toxicity - pesticides, herbicides and insecticides - Blackherbals.com

Continued from page 66 – Tanzania: Herbicide EffectsExtend Beyond Plantsplanet. The name of the herbicide used in Roundup isglyphosate. Let's look at glyphosate for a moment.It is described as a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide.It is a non-selective herbicide that ills grasses, broadleafed,and woody plants. Nonselective is a warningword here; non-selective means it can kill everythingaround it. Just by hearing that type of description, wecan be alerted that this kind of chemical is working at avery fundamental level.According to Iowa State University AgronomyDepartment, glyphosate inhibits a pathway (through theShikimate pathway enzyme) that is responsible formany things including biosynthesis of amino acids andbiosynthesis of many different plant compounds. Thechemical is readily absorbed through the foliage of aplant and accumulates in areas of active growth.Plants cannot metabolize or detoxify the chemical.Glyphosate inhibits protein synthesis. The plants stopgrowing and slowly degrade due to lack of proteins.The plant ultimately dies from dehydration anddesiccation.According to Dr Robert Kremer, microbiologist withthe USDA Agricultural Research Service, whoconducted a 15-year study on glyphosate's effects onplants and root microbiology, it also removes importanttrace minerals, "Glyphosate is a chelator, which willbind with elements such as manganese and calcium,and those sorts of nutrients, and immobilize them... Inother words, it will make them unavailable for plantuptake."A review of the toxilogical data on Roundup (Giesy,Solomon, Dombson, 2000) concluded that glyphosateproduces functional abnormalities in fetuses andpregnant rats. As well it interferes with testosteroneproduction in mouse cultures, and estrogen biosynthesisin cultures of human placental cells.There are great dangers to aquatic organisms especiallyamphibians. A study in 2010 (Paganell, Gnazzo,Acosta, Lpez, and Carrasco) incubated the embryos ofAfrican clawed frogs (a species often used in research)with a 1:5000 dilution of a commercial glyphosatesolution. They discovered found that glyphosate causedneural defects, and craniofacilal malformations;in addition, the frogs also suffered diminution of bodysize, alterations in brain morphology, reduction of theeyes, and many neural system abnormalities.These same horrifying basic abnormalities also occur-red in experiments with chicken embryos. There is noreason to think these types of things would not happen tohuman embryos - that is, babies in the womb. It isethically difficult to conduct research on such poisonsdirectly on human beings. But in Great Britain and theUnited States glyphosate incidents are the highest reportedof all pesticides. People experience skin irritation andgastrointestinal corrosive effects - mouth, throat.Kidney and liver impairment are frequent. In humanbeings Roundup - and its most active ingredientglyphosate - leads to rashes, nausea, headaches, and alsoto seizures, convulsions, and death. Ingestion of 85milliliters leads to "significant toxicity" even death in ahuman being. The United States and China are the leadingproducers of this broad-spectrum, nonspecific poison.Imagine... putting something like that out on the market.Imagine again...engineering basic crops so that more of itwill be used... It is almost beyond imagining, but there itis.http://allafrica.com/stories/201205130180.html☻☻☻☻☻South Africa: DevelopingGuidelines for 'Roundup' inSouth Africa23 January 2013By Alan AndersonPaul Kojo Mensah, a SSAWRN student at RhodesUniversity in South Africa, has tackled and completed aproject of great value and considerable complexity: testingthe effects of herbicide use on aquatic organisms in theEastern Cape region, and developing guidelines forherbicide use based on the responses of those organisms.Paul's interest in this topic grew out of his discovery thatthere were no such local guidelines in place, andconsiderable reason for concern, given the increasing useof herbicides by farmers, private land owners, publicagencies, and the flourishing wine industry.Paul, who was born in Ghana, has always dreamed ofusing his biological training to help protect theenvironment. When he was studying biology as anundergraduate at the University of Cape Coast in his homecountry, he hoped to move on to graduate school so thathe could become a marine biologist and a universityprofessor. After graduating with honors in 2001, however,he was unable to find sponsorship for his master's studieslikemost other science graduates in Africa. He had noContinued on page 6867-- Traditional African Clinic July 2013