Monday Moaning

Un-Earthed:

Is Monsanto’s Glyphosate Destroying The Soil?

The nation that destroys its soil, destroys itself. — Franklin Delano Roosevelt

In light of this quote, had Monsanto been around during Roosevelt’s time, he would not have taken too kindly to their business strategy. After all, in 2007, 176 million lbs of an extremely toxic herbicide known as glyphosate, (1) first created by Monsanto, was sprayed onto the soil (and everything standing between it) in this country, with untold environmental and human health fallout.

Untold, that is, until now…

Roundup (Glyphosate): The Science Vs. Marketing

2011 was a watershed year, as far as scientific revelations into the nature and extent of the damage associated with glyphosate-based herbicide usage and exposure is concerned.An accumulating bodyof peer-reviewed and published research now indicates glyphosate may be contributing to several dozen adverse health effects in exposed populations.And as we shall see, human exposure is as universal as is the contamination of our food, air, rain and groundwater with this now ubiquitous chemical.

Ever since Monsanto developed, marketed and patented the glyphosate molecule — Roundup (®) herbicide’s active ingredient — beginning in the early ’70s, a substantial and ever-growing portion of the earth’s arable surface has been transformed into an environmental and human health experiment, of unprecedented scale.

Non-industry funded human research on glyphosate exposure is only now being performed, and the preliminary picture being painted isn’t very pretty. Recent experimental research found that exceedingly small concentrations of glyphosate (450-fold lower than used in agricultural applications) induce DNA damage in human cells. Given these findings, it is likely that the widespread adoption of GM agriculture has and will continue to result in massive collateral health damage; the fallout of which we are only beginning to understand, and yet which we are all no doubt are already experiencing, mostly subclinically.

Source: Activist Post Read more

Opinion:

It is absolutely unbelievable that a company can ride rough shod over the people for so long.

Nothing matters, only profits.

When we read such disturbing comments as this from the article:

“Glyphosate is now contaminating vast subterranean stretches of groundwater in areas directly and indirectly exposed to the application of this agrichemical; a finding that runs contrary to manufacturer’s claims that glyphosate is readily “biodegradable” and even “makes the soil cleaner,” which it does not. Moreover, one 2011 study found glyphosate in 60-100% of all US air and rain samples tested”

The whole scenario is just plain scary… and plain wrong.