Roundup Weedkiller Found In 75% of Air and Rain Samples,
Government Study Finds
By Sayer Ji
The GM
farming system has made exposure to Roundup herbicide a daily fact of our
existence, and according to the latest US Geological Survey study it's probably
in the air you are breathing...
A new study from the U.S. Geological Survey, accepted for publication online ahead of print in the journal Enviromental Toxicology and Chemistry, titled, "Pesticides in Mississippi air and rain: A comparison between 1995 and 2007,"[i] reveals that Roundup herbicide (aka glyphosate) and its still-toxic degradation byproduct AMPA were found in over 75% of the air and rain samples tested from Mississippi in 2007.
The researchers evaluated a wide range of pesticides currently being used through weekly composite air and rain sampling collected during the 1995 and 2007 growing seasons in the Mississippi Delta agricultural region.
The researchers discovered the following:
- Thirty-seven compounds were detected in the air or rain samples in 2007; 20 of these were present in both air and rain.
- Glyphosate was the predominant new herbicide detected in both air (86%) and rain (77%) in 2007, but were not measured in 1995.
- Decreased overall pesticide use in 2007 relative to 1995 generally resulted in decreased detection frequencies in air and rain, but observed concentration ranges were similar between years even though the 1995 sampling site was 500 m from active fields while the 2007 sampling site was within 3 m of a field.
- Mean concentration of detections were sometimes greater in 2007 than in 1995 but the median values were often lower.
- Seven compounds in 1995 and five in 2007 were detected in ≥50% of both air and rain samples. Atrazine, metolachlor, and propanil were detected in ≥50% of the air and rain samples in both years.
- Total herbicide flux in 2007 was slightly greater than in 1995, and was dominated by glyphosate.
Even though glyphosate was only tested in 2007, based on the 1995 figures on glyphosate use (147,000 kg state-wide) the researchers estimated that glyphosate added 3% of the total herbicide flux for 1995, or approximately 7 micrograms per centimeter (~7 μg/m2) per sample. This estimate, if correct, reveals that there has been an ~ 18 fold increase in glyphosate concentrations in air and water samples in only 12 years (1995-2007).
The researchers pointed out that, "the 2007 weekly air concentration pattern for glyphosate was similar to those of other commonly detected herbicides in both 1995 and 2007 in that the highest concentrations occurred in April and May. However, there were detectable concentrations of glyphosate over the entire growing season, which is consistent with how glyphosate is used on GM crops, including for post-emergent weed control throughout the growing season." The longer period of exposure adds to growing concern that this ubiquitous toxicant represents an unavoidable body burden and that even small daily environmental exposures may be causing significant harm through their cumulative and synergistic effects with other toxicants.
So, what is the toxicological significance of the discovery of glyphosate in most air samples tested? In the month of August, 2007, if you were breathing in the sampled air you would be inhaling approximately 2.5 nanograms of glyphosate per cubic meter of air. It has been estimated the average adult inhales approximately 388 cubic feet or 11 cubic meters of air per day, which would equal to 27.5 nanograms (billionths of a gram) of glyphosate a day.
Of course, when one considers the presence of dozens of other agrichemicals found alongside glyphosate in these samples, the interactions between them are incalculably complex and produce far more harm together than glyphosate alone (i.e. synergistic toxicity). Also, now that recent cell research has shown that glyphosate may act as an endocrine disrupter exhibiting estrogenic-like carcinogenicity within the part-per-trillion range, there is all the more reason to raise the red flag of the precautionary principle -- especially since inhaled toxicants evade the elaborate detoxification mechanisms of ingested toxicants which must pass through the microbiome, intestinal lining and liver before entering the blood and only a long time later the lung far downstream.
This study brings to the surface the extent to which GM farming has altered our daily exposure to chemicals, such that even the rain and air we now breath contains physiologically relevant levels of glyphosate 'fall out' from the war against any plant not part of the monocultured, genetically engineered system of production. With a significant body of research now available today showing that glyphosate and its components are far more toxic than believed at the time of its widespread approval, the implications of ubiquitous glyphosate exposure should be carefully considered.
Ultimately, findings like these reveal just how illusory is the perception of choice and health freedom when it comes to the GM/non-GMO debate, and the consumer's right to avoid harm from GMOs by refusing to buy or consume them. Not only are consumers in the U.S. not allowed to know what is in their food with accurate and truthful labeling of ingredients, we now know that biopollution from GMOs produces uncontrollable and irreversible changes in the genomes of affected organisms when their transgenes escape into them, and we know that even beyond their genomic/proteomic differences the contamination of GM foods with herbicides like Roundup (glyphosate) makes them non-substantially equivalent in chemical composition to their non-contaminated alternatives.
The reality is that the environment is becoming so saturated with the 'fall out' from the ever-expanding GM agricultural/agrichemical farming grid that even if you somehow find a way to avoid eating contaminated food, you will be forced to have to deal with its adverse health effects, as long as you need air to breath and water to drink. Ultimately, unless our food production system moves through its present chemical war-modeled phase of GM monoculturing, even non-GM food will end up being contaminated with these chemicals and transgenes, because nothing 'natural' lives in a vacuum - and if it does, then it really shouldn't be called "organic," and maybe shouldn't even be called food.
Glyphosate (Roundup) Carcinogenic In the PARTS PER TRILLION Range
An
alarming new study finds that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup
weedkiller, is estrogenic and drives breast cancer cell proliferation in the
parts-per-trillion range. Does this help explain the massive mammary tumors
that the only long term animal feeding study on Roundup and GM corn ever
performed recently found?
An alarming study, accepted for publication in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, indicates that glyphosate, the world's most widely used herbicide due to its widespread use in genetically engineered agriculture, is capable of driving estrogen receptor mediated breast cancer cell proliferation within the infinitesimal parts per trillion concentration range.[ii]
The study, titled, "Glyphosate induces human breast cancer cells growth via estrogen receptors," compared the effect of glyphosate on hormone-dependent and hormone-independent breast cancer cell lines, finding that glyphosate stimulates hormone-dependent cancer cell lines in what the study authors describe as "low and environmentally relevant concentrations."
The results were broken down by the researchers as follows:
- Glyphosate induces T47D, hormone dependent breast cancer cell growth.
- The proliferative effect of glyphosate is mediated via estrogen receptors.
- Glyphosate induces ERE [Estrogen Response Element]-transcription activity via estrogen receptors.
- Glyphosate modulates the expression of E[strogen] R[eceptor] α and E[estrogen] R[eceptor]β in human breast cancer cells.
"In this study, we found that glyphosate at a log interval concentration ranging from 10-12 to 10-6 M increased the cell proliferation of a hormorne dependent breast cancer T47D cell..."
The researchers also discovered that the naturally occurring phytoestrogen in soybean known as genistein, produced "an additive estrogenic effect" when combined with glyphosate, raising the serious question as to whether GMO soybeans are contributing to the epidemic levels of breast cancer within countries like the US where they are consumed in relatively high quantities.
It should be noted that the concentrations used to determine the interactive effects of glyphosate and phytoestrogen genistein in this study were modeled "as in a real world situation" by using information obtained from studies that assayed the respective levels of genistein and glyphosate in GM soybeans, as well as human plasma and urine concentrations following their consumption and/or exposure. For instance, glyphosate concentrations have been detected within human urine within the 0.1 - 233 parts per billion range on the lowest end, and an estimated systemic dose of 0.004 mg/kg on the high end.
The authors stated:
“This finding should raise concern about the existence of more than one xenoestrogen such as phytoestrogen and contaminants in plant derived food which may be beneficial or harmful depending on the hormonal and pathological status of consumers. This study implied that the additive effect of glyphosate and genistein in postmenopausal woman may induce cancer cell growth. In this present in vitro study, we showed an estrogenicity of pure glyphosate. In summary, we found that glyphosate exhibited a weaker estrogenic activity than estradiol. Furthermore, this study demonstrated the additive estrogenic effects of glyphosate and genistein which implied that the use of glyphosate-contaminated soybean products as dietary supplements may pose a risk of breast cancer because of their potential additive estrogenicity." [emphasis added]
This finding is relevant to virtually anyone who consumes genetically modified food today. GM crops, which are designed to survive glyphosate poisoning by being genetically engineered with 'glyphosate-resistance" (i.e. RoundUp Ready), are universally contaminated with glyphosate and its toxic metabolite AMPA. Furthermore, glyphosate pollution and exposure is now omnipresent, with one 2011 study finding glyphosate in 60-100% of all US air and rain samples tested, and another 2012 study finding that glyphosate widely contaminates groundwater, which is the water located beneath the ground surface, that supplies aquifers, wells and springs. It is therefore virtually impossible to hermetically seal yourself off from the growing global environmental threat by only consuming "certified organic" food. The time has come to face the fact that unless there is a systemic change in the way our GM, petrochemically-driven monocultured food production system operates, we will all experience a great deal of harm.
GM Food/Roundup Breast Cancer Link Already Firmly Established
This latest study is not
the only compelling evidence that there is a Roundup-Breast Cancer link. In a previous article
titled, "Will
the GMO-Breast Cancer Link Be Pinkwashed Away?", we addressed the
disturbing implications of the first long-term
GM and Roundup animal feeding study produced by Gilles-Éric Séralini's
research team last November, and which found that after 90 days (the temporal
threshold beneath which all previous biotech industry funded GM food safety
studies end) the animals began to show disturbing signs of systemic organ
damage, failure and cancer. More pointedly, Séralini's team observed that the
animals developed massive, estrogen-dependent mammary tumors:"Suffering inducing euthanasia and deaths corresponded mostly in females to the development of large mammary tumors. These appeared to be clearly related to the various treatments when compared to the control groups. These tumors are generally known to be mostly estrogen-dependent (Harvell et al., 2000). We observed a strikingly marked induction of mammary tumors by R[roundup] alone, a major formulated pesticide, even at the very lowest dose administered. R[oundup] has been shown to disrupt aromatase which synthesizes estrogens (Richard et al., 2005)... [pg. 9]"
Could the results of this latest study help explain the molecular mechanism behind this finding?
From Green Med Info @ http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roundup-weedkiller-found-75-air-and-rain-samples-gov-study-finds?page=off and http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roundup-weedkiller-found-75-air-and-rain-samples-gov-study-finds?page=2 and http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/breaking-glyphosate-roundup-carcinogenic-parts-trillion-range and http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/breaking-glyphosate-roundup-carcinogenic-parts-trillion-range?page=2
For more information about (the las)t Roundup see http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/roundup
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