosate… A WHO cancer research team considers the herbicide produced by Monsanto, Syngenta and BASF to be absolutely toxic and probably carcinogenic. More and more people and animals exposed to the substance become ill. And there are a large number of unexplained miscarriages and deformities in humans in South America — esp. in areas where glyphosate is used on large monocultures. Critical scientists have been warning of the long-term damage for years.
COLLUSION AIN’T JUST RUSSIAN — IT’S AS AMERICAN AS GMO APPLE PIE
Read some of the many examples of how Monsanto wages an ongoing, multi-million dollar, under-the-radar, PR blitz to corrupt scientists, muddy the waters, skew the data — and thus skew you:
Monsanto executives collude with (corrupted) EPA officials to manipulate science data. More than 75 documents, including text messages and discussions of payments to scientists, were posted for public viewing Tuesday, August 1, 2017, by attorneys who suing Monsanto on behalf of people who say Roundup caused their or their family members’ non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. Monsanto claims their products are safe because regulators say so — but Monsanto is in bed with U.S. regulators and misleading European regulators.
READ New York Times story about Monsanto emails revealing their deceptions, fabrications and coverups re. Roundup’s toxicity: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/business/monsantos-sway-over-research-is-seen-in-disclosed-emails.html?_r=0
READ MORE in Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carey-gillam/questions-about-epa-monsa_b_14727648.html
A chilling 2014 update…(CLICK)
• Glyphosate is the main — but not the only poisonous — ingredient in Monsanto Roundup™, the most widely used herbicide in the U.S. — 300 million pounds, e.g., were used on food crops in 2013. And more was used for “weed” control in cities and parks where people are exposed to it.
• In a 2015-16 UCSF study by The Detox Project, 93% of participants (American) tested positive for glyphosate in their urine. Glyphosate has never been studied by regulators or the chemical industry at levels that the human population in the U.S. is exposed to (under 3 mg/kg bodyweight/day) : http://detoxproject.org/1321-2
• “Poison Spring” is an illuminating, terrifying 2014 update on the toxic state of the U.S. pesticide industry; chemical company dominance over the supposedly regulatory agency, the EPA, by insider E.G. Vallianatos, a 25-year EPA administrator.
EXCERPT: The EPA, created with much fanfare by Richard Nixon in 1970, was an agency crippled at birth by inadequate funding, political hypocrisy, and laws protecting industry profits above all. Vallianatos points out that one of the fledgling agency’s greatest handicaps was its initial staffing with personnel from USDA, steeped in the religion of corporate agriculture and lethal technologies.
June 30, 2017
March 11, 2017January 27, 2017
• Roundup classified as “probable human carcinogen” by the World Health Organization (Lyon, France-based branch, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). READ MORE.
July 5, 2016
• “Glyphosate can cause cancer” – senior IARC scientist rebuffs Monsanto’s challenge to the World Health Organization agency’s conclusions — which threaten Monsanto’s profits.
“Our evaluation was a review of all the published scientific literature on glyphosate and this was done by the world’s best experts on the topic that in addition don’t have any conflicts of interest that could bias their assessment,” Straif said. READ MORE. 
University science tainted by corporate money?
Sept. 5, 2015 New York Times, Eric Lipton:
“Food Industry Enlisted Academics in G.M.O. Lobbying War…”
EXCERPT: Corporations have poured money into universities to fund research for decades, but now the debate over bioengineered foods has escalated into a billion-dollar food industry war.
Monsanto & Bayer [mega-merger]: “Why Food & Agriculture Just Took a Turn For The Worse”
EXCERPT: We should be highly concerned about a food system increasingly dominated by companies that have a history (see this on Monsanto and this on Bayer) of releasing health-damaging, environmentally polluting products onto the market and engaging in bribery, cover-ups, monopolistic practices and what could be considered crimes against humanity.
May 17, 2016
New Evidence About the Dangers of Monsanto’s Roundup, by Sharon Lerner, for The Intercept.
EXCERPT: Until recently, the fight over Roundup has mostly focused on its active ingredient, glyphosate. But mounting evidence, including one study published in Feb. 2016, shows it’s not only glyphosate that’s dangerous, but also chemicals listed as “inert ingredients” in some formulations of Roundup and other glyphosate-based weed killers. [Some over 1,000 times more toxid. – Ed.] Though they have been in herbicides — and our environment — for decades, these chemicals have evaded scientific scrutiny and regulation in large part because the companies that make and use them have concealed their identity as trade secrets.
READ STORY: https://theintercept.com/2016/05/17/new-evidence-about-the-dangers-of-monsantos-roundup
• FDA tests confirm baby foods contain residues of Monsanto weed killer [glyphosate].READ MORE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carey-gillam/fda-tests-confirm-oatmeal_b_12252824.html
• Glyphosate found in several children’s vaccines. The active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup™ herbicide — among hundreds of others — has been found in Merk’s MMR II vaccine, Novaris’ Influenza Fluvirin, Glaxo Smith Kline’s HebB Energix-B and more.May 27, 2016
• Roundup found in Quaker Oats in Taiwan, then banned for exceeding legal limits by Taiwan FDA. The latest in a growing worldwide list of common foods containing toxic glyphosate residues. Add them all up, and they spell p-o-i-s-o-n. READ MORE: http://ecowatch.com/2016/05/27/taiwan-quaker-oats-glyphosate
• Glyphosate sprayed on GMO Crops Linked to Lake Erie’s Toxic Algae Bloom.
• Glyphosate found in breakfast cereals, eggs, bagels, oatmeal, potatoes, more. Alliance for Natural Health USA study found the endocrine disruptor in 10 of 24 tested foods, incl. organics: http://www.anh-usa.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/ANHUSA-glyphosate-breakfast-study-FINAL.pdf“We decided to do this testing to see just how ubiquitous this toxin has become in our environment,” explained Gretchen DuBeau, executive and legal director of the Alliance for Natural Health-USA. “We expected…trace amounts… in foods containing large amounts of corn and soy…we were unprepared for just how invasive this poison has been to our entire food chain.”
Sept. 6, 2015• California is first state to label glyphosate carcinogenic (California’s EPA will label Roundup’s™ active ingredient): http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2015/09/glyphosate-roundup-labelled-carcinogen
• Herbicide [Roundup™] Proves Deadly to Human Cells
March 24th, 2016
• Glyphosate residue found in ALL California wines tested – including organics: READ ARTICLE, HERE. Read the study, HERE.
• Monsanto outspends all other Big Ag poison (and GMO) makers to influence Washington politicians, public policy…and your health: READ Union of Concerned Scientists article HERE.
Feb. 2016
• EPA testing of glyphosate (1/2 of Monsanto Roundup) is a scientifically, negligently flawed Bait & Switch. The EPA tested only for N-Phophonomethyl glycine, known as “Glyphosate Technical acid,”, which is NOT what’s actually in Roundup™, which are the 3 glyphosate chemical salts: Potassium Glyphosate, Ammonium Glyphosate, and Isopropylamine Glyphosate used in all Monsanto glyphosate-based products. It’s like approving “salt” by testing only Potassium Chloride (table salt) and then allowing Potassium Cynanide (a poison) into the marketplace. READ MORE
Feb. 2, 2016
• Monsanto’s glyphosate is most heavily used herbicide in history — and puts the lie to chemical industry claims of reduced pesticide use: READ MORE
Sept. 5, 2015
• Agribusiness chemical giants secretly pay academics to criticize opponents: READ NY Times article
May 11, 2012
• How Corporations Like Monsanto Have Hijacked Higher Education By Jill Richardson. Academic research is often dictated by corporations that endow professorships, give money to universities, and put their executives on education boards: http://www.alternet.org/story/155375/how_corporations_like_monsanto_have_hijacked_higher_education
Aug. 11, 2015
• “Roundup Is Most-Used Herbicide in US and ‘Probably Carcinogenic'”: https://news.vice.com/article/roundup-is-the-most-used-herbicide-in-the-us-and-its-probably-carcinogenic
Feb. 23, 2016
• Syngenta’s atrazine herbicide, which UC Berkeley study found castrates frogs, is banned in Europe — but legal in U.S.: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/business/international/a-pesticide-banned-or-not-underscores-trans-atlantic-trade-sensitivities.html?_r=0
Feb. 10, 2014
• UC Berkeley researcher finds Syngenta’s atrazine herbicide harmful — and Syngenta went after him: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/10/a-valuable-reputation
“Poison Spring: The Secret History of Pollution and the EPA” – chronicles how giant chemical companies influence — you could say poison — EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) policy. A 25-year EPA analyst, author E.G. Vallianatos, reveals how the EPA has failed to protect the public from harmful chemicals and is no longer a watchdog organization. Instead, it has become the “Polluters’ Protection Agency,” beholden to the chemical companies it is entrusted to regulate. READ MORE
Greatest Hit List of Monsanto poisons:
• dioxin (made with partner Dow Chemical)
• PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls)
• DDT (insecticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane)
• Agent Orange (a mixture of 2,4,5-T (a chlorophenoxy acetic acid herbicide) and 2,4-D (a 2nd herbicide 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid)
• Roundup™ – now 45% of Monsanto’s income — its most profitable, widespread poison to date. So popular a killing agent, we’ve named this webpage after it!rBGH (Bovine Growth Hormone) which moves from dairy cows to humans
• aspartame, aka, Nutrasweet™, a suspected carcinogen still approved by the FDA and consumed by millions of people!
READ MORE about these Monsanto chemical War-on-Nature games !
The current 2015 plan to clearcut 450,000 trees in the San Francisco Bay Area includes applying thousands of gallons of the carcinogenic herbicides Monsanto Roundup™ and Dow Garlon™ to hundreds of thousands of tree stumps to prevent their re-growth, twice each year for ten years or more, as needed, to keep the stumps from re-sprouting.
These well-known toxic chemicals — Dow Garlon™ (triclopyr) and Monsanto Roundup™ (glyphosate) — end up poisoning the land, the water, the birds, the rodents, then the raptors and owls, and of course us humans when we visit these lands, our parks and open space. The manufacturers of course claim they are safe, but a wealth of scientific literature demonstrates otherwise. See article below.
NOTE: Monsanto sold over $5 billion worth of Roundup™ worldwide in 2014 – so make no mistake, herbicides/pesticides are a giant, profitable corporate business adding fuel to the ideological fire for a war on so-called “invasive” species. READ MORE
In March, 2015, The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an arm of The World Health Organization (WHO), reclassified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” and has been linked to tumors in mice and rats. There is also what the IARC calls “mechanistic evidence”, e.g., DNA damage to human cells from glyphosate exposure. READ MORE in The Guardian, April 21, 2015 article, “Glyphosate is ‘probably carcinogenic’ pesticide. Why do cities still use it?”
A 1993 UC Berkeley study found glyphosate (Monsanto Roundup’s™ active ingredient) to be the most common cause of pesticide-related illness among CA landscape maintenance workers, and the third most common cause among agricultural workers.
HUNDREDS OF ARTICLES & STUDIES REVEAL glyphosate (Roundup’s™ main ingredient) TOXICITY. Here are just a few:
• HARPER’S Magazine article, Sept. 2015: “Weed Whackers: Monsanto, glyphosate, and the war on invasive species,” by Andrew Cockburn: http://harpers.org/archive/2015/09/weed-whackers EXCERPT:Last year, the federal government spent more than $2 billion to fight the alien invasion, up to half of which was budgeted for glyphosate and other poisons.
• READ “The Case for Banning Glyphosate” by Dr. Jeff Ritterman, M.D. Monsanto’s Roundup™ active ingredient causes birth defects, spontaneous abortions in animals: (Jeff Ritterman, M.D. is VP of the Board of Directors of the SF Bay Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, retired chief of cardiology at Kaiser [hospital] Richmond, CA: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/29244-will-richmond-reject-roundup-the-case-for-banning-glyphosate
• READ Reuters news report, “U.S. researchers find Roundup chemical in water, air” by the U.S. Geological Survey Office, part of the U.S. Dept. of the Interior.
…glyphosate, the key ingredient in “Roundup” herbicide, was found in every stream sample examined in Mississippi in a two-year period and in most air samples taken. Tests were also done in Iowa. “So people are exposed to it through inhalation,” said [Paul] Capel, head of the agriculturual chemicals team:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-glyphosate-pollution-idUSTRE77U61720110831
• 99.6% of German citizens have glyphosate in their bodies — 75% with concentrations above E.U.’s legally safe levels. Read the study: http://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2016/03/study-finds-majority-of-germans-have-glyphosate-in-their-bodies
• 85% of cotton tampons (and other cotton feminine hygiene products) contain traces of glyphosate (Monsanto Roundup’s™ active ingredient), found a study by Argentine scientists. These are residues from treating the majority of of the world’s cotton crop with this toxic herbicide that its manufacturers insist dissipates quickly and doesn’t reach humans: http://revolution-news.com/argentina-study-found-glyphosate-in-cotton-tampons-gauze-pads-swabs
• “Enough To Make You Sick,” an overview of Monsanto’s Roundup™, including ADHD, Alzheimer’s, autism, birth defects, brain and breast cancers, kidney disease, colitis, depression, diabetes, liver disease, Parkinson’s, obesity, MS, and more. By Alexis Baden-Mayer, Organic Consumer’s Fund: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/28856-monsanto-s-roundup-enough-to-make-you-sick
• “Monsanto Knew of Glyphosate-Cancer Link 35 Years Ago,” by Global Research News, April 19, 2015: “…[long-term – Ed.] 3-generation reproduction study in rats and another is called “A Lifetime Feeding Study Of Glyphosate In Rats”; but like all the other older studies they were and still are treated as Trade Secrets and cannot be freely accessed for independent scrutiny.”: http://www.globalresearch.ca/monsanto-knew-of-glyphosate-cancer-link-35-years-ago/5443741
• Roundup™ found to be over 125X more toxic than glyphosate (Roundup’s active ingredient) alone. The problem of underestimated toxicological risk is so severe that the researchers describe previous research which found unexpected toxicity in so-called ‘inert’ adjuvants that were up to 10,000 times more toxic than the so-called active principle glyphosate itself, revealing them to be a greater source for secondary side effects than the main ingredient itself. http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roundup-herbicide-125-times-more-toxic-regulators-say
• France acts to ban glyphosate, GMO crops. Sept. 2015. France is so opposed it will bypass the European Union: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-gmo-idUSKCN0RH1BV20150917
• The Netherlands bans glyphosate, joining Brazil, Germany, Scotland, Greece, Argentina, Latvia, Sri Lanka, Bermuda, France in bans or partial bans. May 2015. What do they acknowledge that the U.S. doesn’t?: http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/05/30/why-the-netherlands-just-banned-monsantos-glyphosate-based-herbicides
• READ “More Evidence of Roundup’s Link to Kidney, Liver Damage” by Brian Bienkowski, Environmental Health News: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/32585-more-evidence-of-roundup-s-link-to-kidney-liver-damage
• Vandana Shiva on seeds, patents, copyrights, rights — and Monsanto lobbying: “Despite the fact that 90% of American citizens want GMO labeling on their food, big business is doing everything it can to prevent people from accessing their rights: http://ecowatch.com/2015/07/25/vandana-shiva-end-monsanto
• READ “Roundup and glyphosate Toxicity Grossly Underestimated,” an overview of glyphosate toxicity, by Dr. Joseph Mercola (osteopath): http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/07/30/glyphosate-toxicity.aspx
• READ The World Health Organization (WHO) report classifying glyphosate (Roundup’s active ingredient), “probably carcinogenic to humans” in March 2015 report: READ REPORT.
• READ Reuters news report, Aug. 19, 2015, “Scientists call for new review of herbicide, cite ‘flawed’ U.S. regulations”: http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0QO28D20150819
• READ “Nearly 300 experts agree GMOs not proven safe”: http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2013/15210-nearly-300-experts-agree-gmos-not-proven-safe
• READ how glyphosate (Roundup™) is now found in… the breast milk of American women: CLICK HERE
• AND in the breast milk of women in Germany: CLICK HERE
EXCERPT: “…testing on glyphosate herbicide in the breast milk of American women, Moms Across America and Sustainable Pulse have found ‘high’ levels in 3 out of the 10 samples tested…results point to glyphosate levels building up in women’s bodies over a period of time, which has until now been refuted by both global regulatory authorities and the biotech industry.
• Herbicide use (and Monsanto’s glyphosate-based formulation, Roundup™) has INCREASED with the introduction of genetically-modified organisms and herbicide-resistant crops, not decreased as the chemical industry repeatedly claims: http://www.enveurope.com/content/24/1/24
• Journal of Pesticide Reform HERBICIDE FACTSHEET on GLYPHOSATE, Winter 2004, Vol. 24, No. 4: CLICK HERE
Thousands of gallons will be used in the SF Bay Area. CLICK TO ENLARGE
“Almost all the top positions at the agencies that protect our environment and oversee our resources have been filled by former lobbyists for the biggest polluters in the very business that these ministries oversee.” – Robert Kennedy, environmental attorney, “Crimes Against Nature”
VIDEO: Monsanto lobbyist Patrick Moore says he’ll drink Roundup™ — but his bluff is called:
“Scientific and technological “solutions” which poison the environment or degrade the social structure and man himself are of no benefit, no matter how brilliantly conceived or how great their superficial attraction.”
– E.F. Schumacher, economist, author, “Small Is Beautiful”
VIDEO: Why Are We Being Fed By A Poison Expert? A fun, informative 5 min. primer on your food, GMOs, Roundup™ and the other poisons Monsanto is feeding you.
MORE LITERATURE on THE HAZARDS OF PESTICIDES:
Right in the preface to The Myth of Safe Pesticides, by Andre Leu, we learn the hidden truth: pesticides create pests, they don’t control them. Biodiversity, not monolithic monoculture crops, is our ally in dealing with pest problems.
The rest of The Myth of Safe Pesticides is a hailstorm of facts. There is no padding, no narrative, no tangents, no stories of suffering or redemption, no sugarcoating. Rather than a personal rant, Leu lets the scientific studies speak for themselves — and there are hundreds to choose from.
Each chapter dispels a myth about the safety of pesticides, and by extension, the government regulators and corporate community evaluating them:
Myth #1 – Agricultural poisons are rigorously tested. Actually, of the more than 88,000 chemical compounds unleashed on the world since the end of World War II, only a few hundred have been (incorrectly) tested, only three have ever been banned, and none have been tested in combination with any of the others, inside the human body.
Myth #2 – Very small amounts The old adage is the dose makes the poison. Actually, the body doesn’t care about massive amounts. It’s the tiniest parts per billion and even trillion that latch on to proteins, hormones and cells, block communications from the brain, disrupt the stability of the network, and create massive imbalances in cell growth (cancers) and the various “new” chronic diseases of the past 25 years. It’s the tiny amounts that kill.
Myth #3 – Breakdown Modern pesticides rapidly degrade. Actually, residues concentrate the poisons. When toxic poisons break down (biodegrade) they can become oxons, 100 times more toxic than the original pesticide. Glyphosate (Roundup) at residue levels induces human breast cancer cells to multiply 8-13 times. It grows cancer.
Myth #4 – Reliable Regulation Actually, they cannot be counted on for protection. [See E.G. Vallianatos’ book, Poison Spring, by a 25-year EPA analyst, above – Ed.]
Myth #5 – Pesticides are essential to farming. In reality, yields are higher and the earth richer and more stable without them. Such crops also withstand extremes, now a common occurrence, far better than pesticide and chemical fertilizer farming, and even substantially reduce farming costs. [Review adapted from Amazon reviewer, David Wineberg – Ed.]
VIDEO: Monsanto: Picking Up God’s Slack In the spirit of fairness, we wanted to give Monsanto this chance to show to state their perspective: helping humanity with their wide and ever-increasing range of agricultural biocide products and technologies. Produced by HLGstudios.
Even if you’ve read up on the dangers of Monsanto products, Our Daily Poison by Marie-Monique Robin will have you soon realize you don’t know the half of it. Agrochemical, pharmaceutical and industrial corporations are poisoning people and the environment with full knowledge of their culpability and with no intention of letting up. Fraud, lies, corruption, and influence-peddling reported in Robin’s hard-hitting book will leave you disgusted and frightened enough for our future to challenge and change the status quo. The regulatory fraud by the poisons industry is worse than you imagined; the so-called “science” they distort and exploit is shocking.
EXAMPLES:
– Toxicologists use a particular breed of rats for animal testing known to be immune to the tested substance.
– Selective use of lab results by regulator agencies: picking only the few studies that do not show chemical harm while ignoring 100 that do, to justify high, toxic limits on individual human exposure.
– Not taking into account the accumulation of poisons in our bodies from scores of daily poisons exposures in our households and work environments.
– Revolving door relationships between polluters and regulatory boards.
Cancer rates continue to rise. Genetic experimentation for profit that ignore risks are rampant. The future of life on our planet, including human beings, is demonstrably at risk. Robin has spanned the globe for this work and a companion documentary film, drawing on multiple, verifiable sources.
The only shortcoming of this well-documented work for an English reader, is that the translation from French is sometimes awkward, though always understandable.
One positive note: in numerous studies, every young child tested today shows pesticides traces in her/his urine, but after switching to an organic diet, every child’s urine cleared of any detectable trace. Meaning the harm continues while non-organic foods are consumed, the harm can be undone (from food sources at least) by consuming organic foods. We are what we eat.
VIDEO: Monsanto sues farmers whose crops are contaminated with neighboring farms’ Monsanto seeds. In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court handed Monsanto a major victory, dismissing the 2011 case, Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association et al. v. Monsanto, that would have stopped Monsanto from suing farmers for patent infringement when their fields were contaminated by neighboring GMO farmers’ Monsanto seeds.
Ronnie Cummins, Organic Consumers Association director, said of Marsh’s case: “This is a perfect example of how the biotech industry and genetic engineering undermine not only human health, and the health of the environment, but also the very basis of democracy itself, and the long-held rights of farmers to protect their land from toxic trespassing.”
VIDEO: How and why glyphosate (50% of Monsanto Roundup™) harms human intestinal bacteria, and more.
Jeffrey Smith of The Institute for Responsible Technology interviews Dr. Stephanie Seneff, Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
THE ETHICS OF MONSANTO:
“David Versus Monsanto” documentary film tells the chilling details of how Monsanto’s GMO seeds spread to a Canadian farmer’s crops and then Monsanto sued him for “stealing” their patented product, demanded all the crops and any profits from there were now the property of Monsanto — and won in court!
