More on Roundup and Monsanto:
*Drugs war in Columbia - the true cost
*The true cost of the US's so-called "drugs war" in Columbia (see
Environment Health News 16 p13) is mounting. There have now been 4,000
human and 178,000 animal reported cases of serious skin, eye, respiratory
and digestive problems due to the mass spraying of Monsanto's Roundup and
Roundup Ultra herbicides.
[more]
http://www.ehn.clara.net/pesticides.html
*Monsanto
A brief introduction to the Monsanto Corporation*
Monsanto is a humanitarian's worst nightmare. A company who plays
the PR game so well that many of the people who consume their products
have never even heard of them, they were responsible for manufacturing
Agent Orange, the extremely toxic defoliant which the U.S. military
sprayed all over Vietnam (and consequently, also American GI's) in the
60s and 70's. Agent Orange, which contained large amounts of the deadly
chemical Dioxin, has now been banned worldwide and is still affecting the
Vietnamese people two generations later. It is also largely believed to
be the main cause for many of the illnesses associated with soldiers
returning home from Vietnam. From 1962 to 1970, the US military sprayed
72 million liters of herbicides, mostly Agent Orange, on over one million
Vietnamese civilians and over 100,000 U.S. troops. As a result, within
ten years of the close of the war, 9,170 veterans had filed claims for
disabilities caused by Agent Orange. The VA denied compensation to 7,709,
saying that a facial rash was the only disease associated with exposure.
In 2002, Vietnam requested assistance in dealing with the tens of
thousands of birth defects due to Agent Orange. In order to avoid medical
compensation expenses, Monsanto continues to claim this now banned
chemical is not toxic.
Monsanto's most commonly used product on the market today is glyphosate,
or "Roundup." It is a similarly deadly defoliant that is used to
eradicate "invasive" plants around telephone poles, on sidewalks and
farms all over the world and most commonly within the US. One of the
major consumers of Roundup is the United States military, who under the
guise of the "War on Drugs," sprays the defoliant from helicopters in and
around small villages in the sovereign country of Columbia in South
America, claiming to be targeting coca plantation. Coca is the mildly
stimulating plant which is the main ingredient in the production of
Cocaine Hydrochloride, commonly known by Americans as "Coke" or "Cocaine."
[more]
http://www.thehumanrevolution.org/monsanto.html
*/Keith Addison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>/* wrote:
>Date: Fri, 05 Aug 2005 18:23:57 GMT
>From: "Pesticide Action Network North America"
>Subject: PANUPS: Rethinking Roundup
>
>Rethinking Roundup
>August 5, 2005
>
>A recent study of Roundup presents new evidence that the
>glyphosate-based herbicide is far more toxic than the active
>ingredient alone. The study, published in the June 2005 issue of
>Environmental Health Perspectives, reports glyphosate toxicity to
>human placental cells within hours of exposure, at levels ten times
>lower than those found in agricultural use. The researchers also
>tested glyphosate and Roundup at lower concentrations for effects on
>sexual hormones, reporting effects at very low levels. This suggests
>that dilution with other ingredients in Roundup may, in fact,
>facilitate glyphosate's hormonal impacts.
>
>Roundup, produced by Monsanto, is a mixture of glyphosate and other
>chemicals (commonly referred to as "inerts") designed to increase
>the herbicide's penetration into the target and its toxic effect.
>Since inerts are not listed as "active ingredients" the U.S.
>Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)does not assess their health or
>environmental impacts, despite the fact that more than 300 chemicals
>on EPA's list of pesticide inert ingredients are or were once
>registered as pesticide active ingredients, and that inert
>ingredients often account for more than 50% of the pesticide product
>by volume.
>
>The evidence presented in the recent study is supported by earlier
>laboratory studies connecting glyphosate with reproductive harm,
>including damaged DNA in mice and abnormal chromosomes in human
>blood. Evidence from epidemiological studies has also linked
>exposure to the herbicide with increased risk of non-Hodgkin's
>lymphoma, and laboratory studies have now begun to hone in on the
>mechanism by which the chemical acts on cell division to cause
>cancer. A Canadian study has linked glyphosate exposure in the three
>months before conception with increased risk for miscarriage and a
>2002 study in Minnesota connected glyphosate exposure in farm
>families with increased incidence of attention deficit disorder.
>
>Studies have also documented glyphosate's toxicity to wildlife and
>especially to amphibians. Recently, studies conducted in small ponds
>with a variety of aquatic populations have presented evidence that
>levels of glyphosate currently applied can be highly lethal to many
>species of amphibians.
>
>Glyphosate is the world's most commonly used agricultural pesticide,
>and the second most-applied residential pesticide in the U.S. Recent
>evidence notwithstanding, glyphosate is considered less hazardous
>than other herbicides, an attitude that has increased the
>pesticide's use and desensitized policymakers to its impacts. The
>spraying program in Colombia to eradicate coca and opium poppy-the
>raw materials for cocaine and heroin-is one example. A mixture of
>glyphosate and several inerts has been sprayed aerially over more
>than 1.3 million acres of farm, range and forest lands in that
>biologically diverse nation for five years. The U.S. Drug Czar
>recently noted that despite the spraying, which is funded by the
>U.S. government, the number of hectares in coca production has
>remained essentially unchanged. A report on the impacts of the
>spraying produced for the Organization of American States has been
>sharply criticized by AIDA, an environmental organization, because
>the analysis failed to assess the impacts of deforestation resulting
>from movement of illicit crops into previously forested areas,
>adverse effects on endangered and endemic species, substantial
>collateral loss of food crops, livestock and fish, and human health
>effects. Authorization of next year's funding for the spray program
>is now underway in the U.S. Congress, where the Senate
>Appropriations Committee complained in a non-binding narrative
>report, "The Committee is increasingly concerned ... that the aerial
>eradication program is falling far short of predictions and that
>coca cultivation is shifting to new locations."
>
>The herbicide is used in forestry in North America to reduce
>grasses, shrubs and trees that compete with commercial timber trees.
>Glyphosate is also widely introduced into the environment and the
>human food chain through cultivation of transgenic, or genetically
>engineered crops that are tolerant to the herbicide and contain
>glyphosate residues. "Roundup Ready" crops have been responsible for
>increased use of the herbicide in recent years. Monsanto's sales of
>glyphosate have expanded approximately 20% each year through the
>1990s, accounting for 67% of the company's total sales as of 200l.
>EPA estimates glyphosate use in the U.S. is 103-113 million pounds
>annually.
>
>Sources: Sophie Richard, Safa Moslemi, Herbert Sipahutar, Nora
>Benachour, and Gilles-Eric Seralini, Environmental Health
>Perspectives, Vol. 113, No. 6 June 2005,
>http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2005
>/7728/7728.html; Glyphosate Herbicide Fact Sheet, Journal of
>Pesticide Reform, Winter 2004, Vol. 24, No. 4, Northwest Coalition
>for Alternatives to Pesticides NCAP,
>http://www.pesticide.org;
>Rethinking Plan Colombia, New Science on Roundup: Threats to Human
>Health land Wildlife, Las Lianas, June 2005,
>http://www.laslianas.org/Colombia/Rou
>ndupFactSheet--June2005.doc; Critical Omissions in the CICAD
>Environmental and Health Assessment of the Aerial Eradication
>Program in Colombia, Interamerican Association for Environmental
>Defense (AIDA); The Center for International Policy's Colombia
>program, Relevant Text from the Bills So Far, the 2006 Aid Request,
>http://ciponline.org/colombia/aid06.h
>tm#Senate; PANNA, Monsanto Corporate Fact Sheet; PANNA, Global
>Pesticide Campaigner, Inert Ingredients in Pesticides, Sept. 1998.
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