As a follow-up post on the recent article on whether we should worry about the use of Glyphosate aka roundup, and answer some of the readers’ questions, here’s another yet informative article on the 10 things you need to know about glyphosate.
If you haven’t read that article, find it here
If you have, let’s begin.
The Detox Project team has been researching information on glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides for over 10 years.
From their research, they believe there are 10 very important points that everyone needs to know about this widely used chemical:
1. Glyphosate is the World’s most used Herbicide.
A paper recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Sciences Europe states that 18.9 billion pounds (8.6 billion kilograms) of glyphosate have been used globally.
The herbicide’s use has risen almost 15-fold since the introduction of so-called “Roundup Ready” genetically engineered crops in the ’90s.
2. In 2015 the World Health Organization’s cancer agency IARC declared that glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen.
The world’s most widely-used weed killer can “probably” cause cancer, the World Health Organization said.
The WHO’s cancer arm, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), said glyphosate, the active ingredient in the Monsanto Co herbicide Roundup, was “classified as probably carcinogenic to humans”.
3. Glyphosate is found regularly in food and water.
Glyphosate-based formulations are the most widely sold and used pesticides globally.
Glyphosate is virtually everywhere in the food chain.
As a consequence, glyphosate is regularly detected in human urine.
At these levels and even below, several converging lines of research in laboratory animals suggest that glyphosate-based herbicides may be endocrine disruptors and alter liver and kidney function.
4. There is no safe level of glyphosate according to independent science.
Industry and regulators claim that we are only exposed to “safe” levels of glyphosate and Roundup that do not cause toxic effects.
Safety levels have been determined by toxicity tests on laboratory animals.
A growing body of evidence indicates that these tests are inadequate to determine the toxic effects of glyphosate and Roundup residues and that consumption of these residues may be a risk to health.
5. Glyphosate is probably a hormone hacker (endocrine disruptor) according to independent science.6.90 % of the soybeans and 70 % of the corn and cotton grown in the United States are glyphosate-tolerant GM crops.
Glyphosate and Roundup have been shown to be endocrine (hormone) disruptors in experiments.
Endocrine disruption in humans is thought to contribute to some cancers, birth defects, reproductive problems such as infertility, and developmental problems in fetuses, babies, and children.
7. Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide is the world’s top-selling weed killer. Its active ingredient is glyphosate.
Glyphosate is the best-selling herbicide in the world and all for the wrong reasons.
8. The global glyphosate herbicides market was valued at USD $ 5.46 billion in 2012 and is expected to reach USD $ 8.79 billion by 2019.
Monsanto Co., the world’s largest seed company, reported fiscal first-quarter earnings that topped analysts’ estimates on rising sales of engineered soybean seeds and Roundup herbicide.
Net income in the three months through November increased to $368 million, or 69 cents a share, from $339 million, or 63 cents, a year earlier, Monsanto reported in a statement.
Profit excluding a discontinued business was 67 cents, beating the 64-cent average of 17 estimates compiled by Bloomberg. In the same report, revenue rose 6.9 percent to $3.14 billion, topping the $3.07 billion average of 15 estimates.
9. Glyphosate-tolerant GM crops represent more than 80% of the 120 million hectares of GM crops grown annually worldwide.
Glyphosate-resistant (GR) crops represent more than 80% of the 120 million ha of transgenic crops grown annually worldwide.
GR crops have been rapidly adopted in soybean, maize, cotton, canola, and sugar beet in large part because of the economic advantage of the technology, as well as the simple and superior weed control that glyphosate delivers.
10. Glyphosate is patented as an Antibiotic and a Chelating Agent.
Glyphosate was first patented as a chelator in 1964 by Stauffer Chemical Co. It was patented by Monsanto and introduced as an herbicide in 1974.
According to Dr. Huber, an award-winning scientist and professor emeritus of plant pathology at Purdue University for the past 35 years, “It’s important to realize that glyphosate is not ‘just’ an herbicide. It was first patented as a mineral chelator.
It immobilizes nutrients, so they’re not physiologically available for your body.” He says Glyphosate is also patented as an antibiotic: “When you take the good bacteria out, then the bad bacteria fill that void because there aren’t any voids in nature.
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Now that you know some more facts about Roundup it’s upon you to decide whether you’ll continue using it on your farm or otherwise.
It’s also upon you to decide whether this herbicide represents any harm to your health or your environment.
As always mine is to inform you and yours is to make a choice. I’ve done my part, have you? You’re free to leave a comment.
Original post published on detoxproject.org