Barbara H. Peterson
It appears that either the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in collusion with Monsanto, the producer and seller of the world’s most highly used herbicide, Roundup, or is staffed with people who don’t know how to read or correlate information at the most basic level.
Do you wonder why worldwide disease rates have skyrocketed since the introduction and widespread use of Roundup, Monsanto’s proprietary solution to the weed problem? Roundup is a Glyphosate formulation, designed to kill every plant but the genetically engineered ones that have been created in a lab to be resistant to it.
But is that all this herbicide kills?
According to a report titled GE Crops, Glyphosate, and the Deterioration of Health in the US by Nancy L. Swanson, Andre Leu, Jon Abrahamson, and Bradley Wallet, published in the Journal of Organic Systems in 2014, which corroborated the work of Samsel and Seneff,
A huge increase in the incidence and prevalence of chronic diseases has been reported in the United States (US) over the last 20 years. Similar increases have been seen globally. The herbicide glyphosate was introduced in 1974 and its use is accelerating with the advent of herbicide-tolerant genetically engineered (GE) crops. Evidence is mounting that glyphosate interferes with many metabolic processes in plants and animals and glyphosate residues have been detected in both. Glyphosate disrupts the endocrine system and the balance of gut bacteria, it damages DNA and is a driver of mutations that lead to cancer.
Yet, despite this alarming correlation, Monsanto and the EPA claim that Roundup/Glyphosate is perfectly safe for use in our food supply, water supply, to be sprayed near our schools, all over our skies, and on every bit of soil that grows genetically engineered crops, as well as anywhere that we want to kill living plants.
According to a review paper compiled by Rosemary Mason, MB ChB FRCA, titled Glyphosate: Destructor of Human Health and Biodiversity,
Glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide, is destroying human and animal health as a result of disruption of gut bacteria. Two key problems caused by glyphosate in the diet are nutritional deficiencies, especially minerals and essential amino-acids, and systemic toxicity.
The information in this paper regarding Glyphosate’s effects on gut bacteria, nutrient deficiencies, and vitamins and amino acids, endocrine disruption and the impact on enzymes originated from the research conducted by Samsel and Seneff.
And yet, increased usage continues. Charles M. Benbrook documented Glyphosate usage worldwide in his paper titled Trends in glyphosate herbicide use in the United States and globally, in which he states,
Total worldwide glyphosate use (agricultural plus non-agricultural) rose more than 12-fold from about 67 million kg in 1995 to 826 million kg in 2014.
That’s a whole lotta Glyphosate, folks.
Yet, there are those who claim that correlation is not causation, and with that this writer can agree. Unless correlation becomes increasingly concentric, and a common denominator emerges. And that common denominator is becoming clearer by the minute: Glyphosate-based herbicides, which are known by the trade name of Roundup.
With this information in hand, the next question we must ask is: Is what the EPA approved as “safe” in its Assessment of Ecological Risk the same product that is being sold across the counter of just about every store dealing in herbicides in the country and in most parts of the world? The answer to that million dollar question is a resounding NO!
To put it bluntly, what Monsanto is selling and what the EPA approved as safe are two different things. This information is right under our noses, but since the products using this toxic formulation are declared “safe” by authorities, most of us don’t even look any closer or question the “science” behind the label. We just see an unsightly weed, grab a bottle and start spraying. We depend on the EPA to do our thinking for us. When will we learn? Maybe when the diseases hit home and the correlation begins to get real.
Glyphosate chronic long-term safety studies are a sham.
Research Scientist Anthony Samsel has discovered that the chronic long-term safety studies on Glyphosate that Monsanto submitted to regulators across the globe to show that the product is safe are for a different form of Glyphosate than is used in the products that the company sells.
The substance used for testing purposes is called Technical Glyphosate Acid, or N-Phophonomethyl glycine. Yet, the salts and esters of Glyphosate i.e. Potassium Glyphosate, Ammonium Glyphosate and Isopropylamine Glyphosate are the three substances currently used in all Monsanto Glyphosate-based products.
According to Samsel (personal communication, Jan. 24, 2016):
There are no chronic long-term studies on these three chemical salts and ester of GLYPHOSATE. All approvals were based on the Glyphosate Technical acid form, there is a big difference. These salts are far more effective biologically than Glyphosate Technical acid form. They do more damage even without the surfactants and adjuvants because it is actually the salts and esters of Glyphosate that are responsible for the damage to biology stemming from its behavior in the universal solvent, water.
For example, according to the EPA’s Assessment of Ecological Risk for Glyphosate Potassium Salt, the actual product was not tested. What was tested was Technical Glyphosate Acid, a less toxic substance.
From the EPA document:
PIC 1 Document Header
As you can clearly see, this assessment is for Glyphosate Potassium Salt. Later on in the document it clearly states that the testing ingredient was not Glyphosate Potassium Salt, but Technical Glyphosate Acid. The agency is considering them to be the same thing for testing purposes.
PIC 2 Technical Glyphosate Tested
This is no technical error. It is deliberate, as is apparent in the following section of the document.
PIC 3 No Difference
And the results? Based on the tests conducted on Technical Glyphosate Acid only, Glyphosate Potassium Salt is deemed at “low concern for risk to estuarine/aquatic species following chronic exposure.”
PIC 4 Low Concern for Risk
This type of chicanery is unacceptable. If I was to advertise goat milk for sale and when the customer gets to my ranch to purchase it I hand him a container filled with goat urine labeled “goat milk” instead, I would be drawn and quartered for false advertising, attempted poisoning, and run out of town on a rail. If Monsanto does the same thing, the company gets rich because the EPA has put its seal of approval on the whole bait and switch caper. And you cannot tell me that someone at Monsanto or in the EPA does not know the difference between Glyphosate Technical Acid and Glyphosate Potassium Salt.
As Samsel states (personal communication, Jan. 24, 2016):
It’s like Monsanto getting the approvals for table salt, sodium chloride, to be used on food and then going back to the EPA and saying – Oh BTW, we have another salt of sodium we want to register, and the EPA lets them use the same testing that they used for sodium chloride. However, the new salt is SODIUM CYANIDE and a lot of people are now dying !!!!!
No, this is not Sodium Cyanide, but the relevance is clear. You cannot test for one substance and use the results of that test for another substance to show safety. It is unethical, an abuse of power, and puts the people relying on the accuracy of a government agency to protect its health at risk. It also puts into question each and every test the agency has performed on each and every substance that it has declared as “safe.” If this is happening with Roundup, what else is it happening with?
And the bottom line is: Knowing this information, can we trust anything that the EPA has approved as “safe?”
©2016 Barbara H. Peterson
Tags: bait and switch, Barbara H. Peterson, epa, fabricated safety data, falsification, Farm Wars, farmwars, glyphosate, monsanto, roundup, safety assessment
when we seek to deceive for financial gain,at the expense of others, to the extent of bodily harm and death, they should be sent to jail for a really long tine. progress is not just for single anything, it is for all at the same time as a benefit of the whole human race.
Monsanto took a page out of the fluoridation handbook with this, which started with Calcium Fluoride found in nature, tested pharmaceutical grade Sodium Fluoride in controlled doses (and fudged the data), and then used industrial Hydrofluosilicic Acid which was the waste product of industry polluters.
Regardless, poison is poison. Glyphosate, like fluoride, is an endocrine disruptor, to boot. No one should be consuming either. However, paychecks and professional reputations depend on the peddling of poison, so the EPA, FDA, USDA and CDC promote policy rather than the uphold the principles of public health and disease prevention.
I can attest to the health changes. Since I have stopped eating food-like products soaked in glyphosate and/or had their genes spliced and diced in a laboratory, my health has seen a dramatic change for the better. When you stop eating the poison, it is amazing what changes take place! I’d much rather spend an extra few dollars on clean food than on big pharma meds to try and cure what the poor food choices I made caused. ‘Ain’t happening anymore. Poison is poison, and I choose not to ingest it.
Thank you for having the courage to speak out on the dangers of glyphosate and the false premise on which glyphosate formulations were approved. People need to wake up and realize that they are being chronically poisoned by glyphosate. I hope that more and more people will start shopping for only USDA certified organic foods or buy foods from a farmer they trust who does not use glyphosate to control weeds or to desiccate the plants at harvest. The extra money you spend on food you will more than recover on health care costs that are averted, and you will have a lot more energy and a lot less pain to be able to experience a joyful and productive life.