toxicity - pesticides, herbicides and insecticides - Blackherbals.com

Continued from page 24 - Weed Killer Glyphosate Found inHuman Urine across EuropeAt present, there are 14 new GM crops, designed forcultivation with glyphosate, awaiting approval to begrown in Europe. Should these additional crops beapproved, this would inevitably lead to a further increaseof glyphosate spraying in the EU.The full results of ‘Determination of Glyphosate residuesin human urine samples from 18 European countries’ byMedical Laboratory Bremen are available online.More detail of the samples used: Urine samples werecollected from volunteers in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria,Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Georgia,Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Macedonia, Malta, Poland,Spain, Switzerland, The Netherlands, and the UK. A totalof 80/182 samples tested were found to containglyphosate. Volunteers were all city-dwellers andincluded vegetarian and non-vegetarian diets. No twosamples were tested from the same household. Thesamples were analysed by Dr Hoppe at MedicalLaboratory Bremen in Germany.”However, according to Farmers Weekly magazine, UKscientists who reviewed the study said its findings were“unreliable.” The magazine quoted Alison Haughton,head of the pollination ecology group at RothamstedResearch, as saying: “This is not good science – I cannotfind where the methodology and results are published[note they are published here], and so it is impossible toassess the robustness of the work.”“If FoE and GM Freeze want their work to have scientificcredibility, and provide a genuine contribution to thedebate on pesticide residues, then they should submittheir work for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.”“As it stands, this press release is completelyinsubstantial, it is not scientific, and cannot be takenseriously by anyone.”And apparently Monsanto insists that glyphosate “doesnot pose any unacceptable risk to human health or theenvironment”. “It is not surprising to find glyphosate inurine should a person ingest food with low residues ofglyphosate. Glyphosate is not metabolized by the humanbody but excreted into the urine and faeces. This is awell-known aspect of glyphosate that contributes to itscomprehensive safety assessment,” Monsanto’sspokesperson told the magazine. “We always take anyallegation seriously and would like to know more,” headded.http://www.cornucopia.org/2013/06/weed-killer-glyphosatefound-in-human-urine-across-europe/☻☻☻☻☻☻25-- Traditional African Clinic July 2013GM MAIZE’S HEALTHEFFECTSSafety of Monsanto’s genetically engineered maizethrown into doubt.By Lim Li ChingNew results about the health impacts of the widely usedRoundup herbicide and the Roundup tolerant geneticallyengineered maize NK603 have been presented at aninternational scientific conference on biosafety inHyderabad, India.Agribusiness giant Monsanto manufactures theseproducts.The research, recently published in the journal Food andChemical Toxicology, demonstrated increased and morerapid mortality in rats, coupled with hormonal non-linearand sex-related effects. Females developed significantand numerous mammary tumours, pituitary and kidneyproblems. Males died mostly from severe chronicdeficiencies to the liver and kidney.The biosafety conference was organized by the EuropeanNetwork of Scientists for Social and EnvironmentalResponsibility, Third World Network and the TaraFoundation. The conference was held from 28-29September 2012 and was part of a series of activitiesorganized in conjunction with the sixth Conference of theParties serving as the Meeting of the Parties (COP-MOP6) to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. [TheCartagena Protocol on Biosafety is the only internationallaw regulating genetically modified organisms, or livingmodified organisms (LMOs) as they are known in theProtocol. The Protocol is a treaty under the Conventionon Biological Diversity.]The study was presented by Robin Mesnage, part of theteam at the University of Caen in France that carried outthe research. It was a long-term animal feeding trial ofgreater duration (spanning the average life-span of rats,two years) and with more detailed analyses than anyprevious studies to date.The research focused on Roundup, which is the mostwidely used herbicide in the world, and a crop geneticallyengineered to be tolerant to Roundup, NK603 maize. Themajority of genetically engineered crops available on themarket are engineered to be tolerant to Roundup, andRoundup residues are widespread on food and feed.Earlier studies had already demonstrated Rounduptoxicity on human cells, at levels far below agriculturaldilutions. These effects occurred on hepatic, embryonicContinued on page 26