Category Archives: Health

Indian Cost of Pesticides and Fertilizers

Akash Kapur writes in the New York Times about something rotten in the state of India:
By the late ’80s, the chemicals had started taking a toll. Mr. Govindan’s land dried up. Yields declined. Mr. Govindan said the quality of his crops did, too. In the old days, he told me, if you cooked too much rice for dinner you could keep it overnight and eat it the next day for breakfast. Now, rice from the fields around Molasur turned rotten overnight.

Other things had changed: labor was more expensive, the price of fertilizers and seeds had increased, and the overall cost of living had outstripped the rise in crop prices.

How bad is it?
The scientist M.S. Swaminathan, often referred to as the father of India’s green revolution, has spoken of a “disaster” in Indian agriculture. The sociologist Dipankar Gupta has written of “hollowed” villages.

According to a recent report in The Hindu newspaper, almost 200,000 farmers committed suicide between 1997 and 2009 — a national tragedy (although it is rarely treated as such) brought on by rising debt and the resulting economic and existential despair.

So is the Indian government being realistic about the problem?
Mr. Govindan wondered about something else, too. Farming had always seemed a special profession to him, with a vital, even noble, role in feeding the nation. He wondered why the country didn’t see it that way anymore. Just the previous night, he had watched Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on television, assuring the nation that it wouldn’t face food shortages. Mr. Govindan felt something didn’t add up. He pointed to the barren fields; he said you couldn’t even grow peanuts on them anymore. “I don’t understand,” he said, “Where is all the food supposed to come from?”
Well, if India follows the U.S. model, the food will come from a tiny number of agrobusinesses that will end up owning most of the land.

The World Inside Monsanto

In a review of the 2008 film, The World According to Monsanto,, Kimberley D. Mok remarks:
The film documents the beginnings of the company as a chemical start-up in the early 1900s, producing saccharin, caffeine and vanillin. As we watch Robin Google up unclassified documents and interview a bevy of officials, scientists and farmers, we see that today’s Monsanto is a giant multinational wielding its considerable financial, political and marketing clout to influence government officials, ruthlessly sue farmers using patent laws – all the while surreptitiously lobbying to keep their potentially toxic products unlabelled or falsely advertised.

Monsanto claims that their genetically modified seeds will solve the food crisis, especially in developing countries, where it will provide significant economic benefits, higher quality and better yield. Nevertheless, the film compellingly shows the unsettling possibilities of genetic contamination of conventional or local varieties of seeds by their genetically-engineered cousins, pointing to a horrific future where global plant biodiversity is nil and farmers are not able to grow anything but genetically contaminated food.

The future? Already Monsanto seeds grow 93% of soybeans and 80% of corn in the U.S. and people claim “we couldn’t do agriculture in Argentina” without RoundUp. The Biotechnology Industry Organization even claims that the popularity of herbicide-resistant crops showed their value outweighs any associated detriments.

Any associated detrimeents, such as birth defects or sickness in animals and humans.

Nevermind that organic farming yields are often better than with agrochemicals.

Surely the company that brought us DDT (banned by U.S. Congress 1972), Agent Orange (Agent Orange Act of 1991 makes U.S. veterans exposed to it eligible for treatment and compenstation), and PCBs (“CONFIDENTIAL: Read and Destroy”) wouldn’t soak the world in anything toxic?

Pesticides more valuable than “any associated detriments”?

Pesticide use is not just bad, it’s getting rapidly worse, according to Carey Gillam writing in Scientific American:
The rapid adoption by U.S. farmers of genetically engineered corn, soybeans and cotton has promoted increased use of pesticides, an epidemic of herbicide-resistant weeds and more chemical residues in foods, according to a report issued Tuesday by health and environmental protection groups.

The groups said research showed that herbicide use grew by 383 million pounds from 1996 to 2008, with 46 percent of the total increase occurring in 2007 and 2008.

The report was released by nonprofits The Organic Center (TOC), the Union for Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Center for Food Safety (CFS).

What’s the cause of this increased pesticide use?
The rise in herbicide use comes as U.S. farmers increasingly adopt corn, soy and cotton that have been engineered with traits that allow them to tolerate dousings of weed killer. The most popular of these are known as “Roundup Ready” for their ability to sustain treatments with Roundup herbicide and are developed and marketed by world seed industry leader Monsanto Co.

Monsanto rolled out the first biotech crop, Roundup Ready soybeans, in 1996.

Monsanto officials declined to comment on the report. But the Biotechnology Industry Organization, of which Monsanto is a member, said the popularity of herbicide-resistant crops showed their value outweighs any associated detriments.

Any associated detriments? Dead and mutated wildlife? Poisoned drinking water? Pesticides in school children? Cancer and asthma? Well, I suppose those are all economic externalities of no interest to the producers of these seeds and pesticides.

Graphs: HCFS and Obesity

Update 2012-08-30: old graph links decayed; replaced with other graphs of same data.
Almost as many obese as healthy weight adults in the U.S., and the rest are overweight. Something changed starting about 1980. Data source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2005) Health, United States, 2005. Graph source: Wikipedia Blue Cross Blue Shield, with this accompanying text:
While the percentage of the U.S. population considered overweight has been stable since 1960-62, the percentage considered obese has more than doubled.
What happened? Continue reading →

Monsanto made Fox rewrite 80 times about RBGH in Florida cows

Randy LoBasso wrote in philly2philly.com on 29 June 2009 that Fox News Wins Lawsuit To Misinform Public – Seriously:
Here’s the rundown: On August 18, 2000, journalist Jane Akre won $425,000 in a court ruling where she charged she was pressured by Fox News management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information.

The real information: she found out cows in Florida were being injected with RBGH, a drug designed to make cows produce milk – and, according to FDA-redacted studies, unintentionally designed to make human beings produce cancer.

Fox lawyers, under pressure by the Monsanto Corporation (who produced RBGH), rewrote her report over 80 times to make it compatible with the company’s requests. She and her husband, journalist Steve Wilson, refused to air the edited segment.

That wasn’t the end of it. An appelate court granted Fox a license to lie:

In February 2003, Fox appealed the decision and an appellate court and had it overturned. Fox lawyers argued it was their first amendment right to report false information. In a six-page written decision, the Court of Appeals decided the FCC’s position against news distortion is only a “policy,” not a “law, rule, or regulation.”
So Fox has legally been able to continue to lie on behalf of Monsanto.

“We couldn’t do agriculture in Argentina”

Jude Webber and Hal Weitzman reported in The Financial Times on Argentina pressed to ban crop chemical:
A group of environmental lawyers has petitioned the Supreme Court to impose a six-month ban on the sale and use of glyphosate, which is the basis for many herbicides, including the US agribusiness giant Monsanto’s Roundup product.

A ban, if approved, would mean “we couldn’t do agriculture in Argentina”, said Guillermo Cal, executive director of CASAFE, Argentina’s association of fertiliser companies.

My, that’s rather apocalyptic!

And financially even worse:

Any ban on the use of glyphosate could have dire fiscal consequences: the already cash-strapped Argentine government relies heavily on tariffs levied on agricultural exports. It is expected to rake in some $5bn this year, although that is about half the previous year’s level after a longrunning conflict with farmers, a bitter drought and lower prices have slashed production of the country’s main cash crop, soya.
Or is it?
Mr Carrasco acknowledged there were “too many economic interests at stake” to ban glyphosate outright. But, he said, officials could start ring-fencing the problem by enforcing effective controls where crops are sprayed.
That would be a start. Working on other methods of weed and insect control would be even better.

The Financial Times does mention that there are Argentine studies that support Dr. Carrasco’s as-yet-unpublished study:

Research by other Argentine scientists and evidence from local campaigners has indicated a high incidence of birth defects and cancers in people living near crop-spraying areas. One study conducted by a doctor, Rodolfo Páramo, in the northern farming province of Santa Fé reported 12 malformations per 250 births, well above the normal rate.
Yet the Financial Times did not mention the numerous scientific studies in other countries that show similar results.

Monsanto is worldwide, after all.

Glysophate Effects on Humans: International Studies

Dr. Carrasco of Argentina isn’t alone, not worldwide. As Negin P. Martin, PH.D noted in June in Environmental Health News, studies in other countries show direct effects on humans:
For example, French scientists, Drs. Seralini and Benacour, have published a number of scientific papers about the harmful effects of Roundup and its ingredients on human embryonic and placental cells. A Swedish scientific team lead by Dr. Akerman published an epidemiological study disclosing that exposure to glyphosate is a risk factor for developing Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Dr. Busbee – an American scientist – demonstrated alterations in estrogen-regulated genes after exposure to dilute concentrations of glyphosate.
Nora Benachour and Gilles-Eric Sralini report in Chem. Res. Toxicol., 2009, 22 (1), pp 97–105 about Glyphosate Formulations Induce Apoptosis and Necrosis in Human Umbilical, Embryonic, and Placental Cells:
We have evaluated the toxicity of four glyphosate (G)-based herbicides in Roundup (R) formulations, from 105 times dilutions, on three different human cell types. This dilution level is far below agricultural recommendations and corresponds to low levels of residues in food or feed. The formulations have been compared to G alone and with its main metabolite AMPA or with one known adjuvant of R formulations, POEA. HUVEC primary neonate umbilical cord vein cells have been tested with 293 embryonic kidney and JEG3 placental cell lines. All R formulations cause total cell death within 24 h, through an inhibition of the mitochondrial succinate dehydrogenase activity, and necrosis, by release of cytosolic adenylate kinase measuring membrane damage.
And it gets even better:
The deleterious effects are not proportional to G concentrations but rather depend on the nature of the adjuvants. AMPA and POEA separately and synergistically damage cell membranes like R but at different concentrations. Their mixtures are generally even more harmful with G. In conclusion, the R adjuvants like POEA change human cell permeability and amplify toxicity induced already by G, through apoptosis and necrosis. The real threshold of G toxicity must take into account the presence of adjuvants but also G metabolism and time-amplified effects or bioaccumulation.
Glysophate makes other chemicals even more toxic, and remember Glysophate doesn’t break down rapidly and tends to accumulate in organisms. Organisms such as you and your children.

Glysophate (Monsanto’s RoundUp) Causes Birth Defects: Argentine Scientist

carrasco.jpg According to Americas Program Report:
A study released by an Argentine scientist earlier this year reports that glyphosate, patented by Monsanto under the name “Round Up,” causes birth defects when applied in doses much lower than what is commonly used in soy fields.

The study was directed by a leading embryologist, Dr. Andres Carrasco, a professor and researcher at the University of Buenos Aires. In his office in the nation’s top medical school, Dr. Carrasco shows me the results of the study, pulling out photos of birth defects in the embryos of frog amphibians exposed to glyphosate. The frog embryos grown in petri dishes in the photos looked like something from a futuristic horror film, creatures with visible defects—one eye the size of the head, spinal cord deformations, and kidneys that are not fully developed.

“We injected the amphibian embryo cells with glyphosate diluted to a concentration 1,500 times [less] than what is used commercially and we allowed the amphibians to grow in strictly controlled conditions.” Dr. Carrasco reports that the embryos survived from a fertilized egg state until the tadpole stage, but developed obvious defects which would compromise their ability to live in their normal habitats.

Why should Argentina care? Continue reading →

Enlisting the Health Industry Against Big Food

Michale Pollan points out that if we actually get health care reform that removes terms like “recission” and “pre-existing condition” from health insurers’ playbook so that they can’t exclude artificially unhealthy people from their insurance pool, something else will change:
The moment these new rules take effect, health insurance companies will promptly discover they have a powerful interest in reducing rates of obesity and chronic diseases linked to diet. A patient with Type 2 diabetes incurs additional health care costs of more than $6,600 a year; over a lifetime, that can come to more than $400,000. Insurers will quickly figure out that every case of Type 2 diabetes they can prevent adds $400,000 to their bottom line. Suddenly, every can of soda or Happy Meal or chicken nugget on a school lunch menu will look like a threat to future profits.

When health insurers can no longer evade much of the cost of treating the collateral damage of the American diet, the movement to reform the food system — everything from farm policy to food marketing and school lunches — will acquire a powerful and wealthy ally, something it hasn’t really ever had before.

AGRIBUSINESS dominates the agriculture committees of Congress, and has swatted away most efforts at reform. But what happens when the health insurance industry realizes that our system of farm subsidies makes junk food cheap, and fresh produce dear, and thus contributes to obesity and Type 2 diabetes? It will promptly get involved in the fight over the farm bill — which is to say, the industry will begin buying seats on those agriculture committees and demanding that the next bill be written with the interests of the public health more firmly in mind.

In the same way much of the health insurance industry threw its weight behind the campaign against smoking, we can expect it to support, and perhaps even help pay for, public education efforts like New York City’s bold new ad campaign against drinking soda.

High fructose corn syrup treated like nicotine: it could happen.

Monsanto Seed Prices: Up 43%

monsanto_hughgrant.jpg
Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant
Bloomberg news reports:
By Jack Kaskey

Aug. 13 (Bloomberg) — Monsanto Co., the world’s largest seed maker, plans to charge as much as 42 percent more for new genetically modified seeds next year than older offerings because they increase farmers’ output.

Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans will cost farmers an average of $74 an acre in 2010, and original Roundup Ready soybeans will cost $52 an acre, St. Louis-based Monsanto said today in presentations on its Web site. SmartStax corn seeds, developed with Dow Chemical Co., will cost $130 an acre, 17 percent more than the YieldGard triple-stack seeds they will replace.

That’s quite a price hike! Why are they doing this?
The new seed boosts yields 5 percent to 10 percent compared with other products, partly by reducing the amount of land that must be planted with conventional corn to 5 percent from 20 percent, Monsanto said.

“They are in essence splitting the value of the extra yield 50-50,” Gulley said by telephone.

It will be interesting to see if farmers really do get such improved yields. If not, there’s a simpler possible reason for the price hike: now that Monsanto has gotten pretty near every farmer locked in to using its seed, it’s exercising its monopoly power and raising prices to increase its profit.

Meanwhile, is Monsanto splitting the costs of all the dead birds, frogs, house pets, and ill humans caused by their chemicals? Or the costs of the epidemic of obesity caused by the high fructose corn syrup that their corn is used for? Ah, no. Those would be what Bloomberg would call economic externalites, which is to say other peoples’ problems. Monsanto gets the profits; the rest of us get the problems.

Hm, maybe somebody should investigate.

-jsq