Category Archives: Glyphosate

Food, Glyphosate, News

Why Medieval Bread Was A Superfood While Your Modern Bread Makes You Sick

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Thanks to Steve for this video. It really makes sense now. Why the store bought bread disagrees with the gut. This goes right back to medieval days and the origins of bread ingredients. EWNZ

Medieval Way @ Youtube

There’s a significant issue with the bread we consume today. While bread was once a fundamental part of civilizations, sustaining families and armies, modern bread often causes gut issues, blood sugar spikes, and leaves us feeling unsatisfied. This food history explores how the bread industry has changed, contrasting today’s offerings with the traditional bread that nourished our ancestors. We conduct a food industry case study, examining how the history of bread, including ancient grains and sourdough, shows a stark difference from what we find on shelves now.

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Image by Edar from Pixabay

Glyphosate

Glyphosate “Safety” Study Ghostwritten by Monsanto Retracted After 25 Years of Deception

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EWNZ comment: do review our glyphosate pages at the main menu. I looked at this topic in the Rangitikei during 2013-2016, attempting to switch the council’s weed control to steam. At the end of the day, it appears that councils NZ wide prefer to use poison … surprised? Comfortably in bed with Agrichem.

“Millions of pounds of glyphosate were approved, defended, and sprayed worldwide on the basis of a paper we now know was fundamentally compromised and scientifically invalid.“

Nicolas Hulscher, MPH

In a long-overdue move, Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology has formally retracted the landmark 2000 glyphosate “safety” review by Williams, Kroes, and Munro — a paper Monsanto and global regulators have relied on for decades to assert that Roundup poses no carcinogenic risk to humans.

Crucially, the Editor-in-Chief confirms that Monsanto employees likely secretly wrote substantial portions of the paper, despite never being listed as authors or acknowledged — a revelation uncovered through U.S. litigation.

The retraction states that the article’s integrity has collapsed entirely, citing undisclosed corporate authorship, omitted carcinogenicity data, financial conflicts of interest, and a complete failure by the surviving author to respond to the journal’s investigation.

THE RETRACTION

1. Based almost entirely on Monsanto’s unpublished studies
The review’s “no cancer risk” conclusion relied solely on Monsanto-generated data. Even worse, the authors ignored multiple long-term mouse and rat carcinogenicity studies that already existed at the time — including multi-year toxicity studies showing tumor signals. None were incorporated.

2. Evidence of ghostwriting by Monsanto
Litigation records revealed that Monsanto employees secretly co-wrote portions of the paper, despite never being listed as authors or acknowledged. This alone violates the most basic principles of scientific integrity.

3. Undisclosed financial ties
The authors appear to have received direct compensation from Monsanto for producing the paper — again undisclosed, again violating journal standards.

4. Misrepresentation of authorship and contributions
By hiding Monsanto’s role, the paper created the illusion of independent scientific evaluation — even as corporate employees shaped the conclusions.

5. Regulatory capture revealed
This paper heavily influenced global risk assessments — including U.S. EPA, WHO/FAO, and Health Canada evaluations — setting the tone for “glyphosate is safe” messaging for more than two decades.

While I am strongly opposed to politically motivated retractions and scientific censorship, this retraction was unquestionably warranted. The integrity failures were not ideological — they were structural, factual, and undeniable.

And the independent evidence that has emerged since 2000 only underscores how dangerous that original “all clear” truly was.

A recent controlled animal study demonstrated that glyphosate and Roundup can induce rare, aggressive, and fatal cancers across multiple organs — even at doses considered “safe” by U.S. and EU regulatory thresholds. These findings directly contradict the original review’s core conclusions.

World’s Top Herbicide Linked to Over 10 Distinct Cancers at "Safe" Doses in Landmark Study

World’s Top Herbicide Linked to Over 10 Distinct Cancers at “Safe” Doses in Landmark Study

Nicolas Hulscher, MPH
Jun 17

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Zhang et al found a statistically significant association between glyphosate exposure and increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in humans. Their 2019 meta-analysis pooled data from over 65,000 participants across six studies—including more than 7,000 NHL cases—and reported a 41% increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma among those with the highest glyphosate exposure:

In other words, independent science was pointing to serious cancer risks while Monsanto’s fraudulent ghostwritten review was actively minimizing them.

Millions of pounds of glyphosate were approved, defended, and sprayed across the world on the basis of a review that we now know was fundamentally compromised and scientifically invalid.

The collapse of this paper is not just a correction, it is an indictment of an entire regulatory era built on deception.

Nicolas Hulscher, MPH

Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation

Support our mission: mcculloughfnd.org

Please consider following both the McCullough Foundation and my personal account on X (formerly Twitter) for further content.

Glyphosate, News

Glyphosate and Cancer: A Textbook Case of “Manufacturing Doubt”

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From Sustainable Pulse
Source: Le Monde, By Stéphane Foucart

A recent study confirming the herbicide’s carcinogenic potential has been the subject of fierce criticism. However, this criticism is based on flawed scientific grounds, Le Monde has reported.

The recent publication of a study indicating an increased risk of various tumors in laboratory rats exposed to glyphosate has sparked numerous comments on social media and in the press, aimed at downplaying or denigrating this research.

These results, published on June 10 in the journal Environmental Health, only confirm the conclusions of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which estimated in 2015 that the studies available at the time provided “sufficient evidence” of glyphosate’s carcinogenicity in animals.

The attacks on this study, led by the Ramazzini Institute in Bologna, Italy, offer an exemplary array of the sleight of hand of “doubt manufacturing,” a rhetoric aimed at undermining confidence in scientific results, often used to delay or fight regulatory decisions.

“The journal is unknown, so the study is flawed.”

Eric Billy, an immuno-oncology researcher, was among the most vocal critics of the Ramazzini Institute study (which was actually an international study with authors from all over the world not just the Ramazzini Institute), which he deemed “flawed.” In a series of messages published on June 14 on his X and Bluesky accounts, which received numerous retweets, this employee of the pharmaceutical company Novartis first accused its authors of having “chosen a more lenient journal to avoid criticism,” explaining that he would have expected to read this article in the journals “Nature, Science, or Cell,” which he believes are of higher quality.

WHY IT IS IRRELEVANT

Environmental Health, published by the SpringerNature group, is actually one of the most influential journals in its field. Its citation rate places it 32nd out of 687 indexed journals covering the fields of public health, environmental health, or occupational health, according to the 2024 ranking by scientific publisher Elsevier. Prestigious journals like Nature or Science do not generally publish tests like the one conducted by the Ramazzini Institute.

“A number of reliable and high-quality toxicity studies, like the one you share with us, are published in specialized journals,” explains Meagan Phelan, spokesperson for publications published under the Science banner. “Although these are essential elements of substance assessment, these tests are not considered conceptual advances and, as such, Science does not generally publish them.”

“Exposed animals live as long as others”

The Ramazzini study did not reveal any significant difference in mortality between rats exposed to glyphosate and unexposed control rats. This point was highlighted by Mr. Billy to put the study’s conclusions into perspective. And it hit the mark: it was later reported in Le Figaro, which saw it as the “first lesson” of this work.

WHY IT’S MORE COMPLICATED

The fact that the study did not reveal any significant differences in survival rates between the two groups was not presented by the Ramazzini researchers as a result in itself. Their protocol was, in fact, designed to detect the carcinogenic potential of a product, not its effect on the animals’ survival: all of them were sacrificed two-thirds of the way through their lives, at the age of 104 weeks. Now, it’s easy to understand that if human smokers were compared to non-smokers, the mortality differences would be small if all individuals were euthanized at the age of 50.

In reality, the absence of a mortality difference between groups of animals over the duration of the test is mainly a guarantee of the quality of the study, for statistical reasons. An animal that dies prematurely will have been exposed for a shorter time to the substance tested, and the probability of tumors developing in its group will therefore be reduced. Its statistical weight in the analysis will therefore be different. A high survival rate in each group, both treated and control, guarantees the “maintenance of statistical power” of the experiment, according to the good practice guides in toxicology (maintained by the OECD).

“The chosen rodent strain is not appropriate.”

Several commentators have also criticized the Ramazzini Institute researchers’ choice of the so-called “Sprague-Dawley” rat strain. Eric Billy argues that the use of this type of rat “has already been strongly criticized by the scientific community due to an abnormally high frequency of spontaneous tumor lesions compared to other rodent strains,” recalling that this strain was used by Gilles-Eric Séralini in his famous and controversial study on GMOs.

WHY THIS IS INCORRECT

In reality, the high rates of spontaneous tumors observed in the “Sprague-Dawley” strain only concern certain sites (tumors of the mammary gland, pituitary gland, etc., found at comparable rates in the treated and control groups). Furthermore, the researchers have at their disposal an abundant literature to take into account the specific characteristics of this strain.

Not only is the “Sprague-Dawley” strain not problematic in itself, but it is the most widely used. In 2024, researchers showed that more than 55% of the 263 carcinogenicity studies of active ingredients conducted in recent years on rats used this strain. The carcinogenicity of Ruxolitinib, a drug substance marketed by Novartis, was, for example, tested on this strain. As for Dr. Séralini’s study (published in 2012, before being retracted and then republished), the choice of strain was not, in itself, among the criticisms made. As summarized by IARC experts in 2015, it was the entire protocol implemented that was criticized.

“The doses tested are unrealistic”

Like several other critical voices, Eric Billy is surprised by the high doses of glyphosate to which rats were exposed in the Ramazzini Institute study, stating that “even the lowest dose tested far exceeds actual human [dietary] exposure” and that “the other two doses are therefore a hundred and a thousand times higher than this human exposure.” The same argument and the same figure are used in Le Figaro.

WHY IT IS IRRELEVANT

This argument is frequently raised to challenge the relevance of the results of animal studies. However, millions of humans exposed for decades cannot be compared to a hundred rats exposed for 24 months. The purpose of these tests is to characterize the carcinogenic potential of substances, not to assess the risks faced by the population at actual exposure levels (sometimes much higher than dietary exposure, for people living near farms, farm workers, etc.).

In fact, the Glyphosate has already been associated with an increased risk of certain lymphomas in farmers in four meta-analyses and one pooled study—the highest levels of evidence in epidemiology. Animal studies allow us to interpret these results, suggesting that these associations are indicative of a causal link. And even if we give credence to the “too high dose” argument, the objection remains unfounded.

The Ramazzini study indeed examined the effects of glyphosate at considerably lower doses than all previous similar studies. In the seven studies selected by European authorities during their latest assessment of the herbicide molecule, the lowest doses tested were 12 to 420 times higher than in the Ramazzini study, and the highest exposures were 10 to 33 times higher.

“The route of exposure is not adequate.”

In the Ramazzini study, the animals were exposed to glyphosate through drinking water, not food. Mr. Billy maintains that this is inadequate, arguing that humans are more likely to be exposed through food.

WHY IT IS IRRELEVANT

Among the animal studies on glyphosate submitted to health authorities or evaluated by IARC, none has been deemed inadmissible because it opted for a similar exposure route. Drinking water is, moreover, considered acceptable for assessing “food or environmental chemicals, including pesticides,” just like diet, according to OECD Good Practice Guide No. 451.

This false controversy is a classic argument. In 1953, the Sloan Kettering Institute’s first work on the carcinogenic potential of tobacco involved observing the development of tumors on the shaved skin of rodents after smearing it with cigarette tar extracts. The American Tobacco Company criticized the scientists’ use of a “high concentration of smoke extracts—entirely different from the smoke a person might inhale from a cigarette,” while stating that “all scientists agree that there is no known relationship between skin cancers in mice and lung cancers in humans.”

Like the Ramazzini researchers, those at the Sloan Kettering Institute were not seeking to exactly mimic human exposure to the agent being tested (no one smears cigarette tar on themselves), but to test its carcinogenic potential.

“The number of animals is insufficient”

In his critical thread, Eric Billy makes a calculation estimating that, to achieve greater statistical robustness, the Ramazzini researchers should have used at least three times as many rats, or 160 to 220 individuals per group.

WHY THIS IS INCORRECT

Such requirements are fanciful. No chronic toxicity or carcinogenicity study of glyphosate conducted on rats has ever enrolled so many animals. All studies similar to those of Ramazzini one have included around 50 rats per group. And for good reason: this is the threshold recommended by the OECD guidance document.

“In this case, it is completely ridiculous to require more animals per group,” asserts American biostatistician Christopher Portier, former director of the US National Toxicology Program, whose work is an authority on the subject. According to this specialist, an expert witness for plaintiffs in several ongoing trials in the United States, the Ramazzini researchers “managed to demonstrate a statistically significant trend toward an increase in certain tumors in the treated animals, even though there were only 50 per group. Why would the experiment be repeated with more animals to gain more statistical power?”

In reality, it is when a statistically significant effect is not found that it is possible to argue that the number of animals is too small, and that it may be useful to increase statistical power. “The only disadvantage of having 50 rats per group, rather than 160 or 220, is ‘missing’ an effect, certainly not seeing an effect that doesn’t exist,” concludes Mr. Portier.

This article benefited from discussions with researchers at the Ramazzini Institute and critical review by three researchers (INRAE ​​and INSERM) involved in toxicology work involving animal studies.

What is the “manufacturing of doubt”?

As science historians Naomi Oreskes (Harvard University) and Erik Conway (NASA) have shown in a landmark book (Merchants of Doubt, 2012), the “manufacturing of doubt” was developed in the 1950s by tobacco companies to deny or relativize the effects of cigarettes.

This rhetoric turns science against itself, by distorting the intellectual tools at the heart of scientists’ approaches (methodical doubt, demands for rigor, distrust of claims perceived as spectacular, etc.). It is thus very effective on members of the scientific and medical communities who do not work directly on the targeted subjects, as well as on audiences attached to rationality and the defense of scientific values, or even journalists who sometimes repeat such circulating arguments without thinking twice.

A highly effective propaganda technique, “manufacturing doubt” sometimes requires lengthy explanations to unmask, especially since it sometimes mixes legitimate criticisms with others based on untruths, misinterpretations, or simply erroneous considerations. It constitutes a toolbox constantly used for decades by a variety of industrial sectors wishing to protect their activities from any health or environmental regulation.

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Glyphosate, GMO, News

Glyphosate Found in Eggs, Chicken Sold in Grocery Stores Traced to GMO Poultry Feed

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Note: some years back (at least 6) I inquired of two NZ companies that produced chickens and pork, whether they fed their produce GM feed. Both replied they couldn’t rule that out as the feed was not labeled GM. EWNZ

Posted on Sep 10 2025 – by Sustainable Pulse

A scientific review in World’s Poultry Science Journal highlights the adverse health effects on avian species from exposure to the widely used weedkiller glyphosate (Roundup) throughout the process of poultry production. The herbicide enters the poultry production system through residues in genetically engineered feed, Beyond Pesticides reported.

An earlier article in Scientific Reports concludes that glyphosate’s (GLP) “widespread application on feed crops leaves residues in the feed,” while residues are “found to be common in conventional eggs acquired from grocery stores.”

In analyzing the biochemical, toxicological and ecological impacts of glyphosate on poultry, particularly chickens, the authors find a wide body of evidence linking glyphosate and its metabolite (breakdown product) aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) to debilitating hazards that extend beyond mortality.

These sublethal effects include disruption of the gut microbiome and gastrointestinal disease; decreased productivity and diminished reproductive health; hepatic and kidney toxicity; growth and developmental impacts, including teratogenicity and embryotoxicity; endocrine disruption and oxidative stress; and impaired immune functions.

The effects of glyphosate, as have long been documented in the scientific literature, range from negative impacts on biodiversity and the environment to food safety risks and human health implications.

Glyphosate Box

Glyphosate Residue Free Certification for Food Brands – Click Here

Test Your Food and Water at Home for Glyphosate – Click Here

Test Your Hair for Glyphosate and other Pesticides – Click Here to Find Our Your Long-Term Exposure

Residues of both glyphosate and AMPA “have been detected in soil, crops, animal feed, poultry, and water sources, prompting scrutiny of their long-term effects,” the authors state.

They continue:

“Studies indicate that glyphosate disrupts enzymatic pathways, particularly by inhibiting the cytochrome P450 system, leading to oxidative stress, endocrine disruption, and mitochondrial dysfunction.

“It has been linked to liver and kidney toxicity, gut microbiota alterations, reproductive harm, developmental defects, and possible carcinogenicity, though regulatory agencies remain divided on its classification as a carcinogen.”

The International Agency for Research on Cancer, a part of the World Health Organization, has classified glyphosate as having cancer-causing properties, as have independent peer-reviewed scientific studies.

The ubiquitous nature of glyphosate residues throughout the environment and within organisms is a result of the widespread application of this toxic chemical in forestry, agriculture, landscaping and gardening.

Over 750 herbicides contain glyphosate as the active ingredient, and it also plays a large role in the production of genetically modified (GM) crops, “with approximately 80% of GM crops bred specifically for GLP tolerance.”

Glyphosate-based herbicide formulations contain not only glyphosate but also other inert (undisclosed) ingredients, such as adjuvants that increase toxicity.

A common adjuvant in glyphosate-based herbicide products is polyethoxylated tallow amine (POEA), which researchers have found can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells.

Effects on poultry

Glyphosate residues in animal feed, as well as in water and through other exposure routes, pose risks to both animal and human health, as these residues can bioaccumulate and biomagnify throughout the food chain.

With a high reliance on corn and soybeans in the diets of poultry, GM crops are a significant source of exposure for these animals.

“The presence of GLP residues in poultry feed raises concerns about potential health effects on birds, including disruptions in gut microbiota, oxidative stress, and overall productivity,” the authors write.

They continue:

“Globally, approximately 57% of maize grain and 85% of soybean production are directed towards animal feed. Several studies have investigated the effects of feeding glyphosate-tolerant GM crops to various livestock species.

“Research has included dairy cows, cattle, and chickens, highlighting the potential impact of glyphosate residues on poultry growth performance, immune function, and reproductive health.”

Hepatic and kidney toxicity

Studies show that the kidney and liver are among the first organs to be affected by alimentary poisoning/foodborne illness. Additional research shows glyphosate residues in food can then impact various systems in animals, including the liver, intestine, kidney, and lung, as well as alter enzyme activity.

In a study of hatched chickens exposed to glyphosate alone and in Roundup shows “histopathological alterations in the kidneys and liver, along with imbalances in serum parameters and various biochemical changes in these organs, which could potentially impair their function.”

Oxidative stress

Exposure to glyphosate can induce oxidative stress and lipid, protein, and DNA damage. Previous research shows how glyphosate and AMPA are genotoxic and linked to oxidative damage.

One study shows that glyphosate increases the generation of reactive oxygen species in the liver and small intestine of chickens. Chronic exposure to products containing glyphosate in broiler breeders (stock chickens) weakens eggshells and delays embryo organ growth, with oxidative stress as the cause.

Gastrointestinal toxicity

Glyphosate diminishes the bioavailability of cytochrome (CYP) enzymes, which are crucial for metabolism, in the organs of chickens. One study shows that glyphosate specifically inhibits CYP P450 enzymes in chickens’ livers and small intestines.

Chicks exposed to glyphosate also have compromised liver function and altered lipid metabolism, further causing oxidative stress and deposits of fat in blood and liver tissues due to heightened expression of lipogenesis-related genes, as a result of its disruptive effect on cytochrome P450 enzymes.

Additional studies show disruption of the gut microbiome in livestock and poultry, where glyphosate reduces beneficial bacteria and enhances resistance in pathogenic strains.

These impacts can lead to the onset of chronic gastrointestinal diseases. In a study of the intestinal structure of chicks, glyphosate has been shown to impair the intestines, reduce antioxidant capacity, induce inflammation and cause the downregulation of genes in the small intestine.

Impact on reproduction

Previous research shows that chronic exposure to herbicides containing glyphosate can impact the survival, growth, activity and reproduction of organisms, including chickens.

A study of roosters with chronic, subtoxic exposure to glyphosate shows reduced plasma testosterone and a decline in their reproductive peak.

Another study finds “significant effect on the histopathological [diseased tissue] characteristics of the rooster testes as well as sperm motility, the key determinant of rooster sperm quality.”

Additional research shows altered sperm in roosters when fed a diet containing glyphosate that leads to “metabolic disorders in the offspring, most likely due to epigenetic effects.”

Glyphosate implications for productivity and performance

Several studies have classified glyphosate-based herbicide formulations as teratogenic, causing developmental abnormalities in a fetus or embryo, and embryotoxic, causing harm or death to embryos during development.

In a study of quails, glyphosate was found to accumulate inside the eggs, causing damage to lipids (fats) in the brains of the developing embryos. This study also reveals that residues of glyphosate in food also slow plumage development and linger in eggs, muscles and livers of the birds.

Another study of chickens shows “exposure to GLP led to a significant reduction in the expression of key productivity-related genes.”

Exposure directly in the eggs of chickens to glyphosate-based herbicides induces teratogenic effects with negative effects on embryonic growth and development, as well as embryo mortality.

Changes in blood parameters, adverse effects on digestive tract development and reduced body weight are noted in chickens exposed to glyphosate.

Reproductive and developmental impacts regarding eggshell quality and embryo development are also associated with levels of both glyphosate and AMPA within egg yolk.

Yet another study shows that a decline in hatchability is associated with higher levels of glyphosate residues in feed among broiler breeders.

Regulatory deficiencies and the organic solution

Despite mounting scientific evidence that continues to link glyphosate to adverse effects in a wide range of species, current regulations fail to protect health and the environment.

The regulatory processes, such as those utilized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), also ignore factors that enhance the toxicity of these already harmful chemicals, such as synergy, mixtures and inert ingredients.

“Current safety evaluations mostly concentrate on glyphosate in isolation, overlooking the synergistic toxic effects of commercial formulations and their capacity for bioaccumulation in adipose tissues,” the authors point out.

They continue:

“Furthermore, the heightened toxicity of commercial glyphosate formulations, influenced by co-formulants such as POEA, in conjunction with glyphosate’s interference with gut microbiota, cytochrome P450 enzymes, and endocrine functions, emphasises the necessity for cumulative risk assessments and long-term studies that account for species variability, bioaccumulation, and synergistic effects.”

These inadequacies in the regulation of petrochemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers support the urgent need for the widespread adoption of safer alternatives.

SOURCE

Image by Franz W. from Pixabay

Glyphosate, News, roundup

Kiwi farmers are still poisoning their fields with a Bayer/Monsanto product that has involved multi billion dollar settlements

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Travelling about the NZ countryside recently I noticed the familiar yellow fields I used to think were attractive. Until I discovered they’d been sprayed with Roundup, the herbicide that farmers tell me, is so harmless you could drink it.

glyphosate sprayed fields
Manawatu field sprayed with Herbicide

Sounds a bit like the ‘safe and effective’ mantra. Well it turns out Roundup is far from either of those terms. Why will farmers not read the independent research? Or follow the precautionary principle. Any doubt whatsoever about safety? wait until it is proven safe.

Roundup is manufactured by Bayer (formerly Monsanto… read their history … who have morphed into oblivion) and one of its ingredients so harmful to us all is glyphosate. There is a ton of independent research now (including law suits) that should make you avoid it at all costs. US Legal firm Wisner Baum helped negotiate over $11 billion in settlements against Bayer, securing multi-billion dollar jury verdicts for its clients. They state at their website:

Roundup is a widely used herbicide whose active ingredient is glyphosate. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) — part of the World Health Organization — classifies glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen. Thousands of people across the U.S. have alleged that long‑term exposure to glyphosate (in Roundup and similar products) caused them to develop non‑Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and other serious illnesses.

A NZ tertiary agricultural textbook has long instructed farmers to spray Roundup on their fields then plow it under. The text book is called Pasture Doctor and can be found on Amazon here. (Small wonder farmers still think it’s safe. Why would the University lie to them? ) There used to be a preview option of that book from which I screenshot the pages recommending spraying, however that option has now disappeared. (I lost the screenshots some time ago unfortunately). Of note, it was a University lecturer who told me in the 1980s that corporations would one day control governments. Predictive programming at its finest.

Prof Seralini's experiment with glyphosate and rats
The Seralini Rats

Professor Seralini (from France) conducted a two year experiment (2011) examining glyphosate and GMO food, his team fed transgenic corn to lab rats that produced in them multiple tumours. But of course Monsanto produced ‘evidence’ claiming the rats they used were the wrong kind, casting aspersions on the whole study. (Refuted here). Wiki predictably called it the Seralini ‘affair’. I would prefer to believe the Professor any day. You can watch the 12 minute Seralini video below. There is a transcript at the source on YouTube.

A French court ruled in 2009 that Monsanto has lied about the safety of Roundup (ie it is not biodegradable as claimed, a bit like the claims made about deadly 1080). 

US Tertiary level lecturer of 55 years experience in agriculture, Professor Emeritus of Plant Pathology (Dr Don Hubert) calls Glyphosate one of the most toxic substances on the planet.

The Physicians & Scientists for Global Responsibility (PSGR) supply a long list of research citing concerns about glyphosate here.

Hear also, NZ’s Dr Meriel Watts speaking on glyphosate.

“We don’t want to wait until we have exposed enough people to a chemical in order to prove that it’s carcinogenic. When we hit that point, we have hit a failure in the regulatory process.” – Dr. Lynn Goldman,
National Research Council Report Review Committee Member

glyphosate spraying on fields in nz
Many Councils in NZ spray the roadsides with glyphosate. (Photo credit: Marian Sutherland)

For some time I and other interested folk appealed to the local Rangitikei District Council asking them to drop the use of glyphosate/Roundup on Council lands, streets, parks and so on. There were some concessions made about signage warning the public of spraying and so on but as to ceasing altogether they declined. There was evidence cited of the use of steam in Auckland to combat weeds which was only minimally dearer than Roundup. No go. I approached a person spraying for Council one time and asked why he didn’t wear protective clothing as recommended by the manufacturer. He told me he didn’t want to scare the public.

To educate yourself on the long list of studies and the experts who have spoken out against glyphosate and Roundup check out these pages (glyphosate is in other herbicides as well, check the labels, and consider organic alternatives if you must spray) :

Glyphosate

Glyphosate/GMO videos

Glyphosate Toxicity: What You Need to Know

Links between Glyphosate and a Multitude of Cancers that are “Reaching Epidemic Proportions” from GlobalResearch.ca

Search in ‘categories’ for ‘glyphosate’ (categories is found at the top left hand side of the news page). Alternatively type glyphosate into the search box (top right hand side).

Glyphosate, GMO

Biden Administration and ‘Mr. Monsanto’ Continue to Bully Mexico into Accepting GMO Corn

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by Derrick Broze
From The Last American Vagabond @ substack

EWNZ comment: Of course Monsanto & its poisons never ever went away, as per corporate MO they just morph into another in this case Bayer. They continue, with impunity, to poison us via the food chain. What’s left of it ie as they busily create a famine to expunge us completely. As the saying goes they don’t grasp that we are seeds and burying us in the ground isn’t going to work. Hopefully Mexico can maintain its stance. Not hopeful unfortunately as these corporate bullies simply sue the pants off the non compliant. They are intent on destroying everything. All purity gone. All pure food sources gone. It’s fake meat, bugs and processed everything that they intend for us. If you still think glyphosate (their infamous poison) is harmless as advertised read here.

The Biden administration and Tom “Mr. Monsanto” Vilsack have emerged victorious in their effort to use the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) to force Mexico to accept U.S. grown genetically engineered corn.

On Friday, an international trade panel ruled in favor of the United States in their ongoing dispute with Mexico over an attempted ban on imports of American genetically modified (GM) corn.

The Mexican Department for the Economy said it disagreed with the ruling but would follow it. The Mexican government has been attempting to limit the introduction of GM corn to their country because they believe it poses an unreasonable risk to the domestic corn supply, and thus the health of the country’s numerous indigenous communities and farmers who depend on corn.

“The Mexican government does not agree with the panel’s finding, given that it considers that the measures in question are aligned with the principles of protecting public health and the rights of Indigenous communities,” Mexico’s Economy Department told the Associated Press. “Nonetheless, the Mexican government will respect the ruling.”

The U.S. government celebrated the decision. Ambassador Katherine Tai said the ruling “underscores the importance of science-based trade policies”.

The decision was the latest in an ongoing legal battle between the Mexican and American governments over Mexico’s previous calls for banning imports of U.S. GM corn for human consumption. In 2020, former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) announced plans to ban GE corn for human consumption. This plan was later watered down, but the country did continue their fight against cross-pollination of their world-renowned corn seeds.

In February 2023, AMLO issued a decree announcing an immediate ban on the use of GM corn for dough and tortillas. The order also called on Mexican government agencies to phase out the use of GM corn for other food uses, including animal feed, which is where a majority of Mexico’s current imports of US GM corn ends up.

Mexico is currently the leading importer of GM corn from the US. This fact alone makes Mexico’s efforts to ban or reduce the presence of GM corn a huge potential financial loss for the American industry growing and exporting GM crops.

For the Mexican farmers who have been cultivating corn for an estimated 8,000 years, GM corn represents a significant threat. GM corn can spread via the birds, bees, and wind, resulting in cross-pollination between traditional crops and GM versions.

In response to Mexico’s initiatives, the US established the dispute panel in August 2023, accusing Mexico of violating the terms of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement launched under the first Trump administration. The US brought six legal claims against Mexico, including charges that Mexico’s process for determining that GM corn poses a risk was insufficient and not scientifically sound.

The USMCA dispute panel found in favor of the US on all legal claims, stating that, “Mexico’s measures are not based on science and undermine the market access that Mexico agreed to provide in the USMCA.”

Under the USMCA, Mexico has 45 days to comply with the Panel’s findings.

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum Responds to the Ruling

One day after the trade panel ruling, Mexico’s recently elected President Claudia Sheinbaum stated that the incoming Mexican Congress will pass a ban on the planting of GM corn.

“We must protect Mexico’s biodiversity in our country. As we say: without corn, there is no country,” Sheinbaum stated.

On the 23rd, Sheinbaum was again asked about the decision by the panel and how Mexico would respond.

“Transgenic corn cannot be sown here in Mexico. There are already decrees, but now we want to take it to the Constitution,” Sheinbaum stated. “And let it be very clear that in Mexico it is forbidden to sow transgenic corn.”

Sheinbaum noted that while she was Secretary of the Environment in Mexico City there was a decree that GM corn cannot be sown in the city. She noted that the Mexico City government made efforts to save native-corn in genetic banks.

Sheinbaum also noted that because of the nature of the corn it makes the farmers less dependent on biotech corporations.

“A part of the corn is saved, that seed is saved and is resown and used in the next harvest. This is very important because it does not depend on the farmer to buy the seed from a transnational company,” she stated. “So, preserving the corn in Mexico, not transgenic, is something mandatory.”

VIDEO LINK

The Mexican Government’s Arguments for Banning GM Corn

The USMCA panel’s main conclusions repeatedly attack Mexico’s ability to decide which products constitute a threat to its peoples and culture. The panel refused to accept Mexico’s national sovereignty and introduction of a “zero risk” policy as legitimate reasons for apparently violating the terms of the USMCA.

Mexico’s agencies found that consumption of GM corn in Mexico could impact human health, and GM corn poses a risk to native corn of “transgenic contamination”. The nation implemented the zero risk policy precisely because “the presence of contaminants and toxins in GM corn grain, such as transgenic proteins and glyphosate, has been well documented.”

“In addition, the adverse health effects of these contaminants and toxins have been scientifically demonstrated,” the Mexican government has previously stated. The government said that it “cannot be coerced into ignoring the independent scientific evidence that indicates the harmful effects of transgenic proteins and pesticide residues in GM corn”.

America’s southern neighbor said current international standards, recommendations, and guidelines are based on industrial agriculture in the U.S. and Canada, and do not address the risks of transgenic contamination and uncontrolled spread of GM to Mexico’s native corn.

Mexico said there was concern about GM corn and Mexico’s native non-GM corn varieties growing together in the same small fields and milpas, a traditional crop growing system which is intrinsic to indigenous ways of life in Mexico.

The Mexican government argued that it was acting in defense of their vast indigenous population for which corn is a part of diet, culture, and spiritual practices. Numerous national and international treaties, as well as national and state laws, were cited by the Mexican government in an effort to show that defending indigenous people is a tightly held legal commitment.

The US government responded by stating that Mexico’s claims of legal obligations to indigenous peoples were actually “vague, highly generalized concepts” such as “protecting the cultural heritage of Indigenous peoples and communities.” The US argued that these “vague concepts” do not constitute a concrete legal obligation.

Biden and Mr. Monsanto Win… For Now

The most strongly worded statement from the Mexican government came in response to the well-known revolving door relationship between U.S. government agencies and the industries they are supposed to regulate. In this case, the incestuous relationships between U.S. regulators and those who work for pesticide companies and producers of GM seeds.

In their rejection of the U.S. governments demands about GM corn, the Mexican government said they would not place the “economic interests of U.S. biotech corporations ahead of people’s health in Mexico”.

Indeed, the decision was praised by members of the biotech industry. John Crowley, CEO of the biotech industry trade group BIO, celebrated the ruling as a “monumental victory for the future innovation of agricultural production technologies.”

The perfect example of this relationship between regulators and lobbyists for the biotech industry is the current US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, former Governor of Iowa and former president and CEO of the US Dairy Export Council. Secretary Vilsack was appointed by the Biden administration after previously serving as Secretary of Agriculture during the Obama administration.

Vilsack cheered the decision by the dispute panel, calling it a “thorough and impartial assessment” which concluded that “Mexico’s approach to biotechnology was not based on scientific principles or international standards”. Vilsack said the ruling was a victory for “countries around the world growing and using products of agricultural biotechnology to feed their growing populations and adapt to a changing planet.”

Vilsack is notable for being given the nickname “Mr. Monsanto” in reference to his work helping the biotech giant Monsanto Inc, now owned by Bayer. In 2001 the Biotechnology Innovation Organization named Vilsack “BIO Governor of the Year” for “his support of the industry’s economic growth and agricultural biotechnology research” while serving as Iowa’s Governor.

In 2016, Politico reported on Vilsack’s role in accelerating the approval of GM crops during the Obama administration:

“Progressives say they are also disappointed that during Vilsack’s seven-and-a-half-year tenure, the Agriculture Department sped up approval of controversial GMO crops, backed trade deals they say cost Americans’ jobs and cleared changes to let poultry slaughter facilities police themselves, among a slew of initiatives favoring big producers.”

The Organic Consumer Association also reported on the various GM food products approved during Vilsack’s tenure. According to the OCA, while Vilsack was USDA Secretary from 2009 to 2017 he approved more new GM crops than any Secretary before him or since. Here are just a couple examples:

  • Monsanto’s Roundup Ready sugar beets: A judge ruled that inevitable contamination would cause the “potential elimination of farmer’s choice to grow non-genetically engineered crops, or a consumer’s choice to eat non-genetically engineered food.”
    • Monsanto’s Roundup Ready alfalfa: The first genetically modified perennial crop. By the end of the Obama administration, it had gone wild, costing American alfalfa growers and exporters millions of dollars in lost revenue. Vilsack’s long-term relationships with the biotech industry should be a warning sign for the Mexican government, and a clear sign of where his allegiances remain.

Vilsack’s habit of moving between government and industry continued during his absence from government under Donald Trump. Forbes recently reported:

“In February 2017, Vilsack joined an organization that the agriculture department helps fund, called the U.S. Dairy Export Council. As its chief executive and president, Vilsack promoted dairy products overseas. He also communicated with the Department of Agriculture, reaching out to his successor, Sonny Perdue. The work paid well, as revolving-door positions often do. During the four years Vilsack led the organization, he earned an estimated $3.6 million.”

There are questions surrounding Vilsack’s ownership of a farm and conflicts of interest with farming programs he oversees at the USDA. Forbes notes that the majority of Vilsack’s $4 million net worth comes from his farm which gives him “personal insight into the ag industry—and potential conflicts of interest as the head of the USDA.”

One clear example is the Conservation Reserve Program which pays farmers to refrain from planting and harvesting on sensitive land. In the first months back in the White House under Biden, Vilsack announced an expansion of the program and raised the rates it pays to farmers. Vilsack has reportedly collected thousands of dollars of subsidies from his farm as part of the program.

The Mexican Government Continues to Oppose GM Crops

Despite the US government’s repeated claims that Mexico’s policies on GM crops are not based in science, the Mexican government has offered numerous studies and reports outlining their view.

For example, in March 2023, Mexico’s National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) hosted an online webinar laying out the science behind the nation’s decision to ban imports of GM corn. The webinar itself was a response to repeated claims by the U.S. government that Mexico positions to GM corn are not based on science.

CONACYT, the Mexican government’s senior science department, organized several presentations from Mexican scientists detailing the health concerns surrounding GM food and the herbicide glyphosate which is typically sprayed on GM corn produced by Bayer, formerly Monsanto.

During his presentation, Alejandro Espinoza Calderón, director of Mexico’s biosecurity agency Intersecretarial Commission for Biosafety and Genetically Modified Organisms (Cibiogem), noted that,

“Mexico has a rich store of exceptionally healthy varieties of corn. It is alarming to find that 90 percent of tortillas were shown to have traces of both glyphosate and transgenics. The biosecurity of Mexico is of utmost importance.”

National University biologist Ana Laura Wegier Briuolo, a biologist at Mexico’s National University made it clear that “without healthy corn we cannot have healthy people.”

During the webinar Dr. Omar Arellano, from the National University’s Ecology and Natural Resources Department, shared data from Mexico, Argentina, and the United States, detailing how glyphosate impacts human health. “The science is much clearer now than it was twenty years ago,” Arellano stated.

The Last American Vagabond Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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Glyphosate, GMO

Now Pushed Fake Meat Is All About Controlling the Food Supply

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From Dr Mercola

Video Link

Story at-a-glance

  • I spoke with “Tea Time,” a program by Children’s Health Defense, about the dangers of fake meat products to help raise awareness about this latest assault on human health
  • Fake food — including lab-grown meat, animal-free dairy and plant-based meat — is the globalists’ latest attempt to control the food supply
  • The globalists are trying to replace animal husbandry with lab-grown meat, which will allow private companies to effectively control the human population
  • The idea that animals must be removed from agriculture to save the planet is flawed; animals are an integral, and necessary, part of the restorative process
  • Fake meat is an ultraprocessed mixture of chemicals, GE ingredients, pesticides and toxic linoleic acid that will promote chronic disease

Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint. It was originally published March 12, 2023.

At face value, fake meat sounds like the perfect solution to end world hunger, protect animal welfare and save the planet from environmental destruction. Even a brief look below the surface reveals a much more nefarious reality, however.

To help raise awareness about this latest assault on human health, I recently spoke with host Polly Tommey on “Tea Time,” a program by Children’s Health Defense, about the dangers of fake meat products.1

Fake Meat Is All About Controlling the Food Supply

Fake food — including lab-grown meat, animal-free dairy and plant-based meat — is the globalists’ latest attempt to control the food supply. Former U.S. Secretary of State and national security adviser Henry Kissinger once said, “Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control people.”2 Controlling people is their whole agenda.

The globalists have long held a monopoly on the grain industry with their patented genetically modified organisms (GMOs). In the early 2010s, not many people knew about GMOs. In 2011, we started to educate the public about their dangers, as they posed a major threat to public health and the environment.

In 2012, a ballot initiative was launched in California to require mandatory labeling of genetically engineered (GE) foods and food ingredients. The initiative was narrowly defeated due to massive donations from multinational corporations, but we won in the long term because awareness of GMOs in the food supply significantly increased. Now, most health-conscious people avoid GE/GMOs.

A similar trend is now occurring with fake food. The globalists are trying to replace animal husbandry with lab-grown meat, which will allow private companies to effectively control the entire food supply.

Fake Meat Is Even Worse Than CAFOs

Many people are aware of the pitfalls of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) — unnatural diets of GMO grains, crowded conditions, inhumane treatment, excessive pollution and rampant spread of disease. CAFOs are bad — but the new fake food era is going to be even worse.

With their patented fake meat products, the globalists will have unprecedented control over people’s health.3 It sounds noble to try to provide for the entire world’s population using animal-free methods, but it’s a deception.

Will Harris is a regenerative farming pioneer who runs White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia. He produces high-quality grass fed products, including beef and other animal products, in a way that’s good for consumers, the environment and the financial health of his business. While the globalists are spinning the idea that animal foods are destroying the planet, when raised regeneratively the way Harris does, this is far from the truth.

It’s the fake foods that will ultimately jeopardize the environment. “We are sequestering 3.5 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent for every pound of grass fed beef we sell. Ironically, the same environmental engineers did an analysis on Impossible Burgers,” Harris said on “The Joe Rogan Experience.” “They’re emitting 3.5 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent.”4

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Regenerative Farming Beats Fake Foods

Impossible Foods, along with Beyond Meat, is a major player in the fake meat marketplace. It claimed to have a better carbon footprint than live animal farms and hired Quantis, a group of scientists and strategists, to prove its point. According to the executive summary, its product reduced environmental impact between 87% and 96% in the categories studied, including land occupation and water consumption.5

This, however, compares fake meat to meat from CAFOs, which are notoriously destructive to the environment and nothing like Harris’ farm. Harris commissioned the same analysis by Quantis for White Oaks and published a 33-page study showing comparisons of White Oaks Pastures’ emissions against conventional beef production.6

While the manufactured fake meat reduced its carbon footprint up to 96% in some categories, White Oaks had a net total emission in the negative numbers as compared to CAFO-produced meat.

Further, grass fed beef from White Oak Pastures had a carbon footprint that was 111% lower than a typical U.S. CAFO, and its regenerative system effectively captured soil carbon, which offset the majority of emissions related to beef production.7

“The WOP [White Oak Pastures] system effectively captures soil carbon, offsetting a majority of the emissions related to beef production,” the report stated. “In the best case, the WOP beef production may have a net positive effect on climate. The results show great potential.”8

So, the idea that animals must be removed from agriculture to save the planet is entirely flawed. In fact, animals are an integral, and necessary, part of the restorative process.

What Is Fake Meat?

Fake meat is marketed as a health food, but it’s nothing more than a highly ultraprocessed mixture of chemicals. Impossible Foods, for instance, uses genetic engineering to insert the DNA from soy plants into yeast, creating GE yeast with the gene for soy leghemoglobin.9

Impossible Foods refers to this compound as “heme,” but technically plants produce non-heme iron, and this is GE yeast-derived soy leghemoglobin.10 Heme iron only occurs in meat and seafood. Impossible Foods’ GE heme is used in their fake meat burgers as a color additive that makes the product appear to “bleed” like real meat.

The health effects of GE heme are unknown, but this didn’t stop the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from approving soy leghemoglobin in 2019. The Center for Food Safety (CFS) filed a lawsuit challenging the approval, which they called “unusually rapid”11 and risky for public health.

In their lawsuit, CFS points out that soy leghemoglobin is produced using synthetic biology, or “genetic engineering on steroids,” which does not shuffle DNA pieces between species but instead constructs new biological parts, devices and systems that do not exist in the natural world.12

The reason why Impossible Foods turned to synthetic biology to produce GE soy leghemoglobin is because it couldn’t extract enough of the substance directly from soybean roots to produce its fake meat products on an industrial, mass-produced scale. The FDA GRAS for soy leghemoglobin is 526 pages long, if that gives you any idea of the industrialized complexity of this so-called GRAS “health” food.13

Beyond Meat is similarly industrially processed. Beyond Burger patties contain 22 ingredients. Among them are expeller-pressed canola oil, pea protein isolate, cellulose from bamboo, modified food starch and methylcellulose14 — hardly “health” foods. To morph these ingredients into a patty that resembles meat require further processing.

It’s revealing, too, that while truly natural foods cannot be patented, Impossible Foods holds at least 14 patents, with about 100 more pending.15

Impossible Foods’ Fake Meat Is Loaded with Glyphosate, LA

Considering that many ingredients in fake meat products are made from GE soy,16 it’s not surprising that they’re also contaminated with the herbicide glyphosate. Consumer advocacy group Moms Across America (MAA) commissioned Health Research Institute Labs (HRI Labs), an independent laboratory that tests both micronutrients and toxins found in food, to determine how much glyphosate is in the Impossible Burger and its competitor, the Beyond Burger.

The total result of glyphosate and AMPA, the main metabolite of glyphosate, in the burgers was 11.3 parts per billion (ppb) in the Impossible Burger and 1 ppb in the Beyond Burger.17

When the concerning results were revealed, Impossible Foods engaged in a smear campaign to try and discredit MAA, labeling the group of moms “an anti-GMO, anti-vaccine, anti-science, fundamentalist group that cynically peddles a toxic brew of medical misinformation and completely unregulated, untested, potentially toxic quack ‘supplements’ …”18

The glyphosate in fake meat is one issue. The excess amounts of omega-6 fat in the form of linoleic acid (LA) are another. In my opinion, this metabolic poison is the primary contributor to rising rates of chronic disease. It’s important to realize that fake meat alternatives do not contain healthy animal fats. All the fat comes from industrial seed oils like soy and canola oil, which are top sources of LA.

Eliminating ultraprocessed foods from your diet is essential to keeping your LA intake low, and this includes fake meat.

‘Precision Fermentation’ Isn’t Natural Either

Fake food companies want you to believe their products are natural because they’re made with components of plants, even though nothing like them exists in nature. Precision fermentation is another term used by the biotech industry to piggyback off the popularity of truly health-promoting natural fermentation.

Precision fermentation, however, is nothing like its natural counterpart. What is perhaps most disturbing about the use of precision fermentation is that companies are allowed to claim that it’s natural.

Metabolic engineering is a major subset of precision fermentation, which involves methods such as next-generation sequencing, high-throughput library screening, molecular cloning and multiomics “to optimize microbial strains, metabolic pathways, product yields, and bioprocess scale-up.”19 It sounds just like something down on the farm, doesn’t it?

Whether it’s called precision fermentation, gene editing, GMO or something else, don’t fall for the hype that it’s good for you or the planet.

Where Should You Get Your Meat?

If fake meat isn’t healthy, and CAFO meat isn’t a good choice either, a reasonable question is where can you find meat that’s beneficial for your health and the planet? The answer is to get to know a farmer in your area. Visit the farm and view how the animals are being raised.

Get to know the resources available to you within your local community. The community will naturally validate the vendors who are raising food the right way. If you can’t find a local farm for ruminant animals like cows, buffalo or lamb, look for certified organic options at your local grocery store. However, it’s best to stay local and find a source of real, whole food near you.

As much as you can, plant a garden for vegetables, grow fruit trees and even raise chickens if it’s allowed in your area. For the food you can’t source on your own, lean on your community to fill in the gaps.

Just as was the case with GMOs, raising awareness about the dangers of fake meat is also important, especially in this early and aggressively expanding phase. Tell your social circle that to save the planet and support your health, it’s necessary to skip all the fake meat alternatives and opt for real food instead.

When you shop for food, know your farmer and look for regenerative, biodynamic and/or grass fed farming methods, which are what we need to support a healthy, autonomous population.

Sources and References

 

SOURCE

Image credit: Pixabay.com

Glyphosate

In Spite of Billions of Dollars in Lawsuits EU Commission Votes to Keep Glyphosate Another 10 Years

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No surprises really, in light of their blatant denial of all Prof Seralini’s work! (and many others). You cannot believe a word from lying Monsanto cum Bayer … EWNZ

Professor Seralini's tumour infested rats
Prof Seralini’s tumour ridden rats fed daily with minute amounts of glyphosate

Article posted at mercola.com

Despite a growing block of opposition to it, the European Union has voted to give glyphosate another 10 years of life for use with crops grown with chemicals like Roundup.

Originally a Monsanto product, Bayer now owns Roundup, along with billions of dollars in lawsuits of consumers claiming the herbicide caused their cancers. “Bayer bought Monsanto for $63 billion in 2018 and … announced it would pay up to $10.9 billion to settle about 125,000 filed and unfiled claims,” Yahoo! said.

The EU’s extension of glyphosate’s approval for another 10 years could still be challenged, as Greenpeace vowed to continue pushing to get it banned. While proponents argue that there is nothing to fear with glyphosate, and “no viable alternatives,” Greenpeace insists it is carcinogenic, citing studies supporting their stance. It also is harmful to bees, Greenpeace says.

SOURCE:

Yahoo! The Canadian Press November 16, 2023

Glyphosate, News

Bayer Ordered to Pay $332 Million in Roundup Trial

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In its ongoing saga of losses in lawsuits with people who say their cancer was caused by the herbicide Roundup, Bayer has lost another round, to the tune of $332 million.

Bayer acquired the Roundup lawsuits with its purchase of Monsanto. According to Reuters, this is the third such loss for Bayer in a month. The current loss reflects $7 million in compensatory damages and $325 million in punitive damages for Mike Dennis, who was diagnosed at age 51 with a form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Bayer paid $63 billion for Monsanto in 2018; since then, it’s settled lawsuits in the amount of $10.9 billion. It still has another 40,000 Roundup cases to go.

SOURCE:

Reuters October 31, 2023

https://blogs.mercola.com/sites/vitalvotes/archive/2023/11/01/bayer-ordered-to-pay-332-million-in-roundup-trial.aspx

Glyphosate

Learn just which of your food items contain glyphosate & how much (Free Report from Institute for Responsible Technology)

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With glyphosate featuring again lately, this will be a useful tool in helping determine which are the safer products to purchase. The report is free, however you will need to register an email to enable you to download. Go to ‘Glyphosate Report’ in the main menu, top of page. EWNZ

From responsibletechnology.org

ROUNDUP®(OR OTHER GLYPHOSATE BASED HERBICIDES) ARE SPRAYED ONTO NON-GMO CROPS AS A DRYING AGENT, JUST BEFORE HARVEST…LEARN MORE FROM OUR DATABASE AND CHOOSE ORGANIC TO AVOID HIGH LEVELS OF GLYPHOSATE (AND OTHER SYNTHETIC PESTICIDES) IN YOUR FOOD.

Glyphosate is the main ingredient in Roundup®, the most popular herbicide in the world. This defoliant destroys vegetation. Do you know how much glyphosate is in the foods you and your family consume?Crops such as corn, soybeans, and cotton have been genetically engineered to resist Roundup. Why is there so much glyphosate in oats and other food grains? How much is safe? Who decides food safety, and how are the tests conducted? Does glyphosate cause cancer?

SOURCE

https://responsibletechnology.org/gmo20/

Glyphosate

Testing Shows Substantial Glyphosate in Populations, Even Some Foods Labeled Organic

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From mercola.com

Download Interview Transcript | Download my FREE Podcast | Video Link

Story at-a-glance

  • As food has become increasingly adulterated, contaminated and genetically engineered, the need for laboratory testing has grown
  • HRI Labs is often hired to test foods claiming to be non-GMO, “all natural” and/or organic. Testing often reveals such claims to be untrue. Several Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavors were recently found to contain glyphosate
  • Grains, legumes and beans typically have the highest levels of glyphosate contamination due to the routine practice of desiccation, where glyphosate is sprayed on the crop shortly before harvest to improve yield
  • HRI Labs has created two glyphosate tests for the public — a water test and an environmental exposure test. The latter will tell you how much glyphosate you have in your system, giving you an indication of the purity of your diet
  • Seventy-six percent of people tested have glyphosate in their system. People who regularly eat nonorganic oats have double the glyphosate of those who don’t. People who regularly eat organic food have glyphosate levels 80% lower than those who rarely eat organic

Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint. It was originally published October 29, 2017.

As food has become increasingly adulterated, contaminated and genetically engineered, the need for laboratory testing has exponentially grown. John Fagan, president of Health Research Institute Labs (HRI Labs), is an expert in this area. As explained by Fagan, HRI Labs “makes the invisible, visible, giving you the ability to see what is in your food and your environment.”

Fagan studied biochemistry and molecular biology at Cornell University, where he also got his Ph.D. After doing research for eight years at the National Institutes of Health, he went into academia and conducted cancer research using genetic engineering as a research tool. This experience is ultimately what raised his concerns about genetic engineering, especially as it pertains to food.

As a result, he created the first lab for GMO testing in the U.S., followed by labs in Europe and Japan. He’s also trained laboratories in 17 other countries in GMO testing. “What this did was make GMOs visible. Before that testing was there, nobody could tell whether those soybeans, or that corn was genetically engineered or not,” Fagan says. “After GMO testing was available, people had a choice.”

HRI Labs tests both micronutrients and toxins — the good and the bad. “We feel that the kind of testing we’re doing can open a window for you in each of those areas, so you can make better choices about the food you eat, and that you share with your family,” he says.

Testing Techniques and Equipment

There are several types of tests that can be done on a GMO food. Antigens are one type of test. DNA testing is another. Since DNA is far more stable than proteins, genetically engineered foods, even when highly processed, can be easily identified with DNA testing.

A test commonly used to check DNA is the polymerase chain reaction or PCR test. Because it amplifies the DNA signal, it can detect even a single genetically engineered corn kernel in a bag containing 10,000 or more corn kernels.

The chromatograph linked to a mass spectrometer is another central piece of equipment that HRI uses. It allows you to test for a wide variety of things at very high sensitivity. Unfortunately, the cost and complexity involved prevents many labs from having this tool.

“Liquid chromatography is capable of taking a sample of food … or whatever you’re interested in, and fractionating it into hundreds of compounds, separating them out. That is then fed into a mass spectrometer; a machine that measures, ultimately, molecular weight of whatever it’s looking at.

With that you can detect — at extremely low levels and identify very specifically — almost any natural or unnatural compound … down to the parts per trillion in many cases. To give you a sense of what that means, 40 parts per trillion, which is [the limit of] detection that we have for some materials, is like if you were to take a single drop of that chemical and dilute it into 20 Olympic swimming pools full of water.

That’s the extent of dilution required to achieve 40 parts per trillion. This is extreme sensitivity. These [instruments] are like the Teslas of analytical chemistry.

[Liquid chromatography linked to a mass spectrometer] is what we use for measuring glyphosate. Because these machines are very expensive, many of the analytical labs out there don’t have access to them. Also, because it is very specialized equipment, you need somebody with a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry, or equivalent, to do this kind of testing. What we’re doing is … unique in that way.”

The Politics of Food Testing

One of the reasons we decided to collaborate with HRI Labs in testing our own supplements is because many commercial laboratories used to confirm the purity of raw materials tend to provide distorted or prejudicial information. One of the great benefits of HRI Labs, in my view, is its objectivity and ability to provide accurate data, thanks to the sensitivity of their equipment. While many labs will claim to be independent, their primary customers are big food companies.

“They don’t want to embarrass [their customers]. They don’t want to bring anything to the surface on that level, so they tend to give very superficial numbers,” Fagan says. “Typically, they work to thresholds that are established based on politics and convenience, not science and safety.

For instance, you can go to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) website, or the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website and they will say, ‘Wheat should have less than such and such amount of glyphosate in it.’

Glyphosate is … the most commonly used agrochemical, and it’s now been demonstrated to cause cancer, liver and kidney damage and birth defects. You’ll find there a number for it, but if you go to the scientific literature you discover that levels [of glyphosate] hundred or a thousand times lower … are in fact toxic to the system. For that reason, those government established thresholds are not very meaningful.”

This is a point worthy of reiteration: The use of politically-influenced safety thresholds to “prove” a food is safe is pervasive in the food industry. The only thing such safety levels accomplish is generating a false sense of security, which benefits food companies financially. HRI Labs, on the other hand, looks at the available research when establishing their threshold levels.

Glyphosate Testing

One of the toxins HRI Labs is currently focusing on is glyphosate, and the public testing being offered (see below) allows them to compile data on the pervasiveness of this chemical in the food supply.

When I participated in the environmental exposure test a while back, glyphosate was undetectable, which means levels in my system were below 40 parts per trillion, likely because I eat primarily organic and homegrown foods, and expel toxins I might come in contact with through exercise and regular sauna use.

“What we’re finding is there’s quite a range of levels of exposure, but that people who are eating organic generally have much lower levels. Women tend to have, on average, slightly lower levels than men. There are certain behaviors that tend to lead one to have higher levels.

For instance, it isn’t a super strong correlation, but it appears that if you are a golfer, you’re more likely to get exposed, because they use [glyphosate and other pesticides] on golf courses …

The reassuring thing is that if you … change your diet … and go to a diet that avoids things that might contain these chemicals, then within a week or two your levels of glyphosate will drop significantly. Glyphosate levels are a good indicator for guiding your dietary choices … Often people come back to us saying, ‘This changed my way of thinking about my diet.’ This is a good thing.”

Glyphosate Found in Popular Ice Cream Brand

HRI Labs is often hired to test foods claiming to be non-GMO, “all natural” and/or organic. Unfortunately, many times testing reveals such claims to be untrue. A recent case in point is that of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. HRI Labs’ testing revealed their ice cream contains glyphosate. Fagan tells the story:

“Organic Consumers Association and … Regeneration Vermont were concerned about what was happening with Ben & Jerry’s. They were concerned … that the dairy producers … were not even able to get a price for their product that would cover their costs for producing the milk. There was also a concern from people in the state that the dairies were polluting the lakes, and creating problems for the Vermont tourist industry …

They wanted to look into what was going on with the quality of the milk. They sent us samples and we did some really in-depth testing using the very best methods out there.

We used triple quadrupole mass spectrometry linked to high pressure liquid chromatography to actually look at the quality of the ingredients in a product. What we found with Ben & Jerry’s ice cream was a bit shocking in that it contained substantial levels of glyphosate …

Ten of the 11 flavors we looked at contained measurable amounts of glyphosate, and at least one of them contained levels that, according to most recent research, raised questions about safety. In particular, it had been found that glyphosate at quite low levels — levels considered safe by the Environmental Protection Agency and FDA — … could actually cause problems like fatty liver disease.

As you may know, there’s an epidemic of fatty liver disease in America today, and it’s linked with things like metabolic syndrome … Organic Consumers Association has been discussing those results around the country, and discussing with Ben & Jerry’s if they could do something about that.

The obvious and most logical thing for them to do is to begin to use ingredients that are organic instead of just conventional ingredients, because organic bans the use of things like glyphosate in the production of crops …”

Substantial Amounts of Glyphosate Found in Many Foods

HRI Labs has investigated a number of other foods as well, including grains, legumes and beans. Most if not all of these types of crops need to dry in the field before being harvested, and to speed that process, the fields are doused with glyphosate a couple weeks before harvest. As a result of this practice, called desiccation, grain-based products, legumes and beans contain rather substantial amounts of glyphosate.

Quaker Oats,1 for example, were found to contain very high levels of glyphosate. People who regularly eat nonorganic oats also have elevated levels of the chemical in their urine. “These are the kinds of problems that are coming up out there,” Fagan says. “All that’s needed is for the grain producers to change their practices, so that they’re not spraying the fields with this weed killer immediately before they harvest it, and it will solve those problems.”

Wines also contain surprising amounts of glyphosate. As it turns out, weeds in vineyards are managed by spraying glyphosate, which ends up in the grapes as the roots of the grape vines pick it up through the soil.

“This testing … is making something that’s been invisible in our food system, visible to us,” Fagan says. “[A] vegetable like spinach that you buy in an American grocery store is going to contain, on average, eight different pesticides. That’s eight different pesticides, and you’re taking it home to feed your family without knowing that’s the case …

The reason you aren’t able to know that is because the chemical companies have done a really good job lobbying our government so that nobody in the supply chain has to talk about these … agrochemicals. The farmer doesn’t have to talk about them.

The brands that are selling products made from those [raw ingredients] don’t have to talk about them. The grocery stores don’t have to. They’ve been made invisible in our food system, and that’s a big concern.

We’re doing testing using rigorous methods, the very best methods out there, the most sensitive methods out there, to make these invisible things visible, so that you know more about what’s in your food system, and in the foods you’re giving to your family. This is so important, because this allows each of us to make better choices about the food they provide to their children.”

Water and Environmental Exposure Tests Now Available

HRI Labs is unique in that they’ve created two glyphosate tests for the public — a water testing kit and an environmental exposure test kit. The environmental exposure test is a urine test that will tell you how much glyphosate you have in your system. As mentioned earlier, this will give you a good idea of the purity of your diet. If your glyphosate level is high, chances are you’ve been exposed to many other agrochemicals as well.

So far, HRI Labs has analyzed more than 1,200 urine samples. The testing is being done as part of a research project, which will provide valuable information about the presence of glyphosate in the diet. It will also help answer questions about how lifestyle and location affects people’s exposure to agrochemicals. Here are some of their findings to date:

  • 76% of people tested have some level of glyphosate in their system
  • Men typically have higher levels than women
  • People who eat oats on a regular basis have twice as much glyphosate in their system as people who don’t (likely because oats are desiccated with glyphosate before harvest)
  • People who eat organic food on a regular basis have an 80% lower level of glyphosate than those who rarely eat organic. This indicates organic products are a safer choice
  • People who eat five or more servings of vegetables per day have glyphosate levels that are 50% lower than those who don’t eat fewer vegetables

According to Fagan:

“So far, we haven’t seen any connection with rural versus city dwellers, or with seasonal changes. This indicates that most of the glyphosate is coming into our [bodies] through the food we eat and not through the environment around us.

Though, we have seen some interesting things. For instance, in the Midwest, we’re seeing that rain water has quite substantial levels of glyphosate … Rain water, although you might think of that as being a healthy source of water, is a little risky that way.”

GMOs Linked to Dramatic Rise in Glyphosate Contamination

HRI Labs is also collaborating with a research group at the University of California in San Diego that has access to urine samples from epidemiological studies in which populations were tracked over 15 and 20 years. By comparing urine samples from people going back into the 1970s, up until the present, they’ve been able to show that once GMOs appeared in the marketplace, glyphosate levels rose dramatically.

“[I]t shows there’s a correlation between the use of [glyphosate] in agriculture and the level of exposure of the population,” Fagan says. “Remember, there’s growing evidence that low levels of [chemicals] interact with each other, so that you have a little glyphosate here, and maybe some atrazine from another place, and those together might have a nasty impact …

That’s where we are with things today. We’re working in a focused way to look at other aspects of our food system, and looking not just for the pesticides and the negative things, but we want to look and understand what the connections between the way food is produced … and its nutritional value are.

What we’re seeing is that healthy soil makes healthy food, makes healthy people. We’re going to go into that using these very sophisticated techniques, like high pressure liquid chromatography linked to mass spectrometry, to look at all of the nutrients at once.

With these machines, from a single sample of broccoli we can look at 500 to 1,000 different metabolites, different nutrients, and in one fell swoop get a sense of … how does regeneratively produced broccoli compare with broccoli that’s produced using chemicals, or how does a chicken produced in a confined animal feeding operation compare in nutritional value to a chicken produced in a regenerative pasture-based production system?

We don’t have the answers to that yet, but I’ll bet we’re going to find big differences in the nutrition.

The protein value may be the same, and the fats and the carbohydrates, but [in] the micronutrients we’re going to see big differences, and it’s those micronutrients that make the difference in terms of the health of your physiology, the strength of bones, and the balance in your physiology. We hope to be able to bring some really powerful new information to you in this way …”

Food Testing Is Here to Stay
The advent of GMOs drastically altered our food system in several respects, and not a single change has been beneficial. Today, factory farms have become one of the largest sources of toxic pollution that destroys soil, water and air quality, and threatens human health in more ways than one. Nutritional quality of food has declined while contamination with toxic chemicals and drug-resistant pathogens has increased.
Nutritional and chemical testing is an invaluable tool to get an understanding of the full extent of the problem. It is our hope that, with enough evidence, change will eventually be brought about, if not from a government level, then from the ground up, driven by informed consumers demanding purer food.
As mentioned by Fagan, my product development team is now using HRI Labs to evaluate the purity and quality of our own product line as well — an extra double-check, if you will, to ensure our products are maximally pure and safe, and of the highest quality and nutritional value possible. This is being added as another layer of quality control on top of our standard quality protocols.
Again, if you want to test your drinking water or environmental exposure levels for glyphosate, those tests are now available to the public. You can find both of them in my online store. They’re provided as a service to my readers at the same price you’d pay if you were to order it right from HRI Labs.

Modern industrial farming has created a food production model that is not only unhealthy, but unsustainable as well. The reliance on GMO-derived products and the toxic chemicals used alongside them are destroying the environment and the public’s health.

To combat the encroaching influence of big GMO companies, I encourage you to support farmers and businesses that practice organic, biodynamic and regenerative farming. This food production model benefits both humans and the environment because it:

Rebuilds topsoil by sequestering atmospheric carbon above ground and below groundProtects water sources, runoff, and reduces water demand by increasing moisture in the soil
Promotes nutrition and health through nutrient-dense, organic foodMinimizes the risk of foodborne illnesses and drug-resistant disease by avoiding the use of industrial chemicals
Restores damaged ecosystems through regenerative methodsHelps local farmers by giving them larger profits compared to industrial counterparts

How can you play your part? The solution is actually quite simple — buy healthy, organic food. One of the best things you can do is to purchase your food from small-business farmers. To help you in your search, I recommend visiting these websites that point you to non-GMO food producers in your area:

Regenerative Farm MapEat Well Guide (United States and Canada)
Farm Match (United States)Local Harvest (United States)
Weston A. Price Foundation (United States)The Cornucopia Institute
Demeter USAAmerican Grassfed Association

I also urge you to support and donate to organizations like the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), as they are leading the way to promoting regenerative agriculture and sustainable farming practices. By advocating the innovative campaigns of these organizations, you are contributing to the future of regenerative agriculture.

Sources and References

Image by bdyczewski from Pixabay

Glyphosate, News

Childhood Exposure to Glyphosate Linked to Liver Inflammation and Metabolic Disorder

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NZ has for many years sprayed glyphosate extensively over farmlands as recommended in NZ’s Ag text books. Farmers (Councils and just about everybody else) believe it is harmless. EWNZ

From sustainablepulse.com

New research from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health in the U.S. shows that childhood exposure to the world’s most widely used weed killer, glyphosate, is linked to liver inflammation and metabolic disorder in early adulthood, which could lead to liver cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease later in life.

The study of 480 mother-child duos from the Salinas Valley, California—a rich agricultural region that locals call “The World’s Salad bowl”—was published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a journal of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

The researchers, led by Brenda Eskenazi, director of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health’s Center for Environmental Research and Community Health (CERCH), examined the agricultural use of glyphosate near the homes of the mothers during pregnancy and in the children up to age 5 years; and also measured glyphosate and AMPA, a degradation product of glyphosate and amino-polyphosphonates, in their urine (collected from mothers during pregnancy and from children at ages 5, 14, and 18 years). They assessed liver and metabolic health in the children when they were 18 years old.

The authors reported that higher levels of glyphosate residue and AMPA in urine in childhood and adolescence were associated with higher risk of liver inflammation and metabolic disorders in young adulthood. In addition, the investigators found that agricultural glyphosate use near participants’ homes from birth and up through age five was associated with metabolic disorders at age 18. They reported that diet was likely a major source of glyphosate and AMPA exposure among study participants, as indicated by higher urinary glyphosate or AMPA concentrations among those adolescents who ate more cereal, fruits, vegetables, bread, and in general, carbohydrates.

Glyphosate Box

Glyphosate Residue Free Certification for Food Brands – Click Here

Test Your Food and Water at Home for Glyphosate – Click Here

Test Your Hair for Glyphosate and other Pesticides – Click Here to Find Our Your Long-Term Exposure

Glyphosate is used routinely on genetically modified crops such as corn, soybeans and wheat, as well as oats, legumes and other produce. It is also present in many lawn care products for home and commercial use.

The debate over the impact of glyphosate and AMPA on human health has been contentious. In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans,” but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports no evidence of human health risk. However, most previous glyphosate research has focused on glyphosate’s potential carcinogenicity. This is the first time that researchers have examined the potential connection between early life exposure to glyphosate—whose use has markedly increased over the past two decades—and metabolic and liver disease, both of which are increasing among children and young adults.

The impetus for this study came from Salinas physician Charles Limbach, who was alarmed by the growing number of local youths with liver and metabolic diseases. Dr. Limbach wondered if the increasing public exposure to glyphosate might be a factor. He teamed up with Paul J. Mills, a UC San Diego professor and author of a previous study showing an association between higher levels of glyphosate residue and AMPA in adults and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. The two men then approached Professor Eskenazi, who is also the founder of the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS), the longest running longitudinal birth cohort investigation on the health effects of pesticides and other environmental exposures among children in a farmworker community. The CHAMACOS researchers reached back into their “library” of frozen biological samples from mother and child dyads, along with more than 20 years of exposure data and health records.

“The study’s implications are troubling,” said Dr. Ana Maria Mora, a CERCH investigator and coauthor, “as the levels of the chemicals found in our study participants are within the range reported for the general U.S. population.”

Professor Eskenazi recommends that the use of glyphosate should be limited to essential use while further studies are conducted. “There’s no reason why anyone should be using glyphosate on their lawn,” she said. “It shouldn’t be sold over the counter in a nursery.”

The study published in Environmental Health Perspectives was funded by NIH, NIEHS, NIDA, and the EPA. Additional support came from The Solomon Dutka Fund in the New York Community Trust and The Westreich Foundation.

SOURCE

Glyphosate, News

Spotlight Again on World’s Most Widely Used Weed Killer, Defended as Always by the Chemical Companies

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Clean Green NZ of course loves glyphosate. A well used Ag text book called Pasture Doctor advocates spraying the fields which stock will graze on. Try and tell NZ farmers it’s a likely carcinogen (as close as the authorities will get to describing it as dangerous) … they don’t want to know. Read our Glyphosate pages and articles, particularly the work of Prof Séralini. EWNZ

From sustainablepulse.com

It’s been a little over five years since I last visited Brussels, Belgium as an invited guest of the European Parliament to testify about my 20 years of researching and reporting on the world’s most widely used herbicide – glyphosate. The chemical is best known as the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup brand.

Source: UnSpun By Carey Gillam

The Parliament subsequently voted to ban glyphosate, and the European Commission only narrowly missed confirming that sentiment when Germany’s agriculture minister contradicted German leadership by casting the deciding vote that kept glyphosate on the market. (A few months later German-based Bayer bought Monsanto. Just a coincidence, right?)

But the renewal came with a caveat – the license would be reviewed again after five years, and that is where the European Union sits now, once again locked into a debate over both the safety of glyphosate and what the agricultural industry says is the necessity of glyphosate.

So here I am again – back in Brussels as a new vote looms later this year. The battle lines are drawn as they always seem to be: independent scientists, health advocates and environmentalists are advocating for a ban based on evidence the chemical can cause cancer and other health problems, while the chemical companies that profit from glyphosate sales and industry-backed farm groups are pushing for continued uninterrupted use, saying the concerns lack valid science and that glyphosate is essential to agriculture.

I was fortunate to be invited back to Brussels as part of a group associated with a new, award-winning documentary film called Into the Weeds, which presents many of the grim details laid out in my two books (Whitewash and The Monsanto Papers). The saga is one of corrupted regulators that favor corporate science over independent research; the overwhelming amount of independent scientific evidence tying glyphosate to myriad health and environmental harms; and the devastation wrought on countless human lives. (Disclosure: Filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal bought the documentary rights to the books and lists me in credits as “story consultant.”)

The film screened Wednesday evening in Brussels to a packed house; earlier our group spent time at the European Parliament, the EU’s lawmaking body.

A “crucial” time

The screening coincided with #STOPGlyphosate Week, a campaign by various environmental groups, including Pesticide Action Network Europe.

In an address opening the film, Anja Hazekamp, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) who supports a glyphosate ban, said the next months will be “crucial.” She called on the European Commission to “finally start protecting humans, animals and the environment.”

“Despite all the evidence that glyphosate is a threat for the health of animals, humans and the environment, the European Commission keeps reauthorizing this terrible pesticide,” Hazekamp said. “At the end of this year the European Commission will finally make a long-term decision on glyphosate, and it is therefore of paramount importance that the facts presented in this documentary are finally taken on board by the European Commission and the other policy makers.”

Accompanying the film to Brussels was scientist Chris Portier, a former director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a former director of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Prior to CDC, Portier was with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences where he served as director of the Environmental Toxicology Program.

Glyphosate Box

Glyphosate Residue Free Certification for Food Brands – Click Here

Test Your Food and Water at Home for Glyphosate – Click Here

Test Your Hair for Glyphosate and other Pesticides – Click Here to Find Our Your Long-Term Exposure

Portier participated as an expert during the World’s Health Organization’s cancer agency review of glyphosate in 2015 that classified glyphosate as probably carcinogenic to humans.

In Brussels he told attendees to the film screening how regulators repeatedly have bent the rules to ignore or twist scientific findings in ways that allow them to keep glyphosate on the market. He reiterated what he has said countless times – that extensive scientific evidence ties the chemical to cancer. Portier has been an expert witness for plaintiffs in multiple lawsuits against Monsanto brought by people alleging they developed cancer due to Roundup exposure.

More than a cancer concern

Also speaking in Brussels as part of the group supporting the film was scientist Daniele Mandrioli, coordinator of research on glyphosate at the Ramazzini Institute of Bologna, Italy.

Mandrioli said new research results show various harmful health effects from glyphosate exposure at levels currently considered to be safe by European standards.

Mandrioli told members of the European Parliament that the ongoing “Global Glyphosate Study” has recently confirmed in humans prior alarming findings found in animals – that glyphosate can have disruptive effects on sexual development in newborns. Among the observations were disruptions to the endocrine system, including increased testosterone levels in females exposed to glyphosate. The researchers found an “elongation of anogenital distance, which anticipates different potential problems” correlated with hormone imbalance in newborns that could impair development, Mandrioli said.

As well, glyphosate exposure at doses considered safe trigger alterations in the microbiome, impacting beneficial gut bacteria and fungi at doses considered safe.

“When disrupted, many metabolic conditions, many diseases, have been connected with these alterations,” Mandrioli said in a press conference before meetings at Parliament. The evidence is “solid,” he said.

“We are providing evidence for the all the global population,” he said.

Also in Brussels with our group was Dewayne “Lee” Johnson, the California groundskeeper who sprayed large quantities of RangerPro, a highly concentrated version of Roundup, and who became the first plaintiff to win a court case alleging the glyphosate-based products cause cancer. I chronicle Johnson’s battles – against cancer and against Monsanto – in my second book, and his story is featured in the new film.

Johnson shared his experiences with Parliament members and in a panel discussion after the film, urging action to protect people from having to endure the injustice that comes with cancers that could be prevented.

It is a miracle of modern medicine that Johnson, the father of two teenage sons, is still alive. Before the 2018 trial against Monsanto, doctors told him he would certainly be dead within 18 months. When I first met him several years ago, he was in near-constant agony as cancerous lesions covered his entire body, and even the slightest movement of clothing across his fragile skin burned like fire. He told me then that he was determined to outlive his dire diagnosis, and so far, through a combination of regular radiation and chemo treatments, Johnson has thwarted death just as he thwarted Monsanto’s efforts to beat his argument that exposure to the company’s weed killer caused his disease.

Still, he has lost too many days and nights – years – struggling through immense pain and fear, and with the knowledge that his family lives with the fact that they could lose him all too soon. His story is heart-breaking, noted by the tears shed in the audience at the screening Wednesday night.

But he is only one of too many who have suffered and continue to suffer.

In the months ahead, Europe has a chance to change that.

SOURCE

cancer, Glyphosate, News

Glyphosate and Roundup: All Roads Lead to Cancer – New Study

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From GM Watch via Sustainable Pulse

(Note: article is from Feb 2022)

New findings add to other observations linking glyphosate and Roundup to cancer. Report: Claire Robinson

Glyphosate and Roundup lead to changes in gene regulatory microRNAs (miRNAs or miRs) linked with cancer, newly published data show. The analysis, of a type known as small RNA profiling, was conducted in liver tissue from rats exposed to glyphosate and Roundup MON 52276, an EU-approved formulation, over 90 days.

In the new results, Roundup MON 52276 was found to reduce the levels of miR-22 and miR-17, whereas glyphosate decreased the level of miR-30 and increased the amount of miR-10. These changes in miRNAs are important because they are known to alter the expression of crucial cell growth regulator genes, which can lead to the development of cancer.

A gene function that is central to multiple cellular processes, p53, is a particular target of these miRNAs. The miRNA changes can lead to alterations in p53 gene expression, as has been found in multiple types of cancer in humans.

The link between the changes in miRNAs and p53 gene expression is consistent with the findings within the same study showing gene expression changes in Roundup- and glyphosate-exposed rats. The gene expression changes strongly imply a p53 pathway DNA damage response. DNA damage is a major risk factor for cancer development.

Furthermore, increases in miR-10 have been found in other studies to be associated with leukemia, a blood cancer. The increase in mir-10 caused by glyphosate exposure in the experimental animals may provide one mechanism by which users of Roundup have succumbed to another blood cancer, known as non-Hodgkin lymphoma. These results could strengthen the legal cases of the cancer sufferers in the US who are suing Bayer/Monsanto because they believe that exposure to Roundup caused their disease. Three such cases have already been decided in favour of the plaintiffs.

Study lead Dr Michael Antoniou of King’s College London said, “The new data showing changes in miRNA patterns add yet more evidence to the cancer-causing potential of glyphosate and Roundup. What is more, our results show that it is not just Roundup, which is a mixture of glyphosate with various additives, that has carcinogenic potential, but also glyphosate alone.”

Previously reported findings

The new data confirm and build on previously reported findings that were published as a pre-print in April 2021, which GMWatch reported on. The study with the additional findings has now passed peer review and is published in the prestigious journal, Toxicological Sciences.

The pre-print version of the study had reported that glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides such as Roundup activate mechanisms involved in cancer development, including DNA damage – and these effects occur at doses assumed by regulators to have no adverse effects. The data suggest that the DNA damage was caused by oxidative stress, a destructive imbalance in the body that can cause a long list of diseases. Oxidative stress is the likely cause of the damage seen to the liver, leading to an inflammatory (immune type) response, which in turn can cause DNA damage.

Crucially, the study found that the isolated active ingredient of Roundup – glyphosate – damaged DNA. This finding, according to the EU’s pesticide law, should result in a ban on glyphosate and all its formulations.

All these findings are carried over into the peer-reviewed version of the study.

How the study was done

The study builds on the findings of a previous one by the same authors. In the previous study, the researchers had compared the effects in rats of MON 52276 with those of its “active ingredient”, glyphosate, tested alone. The findings showed that glyphosate and Roundup herbicide, given at doses that regulators say are safe, resulted in the animals suffering gut microbiome disturbances and oxidative stress, with indications that the liver was affected and possibly damaged.

In the current followup study, the researchers analysed the liver tissue from the same rats to see if damage had indeed occurred.  

The researchers carried out some of the standard tests that regulators require the pesticide industry to conduct to gain market authorisation for their products – namely blood biochemistry and kidney and liver histopathology (microscopic examination of tissue).

They also carried out in-depth tests (molecular profiling) that are not demanded by regulators or typically carried out by the industry. One type of test looked for adverse effects at a profound molecular level of biological functioning through analysis of gene expression (transcriptomics) and epigenetics (DNA methylation) in the liver and kidneys. Another type of test, using specialised genetically engineered cell lines, was intended to highlight changes in function linked with cancer formation.

In addition, the researchers carried out tests that can detect direct damage to DNA.

Roundup causes fatty liver disease – confirmed

The standard tests, histopathology and blood biochemistry analysis, found adverse effects from the Roundup treatment, namely a dose-dependent and statistically significant increase in fatty liver disease and liver cell death.

The finding of fatty liver disease from exposure to the MON 52276 formulation of Roundup confirmed the same researchers’ previous observation that an ultra-low dose of another Roundup formulation, Roundup Grand Travaux Plus, administered to the same strain of Sprague-Dawley rats over a 2-year period, caused non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

An increase in liver and kidney lesions was also detected in animals treated with glyphosate, although this did not reach statistical significance. However, the authors commented that an experiment of longer duration using more animals may have resulted in statistical significance.

Non-standard tests most revealing

Worryingly for public health, it was the non-standard molecular profiling tests that are not required by pesticide regulators that were most revealing.

First, Roundup was found to alter the expression of 96 genes in the liver specifically linked to DNA damage and oxidative stress, as well as disruption of circadian rhythms or “body clocks”. The most affected genes in liver also had their expression similarly altered in kidneys. Crucially, a core set of genes whose expression was altered by Roundup was similarly changed in the glyphosate-treated animals. This strongly suggests that the key changes in gene function reflective of oxidative stress and DNA damage was due to glyphosate and not the additional substances (adjuvants) present in the Roundup formulation.

Second, direct DNA damage to the liver was found to increase with glyphosate exposure.

These findings potentially constitute a bombshell that could end the authorisation of glyphosate in the EU. That’s because the EU pesticide regulation (1107/2009) has what’s known as hazard-based cut-off criteria. This means that if a pesticide active ingredient is shown to cause a certain type of harm to health at whatever dose, it must be banned. One of the named types of harm is damage to DNA. The discovery that glyphosate alone damages DNA in a living animal should, if regulators follow the law, result in a ban on the chemical.

Third, both glyphosate and Roundup were found to cause epigenetic changes known as DNA methylation. Epigenetics describes layers of molecular structures associated with DNA that control the underlying function of genes. The defining feature of epigenetic changes is that they can alter how genes work but do not involve changes to the actual DNA sequence. These types of changes were found at over 5,000 genomic sites for glyphosate and over 4,000 for Roundup. This is a concern because such alterations are typically found at high frequency in cancer tissues.

All findings lead to same conclusion

The researchers performed further laboratory tests in mouse cell lines, which are designed to highlight effects that can lead to cancer formation. Glyphosate and three Roundup formulations were assessed in these tester cell lines. It was found that two formulations of Roundup herbicide, but not glyphosate, activated oxidative stress and misfolded protein responses, both clear markers of carcinogenicity.

Commenting on the totality of the data, Dr Antoniou said, “No matter what molecular measurements we undertook, they all led to the same conclusion: that is, both glyphosate and Roundup are potential carcinogens.”

Other studies, including the industry ones submitted to support regulatory approval of glyphosate, have also found that glyphosate causes cancer in experimental animals. Based on studies in animals and humans, as well as mechanistic data, in 2015 the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen.

Other implications of the new study

1. Ending animal testing is not yet feasible

Interestingly, in the new study, glyphosate was shown to damage DNA in living animals but not in the cell culture system. This shows that in vitro lab tests using isolated cells  cannot fully substitute for evaluations in a living animal because certain effects will be missed. This is because animals (including humans) are whole organisms whose complexity cannot be replicated in a flask, petri dish, or test tube. While many people (GMWatch included) would like to see an end to animal testing, as long as pesticides and other chemicals are allowed to be released into the environment, such a move would put public health at risk.

2. Roundup is more toxic than glyphosate

In summary, in general Roundup was found to be more toxic than glyphosate, confirming and building on previous observations. However, taken together, the results from the various assays conducted show that both glyphosate and Roundup herbicides activate mechanisms involved in cancer development, causing gene expression changes reflecting oxidative stress and DNA damage. Also, glyphosate alone was clearly able to induce DNA damage.

These findings directly challenge the global regulatory practice of only assessing the isolated declared active ingredient (glyphosate) and not the complete commercial formulations (Roundup) as sold and used.

The study further highlights the power of in-depth molecular profiling “omics” methods to detect changes that are missed by relying solely on conventional biochemical and histopathological measurements conducted in standardised industry tests on pesticide active ingredients. The study paves the way for future investigations by identifying gene expression changes and altered DNA methylation sites, which can serve as biomarkers and potential predictors of negative health outcomes resulting from exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides.

3. Results could allow survey of human population for glyphosate herbicide exposure

Commenting on the implications of the results for human exposure monitoring, study lead Dr Michael Antoniou said, “The biomarkers we identified (such as the miRNA and gene expression changes) can be tested for in people, but we don’t know if this particular pattern of biomarkers is unique to glyphosate-based herbicide exposure. Thus the biomarkers would need to be correlated with a history of exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides and measurements of glyphosate in urine.

“If high levels of glyphosate were found in the urine, and this correlated with the biomarkers identified in the new study and the person’s history of glyphosate herbicide exposure, this would indicate that exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides might be responsible for any health effects that are both indicated by our findings and found in the person. These findings should be tested first by investigations of herbicide applicators, as their exposure can be high and details of the particular herbicides used are often recorded, which would enable clearer results to be obtained.”

4. “Safe” and “no effect” doses were shown to be harmful

In the 90-day rat feeding study, different groups of animals were fed three different doses of glyphosate and the glyphosate-equivalent dose of Roundup MON 52276. The lowest dose was the concentration that regulators assume to be safe to ingest on a daily basis over a lifetime (the EU acceptable daily intake or ADI: 0.5 mg per kg of bodyweight per day). The middle dose was the dose that EU regulators concluded had no observable adverse effect (the “no observable adverse effect” level or NOAEL) in industry-sponsored rat feeding studies (50 mg per kg of bodyweight per day). The highest dose was 175 mg, the dose that US regulators concluded had no observable adverse effect.

Adverse effects were found from Roundup exposure at all dose levels in a dose-dependent fashion. These findings show that the glyphosate ADI for the EU – and that of the USA, which is even higher – is not safe to ingest. Likewise, it shows that the EU and US regulators were only able to conclude that glyphosate had “no observable adverse effect” at the levels mentioned above because the tests that they require industry to carry out are insufficiently sensitive.

Study supports plaintiffs in Roundup-cancer litigation

Summarising the implications of the study for the Roundup-cancer litigation in the US, Dr Antoniou said, “Our results are the first to simultaneously show glyphosate and Roundup toxicity in a whole mammalian animal model system and provide a mechanism – oxidative stress – by which DNA damage has been observed in other systems, such as mammalian tissue culture cells.

“These findings show that glyphosate and Roundup score positive in various tests of carcinogenicity – transcriptome/epigenome/miRNA changes, oxidative stress, protein misfolding, and DNA damage – in a living animal (rat) that is accepted as a surrogate for human health effects. In my view, this strengthens the argument that exposure to Roundup herbicides can lead to the type of cancer suffered by the plaintiffs in many of the court cases – non-Hodgkin lymphoma.”

SOURCE

https://www.gmwatch.org/en/106-news/latest-news/19980-glyphosate-and-roundup-all-roads-lead-to-cancer

FOR FURTHER ARTICLES ON THE LINK BETWEEN GLYPHOSATE & CANCER:

https://sustainablepulse.com/?s=cancer

Photo: GM Watch

Glyphosate

Glyphosate & Roundup: Poison In Our Daily Bread – Why is it Showing up in Non-GMO & Organic Foods? (Podcast)

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by Sustainable Pulse

It’s not surprising that glyphosate, the so-called active ingredient in Bayer-Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller, is found in foods made with glyphosate-tolerant GMO crops like corn, soy and canola. But why is glyphosate herbicide showing up in non-GMO and organic foods too?

In the first episode of Fork the System, GMO/Toxin Free USA staffer Nomi Carmona hosts a conversation with Henry Rowlands, founder of The Detox Project and Sustainable Pulse, about the results of the most comprehensive glyphosate testing of food products ever conducted in the United States. The Detox Project’s most recent report, The Poison in Our Daily Bread, shines a light on the true levels of cancer-causing glyphosate contamination in essential foods, like whole grain and whole wheat breads, sold by some of the top grocery stores in the country, including Whole Foods Market, Amazon, Walmart, and Target.

What more can we do to avoid carcinogenic glyphosate in our food? As consumers and as activists, what can we do to help beat back the rising glyphosate contamination of our food supply? Listen to Fork the System episode 1 to find out…

Glyphosate, GMO

EU Commission’s Secret Policy Scenarios Show Full GMO Deregulation on the Cards

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by Sustainable Pulse

The European Commission is secretly considering the full deregulation of certain types of genetically modified (GM) crops – yet it has not admitted as much publicly. Under such policy scenarios, deregulation could mean scrapping safety checks, traceability, and labelling for GMOs that are claimed to be able to arise naturally – and removing GMO labelling for GM products declared “sustainable”, GMWatch reported on Thursday.

Source: GMWatch

The Commission’s detailed policy plans for 2030-35 are revealed for the first time in a targeted survey, which we’ve published in the public interest after it was only sent to certain stakeholders. The survey is being run by consultants to the Commission. These plans are the basis for the impact assessment that will accompany the Commission’s proposal to change the GMO regulations, planned for spring 2023.

In response to the targeted survey, the Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament has written a letter to the Commission complaining that its “policy scenarios have not been made public but only released to a select group of individuals” via the survey. The letter continues, “We consider that this is not the appropriate way to ensure participants to the consultation have access to all relevant information to make an informed answer and call on you to publish this survey without delay.”

What has the Commission said publicly?

The Commission has announced a new legal framework for plants obtained by “targeted mutagenesis” (by which it seems to mean gene editing of the SDN-1 and SDN-2 types) and cisgenesis (genetic engineering in which genes are artificially transferred between organisms that could otherwise be conventionally bred). The Commission has said it wants to set up a separate regulatory regime for these GM crops, excluding them from existing EU rules for GMOs. It also wants to promote supposedly “sustainable” GM crops – those that it believes can contribute to the EU’s Green Deal objectives.

So far, little has been known about this new framework. The Commission has only set out certain “policy elements” in a so-called Inception Impact Assessment, published in September 2021:
* Risk assessment and approval requirements “proportionate to the risk involved”
* A sustainability analysis
* “Appropriate traceability and labelling provisions”
* Mechanisms to be able to rapidly adjust elements of the legislation.

These “policy elements” are not further explained in the Commission’s public consultation, which closes on 22 July (GMWatch has submitted its response).

In line with earlier announcements, the consultation talks about legislation for GM “plants produced by targeted mutagenesis or cisgenesis”. It assumes, without evidence, and ignoring a large pile of evidence showing extensive DNA damage caused by gene editing, that some such GM plants “could have been produced through conventional plant breeding or classical mutagenesis” (questions 3 and 12). “Classical mutagenesis” means the decades-old techniques of radiation- or chemical-induced mutagenesis breeding. The Commission also assumes, again without evidence, that some such GM plants could have “traits contributing to sustainability” (question 7).

The Commission has always rejected the term “deregulation”. It has said it is going to introduce an “appropriate” and fit-for-purpose regulatory framework for certain GM crops derived from new GM techniques, which it calls “new genomic techniques”. It has also said it will not compromise on consumer and environmental safety.

However, the detailed policy scenarios show another picture – that full deregulation of some GM crops is a realistic option.

What are the Commission’s plans?

The Commission’s consultants targeted survey describes seven policy scenarios considered by the Commission – which are not mentioned in the public consultation. These scenarios are important because they form the basis for the upcoming regulatory impact assessment, which compares different policy scenarios with each other and against a baseline scenario (i.e. no policy action).

The seven policy scenarios, A1 to C2, reveal that the Commission is considering scrapping all GMO regulatory requirements for GM crops that “could also be obtained naturally or by conventional breeding”.

The scenarios show that:
* The Commission wants to distinguish two new categories of GM plants: GM crops that “could also be obtained naturally or by conventional breeding” and GM crops that have “desirable sustainability impacts”.
* For GM crops that the Commission claims could be obtained naturally or by conventional breeding, the Commission is considering scrapping all GMO regulatory requirements (scenarios A2, B3). This includes the requirements for
– pre-market safety assessment
– product traceability across the supply chain
– GMO detection method supplied by the developer of the GMO in question
– GMO labelling.

These GM crops would essentially be regulated like non-GM crops, disregarding any risks to public health and the environment, the need of non-GM producers to rule out GM contamination, and the public’s right to know what is in their food.

Commission proposes the “Bayer option”

Commission scenarios A2 and B3 are exactly what Bayer has publicly asked for. In its response to the Commission’s public consultation, Bayer said it wants a screening step in the regulation to decide whether any GMO regulatory steps at all are needed. Bayer said there should be a “first step… assessing whether the changes in the DNA… are similar to the ones that could have been obtained through conventional breeding methods or spontaneous mutation”. According to Bayer, “products with similar safety profiles” should “then be subjected to the same marketing specific regulations” – in other words, there would be no GMO regulation for GMOs that are claimed to have similar changes to what could have happened naturally.

UK Bill

Not coincidentally, this is exactly the same deregulatory scenario that is currently being pursued by the UK Conservative government, in the form of the draft “Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill” that is currently working its way through Parliament. Because the UK is no longer in the EU, the UK government can pass this England-based law unilaterally, aligning England with the USA’s weak standards on GMO regulation. The EU Commission clearly wants the EU to follow England in this “race to the bottom”.

“Sustainable” GMOs

The Commission is also considering the option to scrap the requirement for a GMO label for supposedly “sustainable” GM crops. It also considers lowering the risk assessment requirements for all GM crops engineered with “targeted mutagenesis and cisgenesis” (A1). Again, this information has not been presented publicly and is not available to anyone answering the public consultation.

All GM crops must be subject to existing GMO rules

The Greens state in their letter to the Commission, ”As Greens/EFA group, we oppose the introduction of separate legislation for products of new genetic modification (GM) techniques such as targeted mutagenesis (i.e. SDN-1, SDN-2 and ODM [oligo directed mutagenesis]) and cisgenesis. We believe that all genetically modified (GM) crops must be subject to the existing GMO legislation with its requirements for risk assessment, traceability and clear labelling.

”Indeed, the European Court of Justice clarified in 2018 that new GM techniques cannot be excluded from the scope of EU GMO legislation unless they have conventionally been used in a number of applications and have a long safety record. Since this is not the case for gene editing techniques, such as CRISPR, these techniques should be regulated under the EU GMO legislation, in order not to undermine the EU’s Precautionary Principle. As Greens/EFA, we fully support the Court’s ruling.”

The Greens make three demands for all GMOs: That they are subjected to a full and robust risk assessment; that no market access should be permitted without traceability and a detection method; and that there should be clear GMO labelling on the final product so that consumers have the choice of whether to buy it.

All these principles are in place under the current GMO legislation – which the Commission is secretly planning to dismantle.

The Greens rightly conclude: “The sustainability of our food system is not a matter of individual products. A plant trait in isolation, without considering the agricultural context in which the plant is grown, is insufficient to draw any meaningful conclusion. Until today, conventional breeding has consistently outstripped genetic engineering techniques (old and new) in producing crops tolerant to stresses such as drought, floods, pests, and diseases.* Claims that GM plants will contribute to improved EU food systems are not supported by current evidence. The European Union should not weaken its GMO regulations to accommodate empty promises of ‘sustainable’ GM plants.”

Commission proposals spell “disaster” for Non-GMO sector

Commenting on the revelations in the targeted survey, Heike Moldenhauer, Secretary General of the Non-GMO industry association ENGA, said: “The deregulation proposals put forward by the Commission aim to remove the labelling of New GMOs. Should a new legal framework abolish traceability and labelling, then New GMOs will effectively become invisible and the Non-GMO sector would run the risk of unknowingly and unintentionally selling New GMO products. In this new world of unregulated GMOs, untested and invisible GMOs will find their way on to European fields, supermarket shelves and on to the plates of consumers – irreversibly.

“Consumers’ right to know what is in their food, via clear labelling, is a key social and political achievement, guaranteed through the currently legally-binding GMO label. To abolish this or replace it with a sustainable label, and therefore making New GMOs invisible, would be an unjustifiable step backwards and would encourage distrust: Why do New GMOs have to be invisible to gain market acceptance?

“For the Non-GMO food sector this move to deregulate and abolish labelling would spell disaster! It effectively removes the sector’s selling point, meaning massive financial setbacks, if not the end of its business entirely.”

SOURCE

https://sustainablepulse.com/2022/07/27/eu-commissions-secret-policy-scenarios-show-full-gmo-deregulation-on-the-cards/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=glyphosate_gmos_and_pesticides_weekly_global_news_bulletin&utm_term=2022-08-05

Photo: Sustainable Pulse

Glyphosate

Glyphosate Crosses Blood-Brain Barrier and Exposure Correlates with Alzheimer’s Symptoms – New Study

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by Sustainable Pulse

In a new study, Arizona State University (ASU) and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGEN) have explored the effects of glyphosate exposure on the brains of mice. The research demonstrates, for the first time, that glyphosate successfully crosses the blood-brain barrier and infiltrates the brain. Once there, it acts to enhance levels of a critical factor known as TNF-α.

TNF-α is a molecule with two faces. This pro-inflammatory cytokine performs vital functions in the neuroimmune system, acting to enhance the immune response and protect the brain. When levels of TNF-α are dysregulated, however, a host of diseases linked with neuroinflammation can result. Among these is Alzheimer’s disease.

Neurodegenerative illnesses, such as Alzheimer’s disease, are among the most perplexing in medical science. The underlying causes of such diseases range from genetic factors and overall cardiovascular health to dietary influences and lifestyle choices. Various environmental contaminants have also been implicated as possible players in the development or advancement of neurodegenerative disease. Among these is a broad-spectrum herbicide known as glyphosate. Glyphosate is the most used pesticide in the world.

This latest study further demonstrates in cell culture studies that glyphosate exposure appears to increase the production of soluble beta amyloid (Aβ) and reduce the viability of neurons. The accumulation of soluble beta amyloid, the sticky protein responsible for the formation of soluble beta amyloid plaques, is one of the central diagnostic hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease.

Further evidence suggestive of potential hazards to neurological health were observed when the researchers examined changes in gene expression via RNA sequencing in the brains of mice following glyphosate exposure.

Glyphosate Box

Glyphosate Residue Free Certification for Food Brands – Click Here

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These RNA transcripts hinted at disruptions in the expression of genes related to neurodegenerative disease, including dysregulation of a class of brain cells responsible for producing the myelin sheath critical for proper neuronal communication. These cells, known as oligodendrocytes, are affected by elevated levels of TNF-α.

“We find increases in TNF-α in the brain, following glyphosate exposure,” said Dr. Ramon Velazquez, the senior author of the paper. “While we examined (Alzheimer’s disease) pathology, this might have implications for many neurodegenerative diseases, given that neuroinflammation is seen in a variety of brain disorders.”

An enigmatic disease; a path of destruction

A hundred years have passed since the first diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. Despite vast investments in research and drug development, the affliction remains without effective treatment. A suite of therapies, developed over many decades at extravagant cost, have one by one failed to alleviate the symptoms of the disease.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia. The progression of the disease usually begins with mild memory loss. As the disease develops, increasing confusion and a breakdown in communication abilities often result, as the affliction attacks brain pathways involved in memory, language and thought.

Some 5.8 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease, as of 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Unlike heart disease or cancer, the death toll for Alzheimer’s disease is on a frightening upward trajectory. By 2040, costs of the disease are projected to rise dramatically to between $379 billion and more than $500 billion annually. The staggering toll of the illness is currently projected to nearly triple to 14 million people by 2050.

The onset of symptoms typically occurs after age 60, and the risk to individuals doubles every five years after age 65. Although genetics are believed to play a role in some cases of Alzheimer’s disease and a family history of the disorder is considered a significant risk factor, environmental factors are believed to play a significant role in the disease.

Researchers are trying to learn how genetic correlates may subtly interact with environmental and other factors to decrease or enhance the likelihood of developing the affliction. Some recent research suggests that lifestyle changes, including proper physical activity, nutritious food, limited alcohol consumption and not smoking may help prevent or slow cognitive decline, noting that brain and cardiovascular health are closely linked.

Glyphosate toxic effects

This new study examines the neurological effects of glyphosate, the most ubiquitous herbicide. Each year, around 250 million pounds of glyphosate are applied to agricultural crops in the U.S. alone. Although the chemical is regarded as generally safe to humans by the Environmental Protection Agency and the European Food Safety Authority, researchers are taking a second look.

Little is known about possible long-term effects from prolonged exposure to glyphosate. One issue of considerable concern is that glyphosate can cross the blood-brain barrier, a layer of endothelial cells preventing dissolved substances in the circulating bloodstream from readily passing into the extracellular fluid of the central nervous system, where the brain’s neurons reside.

Potential risks to brain health posed by glyphosate should be critically evaluated, particularly for those consistently exposed to the herbicide.

“The Alzheimer’s connection is that there’s a much higher prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease in agricultural communities that are using this chemical,” paper co-author Joanna Winstone said. “We’re trying to establish a more molecular-science based link between the two.”

The study exposed mice to high doses of glyphosate, then detected elevated levels of TNF-α in their brains. The researchers then exposed extracted mouse neurons in petri dishes to the same levels of glyphosate detected in the brains of mice, observing elevated amyloid beta and cell death in cortical neurons. Dysregulated oligodendrocyte RNA transcripts, which could indicate disruption of myelination, were detected in brain tissue.

Taken together, the results demonstrate a correlation between glyphosate exposure and classic symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, though the authors stress that much more work will be required before a causative link can be established.

Nevertheless, the widespread use of the chemical and the disturbing correlation highlighted in the study underscore the need for intensified investigation. Among the pressing questions to be answered: How does prolonged, low-dose exposure to glyphosate affect the brain; does glyphosate act synergistically with other chemicals present in common herbicides; and can glyphosate be detected post-mortem in patients who died of Alzheimer’s disease?

On the horizon, new drugs designed to reduce TNF-α in the brain are being explored, offering renewed hope for those with Alzheimer’s disease as well as other neurodegenerative ailments.

SOURCE

https://sustainablepulse.com/2022/08/05/glyphosate-crosses-blood-brain-barrier-and-exposure-correlates-with-alzheimers-symptoms-new-asu-study/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=glyphosate_gmos_and_pesticides_weekly_global_news_bulletin&utm_term=2022-08-05

Photo: pixabay.com

Corporations, Glyphosate, monsanto

How Bayer/Monsanto has been systematically undercutting science & making large investments to build propaganda that attacks non-GMO activists & organizations (IRT)

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From Institute for Responsible Technology

Bayer versus the planet.

CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.

Bayer has been in the news recently (rightfully so) for – you guessed it – poisoning the planet. We have stood against Bayer/Monsanto for twenty years and it’s high time they stand accountable for their planetary injustice.

This week you may have seen that the CDC released a report which stated 80% of urine samples taken from Americans contained glyphosate, “Roundup”.

What you likely didn’t hear is that Bayer/Monsanto has been systematically undercutting science and making large investments to build propaganda that attacks organizations like IRT, GM Watch, NonGMO Project, and other non-GMO activists.

In a 2019 Huff Post article, Bayer stated they, “no longer provided support for the Genetic Literacy Project” – a misinformation website designed to produce content devaluing other scientific studies which are not pro-GMO.

The article (again dated in 2019) points out how Bayer leveraged its many resources to suppress evidence of the health and environmental damage caused by glyphosate and challenged the World Health Organization’s determination that it’s probably “cancer-causing.”

During the Monsanto trials, a secret company email targeted our founder Jeffrey Smith. The subject line was “Whack-a-Mole,” an internal Monsanto joke about how they attack those who expose the true dangers of their products. They even had a large budget-item called “Let Nothing Go,” funding used to suppress all evidence that GMOs, glyphosate, and Gene Editing cause dangerous side effects. Jeffrey’s extensive reporting over two decades was one of their familiar targets.

Their lies and attacks continue. The latest is pretending that gene edited GMOs are safe. And they’ve paid all sorts of organizations and scientists to repeat the lie. Tragically, numerous governments have been tricked, and now allow gene edited GMOs to be introduced into our food supply and environment without any safety checks or even notifying regulators This poses an unprecedented threat to each of us, and future generations. The time to act is now.

TAKE ACTION HERE

SOURCE:

IRT Newsletter:

https://archive.aweber.com/newsletter/awlist6265886/MTUxNzY0NTM=/bayer-versus-the-planet.htm

Photo: hpgruesen @ pixabay.com

Glyphosate

CDC finds glyphosate in 80% of US urine samples—as reported by 0% of “our free press”

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Headlined by The Guardian and the Irish Times, and also grimly noted by some journals here and there , this should-be-big news is apparently NOT “fit to print,” or post, or broadcast by the US press

Mark Crispin Miller

This silence, shocking though it is, should come as no surprise, from a “free press” that’s been meticulously, militantly blacking out the toll of those “vaccines”—as well as (let us not forget) the many real vaccines that have been killing/sickening/crippling us for decades; countless other toxic pharmaceuticals; the additives in most of what we eat, and those in nearly all the products that we use to clean our homes and selves, and most cosmetics.

In short: We’re being poisoned on a mammoth scale, and evidently not by accident, or through incompetence—since, if that were the case, the press would not be blacking all such information out.

Now, if this news re: glyphosate has been reported by a major corporate outlet (or a even major “alternative” outlet), please note it in the comments. My search was, necessarily, a quick one, since we’re short-handed here (and overwhelmed by each week’s news of “sudden deaths”).

(VIDEO LINK BELOW)

Glyphosate increases risk of cancer; CDC study raises alarm in US | World English News | WION

News from Underground by Mark Crispin Miller is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Photo: pixabay.com

Glyphosate, News

Contamination of U.S. Food Supply Worsens as 50% of Foods Tested Contained Cancer-Causing Glyphosate Herbicide

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It is sprayed world wide and they don’t it appears, intend letting up. See our Glyphosate pages (main menu) for further info on glyphosate and the Roundup and other brands (check labels) that contain it. A known ‘probable carcinogen’. EWR

The Poison in Our Daily Bread

by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News

The Detox Project recently published their latest results from the most comprehensive glyphosate testing of food products ever conducted in the U.S., showing that the contamination of the U.S. food supply with the cancer-causing herbicide glyphosate is becoming significantly worse since their first report published 5 years ago.

In our first report nearly five years ago, we found alarming levels of glyphosate residues in 29 bestselling foods from major food companies in the continental United States, as increases in the spraying of more toxic pesticides was skyrocketing across rural America.

In this new report, we disclose the glyphosate residue testing results of 83 foods found in major Big Box, grocery and natural  food stores purchased in Des Moines, Iowa, including Walmart, Whole Foods, Target, Natural Grocers, and Hy-Vee and foods bought online through Amazon.

Incredibly, more than half the foods tested, a total of 45 foods out of 86 products, contained alarming levels of glyphosate,  ranging from 12 parts per billion (ppb) in “sprouted wholegrain bread”6 from Whole Foods to as high 889 ppb in Walmart’s brand chickpeas,7 to 1,040 ppb in Whole Food’s 365 Brand Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread, to the highest level detected of  1,150 ppb in Hy-Vee’s 100% Whole Wheat Bread.

While none of these foods are genetically engineered, they still contain ingredients that are at a high risk of glyphosate  contamination. There is no GMO wheat or chickpeas on the market in North America. For the past two decades, farmers in  the U.S. and Canada have regularly sprayed Monsanto’s (now Bayer) Roundup on wheat, oats, barley and dry bean crops as a ‘pre-harvest drying agent’ to get the harvested crop to market faster.

READ AT THE LINK

Contamination of U.S. Food Supply Worsens as 50% of Foods Tested Contained Cancer-Causing Glyphosate Herbicide

Photo: healthimpactnews.com

Contamination of U.S. Food Supply Worsens as 50% of Foods Tested Contained Cancer-Causing Glyphosate Herbicide
Glyphosate

Roundup for Breakfast: In New Tests, Weed Killer Found in All Kids’ Cereals Sampled

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Findings Released as Major Scientific Study Shows Eating Organic Lowers Cancer Risk

WASHINGTON – A second round of tests commissioned by the Environmental Working Group found the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer in every sample of popular oat-based cereal and other oat-based food marketed to children. These test results fly in the face of claims by two companies, Quaker and General Mills, which have said there is no reason for concern. This is because, they say, their products meet the legal standards.

Yet almost all of the samples tested by EWG had residues of glyphosate at levels higher than what EWG scientists consider protective of children’s health with an adequate margin of safety. The EWG findings of a chemical identified as probably carcinogenic by the World Health Organization come on the heels of a major study published in JAMA Internal Medicine that found a significant reduction in cancer risk for individuals who ate a lot of organic food.

READ MORE

https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-release/roundup-breakfast-part-2-new-tests-weed-killer-found-all-kids-cereals

Photo: pixabay.com

Glyphosate, News

Bayer Confirms End of Sale of Glyphosate-Based Herbicides for US Lawn & Garden Market

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barovsky's avatarThe New Dark Age

29 July 2021 — Sustainable Pulse

Bayer have announced that they will no longer sell glyphosate-based herbicides to U.S. gardeners as of 2023, following the costly litigation battle over their cancer causing weedkiller Roundup.

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Corona virus, Glyphosate, Health, Pesticides

Other items of interest

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Thanks to contributors for these headlines:

Kim Hampson

Fluoridation On Trial: RFK, Jr.’s Conversation With Attorney Michael Connett

Reiner Fuellmich – Full Length Interview in Berlin – Planet Lockdown – 153 News – Because Censorship Kills

Japanese glyphosate scare highlights lack of regulation in New Zealand – Organic NZ magazine

Bayer Fails to Overturn European Ban on Bee-Harming Pesticides – Organic NZ magazine

Warren Woodward

Movie: Sally Pacholok USA 2015 (87mins HD) Feisty ER Nurse takes on the medical establishment when she uncovers an epidemic of misdiagnosis.

Sue McCully

STUDY ON THE ELECTROMAGNETISM OF VACCINATED PERSONS IN LUXEMBOURG (PDF)

Bombshell Study shows “Virus” is Identical to Normal Cell Structures: Appearances Can Be Deceiving – Viral-like Inclusions in COVID-19 Negative Renal Biopsies by Electron Microscopy

“Independent MP Derek Sloan holds a news conference on Parliament Hill to raise concerns about the alleged censorship of doctors and scientists as well as medical information related to vaccines. The Ontario MP has been critical of lockdowns that have been in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and also sponsored a petition questioning the safety of COVID-19 vaccines. He is joined by a trio of trio of doctors and scientists.”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=vUrp5PlnBwQ&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3i7xGctVro2H4AfIbbiqza7Zh0HxCac2jJncDOxLnCCcUemtihE9hzoRQ

Glyphosate, monsanto, News

Bayer Set to Rethink Selling of Glyphosate to US Gardeners after Loss of $2 Billion Future Cancer Claims Deal

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A topic still of great concern that’s slipped by the wayside, overshadowed by the plandemic ….

From sustainablepulse.com

Bayer’s share price crashed over 4% on Thursday after Judge Vince Chhabria of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California threw out their attempted $ 2 Bilion deal to settle future cancer claims against their top selling glyphosate-based herbicide, Roundup.

Bayer reacted by stating Thursday: “While the Company will remain in the residential lawn and garden market, it will immediately engage with partners to discuss the future of glyphosate-based products in the U.S. residential market, as the overwhelming majority of claimants in the Roundup™ litigation allege that they used Roundup™ Lawn and Garden products.”

In a brief order that addresses what the judge called only “the most glaring flaws” of the deal, Chhabria turned aside the complicated agreement, the second time he’s shot it down, Bloomberg reported Thursday. The rejected settlement is part of a broader $11.6 billion agreement to resolve Roundup lawsuits in the U.S. from about 125,000 consumers and farmers.

READ MORE

https://sustainablepulse.com/2021/05/27/bayer-set-to-rethink-selling-of-glyphosate-to-us-gardeners-after-loss-of-2-billion-future-cancer-claims-deal/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=glyphosate_gmos_and_pesticides_weekly_global_news_bulletin&utm_term=2021-05-28#.YLHR2N2xUdU

Food, Glyphosate, News

Studies That Show Dangers Of GMOs And What Their Makers Do To Hide Them From You | Jeffrey Smith | The Real Truth About Health (video)

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Read article plus video at the link:

From theplantstrongclub.org

The biotech industry’s claim that genetically modified (GM) foods are safe is shattered in this groundbreaking lecture. Safety assessments on GM crops are not competent to identify the health problems, and industry research is rigged to avoid finding problems.

This lecture is for anyone wanting to understand GM technology, to learn how to protect themselves, or to share their concerns with others. It is presented in the clear, accessible style that made Jeffrey Smith’s Seeds of Deception the world’s best-selling book on genetically engineered foods.

The leading consumer advocate promoting healthier non-GMO choices, Jeffrey Smith’s meticulous research documents how biotech companies continue to mislead legislators and safety officials to put the health of society at risk and the environment in peril. His work expertly summarizes why the safety assessments conducted by the FDA and regulators worldwide teeter on a foundation of outdated science and false assumptions, and why genetically engineered foods must urgently become our nation’s top food safety priority.

READ MORE

https://theplantstrongclub.org/2021/04/17/studies-that-show-dangers-of-gmos-and-what-their-makers-do-to-hide-them-from-you-jeffrey-smith-the-real-truth-about-health/

RELATED:

GLYPHOSATE

censorship, Corona virus, Covid Vaccine Deaths, Covid Vaccine reaction, Glyphosate, News, Pharmaceutical Industry, Vaccines

Other headlines this week

5 Comments

Miscellaneous sources re the Adverse Reactions:

FRIGHTENING! – 7th update on Adverse Reactions to Covid Vaccines released by UK Government

A collection of menstrual side effects noted

British government now reports 524 deaths following COVID vaccination

Dr Mercola

Pressure Mounts to Ban My New Book From Amazon

Drugmakers Promise Investors a Hike in COVID Vaccine Prices Soon

Increasing Levels of Glyphosate Being Found in Manatees

via Kim Hampson

The Coronavirus Strain Is Patented by the – www.HNewsWire.com

Texas Doctor Exposes Dangers of COVID-19 Vaccine (bitchute.com) 

Biological Male Crowned Miss Silver State USA – News Punch

Gender Heretics.org – Resisting the New Orthodoxy

Report: Sports Cheat Philosophy Professor Lives With A Pedophile – Gender Heretics.org

Canal Road tree protesters in court facing trespassing charges | New Zealand Geographic (nzgeo.com)

Image by Michael Bußmann from Pixabay

Glyphosate, Herbicides, News, Poison

Keep NZ families environmentally safe: please Sign a petition to stop councils spraying glyphosate

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This petition is from Organic NZ. Councils NZ wide are spraying the probable carcinogen (IARC) glyphosate. For further info on this widely used toxic herbicide see our glyphosate pages here (not the sub tabs also for videos etc.) EWR
________________________________________________________________________

organicnz.org.nz

Soil & Health launches glyphosate campaign

posted in: Campaigns, Glyphosate |

The Soil and Health Association are calling for councils to stop spraying glyphosate to keep New Zealand families safe.

‘The public increasingly understand that it is no longer acceptable to be exposed to glyphosate-based herbicides,’ says Soil & Health spokesperson Jodie Bruning,

We are working with US based Non-Toxic Neighbourhoods who have had significant success helping councils transition affordably to non-toxic urban management.

The importance of glyphosate science

Public health scientists think it is bizarre that the findings of the most prestigious cancer agency in the world were rejected by New Zealand’s Environmental Protection Authority (the EPA).

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) determined that glyphosate probably causes cancer in humans. The IARC also found that glyphosate (and it’s commercial formulations) definitely causes cancer in laboratory animals – placing our pets at risk too.

 In 2016 the EPA produced what scientists consider to be a flawed cancer review to discredit the findings of the EPA’s own cancer authority.  New Zealand professors and scientists remain ‘mystified’ and have spoken repeatedly (here and here and here) about the EPA’s frozen stance on glyphosate. An Official Information [ENQ-35127-N5J6C7]request has found that the EPA has never conducted a formal risk assessment of glyphosate or the commercial formulation.

Glyphosate is not just a cancer risk. Scientific studies show that glyphosate-based herbicides, including Roundup, may not only probably cause cancer but cause oxidative stress and disrupt endocrine system function which can set the stage for disease and delays.

Chemical companies are paying out for the damage caused

Following the IARC decision, cases in the U.S. have awarded the claimants damages against Monsanto (since 2018, owned by Bayer). The court cases uncovered evidence that showed how Monsanto took action to limit and distort public knowledge. Punitive damages were awarded for ‘reprehensible’ conduct. The jury trials are now under appeal with Bayer claiming the verdict of regulators across the world upholds Bayer’s stance. Unfortunately, as scientists have illustrated (in Europe and the USA), regulatory agencies relied on ghostwritten industry studies and ignored data that the IARC considered important.

In June 2020 Bayer proposed a settlement of USD$8.8-10.9 billion to settle over 125,000 U.S. lawsuits to resolve Roundup litigation. Bayer has framed the complex settlement proposal as an end to ‘uncertainty’. The proposal contained no admission that glyphosate-based herbicides caused the cancer claimed by cancer sufferers, many former farmers, who see the proposal as a slap in the face. The settlement proposal may restrict future claimants from a jury trial. New Zealand doesn’t face the same court cases here because the ACC covers such cases as accidents.

Why isn’t New Zealand taking action?

Ignoring the calls of scientists, New Zealand councils refer to the New Zealand Environmental Protection Authority (NZ EPA) to claim that glyphosate is a ‘low toxicity herbicide’. The hazard rating given by the NZ EPA provides a legal rationale that it is safe enough to spray in public places. This is wrong!

It is evident from operations in Auckland and Christchurch that councils and contractors need to make a lot of changes in order to shift away from glyphosate dependency – like any addiction – shifting to a new mindset isn’t always easy. Much of the management and contract negotiation are out of the public eye – so it is difficult for the public to understand what is going on. Councils don’t appear to be undertaking properly accountable trials with new technologies and recording and documenting trial methods, how they cope with and reduce over time the weed seed banks, and making this information public. We know non-toxic alternatives and management regimes can never neatly replace toxic chemical use. Shift away from addiction requires a change in mindset and operations.

We also understand that councils struggle to adopt the precautionary principle. This would help deal with uncertainty (which is always present). Councils may not be comfortable weighing the risk to families, and particularly babies and children, with the risk of complaints from irate rate-payers or staff worried about the stress on physical assets. These are value-based decisions, and are an important part of making any decision to protect health or the environment.

SIGN THE PETITION AT THE ORGANIC NZ PAGE, LINK BELOW:

LINK: https://organicnz.org.nz/sign-the-glyphosate-petition-here/?fbclid=IwAR2vNmOE_as_evVdbr685aOSvQThIHtVPMfPJ41b-A_I_2ZPxcVyE2XklqE

Photo: organic.org.nz

Corruption, Glyphosate, monsanto, News, Poison, roundup

Blueprint of Monsanto’s “black ops” public relations machine REVEALED: See the names of fake front groups and science hacks who took part

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(Natural News) It’s no secret that companies like Monsanto do everything in their power to keep the true toxicity of their products under wraps. Big Food, Big Ag, Big Pharma and the like have all been accused of similar tactics across the board. But the lengths to which Monsanto has gone to keep the world from knowing the truth about glyphosate (the star ingredient in its flagship product, Roundup) is truly disturbing.

After the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Cancer Research (IARC) labeled glyphosate a “probable human carcinogen,” Monsanto engaged in a covert operation to slam the findings from every avenue — and they recruited a number of partners to help them save face.

Recently released documents provided by US Right To Know (USRTK) show that the biotech firm enlisted over a dozen “industry partner” groups in their plan to denounce the IARC findings and keep Roundup in the public’s good graces. An internal document dated February 2015 describes a detailed plan, in which 20 Monsanto employees were given goals to “neutralize impact of decision,” engage in “regulator outreach,” “ensure MON POV ” and “lead voice in ‘who is IARC’ plus 2B outrage.”

Monsanto conspires with “industry partners”

In the five-page document, Monsanto lists four tiers of “industry partners” to be used in their “preparedness and engagement plan” for the IARC’s carcinogen rating for glyphosate. The plan, of course, was put in place nearly a month before the IARC publicly released their finding that glyphosate probably causes cancer — which raises substantial suspicions that the biotech giant knew what IARC was going to find.

READ MORE

https://www.naturalnews.com/2018-06-12-blueprint-of-monsantos-black-ops-public-relations-machine-revealed-fake-front-groups-and-science-hacks.html

Agriculture, cancer, Corporations, Corruption, Glyphosate, GMO, monsanto, News, Poison

If you love spraying Roundup around your farm or property, you really should watch this documentary

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Kiwis love this product. They spray it everywhere, on their sections, garden edges, berms, parks, schools, their gardens even ready for new planting. And farmers, it’s whole fields since the Ag text books recommend it. Even though it’s produced large tumours in lab rats (independent research). Please read our Glyphosate pages on all of the above. You will be surprised. Farmers were told it was ‘safe as houses’ virtually.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfOSFaaLx_o

Published on Aug 2, 2015

Monsanto’s controversial past combines some of the most toxic products ever sold with misleading reports, pressure tactics, collusion, and attempted corruption. They now race to genetically engineer (and patent) the world’s food supply, which profoundly threatens our health, environment, and economy. Combining secret documents with first-hand accounts by victims, scientists, and politicians, this widely praised film exposes why Monsanto has become the world’s poster child for malignant corporate influence in government and technology.
cancer, Glyphosate, GMO, Health, monsanto, News

The effects of GMOs on your health (the research & what foods they are in)

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Published on Dec 18, 2012

The effects of Genetically Modified Organisms which can be found in the food we consume. Learn more at http://www.naturalnews.com/037249_gmo…
NOTE: the header image of the tumorous rats is from Professor Seralini’s research. You can read about that and/or watch the video of his findings on our Glyphosate pages. And/or visit naturalnews’ coverage of the topic here. You will also find if you google this that it is debunked on those debunking sites, as most valuable info the powers that be would prefer you didn’t know about is. If you find that too conspiratorial ask yourself why ever if GMOs are so safe, do THEY NOT WANT THEM LABELED? Consider also, why do these people who recommend GMOs not eat them themselves? Food for thought (no pun intended).
See also our Glyphosate and GMO pages at the main menu
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