With GM crops come herbicides, which breed resistant weeds.
This has happened in about a decade for the worse mutants.
We can reverse the problem by reversing the spraying,
using plowing, cultivation, and crop rotation instead.
Mark Jeschke wrote for Pioneer Dupont, Crop Insights: Weed Management in the Era of Glyphosate Resistance, Continue reading
We already knew Argentinian farmers were suing Monsanto about Roundup-induced birth defects, including cerebral palsy, down syndrome, psychomotor retardation, missing fingers, and blindness; we knew Roundup’s active ingredient glyphosate was “a risk factor for developing Non-Hodgkin lymphoma”; we knew that Roundup-ready corn causes liver and kidney damage in rats and chickens fed feed including Monsanto corn show abnormal gene expression, and we knew that Roundup-ready corn is toxic to humans. Add to all that: Roundup is a risk for Parkinson’s disease.
Sayer Ji wrote for GreenMediaInfo 18 April 2012, Roundup Herbicide Linked To Parkinson’s-Related Brain Damage,
Continue readingAlarming new research published in the journal Neurotoxicology and Teratology
supports the emerging connection between glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide, and neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and Parkinsonian disorders.
Published this month (April, 2012), the new study entitled “Glyphosate induced cell death through apoptotic and authophagic mechanisms,” investigated the potential brain-damaging effects of herbicides, which the authors stated “have been recognized as the main environmental factor associated with neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease.”1
They found that glyphosate inhibited the viability of differentiated test cells (PC12, adrenal medula derived), in both dose-and-time dependent manners. The researchers also found that “glyphosate induced cell death via authophagy pathways in addition to activating apoptotic pathways.”
Roundup herbicide is now a ubiquitous contaminant in our air, rain, groundwater, and food, making complete avoidance near impossible. A growing body of experimental evidence now indicates that it in addition to its neurotoxicity it also has the following.
Modes of Toxicity
Michelle Schoffro Cook wrote for care2 1 February 2012, Monsanto Wins Worst Company of 2011 Award,
The article gives plenty of reasons, and that was even before the recent hard evidence that both Monsanto’s GM corn and Monsanto’s Roundup are toxic to humans.Natural Society has awarded Monsanto the Worst Company of 2011 award for its ongoing work to threaten human health and the environment. Currently responsible for 90 percent of all genetically-modified (GM) seed in the US, the biotechnology giant is also the leader in developing genetically-modified (GM) seeds and the resulting crops worldwide. But Monsanto is perhaps best known for its herbicide Roundup, which many experts link to soil damage and herbicide-resistant superweeds, not to mention potential health problems.
Why do people keep growing that stuff around here and spraying Roundup on it?
-jsq
“We were very much surprised by our findings. Until now, itThe toxicity of the corn itself may have been a surprise, but not that of Roundup:has been thought almost impossible for Bt proteins to be toxic to human cells. Now further investigations have to be conducted to find out how these toxins impact the cells and if combinatorial effects with other compounds in the food and feed chain have to be taken into account,” says Gilles-Eric Séralini from the University of Caen, who supervised the experiments. “In conclusion, these experiments show that the risks of Bt toxins and of Roundup have been underestimated.”
These findings are in accordance with several other investigations highlighting unexpected health risks associated with glyphosate preparations.Previous studies, including ones by Dr. Séralini, already showed exposure to glysophate (the active ingredient in Roundup) to be “a risk factor for developing Non-Hodgkin lymphoma”, and to be toxic to human umbilical, placental, and placental cells with a that “is far below agricultural recommendations and corresponds to low levels of residues in food or feed.” In Argentina, Prof. Andrés Carrasco has demonstrated birth defects in amphibians and there is increasing evidence of human birth defects.
Regarding Monsanto’s GM corn itself, we already knew it causes liver and kidney damage in rats (later reverified using Monsanto’s own data), and chickens fed feed including Monsanto corn show abnormal gene expression.
Now we have even more hard evidence of the toxicity of Monsanto’s GM corn and of Monsanto’s Roundup. The journal article is available through Wiley online.
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Aleira Lara reported in Health Impact News Daily reported 5 March 2011 that Two Mexican states ban GM corn:
The timeline is a long saga including intimidation of scientists attempting to research the problem. The Mexican federal government caved in to big agro, but two Mexican states are fighting back anyway.The Mexican States of Tlaxcala and Michoacán each passed legislation banning the planting of genetically modified corn to protect natural plants from further contamination of transgenes. Together, both states produce about a third of all of Mexico’s corn. Below this story is a detailed timeline of genetic contamination and legislation in Mexico.
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Gilles-Eric Séralini and colleagues surveyed the state
of research and found
GMOs Linked to Organ Disruption in 19 Studies,
as Jeffrey Smith reports for the Institute for Responsible Technology.
…consuming genetically modified (GM) corn or soybeans leads to significant organ disruptions in rats and mice, particularly in livers and kidneys. …9% of the measured parameters, including blood and urine biochemistry, organ weights, and microscopic analyses (histopathology), were significantly disrupted in the GM-fed animals. The kidneys of males fared the worst, with 43.5% of all the changes. The liver of females followed, with 30.8%. The report, published in Environmental Sciences Europe on March 1, 2011, confirms that “several convergent data appear to indicate liver and kidney problems as end points of GMO diet effects.” The authors point out that livers and kidneys “are the major reactive organs” in cases of chronic food toxicity.And these were the corn and soybeans that people eat.
Here’s the study.
Why didn’t we know about this long ago? Continue reading
The promise of Roundup:
“No tilling, just seed, spray, and harvest.”Adriana Alvarez, who lives next door to an Argentinia GM soy field, says:
“They came from this side and sprayed the entire field. Here he turns, spraying all the time.”The farmer was wearing a mask. That’s more than no-till farmers around here do.
Interesting statistic that in Argentina
soy production increased
35-fold between
1996 and 2003
while Roundup use increased
56 times.
And eventually it doesn’t work at all, because it breeds resistant weeds.
In Georgia it took only ten years to produce
mutant pigweed
that not just Roundup but not even paraquat can kill.
Many farmers are realizing that
it’s cheaper, more effective, and more profitable to plow the weed under
in the fall and plant a winter cover crop.
Even mutant weeds are not resistant to cold steel.
The documentary points out many products in German stores that include GM soy. In Argentina, it’s even worse, with increasing numbers of birth defects.
They interview
Prof. Andrés Carrasco about his research on amphibians:
“The hemispheres do not separate, like you can see here. If you look closely you can see one brain. Glyphosate can cause this kind of mechanisms, for it is an enzymatic toxin.”
Monsanto refused an interview, responding in writing:
As Dr. Carrasco has been known to say:“Monsanto is convinced of the safety and usefullness of its products and its contribution to efficacious agriculture.”
“Son hipócritas, cipayos de las corporaciones, pero tienen miedo. Saben que no pueden tapar el sol con la mano.”“They are hypocrites, those corporate lackeys, but they are afraid. They know they can’t cover the sun with their hand.”
The documentarians interviewed
Gilles-Eric Seralini in Caen, France.
“To human cells glyphosate is already toxic in a very low dose. A farmer uses a much higher dose on the field. Roundup is even more toxic than glysophate, for that is only one of the ingredients in Roundup.”Roundup says none of this applies to humans and Roundup is safe. Seralini says:
“Transgenics are toxic for human health.”
This is the same Monsanto that
made Fox rewrite 80 times about RBGH in Florida cows.
The same Monsanto that
was convicted by the French Supreme Court of lying about leaving the soil clean.
The same Monsanto that
was fined $2.5 million by the U.S. EPA for
selling genetically modified cotton seeds without labeling them as such.
Who should you believe? A corporation repeatedly convicted of deception, or scientists who say that GM crops cause liver and kidney damage in animals, according to research using Monsanto’s own data.
The Roundup-spraying farmer said:
Roundup, mas algo! mas algo!It’s time to say:Roundup, more and more!
Ya basta!Enough already!
-jsq
PS: Credits to the German TV consumer series ‘plus minus’:
GM toxic soy in animal feed broadcast (© WDR) by Detlef Flintz and Mathias Rauck. Translation and highlighting provided by TraceConsult. Broadcast Tue, 08 Feb. 2011 | 9:50 PM.Bericht
D. Flintz
M. Rauck
Kamera
J. Fenske
C. Kültür
J. Midú
Schnitt
H. Bischoff
E. Elsner
Tom Philpott writes in Grist that
Industrial Ag Once Again Demanding a Free Pass to Crap in Your Backyard:
Industrial ag is admitting that it needs to trash its neighbors and the surrounding landscape to thrive. And it wants us to believe that there are no alternatives.His first example is Farm Bureau’s reaction to new EPA restraints on chicken farm factories around Chesapeake Bay, then he gets to Monsanto: Continue reading
Robert Langreth writes in Forbes that
Forbes Was Wrong On Monsanto. Really Wrong.
Forbes made Monsanto the company of the year last year in The Planet Versus Monsanto. I know because I wrote the article. Since then everything that could have gone wrong for the genetically engineered seed company….has gone wrong. Super-weeds that are resistant to its RoundUp weed killer are emerging, even as weed killer sales are being hit by cheap Chinese generics. An expensive new bioengineered corn seed with eight new genes does not look impressive in its first harvest. And the Justice Department is invesigating over antitrust issues. All this has led to massive share declines. Other publications are making fun of our cover story.Maybe Forbes should improve its “invesigating” [sic] skills.
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The first economic analysis of growing genetically modified crops on a wide scale has found that the biggest winners were the farmers who decided not to grow them.The article then tries to say they nonetheless benefited from genetic modification:The study, which looked at maize yields in the corn belt of the United States, found that farmers who continued to grow conventional crops actually earned more money over a 14-year period than those who cultivated GM varieties.
All farmers benefited from the significantly lower level of pests that came about after the introduction of GM maize to the US in 1996, but the conventional farmers who continued to cultivate non-GM varieties also benefited financially from not having to pay the extra costs of purchasing GM seeds.Um, what about not having to pay for the pesticides that go with the GM seeds? The study’s author admits they didn’t study that sort of thing:
The Telegraph spelled his name wrong. This appears to be the actual report:“Additionally, environmental benefits from corn borer suppression are likely occurring, such as less insecticide use, but these benefits have yet to be documented,” Dr Hutchinson said.
Areawide Suppression of European Corn Borer with Bt Maize Reaps Savings to Non-Bt Maize GrowersThe full text is behind a paywall, but the abstract concludes with:
W. D. Hutchison, E. C. Burkness, P. D. Mitchell, R. D. Moon, T. W. Leslie, S. J. Fleischer, M. Abrahamson, K. L. Hamilton, K. L. Steffey, M. E. Gray, R. L. Hellmich, L. V. Kaster, T. E. Hunt, R. J. Wright, K. Pecinovsky, T. L. Rabaey, B. R. Flood, and E. S. Raun (8 October 2010)
Science 330 (6001), 222. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1190242]
…and highlight economic incentives for growers to maintain non-Bt maize refugia for sustainable insect resistance management.So growing 98% of crops from GM seeds, as is the case in Georgia, is a bad idea.