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.
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.
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
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 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).
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