EFSA Findings : Glyphosate by itself doesn’t cause cancer. But products like Monsanto’s Roundup, which contain glyphosate and other additives are another story.

 

 

 

Organic Consumers Association

Campaigning for health, justice, sustainability, peace, and democracy

Monsanto’s Roundup: The Whole Toxic Enchilada

November 19, 2015

 

by Katherine Paul

Genetic Engineering,

Millions Against Monsanto

 

Last week, while we waited for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to announce whether or not the agency will give Monsanto’s Roundup a free pass by green lighting the use of glyphosate for another 15 years, the EPA’s counterpart in the EU made its own big announcement.
Glyphosate is “unlikely to cause cancer” said the authors of the new report by the European Union Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

That headline, music to Monsanto’s ears, seemed to fly in the face of the findings published earlier this year by the World Health Organization (WHO). After extensive review of the evidence, all 17 of WHO’s leading cancer experts said glyphosate is a “probable human carcinogen?”

Sustainable Pulse (SP), publisher of global news on GMOs and other food-related issues, quickly reported the glaring omission made by the majority of news sources reporting on EFSA’s findings.
According to SP, what EFSA really concluded is this: Glyphosate by itself doesn’t cause cancer. But products like Monsanto’s Roundup, which contain glyphosate and other additives and chemicals that are essential to making the herbicide work? That’s another, or in this case, the rest of the story.

Read More Here

US workers sue Monsanto over ‘cancer-causing’ weed-killer

Published time: 30 Sep, 2015 01:34

© Charles Platiau / Reuters

Two US agricultural workers have simultaneously sued Monsanto, claiming that the company’s weed-killer herbicide caused their cancers. They have also accused the bio-tech giant of pressuring regulators to downplay the risks from its Roundup herbicide.

In his lawsuit against Monsanto, 58-year-old former farm worker Enrique Rubio said he believes that the bone cancer he was diagnosed with back in 1995 was a result of his work with Monsanto’s weed-killer.

Working in California, Texas and Oregon over several years, Rubio’s duties included spraying fields of cucumbers, onions and other vegetable crops with pesticides and Roundup, one of Monsanto’s widely used herbicides.

Another plaintiff, 64-year-old Judi Fitzgerald, joined Rubio in his legal battle against Monsanto. Diagnosed with leukemia in 2012, Fitzgerald had to use Roundup in the 1990s when she worked at a horticultural products company.

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Think you can avoid glyphosate by buying organic? Think again. Investigation finds many products in the US organic grain market contain glyphosate residue.

 Health Impact News

 

 

Think you can avoid glyphosate by buying organic? Think again. A new investigation by Tropical Traditions reveals that many products in the organic grain market in the U.S. contain glyphosate residue at levels almost the same as conventional grains.

Brian Shilhavy
Health Impact News Editor

With over 80% of the U.S. food supply now reportedly contaminated with the herbicide glyphosate, many people are turning to USDA certified organic products to avoid this toxic chemical. Current USDA NOP (National Organic Program) standards do not allow the use of the herbicide glyphosate on organic crops.

However, a new investigation by Tropical Traditions has revealed that the U.S. organic grain market is contaminated with glyphosate.

Tropical Traditions has sold organic grains for years. After reading new research about the issue of “crop desiccation” done by using glyphosate on wheat and other grains just prior to harvest, Tropical Traditions decided to first test some commercial wheat products with wheat grown in Montana, North Dakota, and Canada. They sent the commercial samples to a well-known and respected laboratory to test for glyphosate.

All tested positive for glyphosate residue. The range was from 0.07 mg/kg to 0.09 mg/kg. Keep in mind this is glyphosate found in non-GMO crops. For a GMO crop such as GMO soybeans, which are sprayed heavily with glyphosate, the range is typically between 3.3 and 5.7 mg/kg. (Source.)

Next, Tropical Traditions tested the USDA certified organic grains from suppliers they had been using, sourced mainly from western states such as Montana and Idaho. Sadly, the presence of glyphosate residue was found in organic wheat and other organic grains, including organic barley, oats, spelt, and einkorn. The range was from 0.03 to 0.06 mg/kg, just slightly lower than the conventional grains that were tested.

The only organic grains that tested clean were organic rye and organic millet. There was also one variety of organic wheat from small-scale farmers in Wisconsin that tested clean from glyphosate.

Why Should We be Concerned about Glyphosate?

Glyphosate is in 80% of our food supply in the U.S., and some scientists believe it may well be the most toxic chemical ever approved for commercial use. Glyphosate is now linked to kidney disease, antibiotic resistant bacteria, inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, depression, ADHD, autism, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, multiple sclerosis, cancer, cachexia, infertility, and developmental malformations. It destroys the microbiome of humans and plants, which is the root cause of many modern diseases.

Read More Here

GMO Update—Vermont Passes GMO Labeling Bill and Stands Up to Industry Bullying as New Research Confirms Safety Concerns

Playing Keep Away From GMOs

SuperMarket News

.....

By Dr. Mercola

In a recent article titled "Monsanto GM Soy is Scarier than You Think," Mother Jones¹ went into some of the details surrounding our genetically engineered (GE) food supply.
Soybeans are the second-largest food crop grown in the US, and more than 90 percent of it is genetically engineered. Some have been modified to withstand the herbicide Roundup (i.e. Roundup-Ready soy), while other varieties have been designed to produce its own pesticide, courtesy of the Bt gene (so-called Bt soy).
As noted in the featured article, organic soy production is miniscule, accounting for less than one percent of the total acreage devoted to soy in the US. The rest is conventionally grown non-GE soy.
Even if you don't buy soy products such as tofu or soy milk, you're undoubtedly consuming plenty of soy if you're eating any processed foods and/or meats from animals raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs). A large portion of the GE soy grown actually ends up in your meat, as soy is a staple of conventional livestock feed. Much of the rest ends up as vegetable oil.
According to the US Soy Board, soybean oil accounts for more than 60 percent of all the vegetable oil consumed in the US—most of which is used in processed foods and fast food preparation. As noted in the featured article:²

"Given soy's centrality to our food and agriculture systems, the findings of a new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Food Chemistry³ are worth pondering.
The authors found that Monsanto's ubiquitous Roundup Ready soybeans... contain more herbicide residues than their non-GMO counterparts. The team also found that the GM beans are nutritionally inferior."

New Research Questions Quality and Safety of GE Soybeans

Three varieties of Iowa-grown soybeans were investigated in this study:⁴

1. Roundup Ready soybeans
2. Non-GE, conventional soybeans grown using Roundup herbicide
3. Organic soybeans, grown without agricultural chemicals

All of the Roundup Ready soybean samples were found to contain residues of glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in Roundup, along with its amino acid metabolite, aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA).
On average, GE soy contained 11.9 parts per million (ppm) of glyphosate. The highest residue level found was 20.1 ppm. Meanwhile, no residues of either kind were found in the conventional non-GE and organic varieties.
In terms of nutrition, organic soybeans contained slightly higher levels of protein and lower levels of omega-6, compared to both conventionally-grown non-GE and GE soy. Similar results were found in a 2012 nutritional analysis of GE corn, which was found to contain 13 ppm of glyphosate, compared to zero in non-GMO corn.
It may be worth noting that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) actually raised the allowable levels of glyphosate^{5, 6} in oilseed crops such as soy, from 20 ppm to 40 ppm just last summer. It also raised the levels of permissible glyphosate contamination in other foods—many of which were raised to 15-25 times previous levels!

Why Glyphosate Contamination Matters

Nearly one BILLION pounds of Roundup are used each year for conventional crop production around the globe, but genetically engineered (GE) crops see some of the heaviest use. This is especially true for Roundup Ready crops, which are designed to withstand otherwise lethal doses of this chemical.
The issue of glyphosate contamination is well worth considering if you value your health. Recent research suggests glyphosate may in fact be an instrumental driver of many chronic diseases, and in my view, avoiding glyphosate is a major reason for buying organic, in and of itself.
Labeling GMOs could help you select products that are less likely to have heavy contamination, although you'd also avoid many other hazardous chemicals used in conventional farming by opting for products labeled 100% organic.
It's important to understand that these glyphosate residues CANNOT be washed off, as the chemical is actively integrated into every cell in the plant. Dr. Don Huber, who is one of the most prominent scientific experts in plant toxicology, firmly believes glyphosate is FAR more toxic and dangerous than DDT. A number of other studies have raised serious questions about the safety of glyphosate, including but not limited to the following:

• Research published in the International Journal of Toxicology⁷ in January revealed that glyphosate-based formulations like Roundup pose a threat to human health through cytotoxicity and oxidative effects. Such formulations were also found to be lethal to human liver cells
• A 2012 study⁸ found that 3 ppm of Roundup in water induced morphological changes in frogs
• A German study⁹ on poultry, published in 2013, showed that glyphosate tends to be more harmful to beneficial gut bacteria like Lactobacillus, while pathogenic bacteria like Salmonella entritidi tend to be largely resistant to the chemical. Subsequently, the microbial balance tends to shift toward pathogenic overgrowth when exposed to glyphosate, and can predispose the animal to botulism

Victory! Vermont Passes First Effective GMO-Labeling Bill

On April 16, 2014, the Vermont Senate passed the first no-strings-attached GMO labeling bill (H.112) by an overwhelming margin—28-2. The bill sailed through a House/Senate conference committee and was approved by the House of Representatives on April 23.
Governor Shumlin has already indicated he will be signing the bill into law—which will require any genetically engineered food sold in Vermont to be labeled by July 1, 2016.¹⁰ Food served in restaurants, alcohol, meat, and dairy products would be exempt from labeling however. Foods containing GMO ingredients would also not be allowed to be labeled "natural."

"I am proud of Vermont for being the first state in the nation to ensure that Vermonters will know what is in their food," Governor Shumlin said in a statement. "The Legislature has spoken loud and clear through its passage of this bill. I wholeheartedly agree with them and look forward to signing this bill into law."

This is truly an historical moment that will likely reverberate across the US in coming years. As noted by Ronnie Cummins in a recent Huffington Post article:¹¹

"Strictly speaking, Vermont's H.112 applies only to Vermont. But it will have the same impact on the marketplace as a federal law. Because national food and beverage companies and supermarkets will not likely risk the ire of their customers by admitting that many of the foods and brands they are selling in Vermont are genetically engineered, and deceptively labeled as 'natural' or 'all natural' while simultaneously trying to conceal this fact in the other 49 states and North American markets. As a seed executive for Monsanto admitted 20 years ago, 'If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it.'"

The Burlington Free Press¹² recently ran an excellent article on how the Vermont GMO labeling bill was won. I would highly encourage you to read it in its entirety, to get a real-world view of just how effective a grassroots campaign can be. It really boils down to letting your representatives know what you want. Despite the threat of a lawsuit from food manufacturers, Vermont legislators realized that their constituents were serious about wanting GMOs labeled. And they voted accordingly. Indeed, the chemical technology and food industry knows this, which is why they've fought tooth and nail to stop any and all GMO labeling efforts in the US. They've even threatened to sue any state that passes a labeling law—a threat taken seriously by Vermont.

Vermont Braces for Legal Challenge

Vermont Senate agreed to establish a state defense fund to pay for legal costs associated with defending the law against any legal challenge by the food industry, which will undoubtedly be spearheaded by the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA). It's unlikely that the industry would win such a legal challenge, however. As reported by the Burlington Free Press:¹³

"Rep. Teo Zagar, D-Barnard, told House members that... changes the Senate made will help the state prevail in court. 'This bill has been re-engineered to be more resistant to legal challenge,' he said."

As you may recall, after getting caught laundering money and narrowly defeating the Washington labeling campaign, the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) sued the state of Washington, arguing they should be allowed to hide their donors—which is a direct violation of state campaign disclosure laws—in order to "speak with one voice" for the interests of the food industry.¹⁴ I subsequently named the GMA "the most evil corporation on the planet," considering the fact that it consists primarily of pesticide producers and junk food manufacturers who are hell-bent on violating some of your most basic rights, just to protect their own profits.
The GMA was initially forced to reveal their donors, but has since removed their online membership list—again hiding their members to prevent consumer awareness of who is behind this radical front group. You can find the cached members list on web.archive.org¹⁵ however. Not surprisingly, Pepsi, Coke, and Nestle—top purveyors of chronic ill health—were the top funders trying to hide their identity during the Washington State GMO labeling campaign.

Read More Here

Related articles

• GMO Soy Is Scarier Than You Think
• How "Extreme Levels" of Roundup in Food Became the Industry Norm
• 'Extreme levels' of Roundup are the norm in GMO soya
• GMO Update - Vermont Passes GMO Labeling Bill and Stands Up to Industry Bullying as New Research Confirms Safety Concerns
• "Extreme Levels" Of Herbicide Roundup Found In Food

Natural News : Urgent action alert: EPA about to raise allowable concentrations of glyphosate on food crops, edible oils and animal feed - comments needed by July 1

Tuesday, June 18, 2013
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com

(NaturalNews) This is an urgent action alert from Natural News and the Health Ranger. Public comments are due by July 1 to object to new EPA regulations which are already in place, allowing glyphosate contamination of food crops, edible oils and waterways at concentrations which are thousands of times higher than the amount needed to cause cancer.

The new regulation, which can be viewed HERE, sets the following regulations regarding glyphosate residues on crops:

• It allows forage and hay teff to contain up to 100 ppm glyphosate (that's over one million times the concentration needed to cause cancer according to a recent study). See PubMed source here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23756170

• Allows oilseed crops (flax oil, canola oil, soybean oil, olive oil, etc.) to contain up to 40 ppm glyphosate (which is over 100,000 times the concentration needed to cause cancer)

• RAISES the allowable glyphosate contamination level of root crops (such as potatoes) from 200 ppb to 6000 ppb.

• Allows glyphosate contamination of fruits at anywhere from 200 ppb to 500 ppb.

Importantly, the EPA says no one even commented on all this when it was initially filed! "There were no comments received in response to the notice of filing." Since then, a total of just 396 people have posted a public comment at the time of this story being published.

You can post your comments with the EPA at this page:
http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2012-0132-00...

EPA declares glyphosate to be perfectly safe

Borrowing a page right out of Monsanto's quack science playbook, the EPA says:

A chronic feeding/carcinogenicity study in rats found no systemic effects in any of the parameters examined (body weight, food consumption, clinical signs, mortality, clinical pathology, organ weights, and histopathology).

The EPA even offers this utterly absurd, false statement as justification for its allowable contamination levels of glyphosate: "EPA has concluded that glyphosate does not pose a cancer risk to humans. Therefore, a dietary exposure assessment for the purpose of assessing cancer risk is unnecessary." (SOURCE)

Huh? Do you understand this? The EPA is saying glyphosate is so incredibly safe that it is not even necessary to study its possible carcinogenic effects in humans. No science needed! The EPA simply waves a magic (Monsanto) wand and says, "Shazam! Glyphosate is safe enough to EAT!"

The EPA, of course, is sadly mistaken. It is apparently not aware of two crucial facts to consider in all this:

1) The Seralini study released last year showed an alarming increase in cancer tumors in rats that were fed glyphosate in their drinking water.

2) Monsanto has already been found guilty of committing scientific fraud by altering the results of "scientific" studies in order to trick regulators.

The "scientific" data proving glyphosate to be "safe" has been fabricated! And the EPA is basing its conclusions on fabricated, corporate-quackified junk science that has one purpose: trick regulators into thinking the deadly poison is safe, thereby vastly increasing the usage of the chemical by farmers.

ACTION ITEM: Post your comments to protest the EPA's glyphosate poisoning of the American people

It is crucial that We the People let the EPA know that raising the allowable levels of glyphosate in foods is unacceptable. This is especially true given the recent studies linking glyphosate to breast cancer, a disease that is ravaging women across America and has reached epidemic levels.

Post your comments in the following ways:

METHOD #1 - POSTING ONLINE

1) Go to this page:
http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2012-0132-00...

2) Click the "Comment Now!" button on the top right.

3) Enter your information and comment, then click "Submit." Be sure to include reasons WHY you believe the EPA should not allow such high levels of glyphosate in foods, edible oils and animal feed. You can quote pages like GMOevidence.com:
http://gmoevidence.com/location/roundup-evidence/

You can also quote this excellent article from GM Watch which explains why the corporate-controlled media (and industry) so viciously attacked the Seralini rat study, trying to discredit it:
http://gmwatch.org/latest-listing/51-2012/14514

METHOD #2 - MAIL IT IN

1) Write your letter of protest. To ensure proper receipt by EPA, you must identify docket ID number EPA-HQ-OPP-2012-0132 on the first page of your letter.

2) Mail it to: (all mail must be received by July 1st)
OPP Docket
Environmental Protection Agency Docket Center (EPA/DC), (28221T)
1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW.
Washington, DC 20460–0001

METHOD #3 - EMAIL ANDREW ERTMAN

Please use Method #1 or #2 if you want your comments to actually count. But if you also wish to email or phone the EPA person from the Office of Pesticide Programs, you may contact:

Andrew Ertman, Registration Division, Office of Pesticide Programs, Environmental Protection Agency
Telephone number: (703) 308-9367
Email address: ertman.andrew@epa.gov

Note: If you choose to email Andrew Ertman, please be polite in your email. Do NOT send stupid things like death threats or emails full of profanity. Make your case clearly and politely, and ask him to review the full breadth of the scientific evidence now available instead of just the selected subset Monsanto wants EPA scientists to be aware of.

Over 200 million pounds of glyphosate poison is a chemical attack on America

The following map, compiled by the USDA, shows the use of glyphosate across America:



This is also a map of the mass poisoning of America with a chemical that has been scientifically linked to an increased risk of cancer.

Compare it to this map showing the rates of cancer by state:



By the way, Monsanto has already been caught committing scientific fraud in attempting to fake safety studies on glyphosate. The company also engaged in wildly false advertising, claiming RoundUp was "safer than table salt" (implying that it's safe to eat in high doses).

Now the EPA is about to allow glyphosate in animal feed at concentrations that are one million times the concentration needed to cause cancer.

At the same time, the EPA continues to allow glyphosate at 700 ppb in public drinking water, too.

We are all being mass poisoned by this deadly chemical, and the EPA is actively conspiring with the chemical industry to downplay the real dangers of glyphosate, pretending it's safe enough to eat in quantities that are orders of magnitude larger than should be allowed.

Allowing 100 ppm of glyphosate in animal feed is equivalent to allowing 1000 ppm of lead in children's candy. It's a deadly poison that inundates our food supply at such high concentrations that it's guaranteed to cause deadly diseases in huge numbers of people.

EPA document is a blueprint for the mass euthanasia of Americans

This EPA regulation document is a blueprint for billions of dollars in profits for the cancer industry. It's also a death sentence for America's soils, farmers and food consumers. And it is insane policies like this that will ultimately lead to the downfall and collapse of modern human civilization... a civilization so stupid that it poisons its own food, water, soils and even its own children... all to make a quarterly profit on the selling of a deadly poison.

Humanity is being mass-euthanized by GMOs and glyphosate, and the EPA is standing by and openly allowing it to happen. This is an agency that did tremendous good back in the 1970's but has since become nothing more than a corporate sellout and a purveyor of poison.

The EPA wants you to eat glyphosate. There's no harm, they say. Lick it up!

What concentration of glyphosate should be allowed in foods? No more than 10 ppt

There is no safe level of exposure to glyphosate. The chemical has now been shown to promote cancer cell proliferation at ppt concentrations. This demands that glyphosate be eliminated from being sold in the USA -- BANNED for life.

Remember: Glyphosate is the new DDT. But it's much worse than DDT because its toxic effects kick in at far lower concentrations. If a "safe" level of glyphosate exposure were based on legitimate scientific studies that weren't faked by Monsanto, it would have to be set no higher than 10 ppt.

In other words, it would need to be virtually undetectable even by the most precise laboratory equipment available today.

Glyphosate has no place in a civilized nation. I call it "Satan's Molecule" because it is a destroyer of life and a destroyer of worlds.

No wonder it was invented by a scientist working for -- guess who? -- MonSatan.



Take action today. Comments are due by July 1, and if the EPA doesn't hear from the People, it's going to do whatever Monsanto tells it to do. Heck, it will probably do that anyway, but at least if you post a comment, when all of us die from cancer you will know that you did not willfully participate in the mass murder of Americans.

Related articles

• Urgent action alert: EPA about to raise allowable concentrations of glyphosate on food crops, edible oils and animal feed - comments needed by July 1 (thelifeofblisss.wordpress.com)
• Mike Adams ~ Toxic Shock: California Allows Up To One Thousand Times More Glyphosate In Drinking Water Than Needed To Cause Breast Cancer In Women (shiftfrequency.com)
• EPA about to raise allowable concentrations of glyphosate (Roundup) on food crops - Tell them how you feel (undergroundhealth.com)
• Toxic shock: California allows up to one thousand times more glyphosate in drinking water than needed to cause breast cancer in women (dprogram.net)
• Chemical, used by Monsanto, found in urine of Europeans - study (EndtheLie.com)
• GMO and Monsanto Roundup: Glyphosate Weedkiller in our Food and Water? (noahsprojectblog.wordpress.com)
• GMO Feed Alters Pigs' Stomachs (newser.com)
• Glyphosate = Roundup! (hrexach.wordpress.com)
• Cancer, Infertility, Parkinson's, and Death: The Hidden Costs of Round-Up (realfarmacy.com)