Monsanto knew PCBs were toxic as it manufactured almost all of them,
much like Roundup now.
Monsanto drenched the town of Anniston, Alabama in PCBs and never told them.
Guess where that pipeline through Georgia from Alabama to Florida starts?
That’s right: Anniston, Alabama.
First, the company had been selling Roundup for years without any
problems. Second, and perhaps most important, the company’s
scientists had just spent more than a decade, and many millions of
dollars, trying to create the Roundup-resistant plants that they
desperately wanted — soybeans and cotton and corn. It had been
incredibly difficult. When I interviewed former Monsanto scientists
for my book on biotech crops, one of them called it the company’s
“Manhattan Project.”
Considering how hard it had been to create those crops, “the
thinking was, it would be really difficult for weeds to become
tolerant” to Roundup, says Rick Cole, who is now responsible for
Monsanto’s efforts to deal with the problem of resistant weeds.
So they thought small scale would be the same as saturating
90+% of every corn, soybean, peanut, and cotton field in the U.S.
and numerous other countries with virulent poisons.
Because they wanted the money.
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.
“We were very much surprised by our findings. Until now, it
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.”
The toxicity of the corn itself may have been a surprise,
but not that of Roundup:
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.
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.
Conventional farmers use chemical fertilizers made from fossil fuels.
Then they mess with the dirt to make the plants grow.
They do this because they’ve stripped the soil from all nutrients
from growing the same crop over and over again.
Next more harmful chemicals are sprayed on fruits and vegetables.
Like pesticides and herbicides to kill weeds and bugs.
When it rains, these chemicals seep into the ground,
or rise into our waterways, poisoning our water, too.
His personal goal:
A while back, I wanted to be an NFL footall player.
I decided I’d rather be an organic farmer instead.
[applause]
That way I can have a greater impact on the world.
He’s got a turn of phrase:
We can either pay the farmer, or we can pay the hospital.
Dr. Stanley Culpepper of UGA Tifton says 52 counties have the mutant pigweed.
He says they’re looking at cover crops and deep turning.
(You may know that as plowing.)
He hastily adds that they’re looking at other herbicides.
But he wraps up by saying we have to look at other methods
than herbicides: tillage and cover crops.
He frames it as diversity and integration.
What it really means is spraying poisons eventually
breeds weeds that refuse to be poisoned.
People, of course,
are not so lucky.
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.”
“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:
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.
Ever wonder why all the trees and shrubs die under the power lines? Company workers spray toxic chemicals on them.
Driving on GA 122 between Pavo and Barney and saw some electric company spraying going on. This fellow didn’t seem happy I was recording:
Note that this worker is unprotected from this poison. No eye covering, no mask. Spraying is a shame in many ways.
According to CDC
Toxicological Profile for Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs), November 2000,
“Approximately 99% of the PCBs used by U.S. industry were produced by the Monsanto Chemical Company in Sauget, Illinois, until production was stopped in August 1977.”
