Hazardous to Your Health? New Study Questions Safety of Monsanto’s Roundup

Are some Americans being poisoned from food contamination of a heavily used herbicide?

A recent peer-reviewed study of the herbicide Roundup appearing in the scientific journal Entropy indicates that this may be so.

The chemical in question is glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup. The study reveals that measurable amounts of glyphosate have been found in food sold to the public. And, according to the study, this chemical has serious detrimental effects to the human body.

Serious Side Effects

“Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body,” say study authors Stephanie Seneff, of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Anthony Samsel.

According to the study, Glyphosate impairs the CYP (Cytochrome P450) pathway, a gene pathway vital to forming and breaking down molecules in cells, as well as enzyme functions that regulate some hormones and blood pressure. The abstract of the study states serious side effects: “Consequences are most of the diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet, which include gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.”

Widespread Use

Roundup works in conjunction with is Monsanto’s biotech crops, which are genetically engineered to be immune to the herbicide. Roundup is used on millions of acres of food crops, which include corn, sugarbeets, and canola.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, glyphosate is the most popular herbicide in the country. It is widely used in lawn care, gardens, and golf courses all over the country.

Monsanto Refutes the Science

Monsanto denies all of these claims, and insists its product is safe. Monsanto’s Executive Vice President of Sustainability says “We are very confident in the long track record that glyphosate has. It has been very, very extensively studied.”

Review Not Coming Until 2015

As far as oversight is concerned, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is continuing a standard review of glyphosate, and will determine whether use of said chemical should be restricted…in 2015.

Sources:

The Huffington Post, Entropy Abstract, Medical Daily

via Hazardous to Your Health? New Study Questions Safety of Monsanto’s Roundup.

via Hazardous to Your Health? New Study Questions Safety of Monsanto’s Roundup.

Top selling herbicide has been shown to kill human cells ~ RiseEarth

The top selling herbicide on the market has been shown to kill human cells in independent studies. While this particular herbicide, with the main ingredient glyphosate has been deemed safe for use, only the main ingredient is being tested; neglecting the other ingredients which make up the compound.

Listed on the ingredients label of a pesticide or herbicide is the active ingredient, in this case, glyphosate, as well as inert ingredients – the inactive ingredients, or those which don’t kill weeds or pests. Some of the inert ingredients may not be specifically labeled or it will say “other ingredients” to protect trade secrets. The inert ingredients are concerning some scientists because lab studies have shown that an inert ingredient – polyethoxylated tallowamine (POEA) – commonly mixed with glyphosate, have been shown to kill embryonic, placental, and umbilical cord cells. In fact, it is more harmful to these human cells than the glyphosate itself, and even at levels far more diluted than what is used on the average farm or garden.

This is concerning because Americans use this product very liberally. To be specific, around 100 million pounds of the herbicide are applied to American farms and lawns every year. Perhaps the reason for its popularity is the idea that it is safe. Both the EPA and the Department of Agriculture recognize POEA as an inert ingredient and state that there is strong evidence it doesn’t cause cancer, and they can find no risk factors concerning. In fact, this ingredient, which is derived from animal fat, can be used in USDA certified organic products. However, these findings strongly contradict what a French study claims.

According to the French study, the tested formulas which included glyphosate and POEA, together and separately, all killed umbilical cord, placental, and embryonic cells. The scientists also hypothesized that this can cause problems during pregnancy not only because of the cell damage but it can interfere with hormone production as well. This is a far cry from what is considered so safe and nontoxic that it can go into USDA organic certified ingredients.

In 2009, Argentina petitioned for a ban on glyphosate after research came out showing the severe health and environmental effects suffered in areas sprayed with glyphosate. Birth defects, stillbirths, miscarriages, infertility and cancer were all pressing problems emerging in sprayed areas; lab studies confirmed these issues with deformities showing up in frog and chicken embryos. Furthermore, acute environmental effects included dead crops and livestock as well as waterways polluted with dead fish.

A Swedish study, conducted in 1999 showed a strong link between exposure to glyphosate and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma– a form of cancer.

Either the FDA‘s definition of safe differs greatly from others’ definitions, or the FDA is siding with large corporations by allowing such a toxic compound to come to market.

– See more at: http://www.riseearth.com/2013/03/top-selling-herbicide-has-been-shown-to.html#more

via Top selling herbicide has been shown to kill human cells ~ RiseEarth.

via Top selling herbicide has been shown to kill human cells ~ RiseEarth.

Thank You Monsanto -Nearly Half of All US Farms Now Have Super weeds

Last year’s drought took a big bite out of the two most prodigious US crops, corn and soy. But it apparently didn’t slow down the spread of weeds that have developed resistance to Monsanto‘s herbicide Roundup (glyphosate), used on crops engineered by Monsanto to resist it. More than 70 percent of all the the corn, soy, and cotton grown in the US is now genetically modified to withstand glyphosate.

Back in 2011, such weeds were already spreading fast. “Monsanto’s ‘Superweeds‘ Gallop Through Midwest,” declared the headline of a post I wrote then. What’s the word you use when an already-galloping horse speeds up? Because that’s what’s happening. Let’s try this: “Monsanto’s ‘Superweeds’ Stampede Through Midwest.”

That pretty much describes the situation last year, according to a new report from the agribusiness research consultancy Stratus. Since the 2010 growing season, the group has been polling “thousands of US farmers” across 31 states about herbicide resistance. Here’s what they found in the 2012 season:

• Nearly half (49 percent) of all US farmers surveyed said they have glyphosate-resistant weeds on their farm in 2012, up from 34 percent of farmers in 2011.

• Resistance is still worst in the South. For example, 92 percent of growers in Georgia said they have glyphosate-resistant weeds.

• But the mid-South and Midwest states are catching up. From 2011 to 2012 the acres with resistance almost doubled in Nebraska, Iowa, and Indiana.

• It’s spreading at a faster pace each year: Total resistant acres increased by 25 percent in 2011 and 51 percent in 2012.

• And the problem is getting more complicated. More and more farms have at least two resistant species on their farm. In 2010 that was just 12 percent of farms, but two short years later 27 percent had more than one.

So where do farmers go from here? Well, Monsanto and its peers would like them to try out “next generation” herbicide-resistant seeds—that is, crops engineered to resist not just Roundup, but also other, more toxic herbicides, like 2,4-D and Dicamba. Trouble is, such an escalation in the chemical war on weeds will likely only lead to more prolific, and more super, superweeds, along with a sharp increase in herbicide use. That’s the message of a peer-reviewed 2011 paper by a team of Penn State University researchers led by David A. Mortensen. (I discussed their paper in a post last year.)

Advertise on MotherJones.com

And such novel seeds won’t be available in the 2013 growing season anyway. None have made it through the US Department of Agriculture‘s registration process. The USDA was widely expected to award final approval on Dow’s 2,4-D/Roundup-resistant corn during the Christmas break, but didn’t. The agency hasn’t stated the reason it hasn’t decided on the product, known as Enlist, but the nondecision effectively delays its introduction until 2014 at the earliest, as Dow acknowledged last month. Reuters reporter Carey Gillam noted that the USDA’ delay comes amid “opposition from farmers, consumers and public health officials” to the new product, and that these opponents have “bombarded Dow and US regulators with an array of concerns” about it.

So industrial-scale corn and soy farmers will likely have to muddle along, responding in the same way that they have been for years, which is by upping their herbicide use in hopes of controlling the rogue weeds, as Washington State University‘s Charles Benbrook showed in a recent paper (my post on it here). That means significant economic losses for farmers—according to Penn State’s Mortensen, grappling with glyphosate resistance was already costing farmers nearly $1 billion per year in 2011. It will also likely mean a jump in toxic herbicides entering streams, messing with frogs and polluting people’s drinking water.

For a good idea of what’s in store, check out this piece in the trade mag Corn & Soy Digest on “Managing Herbicide-Resistant weeds.” Here’s the key bit—note that “burndown” means a complete flattening of all vegetation in a field with a broad-spectrum herbicide such as paraquat, an infamously toxic weed killer that’s been banned in 32 countries, including those of the European Union:

For those with a known resistance problem, it’s not uncommon to see them use a fall burndown plus a residual herbicide, a spring burndown before planting, another at planting including another residual herbicide, and two or more in-season herbicide applications. “If you can catch the resistant weeds early enough, paraquat does a good job of controlling them. But once Palmer amaranth [a common glyphosate-tolerant weed] gets 6 ft. tall, you can’t put on enough paraquat to kill it,” [one weed-control expert] says.

But of course there’s another way. In a 2012 study I’ll never tire of citing, Iowa State University researchers found that if farmers simply diversified their crop rotations, which typically consist of corn one year and soy the next, year after year, to include a “small grain” crop (e.g. oats) as well as offseason cover crops, weeds (including Roundup-resistant ones) can be suppressed with dramatically less fertilizer use—a factor of between 6 and 10 less. And much less herbicide means much less poison entering streams—”potential aquatic toxicity was 200 times less in the longer rotations” than in the regular corn-soy regime, the study authors note. So, despite what the seed giants and the conventional weed specialists insist, there are other ways to respond to the accelerating scourge of “superweeds” than throwing more—and ever-more toxic—chemicals at them.

via Nearly Half of All US Farms Now Have Superweeds | Mother Jones.

via Nearly Half of All US Farms Now Have Superweeds | Mother Jones.