[pjnews] New evidence of dangers of Roundup weedkiller
Info about subscribing or unsubscribing from this list is at the bottom of this message. see also: http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/service185.htm http://www.biosafety-info.net/article.php?aid=267 New evidence of dangers of Roundup weedkiller Source: Third World Resurgence No. 176 Apr 2005 Publication date: April 01, 2005 New studies show that Roundup, one of the most common herbicides used worldwide for crops and backyard gardens, can have harmful health effects. This has major consequences as the bulk of commercially planted GM crops are designed to tolerate Roundup with its active ingredient, glyphosate, and independent field data already shows a trend of increasing use of the herbicide. Chee Yoke Heong NEW studies from both sides of the Atlantic reveal that Roundup, the most widely used weedkiller in the world, can be harmful. The stakes are high because more than 75% of genetically modified (GM) crops worldwide are engineered to tolerate glyphosate, with Monsanto's Roundup brand holding the biggest market share. The use of Roundup has gone up especially in countries growing Roundup-tolerant GM crops engineered by Monsanto, who also produces the herbicide. It eliminates all other plants except the GM crops that are genetically engineered to be tolerant to it. Although the Roundup patent expired in September 2000, Monsanto is able to keep a captive and growing market for its weedkiller because the crops concerned are engineered to tolerate only Roundup. Roundup with its active ingredient glyphosate has long been promoted as safe for humans and the environment while effective in killing weeds. It is a combination of glyphosate with other chemicals including a surfactant (detergent) polyethoxylated tallowamine that enhances the spreading of the spray droplets on the leaves of plants. However, two recent studies show that Roundup, which is used by farmers and others including home gardeners, is not as safe as its promoters claim. This has major consequences as the bulk of commercially planted GM crops are designed to tolerate glyphosate (and especially Roundup), and independent field data already shows a trend of increasing use of the herbicide. This goes against industry claims that herbicide use will drop and that these plants will thus be more 'environment-friendly'. Now we find that there are serious health effects, too. Roundup threatens human health A group of scientists led by biochemist Professor Gilles-Eric Seralini from the University of Caen in France found that human placental cells are very sensitive to Roundup at concentrations lower than that in agricultural use. The findings were published in a US journal, Environmental Health Perspectives, in March. According to French publication Le Monde, Seralini, as a member for years of the French Commission on Biomolecular Genetics (CBG), responsible for preparing the files for requests for field studies, then GMO (genetically modified organism) commercialisation, 'ceaselessly demands more intense studies on their eventual health impact'. An epidemiological study in the Ontario farming populations showed that glyphosate exposure nearly doubled the risk of late spontaneous abortions, and Seralini and his research team decided to find out more about the effects of the herbicide on cells from the human placenta. The French team used human placental cell lines, in which very weak doses of glyphosate showed toxic effects and, at still weaker concentrations, endocrinal disturbances. The study thus showed that glyphosate is toxic to human placental cells, killing a large proportion of them after 18 hours of exposure at concentrations below that in agricultural use. This, they suggest, could explain the high levels of premature births and miscarriages observed among women farmers in the US using glyphosate. They warn that since glyphosate is used worldwide, its residues may thus enter the food chain, and glyphosate is found as a contaminant in rivers. While Roundup and similar products were originally used against weeds, 'they have become a food product, since they are used on GMOs, which can absorb them without dying,' Seralini told Le Monde. The scientists also compared the toxic effects of Roundup (the most common commercial formulation of glyphosate and chemical additives) and glyphosate (the active ingredient) by itself. They found that the toxic effect increases in the presence of Roundup 'adjuvants' or additives. These additives thus have a 'facilitating' role, with the result that Roundup is always more toxic than its active ingredient, glyphosate, at least by two-fold. The toxic effect also increased with time, and was obtained with concentrations of Roundup 10 times lower than in agricultural use. They concluded that the harmful effects of Roundup (the combination of chemicals) and not only glyphosate (the active ingredient) can be observed in mammals. Seralini is calling for extended animal studies.
[pjnews] The dictator defense
Info about subscribing or unsubscribing from this list is at the bottom of this message. http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/02/10/dictator/ The dictator defense Bush's attorney general won't dare explain the real basis for warrantless spying on Americans: Pure, unbridled executive power. By David Cole Feb. 10, 2006 | The congressional inquiry into President Bush's authorizing the National Security Agency to wiretap Americans without warrants has now been locked away behind closed-door briefings. But if the public Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this week is any guide, the Senate and House intelligence committees can expect to get no help from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. He avoided far more questions than he answered in Monday's hearing. In one sense, Gonzales did a masterly job of defending Bush's position, by never acknowledging what he knows that position to be: an extraordinary claim to unchecked executive power. When asked about facts, Gonzales declined to answer, saying that he could not discuss the operational details of the program. (Except, of course, where selectively disclosing details made the program appear narrow and reasonable, in which case he disclosed them.) And when asked about the law, he repeatedly refused to answer any questions about the consequences of the administration's legal theory by insisting that the questions were hypothetical and did not concern this program. It was the perfect Catch-22: The senators couldn't ask him about the facts or the law. An exasperated Sen. Patrick Leahy, the committee's ranking Democrat, had it right when he remarked after yet another Gonzales dodge: Of course, I'm sorry, Mr. Attorney General, I forgot you can't answer any question that might be relevant to this. Most revealing was the attorney general's persistent refusal to address recurring questions on one essential point: Given Bush's brazen assertion of power, how far does his inherent authority as commander in chief extend? Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked whether this slippery slope would authorize the president to violate the prohibition on covert illegal propagandizing within the United States. The attorney general declined to answer. Sen. Lindsay Graham asked whether the president could override the ban on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, which Congress recently reaffirmed in the McCain Amendment. The attorney general again refused to answer. Sen. Edward Kennedy asked whether the president could open domestic first-class mail; Sen. Charles Schumer asked whether Bush could order warrantless searches of Americans' homes; and several senators asked about the wiretapping of wholly domestic calls. Each inquiry met with the same essential response: It's hard to answer a hypothetical question. Of course, as every lawyer knows, being a lawyer means always asking -- and answering -- hypothetical questions. The only way to assess whether a legal theory makes sense is to test how it would govern a variety of hypothetical scenarios. That is the premise of the Socratic method, employed in every law school in the country. And that is how legal arguments in court are conducted every day. Surely the attorney general, the nation's top lawyer, knows that It's hypothetical is not a sufficient answer to a legal question. The reason Gonzales spent so much time dodging and weaving is not that he was unable to answer, but that he knows that a candid answer would have been politically unacceptable to the senators and to the American people. His honest answer to all of the foregoing questions would have been the same: Yes, the president could order warrantless searches of Americans' homes, the opening of mail, domestic wiretaps and torture -- because there are no limits on the president's powers as commander in chief to engage the enemy. That answer is not hypothetical -- it is found buried in the footnotes of a detailed 42-paged single-spaced legal memorandum provided to Congress in January. In that memo, which sought to defend the legality of the NSA surveillance program, the Justice Department argues that Congress may not in any way impede the president's executive authority to choose the means and methods of engaging the enemy. That theory knows few if any limits. The Justice Department argues that since electronic surveillance is a means and method of engaging the enemy, Congress cannot restrict it, even when it comes to spying on Americans without judicial approval, and even though Congress made such conduct a crime in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). In an infamous August 2002 memo on torture, the Justice Department advanced the same theory to argue that the president could order torture despite the existence of a criminal law and a ratified international treaty flatly prohibiting torture under all circumstances. The memo was withdrawn when it became public and jeopardized Gonzales' confirmation as attorney general, but the new memo that
