Now
we have the science and it is becoming nasty. It turns out that
mixing with other pesticides and exposing to light just happens to
exponentially increase toxicity. Thus the whole argument supporting
its continued use happens to be rubbish. It is far worse than any of
us ever imagined and I think it is becoming far worse than Monsanto
ever guessed.
What
we do need is a global shutdown at the rate of say ten percent per
year which allows a transition to take place. Anything else only
encourages a rough fight and a side trip to the court room and
decades of liars poker.
I
expect these new findings to be ignored for a while, but they are
compelling. We already gave plenty of inferential conclusions
supporting an abandonment of this poison and these can mobalize
public support.
New Study Shows Why Roundup Herbicide (Glyphosate) Should Be Banned
June 2, 2014
Sayer Ji,
A growing body of research
indicates that Roundup herbicide and its metabolite, AMPA, are vastly
more toxic than the public is being told. Activist sentiment aside,
the scientific research itself increasingly points to banning this
herbicide as the only logical solution.
A concerning new study published
in Chemosphere shows
that the classical toxicology model, based on the testing of
individual molecules, is incapable of accurately estimating the
global environmental and health risks of mixtures of agrochemicals
like glyphosate (aka Roundup) and its degradation byproduct AMPA,
which are now ubiquitous environmental and food contaminants and much
more harmful than previously believed.
Following closely on the heels of a
study showing that Roundup
herbicide is 125 times more toxic than its active ingredient
glyphosate studied in
isolation, the new study adds to an increasingly damning body of
evidence that reveals agrochemicals used in GMO food production are
vastly more harmful than their manufacturers, regulators and
proponents will admit.
The
study, titled, “Genotoxicity of
mixtures of glyphosate and atrazine and their environmental
transformation products before and after photoactivation,”evaluated
the light-induced cell-damaging toxicity (i.e. photo-inducible
cytogenetic toxicity) of glyphosate, atrazine, aminomethyl phosphoric
acid (AMPA), desethyl-atrazine (DEA), and their various mixtures.
Glyphosate (aka Roundup)
is the world’s most popular pesticide, used primarily in GMO
farming as a systemic herbicide. When
glyphosate is metabolized within plants or within the liver of
animals, it produces AMPA,
a substance that while classified as
inert and/or harmless by regulators, has been known for some time to
be at least as toxic as glyphosate, the latter of which has been
linked to over 30 adverse health effects.[1] Atrazine
is used to control weeds in crops such as corn and surgarcane, and is
used widely in residential lawns and golf courses. It was identified
as the most commonly detected pesticide contaminating drinking water
in the United States,[2] and
is believed to a potent endocrine disrupter affecting animal hormonal
systems.[3]-[4]
Herbicide Mixtures And/Or Metabolites 20-1,000 Times More Toxic Than Regulators Believe
The new study demonstrated that the
cell-damaging (cytogenetic) potentials of pesticides greatly depended
on their physicochemical environment. Also, it was found that the
mixture made with the four pesticides was not only 20-fold more toxic
to tested cells than those of the most active compound AMPA, but that
the toxicity increased 100-fold after light-irradiation, which
would be a common reaction given that these chemicals persist and
accumulate in the environment.
Additionally, researchers discovered
that, “AMPA displayed a
direct cytogenetic toxicity which was 1000 fold higher than that of
its parent compound [glyphosate].” Since
AMPA – the breakdown product of glyphosate — is a ubiquitous
toxicant, found in all glyphosate exposed plant food, and is known to
persist for prolonged durations in the environment (76–240 days
in soil), and is even produced in the mammalian liver following
consumption of glyphosate contaminated food, the significance of this
finding can not be underestimated.
When you consider that glyphosate is
presently allowed in human food at levels up to six
orders of magnitude higher than
research has revealed may be harmful to the human body,[5] AMPA’s
potential for being 1,000 times more toxic than glyphosate implies
that present day ‘acceptable levels’ may be up to 9 orders of
magnitude – 1,000,000,000
times – too lax than
required to protect exposed populations from significant bodily harm.
Given the growing body of evidence
suggesting that glyphosate and its metabolite, AMPA, are extremely
toxic, the precautionary principle should be implemented and
unnecessary exposure should be avoided. If Roundup herbicide use is
not restricted or banned until undergoing review, at the very least,
consumers deserve the right of informed consent. The choice to avoid
non-GMO and non-Roundup laden foods must be made available through
truthful labeling of food products. Failing to make this choice
possible, or worse, levying massive financial and political resources
against such a right through industry front groups like the Grocery
Manufacturers Association, amounts to forced chemical poisoning, an
egregious crime against humanity.
Sources:
[1] GreenMedInfo.com, Glyphosate
Adverse Health Effects
[2] A
Valuable Reputation: Tyrone Hayes said that a chemical was harmful,
its maker pursued him” by Rachel Aviv, The
New Yorker, 10 February
2014
[3] Atrazine:
Chemical Summary. Toxicity and Exposure Assessment for Children’s
Health(Report). U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency. 4/24/2007.
[4] Hayes,
Tyrone B.; Anderson, Lloyd L.; Beasley, Val R.; de Solla, Shane R.;
Iguchi, Taisen; et al. (2011). “Demasculinization and feminization
of male gonads by atrazine: Consistent effects across vertebrate
classes”. The Journal of
Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 127 (1–2):
64–73. doi:10.1016/j.jsbmb.2011.03.015. PMID 21419222.
No comments:
Post a Comment