Pollutants linked to diabetes in new study
Wed, Jun 29 2011
By Genevra Pittman
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People with higher levels of pesticides and other pollutants in their blood may be more likely to get type 2 diabetes, suggests a new study of elderly Swedes.
The findings add to a growing body of evidence that these chemicals might drive changes in the body that lead to diabetes, researchers say, although they don't prove that one causes the other.
Taken together, the data suggest that there is more to the blood sugar disease than eating too much and not getting enough exercise, said Dr. David Carpenter, head of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany in New York.
The pollutants, including pesticides and poly-chlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, are largely found in meat and fatty fish. Some of them, including PCBs -- once used in paint, plastics, and for electrical equipment manufacturing -- are heavily regulated and no longer used in many countries.
However, "the exposure to these chemicals in the general population still occurs because they have widely contaminated our food chain," study researcher Dr. Duk-Hee Lee, of Kyungpook National University in Daegu, South Korea, told Reuters Health in an email.
In the current study, Lee and colleagues sought to follow up on previous findings that had linked these chemicals with type 2 diabetes.
They recruited a group of 725 diabetes-free elderly adults in Sweden and took blood samples to measure their levels of the pollutants. Then, the researchers followed them for the next five years.
Thirty-six of the study participants were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes over that time. When Lee's team accounted for other diabetes risks such as weight, exercise, and smoking, people who had high levels of PCBs were up to nine times more likely to get diabetes than those with very low pollutant levels in their blood.
The link was smaller for some pesticides, while others weren't linked to diabetes at all, according to the findings, which are published in the journal Diabetes Care.
The authors note that the number of new diabetes cases was low, and the findings can't prove that PCBs or other pollutants cause diabetes.
But research suggesting that's the case is piling up, said Carpenter, who was not involved in the new study.
More than eight percent of the U.S. population has diabetes, according to the National Institutes of Health -- most of them type 2 diabetes.
Many studies have linked type 2 diabetes to overweight, lack of exercise and high blood pressure. In the new study, a big waistline was also a diabetes risk factor.
The authors speculate that long-term exposure to environmental pollutants could affect cells in the pancreas that secrete insulin, a hormone that regulates blood sugar.
It would make sense that heavier people are more at risk of diabetes, Carpenter added, because they're also probably eating more fatty meat and fish high in these chemicals -- and they have more fat themselves where these chemicals are stored.
While researchers try to clear up just which pollutants may be linked to diabetes and how, strategies for preventing diabetes don't change much, Carpenter said.
"I think the message isn't really so different as it was when we thought diabetes was only a lifestyle disease," he said. "It is important to reduce your consumption of animal fat," and to be aware of how much fatty fish you're eating.
Lee added that eating more vegetables and other plant-based foods, as well as exercising, can help the body get rid of these pollutants.
SOURCE: bit.ly/k9xRuK Diabetes Care, online June 23, 2011.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Nuclear Doom?
Nuclear Doom
June 17, 2011 After the first week, officials had enough information to call for evacuation of a wide area in Japan and also Hawaii, Alaska and the entire west coast of North America. They really should have evacuated all of northern Japan and also the west coast but that was almost as impossible as evacuating the entire planet or the entire northern hemisphere. . .
Full story: http://blog.imva.info/medicine/nuclear-doom
Nuclear Toxicity Syndrome
....is about how to survive in nuclear and chemical hell. But one cannot do what is necessary to survive hell if a person doesn't know they are living in one. It just keeps getting worse by the day and now we have Fort Calhoun nuclear plant outside Omaha, Nebraska on emergency alert as first fire and now flooding threatens to overwhelm yet another nuclear facility. Full story:
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/june172011/nebraska-nuclear.phpÂ
and:
http://www.eutimes.net/2011/06/us-orders-news-blackout-over-crippled-nebraska-nuclear-plant/
EPA Halted Extra Testing for Radiation From Japan Weeks Ago
Thursday 23 June 2011
Radiation is expected to continue spewing for months from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that suffered a meltdown following an earthquake and tsunami in March; despite grim reports from Japan, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has quietly stopped running extra tests for radioactive material in America's milk, rain and drinking water. . . Full story:
http://www.truth-out.org/epa-halted-extra-testing-radiation-japan-weeks-ago/1308835471
June 17, 2011 After the first week, officials had enough information to call for evacuation of a wide area in Japan and also Hawaii, Alaska and the entire west coast of North America. They really should have evacuated all of northern Japan and also the west coast but that was almost as impossible as evacuating the entire planet or the entire northern hemisphere. . .
Full story: http://blog.imva.info/medicine/nuclear-doom
Nuclear Toxicity Syndrome
....is about how to survive in nuclear and chemical hell. But one cannot do what is necessary to survive hell if a person doesn't know they are living in one. It just keeps getting worse by the day and now we have Fort Calhoun nuclear plant outside Omaha, Nebraska on emergency alert as first fire and now flooding threatens to overwhelm yet another nuclear facility. Full story:
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/june172011/nebraska-nuclear.phpÂ
and:
http://www.eutimes.net/2011/06/us-orders-news-blackout-over-crippled-nebraska-nuclear-plant/
EPA Halted Extra Testing for Radiation From Japan Weeks Ago
Thursday 23 June 2011
Radiation is expected to continue spewing for months from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that suffered a meltdown following an earthquake and tsunami in March; despite grim reports from Japan, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has quietly stopped running extra tests for radioactive material in America's milk, rain and drinking water. . . Full story:
http://www.truth-out.org/epa-halted-extra-testing-radiation-japan-weeks-ago/1308835471
Friday, June 24, 2011
Roundup: Birth Defects Caused By World's Top-Selling Weedkiller, Scientists Say.
Roundup: Birth Defects Caused By World's Top-Selling Weedkiller, Scientists Say
WASHINGTON -- The chemical at the heart of the planet’s most widely used herbicide -- Roundup weedkiller, used in farms and gardens across the U.S. -- is coming under more intense scrutiny following the release of a new report calling for a heightened regulatory response around its use.
Critics have argued for decades that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and other herbicides used around the globe, poses a serious threat to public health. Industry regulators, however, appear to have consistently overlooked their concerns.
A comprehensive review of existing data released this month by Earth Open Source, an organization that uses open-source collaboration to advance sustainable food production, suggests that industry regulators in Europe have known for years that glyphosate, originally introduced by American agricultural biotechnology giant Monsanto in 1976, causes birth defects in the embryos of laboratory animals.
Founded in 2009, Earth Open Source is a non-profit organisation incorporated in the U.K. but international in scope. Its three directors, specializing in business, technology and genetic engineering, work pro-bono along with a handful of young volunteers. Partnering with half a dozen international scientists and researchers, the group drew its conclusions in part from studies conducted in a number of locations, including Argentina, Brazil, France and the United States.
Earth Open Source’s study is only the latest report to question the safety of glyphosate, which is the top-ranked herbicide used in the United States. Exact figures are hard to come by because the U.S. Department of Agriculture stopped updating its pesticide use database in 2008. The EPA estimates that the agricultural market used 180 to 185 million pounds of glyphosate between 2006 and 2007, while the non-agricultural market used 8 to 11 million pounds between 2005 and 2007, according to its Pesticide Industry Sales & Usage Report for 2006-2007 published in February, 2011.
The Earth Open Source study also reports that by 1993 the herbicide industry, including Monsanto, knew that visceral anomalies such as dilation of the heart could occur in rabbits at low and medium-sized doses. The report further suggests that since 2002, regulators with the European Commission have known that glyphosate causes developmental malformations in lab animals.
Even so, the commission’s health and consumer division published a final review report of glyphosate in 2002 that approved its use in Europe for the next 10 years.
As recently as last year, the German Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BLV), a government agency conducting a review of glyphosate, told the European Commission that there was no evidence the compound causes birth defects, according to the report.
The agency reached that conclusion despite almost half a dozen industry studies that found glyphosate produced fetal malformations in lab animals, as well as an independent study from 2007 that found that Roundup induces adverse reproductive effects in the male offspring of a certain kinds of rats.
German regulators declined to respond in detail for this story because they say they only learned of the Earth Open Source report last week. The regulators emphasized that their findings were based on public research and literature.
Although the European Commission originally planned to review glyphosate in 2012, it decided late last year not to do so until 2015. And it won’t review the chemical under more stringent, up-to-date standards until 2030, according to the report.
The European Commission told HuffPost that it wouldn’t comment on whether it was already aware of studies demonstrating the toxicity of glyphosate in 2002. But it said the commission was aware of the Earth Open Source study and had discussed it with member states.
“Germany concluded that study does not change the current safety assessment of gylphosate,” a commission official told HuffPost in an email. “This view is shared by all other member states.”
John Fagan, a doctor of molecular and cell biology and biochemistry and one of the founders of Earth Open Source, acknowledged his group’s report offers no new laboratory research. Rather, he said the objective was for scientists to compile and evaluate the existing evidence and critique the regulatory response.
“We did not do the actual basic research ourselves,” said Fagan. “The purpose of this paper was to bring together and to critically evaluate all the evidence around the safety of glyphosate and we also considered how the regulators, particularly in Europe, have looked at that.”
For its part, Earth Open Source said that government approval of the ubiquitous herbicide has been rash and problematic.
"Our examination of the evidence leads us to the conclusion that the current approval of glyphosate and Roundup is deeply flawed and unreliable," wrote the report’s authors. "What is more, we have learned from experts familiar with pesticide assessments and approvals that the case of glyphosate is not unusual.
"They say that the approvals of numerous pesticides rest on data and risk assessments that are just as scientifically flawed, if not more so," the authors added. "This is all the more reason why the Commission must urgently review glyphosate and other pesticides according to the most rigorous and up-to-date standards."
Monsanto spokeswoman Janice Person said in a statement that the Earth Open Source report presents no new findings.
"Based on our initial review, the Earth Open Source report does not appear to contain any new health or toxicological evidence regarding glyphosate,” Person said.
“Regulatory authorities and independent experts around the world agree that glyphosate does not cause adverse reproductive effects in adult animals or birth defects in offspring of these adults exposed to glyphosate," she said, "even at doses far higher than relevant environmental or occupational exposures.”
While Roundup has been associated with deformities in a host of laboratory animals, its impact on humans remains unclear. One laboratory study done in France in 2005 found that Roundup and glyphosate caused the death of human placental cells and abnormal embryonic cells. Another study, conducted in 2009, found that Roundup caused total cell death in human umbilical, embryonic and placental cells within 24 hours. Yet researchers have conducted few follow-up studies.
“Obviously there’s a limit to what’s appropriate in terms of testing poison on humans,” said Jeffrey Smith, executive director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, which lobbies against genetically modified food. “But if you look at the line of converging evidence, it points to a serious problem. And if you look at the animal feeding studies with genetically modified Roundup ready crops, there’s a consistent theme of reproductive disorders, which we don’t know the cause for because follow-up studies have not been done.”
“More independent research is needed to evaluate the toxicity of Roundup and glyphosate,” he added, “and the evidence that has already accumulated is sufficient to raise a red flag.”
Authorities have criticized Monsanto in the past for soft-peddling Roundup. In 1996 New York State's Attorney General sued Monsanto for describing Roundup as "environmentally friendly" and "safe as table salt." Monsanto, while not admitting any wrongdoing, agreed to stop using the terms for promotional purposes and paid New York state $250,000 to settle the suit.
Regulators in the United States have said they are aware of the concerns surrounding glyphosate. The Environmental Protection Agency, which is required to reassess the safety and effectiveness all pesticides on a 15-year cycle through a process called registration review, is currently examining the compound.
“EPA initiated registration review of glyphosate in July 2009,” the EPA told HuffPost in a written statement. “EPA will determine if our previous assessments of this chemical need to be revised based on the results of this review. EPA issued a notice to the company [Monsanto] to submit human health and ecotoxicity data in September 2010.”
The EPA said it will also review a “wide range of information and data from other independent researchers” including Earth Open Source.
The agency's Office of Pesticide Programs is in charge of the review and has set a deadline of 2015 for determining if registration modifications need to be made or if the herbicide should continue to be sold at all.
Though skirmishes over the regulation of glyphosate are playing out at agencies across the U.S. and around the world, Argentina is at the forefront of the battle.
THE ARGENTINE MODEL
The new report, "Roundup and birth defects: Is the public being kept in the dark?" comes years after Argentine scientists and residents targeted glyphosate, arguing that it caused health problems and environmental damage.
Farmers and others in Argentina used the weedkiller primarily on genetically modified Roundup Ready soy, which covers nearly 50 million acres, or half of the country's cultivated land area. In 2009 farmers sprayed that acreage with an estimated 200 million liters of glyphosate.
The Argentine government helped pull the country out of a recession in the 1990s in part by promoting genetically modified soy. Though it was something of a miracle for poor farmers, several years after the first big harvests residents near where the soy cop grew began reporting health problems, including high rates of birth defects and cancers, as well as the losses of crops and livestock as the herbicide spray drifted across the countryside.
Such reports gained further traction after an Argentine government scientist, Andres Carrasco conducted a study, "Glyphosate-Based Herbicides Produce Teratogenic Effects on Vertebrates by Impairing Retinoic Acid Signaling" in 2009.
The study, published in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology in 2010, found that glyphosate causes malformations in frog and chicken embryos at doses far lower than those used in agricultural spraying. It also found that malformations caused in frog and chicken embryos by Roundup and its active ingredient glyphosate were similar to human birth defects found in genetically modified soy-producing regions.
"The findings in the lab are compatible with malformations observed in humans exposed to glyphosate during pregnancy," wrote Carrasco, director of the Laboratory of Molecular Embryology at the University of Buenos Aires. "I suspect the toxicity classification of glyphosate is too low.”
“In some cases this can be a powerful poison," he concluded.
Argentina has not made any federal reforms based on this research and has not discussed the research publicly, Carrasco told HuffPost, except to mount a "close defense of Monsanto and it partners."
The Ministry of Science and Technology has moved to distance the government from the study, telling media at the time the study was not commissioned by the government and had not been reviewed by scientific peers.
Ignacio Duelo, spokesman for the the Ministry of Science and Technology’s National Council for Scientific and Technical Research [CONICET], told HuffPost in an statement that while Carrasco is one of its researchers, CONICET has not vouched for or assessed his work.
Duelo said that the Ministry of Science is examining Carrasco’s report as part of a study of the possible harmful effects of the glyphosate. Officials, he added, are as yet unable to “reach a definitive conclusion on the effects of glyphosate on human health, though more studies are recommended, as more data is necessary.”
REGIONAL BANS
After Carrasco announced his findings in 2009, the Defense Ministry banned planting of genetically modified glyphosate-resistant soy on lands it rents to farmers, and a group of environmental lawyers petitioned the Supreme Court of Argentina to implement a national ban on the use of glyphosate, including Monsanto's Roundup product. But the ban was never adopted.
"A ban, if approved, would mean we couldn't do agriculture in Argentina," said Guillermo Cal, executive director of CASAFE, Argentina's association of fertilizer companies, in a statement at the time.
In March 2010, a regional court in Argentina's Santa Fe province banned the spraying of glyphosate and other herbicides near populated areas. A month later, the provincial government of Chaco province issued a report on health statistics from La Leonesa. The report, which was carried in the leftist Argentinian newspaper Página 12, showed that from 2000 to 2009, following the expansion of genetically-modified soy and rice crops in the region, the childhood cancer rate tripled in La Leonesa and the rate of birth defects increased nearly fourfold over the entire province.
MORE QUESTIONS
Back in the United States, Don Huber, an emeritus professor of plant pathology at Purdue University, found that genetically-modified crops used in conjunction with Roundup contain a bacteria that may cause animal miscarriages.
After studying the bacteria, Huber wrote Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in February warning that the "pathogen appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and probably human beings."
The bacteria is particularly prevalent in corn and soybean crops stricken by disease, according to Huber, who asked Vilsack to stop deregulating Roundup Ready crops. Critics such as Huber are particularly wary of those crops because scientists have genetically altered them to be immune to Roundup -- and thus allow farmers to spray the herbicide liberally onto a field, killing weeds but allowing the crop itself to continue growing.
Monsanto is not the only company making glyphosate. China sells glyphosate to Argentina at a very low price, Carrasco said, and there are more than one hundred commercial formulations in the market. But Monsanto’s Roundup has the longest list of critics, in part because it dominates the market.
The growth in adoption of genetically modified crops has exploded since their introduction in 1996. According to Monsanto, an estimated 89 percent of domestic soybean crops were Roundup Ready in 2010, and as of 2010, there were 77.4 million acres of Roundup Ready soybeans planted, according to the Department of Agriculture.
In his letter to the Agriculture Department, Huber also commented on the herbicide, saying that the bacteria that he’s concerned about appears to be connected to use of glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup.
"It is well-documented that glyphosate promotes soil pathogens and is already implicated with the increase of more than 40 plant diseases; it dismantles plant defenses by chelating vital nutrients; and it reduces the bioavailability of nutrients in feed, which in turn can cause animal disorders," he wrote.
Huber said the Agriculture Department wrote him in early May and that he has had several contacts with the agency since then. But there’s little evidence that government officials have any intention of conducting the “multi-agency investigation” Huber requested.
Part of the problem may be that the USDA oversees genetically modified crops while the EPA watches herbicides, creating a potential regulatory loophole for products like Roundup, which relies on both to complete the system. When queried, USDA officials emphasized that they do not regulate pesticides or herbicides and declined to comment publicly on Huber's letter.
A spokesman eventually conceded their scientists do study glyphosate. "USDA’s Agricultural Research Service’s research with glyphosate began shortly after the discovery of its herbicidal activity in the mid 1970s," said the USDA in a statement. "All of our research has been made public and much has gone through the traditional peer review process.”
While Huber acknowledged his research is far from conclusive, he said regulatory agencies must seek answers now. “There is much research that needs to be done yet,” he said. “But we can't afford to wait the three to five years for peer-reviewed papers.”
While Huber’s claims have roiled the agricultural world and the blogosphere alike, he has fueled skeptics by refusing to make his research public or identify his fellow researchers, who he claims could suffer substantial professional backlash from academic employers who received research funding from the biotechnology industry.
At Purdue University, six of Huber’s former colleagues pointedly distanced themselves from his findings, encouraging crop producers and agribusiness personnel “to speak with University Extension personnel before making changes in crop production practices that are based on sensationalist claims.”
Since it first introduced the chemical to the world in the 1970s, Monsanto has netted billions on its best-selling herbicide, though the company has faced stiffer competition since its patent expired in 2000 and it is reportedly working to revamp its strategy.
In a lengthy email, Person, the Monsanto spokeswoman, responded to critics, suggesting that the economic and environmental benefits of Roundup were being overlooked:
“
The authors of the report create an account of glyphosate toxicity from a selected set of scientific studies, while they ignored much of the comprehensive data establishing the safety of the product. Regulatory agencies around the world have concluded that glyphosate is not a reproductive toxin or teratogen (cause of birth defects) based on in-depth review of the comprehensive data sets available.
Earth Open Source authors take issue with the decision by the European Commission to place higher priority on reviewing other pesticide ingredients first under the new EU regulations, citing again the flawed studies as the rationale. While glyphosate and all other pesticide ingredients will be reviewed, the Commission has decided that glyphosate appropriately falls in a category that doesn’t warrant immediate attention.
“The data was there but the regulators were glossing over it and as a result it was accepted in ways that we consider really questionable,” he added.
CORNERING THE INDUSTRY?
Although the EPA has said it wants to evaluate more evidence of glyphosate's human health risk as part of a registration review program, the agency is not doing any studies of its own and is instead relying on outside data -- much of which comes from the agricultural chemicals industry it seeks to regulate.
"EPA ensures that each registered pesticide continues to meet the highest standards of safety to protect human health and the environment," the agency told HuffPost in a statement. "These standards have become stricter over the years as our ability to evaluate the potential effects of pesticides has increased. The Agency placed glyphosphate into registration review. Registration review makes sure that as the ability to assess risks and as new information becomes available, the Agency carefully considers the new information to ensure pesticides do not pose risks of concern to people or the environment."
Agribusiness giants, including Monsanto, Dow Chemical, Syngenta and BASF, will generate much of the data the EPA is seeking as part of a 19-member task force. But the EPA has emphasized that the task force is only “one of numerous varied third-party sources that EPA will rely on for use in its registration review.”
The EPA is hardly the only industry regulator that relies heavily on data supplied by the agrochemical industry itself.
“The regulation of pesticides has been significantly skewed towards the manufacturers interests where state-of-the-art testing is not done and adverse findings are typically distorted or denied,” said Jeffrey Smith, of the Institute for Responsible Technology. “The regulators tend to use the company data rather than independent sources, and the company data we have found to be inappropriately rigged to force the conclusion of safety.”
“We have documented time and time again scientists who have been fired, stripped of responsibilities, denied funding, threatened, gagged and transferred as a result of the pressure put on them by the biotech industry,” he added.
Such suppression has sometimes grown violent, Smith noted. Last August, when Carrasco and his team of researchers went to give a talk in La Leonesa they were intercepted by a mob of about a hundred people. The attack landed two people in the hospital and left Carrasco and a colleague cowering inside a locked car. Witnesses said the angry crowd had ties to powerful economic interests behind the local agro-industry and that police made little effort to interfere with the beating, according to the human rights group Amnesty International.
Fagan told HuffPost that among developmental biologists who are not beholden to the chemical industry or the biotechnology industry, there is strong recognition that Carrasco’s research is credible.
"For me as a scientist, one of the reasons I made the effort to do this research into the literature was to really satisfy the question myself as to where the reality of the situation lies,” he added. “Having thoroughly reviewed the literature on this, I feel very comfortable in standing behind the conclusions Professor Carrasco came to and the broader conclusions that we come to in our paper.
“We can’t figure out how regulators could have come to the conclusions that they did if they were taking a balanced took at the science, even the science that was done by the chemical industry itself.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/24/roundup-scientists-birth-defects_n_883578.html
WASHINGTON -- The chemical at the heart of the planet’s most widely used herbicide -- Roundup weedkiller, used in farms and gardens across the U.S. -- is coming under more intense scrutiny following the release of a new report calling for a heightened regulatory response around its use.
Critics have argued for decades that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and other herbicides used around the globe, poses a serious threat to public health. Industry regulators, however, appear to have consistently overlooked their concerns.
A comprehensive review of existing data released this month by Earth Open Source, an organization that uses open-source collaboration to advance sustainable food production, suggests that industry regulators in Europe have known for years that glyphosate, originally introduced by American agricultural biotechnology giant Monsanto in 1976, causes birth defects in the embryos of laboratory animals.
Founded in 2009, Earth Open Source is a non-profit organisation incorporated in the U.K. but international in scope. Its three directors, specializing in business, technology and genetic engineering, work pro-bono along with a handful of young volunteers. Partnering with half a dozen international scientists and researchers, the group drew its conclusions in part from studies conducted in a number of locations, including Argentina, Brazil, France and the United States.
Earth Open Source’s study is only the latest report to question the safety of glyphosate, which is the top-ranked herbicide used in the United States. Exact figures are hard to come by because the U.S. Department of Agriculture stopped updating its pesticide use database in 2008. The EPA estimates that the agricultural market used 180 to 185 million pounds of glyphosate between 2006 and 2007, while the non-agricultural market used 8 to 11 million pounds between 2005 and 2007, according to its Pesticide Industry Sales & Usage Report for 2006-2007 published in February, 2011.
The Earth Open Source study also reports that by 1993 the herbicide industry, including Monsanto, knew that visceral anomalies such as dilation of the heart could occur in rabbits at low and medium-sized doses. The report further suggests that since 2002, regulators with the European Commission have known that glyphosate causes developmental malformations in lab animals.
Even so, the commission’s health and consumer division published a final review report of glyphosate in 2002 that approved its use in Europe for the next 10 years.
As recently as last year, the German Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BLV), a government agency conducting a review of glyphosate, told the European Commission that there was no evidence the compound causes birth defects, according to the report.
The agency reached that conclusion despite almost half a dozen industry studies that found glyphosate produced fetal malformations in lab animals, as well as an independent study from 2007 that found that Roundup induces adverse reproductive effects in the male offspring of a certain kinds of rats.
German regulators declined to respond in detail for this story because they say they only learned of the Earth Open Source report last week. The regulators emphasized that their findings were based on public research and literature.
Although the European Commission originally planned to review glyphosate in 2012, it decided late last year not to do so until 2015. And it won’t review the chemical under more stringent, up-to-date standards until 2030, according to the report.
The European Commission told HuffPost that it wouldn’t comment on whether it was already aware of studies demonstrating the toxicity of glyphosate in 2002. But it said the commission was aware of the Earth Open Source study and had discussed it with member states.
“Germany concluded that study does not change the current safety assessment of gylphosate,” a commission official told HuffPost in an email. “This view is shared by all other member states.”
John Fagan, a doctor of molecular and cell biology and biochemistry and one of the founders of Earth Open Source, acknowledged his group’s report offers no new laboratory research. Rather, he said the objective was for scientists to compile and evaluate the existing evidence and critique the regulatory response.
“We did not do the actual basic research ourselves,” said Fagan. “The purpose of this paper was to bring together and to critically evaluate all the evidence around the safety of glyphosate and we also considered how the regulators, particularly in Europe, have looked at that.”
For its part, Earth Open Source said that government approval of the ubiquitous herbicide has been rash and problematic.
"Our examination of the evidence leads us to the conclusion that the current approval of glyphosate and Roundup is deeply flawed and unreliable," wrote the report’s authors. "What is more, we have learned from experts familiar with pesticide assessments and approvals that the case of glyphosate is not unusual.
"They say that the approvals of numerous pesticides rest on data and risk assessments that are just as scientifically flawed, if not more so," the authors added. "This is all the more reason why the Commission must urgently review glyphosate and other pesticides according to the most rigorous and up-to-date standards."
Monsanto spokeswoman Janice Person said in a statement that the Earth Open Source report presents no new findings.
"Based on our initial review, the Earth Open Source report does not appear to contain any new health or toxicological evidence regarding glyphosate,” Person said.
“Regulatory authorities and independent experts around the world agree that glyphosate does not cause adverse reproductive effects in adult animals or birth defects in offspring of these adults exposed to glyphosate," she said, "even at doses far higher than relevant environmental or occupational exposures.”
While Roundup has been associated with deformities in a host of laboratory animals, its impact on humans remains unclear. One laboratory study done in France in 2005 found that Roundup and glyphosate caused the death of human placental cells and abnormal embryonic cells. Another study, conducted in 2009, found that Roundup caused total cell death in human umbilical, embryonic and placental cells within 24 hours. Yet researchers have conducted few follow-up studies.
“Obviously there’s a limit to what’s appropriate in terms of testing poison on humans,” said Jeffrey Smith, executive director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, which lobbies against genetically modified food. “But if you look at the line of converging evidence, it points to a serious problem. And if you look at the animal feeding studies with genetically modified Roundup ready crops, there’s a consistent theme of reproductive disorders, which we don’t know the cause for because follow-up studies have not been done.”
“More independent research is needed to evaluate the toxicity of Roundup and glyphosate,” he added, “and the evidence that has already accumulated is sufficient to raise a red flag.”
Authorities have criticized Monsanto in the past for soft-peddling Roundup. In 1996 New York State's Attorney General sued Monsanto for describing Roundup as "environmentally friendly" and "safe as table salt." Monsanto, while not admitting any wrongdoing, agreed to stop using the terms for promotional purposes and paid New York state $250,000 to settle the suit.
Regulators in the United States have said they are aware of the concerns surrounding glyphosate. The Environmental Protection Agency, which is required to reassess the safety and effectiveness all pesticides on a 15-year cycle through a process called registration review, is currently examining the compound.
“EPA initiated registration review of glyphosate in July 2009,” the EPA told HuffPost in a written statement. “EPA will determine if our previous assessments of this chemical need to be revised based on the results of this review. EPA issued a notice to the company [Monsanto] to submit human health and ecotoxicity data in September 2010.”
The EPA said it will also review a “wide range of information and data from other independent researchers” including Earth Open Source.
The agency's Office of Pesticide Programs is in charge of the review and has set a deadline of 2015 for determining if registration modifications need to be made or if the herbicide should continue to be sold at all.
Though skirmishes over the regulation of glyphosate are playing out at agencies across the U.S. and around the world, Argentina is at the forefront of the battle.
THE ARGENTINE MODEL
The new report, "Roundup and birth defects: Is the public being kept in the dark?" comes years after Argentine scientists and residents targeted glyphosate, arguing that it caused health problems and environmental damage.
Farmers and others in Argentina used the weedkiller primarily on genetically modified Roundup Ready soy, which covers nearly 50 million acres, or half of the country's cultivated land area. In 2009 farmers sprayed that acreage with an estimated 200 million liters of glyphosate.
The Argentine government helped pull the country out of a recession in the 1990s in part by promoting genetically modified soy. Though it was something of a miracle for poor farmers, several years after the first big harvests residents near where the soy cop grew began reporting health problems, including high rates of birth defects and cancers, as well as the losses of crops and livestock as the herbicide spray drifted across the countryside.
Such reports gained further traction after an Argentine government scientist, Andres Carrasco conducted a study, "Glyphosate-Based Herbicides Produce Teratogenic Effects on Vertebrates by Impairing Retinoic Acid Signaling" in 2009.
The study, published in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology in 2010, found that glyphosate causes malformations in frog and chicken embryos at doses far lower than those used in agricultural spraying. It also found that malformations caused in frog and chicken embryos by Roundup and its active ingredient glyphosate were similar to human birth defects found in genetically modified soy-producing regions.
"The findings in the lab are compatible with malformations observed in humans exposed to glyphosate during pregnancy," wrote Carrasco, director of the Laboratory of Molecular Embryology at the University of Buenos Aires. "I suspect the toxicity classification of glyphosate is too low.”
“In some cases this can be a powerful poison," he concluded.
Argentina has not made any federal reforms based on this research and has not discussed the research publicly, Carrasco told HuffPost, except to mount a "close defense of Monsanto and it partners."
The Ministry of Science and Technology has moved to distance the government from the study, telling media at the time the study was not commissioned by the government and had not been reviewed by scientific peers.
Ignacio Duelo, spokesman for the the Ministry of Science and Technology’s National Council for Scientific and Technical Research [CONICET], told HuffPost in an statement that while Carrasco is one of its researchers, CONICET has not vouched for or assessed his work.
Duelo said that the Ministry of Science is examining Carrasco’s report as part of a study of the possible harmful effects of the glyphosate. Officials, he added, are as yet unable to “reach a definitive conclusion on the effects of glyphosate on human health, though more studies are recommended, as more data is necessary.”
REGIONAL BANS
After Carrasco announced his findings in 2009, the Defense Ministry banned planting of genetically modified glyphosate-resistant soy on lands it rents to farmers, and a group of environmental lawyers petitioned the Supreme Court of Argentina to implement a national ban on the use of glyphosate, including Monsanto's Roundup product. But the ban was never adopted.
"A ban, if approved, would mean we couldn't do agriculture in Argentina," said Guillermo Cal, executive director of CASAFE, Argentina's association of fertilizer companies, in a statement at the time.
In March 2010, a regional court in Argentina's Santa Fe province banned the spraying of glyphosate and other herbicides near populated areas. A month later, the provincial government of Chaco province issued a report on health statistics from La Leonesa. The report, which was carried in the leftist Argentinian newspaper Página 12, showed that from 2000 to 2009, following the expansion of genetically-modified soy and rice crops in the region, the childhood cancer rate tripled in La Leonesa and the rate of birth defects increased nearly fourfold over the entire province.
MORE QUESTIONS
Back in the United States, Don Huber, an emeritus professor of plant pathology at Purdue University, found that genetically-modified crops used in conjunction with Roundup contain a bacteria that may cause animal miscarriages.
After studying the bacteria, Huber wrote Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in February warning that the "pathogen appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and probably human beings."
The bacteria is particularly prevalent in corn and soybean crops stricken by disease, according to Huber, who asked Vilsack to stop deregulating Roundup Ready crops. Critics such as Huber are particularly wary of those crops because scientists have genetically altered them to be immune to Roundup -- and thus allow farmers to spray the herbicide liberally onto a field, killing weeds but allowing the crop itself to continue growing.
Monsanto is not the only company making glyphosate. China sells glyphosate to Argentina at a very low price, Carrasco said, and there are more than one hundred commercial formulations in the market. But Monsanto’s Roundup has the longest list of critics, in part because it dominates the market.
The growth in adoption of genetically modified crops has exploded since their introduction in 1996. According to Monsanto, an estimated 89 percent of domestic soybean crops were Roundup Ready in 2010, and as of 2010, there were 77.4 million acres of Roundup Ready soybeans planted, according to the Department of Agriculture.
In his letter to the Agriculture Department, Huber also commented on the herbicide, saying that the bacteria that he’s concerned about appears to be connected to use of glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup.
"It is well-documented that glyphosate promotes soil pathogens and is already implicated with the increase of more than 40 plant diseases; it dismantles plant defenses by chelating vital nutrients; and it reduces the bioavailability of nutrients in feed, which in turn can cause animal disorders," he wrote.
Huber said the Agriculture Department wrote him in early May and that he has had several contacts with the agency since then. But there’s little evidence that government officials have any intention of conducting the “multi-agency investigation” Huber requested.
Part of the problem may be that the USDA oversees genetically modified crops while the EPA watches herbicides, creating a potential regulatory loophole for products like Roundup, which relies on both to complete the system. When queried, USDA officials emphasized that they do not regulate pesticides or herbicides and declined to comment publicly on Huber's letter.
A spokesman eventually conceded their scientists do study glyphosate. "USDA’s Agricultural Research Service’s research with glyphosate began shortly after the discovery of its herbicidal activity in the mid 1970s," said the USDA in a statement. "All of our research has been made public and much has gone through the traditional peer review process.”
While Huber acknowledged his research is far from conclusive, he said regulatory agencies must seek answers now. “There is much research that needs to be done yet,” he said. “But we can't afford to wait the three to five years for peer-reviewed papers.”
While Huber’s claims have roiled the agricultural world and the blogosphere alike, he has fueled skeptics by refusing to make his research public or identify his fellow researchers, who he claims could suffer substantial professional backlash from academic employers who received research funding from the biotechnology industry.
At Purdue University, six of Huber’s former colleagues pointedly distanced themselves from his findings, encouraging crop producers and agribusiness personnel “to speak with University Extension personnel before making changes in crop production practices that are based on sensationalist claims.”
Since it first introduced the chemical to the world in the 1970s, Monsanto has netted billions on its best-selling herbicide, though the company has faced stiffer competition since its patent expired in 2000 and it is reportedly working to revamp its strategy.
In a lengthy email, Person, the Monsanto spokeswoman, responded to critics, suggesting that the economic and environmental benefits of Roundup were being overlooked:
“
The authors of the report create an account of glyphosate toxicity from a selected set of scientific studies, while they ignored much of the comprehensive data establishing the safety of the product. Regulatory agencies around the world have concluded that glyphosate is not a reproductive toxin or teratogen (cause of birth defects) based on in-depth review of the comprehensive data sets available.
Earth Open Source authors take issue with the decision by the European Commission to place higher priority on reviewing other pesticide ingredients first under the new EU regulations, citing again the flawed studies as the rationale. While glyphosate and all other pesticide ingredients will be reviewed, the Commission has decided that glyphosate appropriately falls in a category that doesn’t warrant immediate attention.
“The data was there but the regulators were glossing over it and as a result it was accepted in ways that we consider really questionable,” he added.
CORNERING THE INDUSTRY?
Although the EPA has said it wants to evaluate more evidence of glyphosate's human health risk as part of a registration review program, the agency is not doing any studies of its own and is instead relying on outside data -- much of which comes from the agricultural chemicals industry it seeks to regulate.
"EPA ensures that each registered pesticide continues to meet the highest standards of safety to protect human health and the environment," the agency told HuffPost in a statement. "These standards have become stricter over the years as our ability to evaluate the potential effects of pesticides has increased. The Agency placed glyphosphate into registration review. Registration review makes sure that as the ability to assess risks and as new information becomes available, the Agency carefully considers the new information to ensure pesticides do not pose risks of concern to people or the environment."
Agribusiness giants, including Monsanto, Dow Chemical, Syngenta and BASF, will generate much of the data the EPA is seeking as part of a 19-member task force. But the EPA has emphasized that the task force is only “one of numerous varied third-party sources that EPA will rely on for use in its registration review.”
The EPA is hardly the only industry regulator that relies heavily on data supplied by the agrochemical industry itself.
“The regulation of pesticides has been significantly skewed towards the manufacturers interests where state-of-the-art testing is not done and adverse findings are typically distorted or denied,” said Jeffrey Smith, of the Institute for Responsible Technology. “The regulators tend to use the company data rather than independent sources, and the company data we have found to be inappropriately rigged to force the conclusion of safety.”
“We have documented time and time again scientists who have been fired, stripped of responsibilities, denied funding, threatened, gagged and transferred as a result of the pressure put on them by the biotech industry,” he added.
Such suppression has sometimes grown violent, Smith noted. Last August, when Carrasco and his team of researchers went to give a talk in La Leonesa they were intercepted by a mob of about a hundred people. The attack landed two people in the hospital and left Carrasco and a colleague cowering inside a locked car. Witnesses said the angry crowd had ties to powerful economic interests behind the local agro-industry and that police made little effort to interfere with the beating, according to the human rights group Amnesty International.
Fagan told HuffPost that among developmental biologists who are not beholden to the chemical industry or the biotechnology industry, there is strong recognition that Carrasco’s research is credible.
"For me as a scientist, one of the reasons I made the effort to do this research into the literature was to really satisfy the question myself as to where the reality of the situation lies,” he added. “Having thoroughly reviewed the literature on this, I feel very comfortable in standing behind the conclusions Professor Carrasco came to and the broader conclusions that we come to in our paper.
“We can’t figure out how regulators could have come to the conclusions that they did if they were taking a balanced took at the science, even the science that was done by the chemical industry itself.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/24/roundup-scientists-birth-defects_n_883578.html
Thursday, June 23, 2011
US orders news blackout over crippled Nebraska Nuclear Plant: report.
US orders news blackout over crippled Nebraska Nuclear Plant: report
June 18, 2011
A shocking report prepared by Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency (FAAE) on information provided to them by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) states that the Obama regime has ordered a “total and complete” news blackout relating to any information regarding the near catastrophic meltdown of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant located in Nebraska.
According to this report, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant suffered a “catastrophic loss of cooling” to one of its idle spent fuel rod pools on 7 June after this plant was deluged with water caused by the historic flooding of the Missouri River which resulted in a fire causing the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) to issue a “no-fly ban” over the area.
Located about 20 minutes outside downtown Omaha, the largest city in Nebraska, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant is owned by Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) who on their website denies their plant is at a “Level 4” emergency by stating: “This terminology is not accurate, and is not how emergencies at nuclear power plants are classified.”
Russian atomic scientists in this FAAE report, however, say that this OPPD statement is an “outright falsehood” as all nuclear plants in the world operate under the guidelines of the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) which clearly states the “events” occurring at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant do, indeed, put it in the “Level 4” emergency category of an “accident with local consequences” thus making this one of the worst nuclear accidents in US history.
Though this report confirms independent readings in the United States of “negligible release of nuclear gasses” related to this accident it warns that by the Obama regimes censoring of this event for “political purposes” it risks a “serious blowback” from the American public should they gain knowledge of this being hidden from them.
Interesting to note about this event was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chief, Gregory B. Jaczko, blasting the Obama regime just days before the near meltdown of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant by declaring that “the policy of not enforcing most fire code violations at dozens of nuclear plants is “unacceptable” and has tied the hands of NRC inspectors.”
This report further notes that the “cover-up” of this nuclear disaster by President Obama is being based on his “fantasy” of creating so-called green jobs which he (strangely) includes nuclear power into as his efforts to bankrupt the US coal industry proceed at a record breaking pace.
Unknown to the American people about Obama’s “war” on the US coal industry is it’s estimated to cost them over a 60% increase in their electricity bills by 2014 and cause over 250,000 jobs to be lost in an already beleaguered economy.
More ominous for those American people whose lives depend on the coal industry that is being deliberately destroyed is the Obama regime’s massive “security exercise” currently ongoing in the major coal mining States of Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia, and as we can read about, in part, as reported by InfoWars.Com:
“If you’re still living under the delusion that the TSA is just restricted to airports then think again. A joint VIPR “security exercise” involving military personnel has Transportation Security Administration workers covering 5,000 miles and three states, illustrating once again how the TSA is turning into a literal occupying army for domestic repression in America.
The TSA, in alliance with a whole host of federal, state, local agencies as well as military personnel, is currently conducting a massive “security exercise” throughout Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia.
“The participating teams are composed of a variety of TSA assets including federal air marshals, canine teams, inspectors and bomb appraisal officers. They will be joined by state and local law enforcement officials to supplement existing resources, provide detection and response capabilities. The exercise will utilize multiple airborne assets, including Blackhawk helicopters and fixed wing aircraft as well as waterborne and surface teams,” reports the Marietta Times.
Although the exercise is couched in serious rhetoric about preparedness, it relates to “no specific threat” and the details are nebulous to say the least and seems to revolve around little else than testing out high-tech surveillance equipment and reminding Americans who their bosses are.”
Obama’s fears of the American people turning against nuclear power, should its true dangers be known, appear to be valid as both Germany and Italy (whose people, unlike the Americans, have been told the truth) have turned against it after the disaster in Japan and vowed to close all of their atomic plants.
Perhaps even more sadly for the American people is this report stating that the Obama regime is “walking in lockstep” with Japan in their attempts to keep the truth of nuclear accidents from their citizens; which in the case of the Japanese can only be labeled as horrific as new evidence points to them knowing within hours of the Great Tsunami that their atomic reactors had melted down, but have only today ordered an evacuation of pregnant women from what are called “radiation hotspots.”
With a country that some scientists are now warning may soon become uninhabitable due to radiation damage, and with reports of mutant rabbits and radioactive whales now being reported, one wonders if in knowing the truth the American people would really want to follow Japan’s “example” instead of those people in Germany and Italy?
But, with an already documented 35% increase in the infant mortality rate for American mothers living in the western coastal regions of the US caused by radiation blowing onto them from Japan being ignored by these people there doesn’t seem to be much hope for them. (The EU Times)
http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online//International/18-Jun-2011/US-orders-news-blackout-over-crippled-Nebraska-Nuclear-Plant-report
June 18, 2011
A shocking report prepared by Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency (FAAE) on information provided to them by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) states that the Obama regime has ordered a “total and complete” news blackout relating to any information regarding the near catastrophic meltdown of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant located in Nebraska.
According to this report, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant suffered a “catastrophic loss of cooling” to one of its idle spent fuel rod pools on 7 June after this plant was deluged with water caused by the historic flooding of the Missouri River which resulted in a fire causing the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) to issue a “no-fly ban” over the area.
Located about 20 minutes outside downtown Omaha, the largest city in Nebraska, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant is owned by Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) who on their website denies their plant is at a “Level 4” emergency by stating: “This terminology is not accurate, and is not how emergencies at nuclear power plants are classified.”
Russian atomic scientists in this FAAE report, however, say that this OPPD statement is an “outright falsehood” as all nuclear plants in the world operate under the guidelines of the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) which clearly states the “events” occurring at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant do, indeed, put it in the “Level 4” emergency category of an “accident with local consequences” thus making this one of the worst nuclear accidents in US history.
Though this report confirms independent readings in the United States of “negligible release of nuclear gasses” related to this accident it warns that by the Obama regimes censoring of this event for “political purposes” it risks a “serious blowback” from the American public should they gain knowledge of this being hidden from them.
Interesting to note about this event was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chief, Gregory B. Jaczko, blasting the Obama regime just days before the near meltdown of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant by declaring that “the policy of not enforcing most fire code violations at dozens of nuclear plants is “unacceptable” and has tied the hands of NRC inspectors.”
This report further notes that the “cover-up” of this nuclear disaster by President Obama is being based on his “fantasy” of creating so-called green jobs which he (strangely) includes nuclear power into as his efforts to bankrupt the US coal industry proceed at a record breaking pace.
Unknown to the American people about Obama’s “war” on the US coal industry is it’s estimated to cost them over a 60% increase in their electricity bills by 2014 and cause over 250,000 jobs to be lost in an already beleaguered economy.
More ominous for those American people whose lives depend on the coal industry that is being deliberately destroyed is the Obama regime’s massive “security exercise” currently ongoing in the major coal mining States of Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia, and as we can read about, in part, as reported by InfoWars.Com:
“If you’re still living under the delusion that the TSA is just restricted to airports then think again. A joint VIPR “security exercise” involving military personnel has Transportation Security Administration workers covering 5,000 miles and three states, illustrating once again how the TSA is turning into a literal occupying army for domestic repression in America.
The TSA, in alliance with a whole host of federal, state, local agencies as well as military personnel, is currently conducting a massive “security exercise” throughout Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia.
“The participating teams are composed of a variety of TSA assets including federal air marshals, canine teams, inspectors and bomb appraisal officers. They will be joined by state and local law enforcement officials to supplement existing resources, provide detection and response capabilities. The exercise will utilize multiple airborne assets, including Blackhawk helicopters and fixed wing aircraft as well as waterborne and surface teams,” reports the Marietta Times.
Although the exercise is couched in serious rhetoric about preparedness, it relates to “no specific threat” and the details are nebulous to say the least and seems to revolve around little else than testing out high-tech surveillance equipment and reminding Americans who their bosses are.”
Obama’s fears of the American people turning against nuclear power, should its true dangers be known, appear to be valid as both Germany and Italy (whose people, unlike the Americans, have been told the truth) have turned against it after the disaster in Japan and vowed to close all of their atomic plants.
Perhaps even more sadly for the American people is this report stating that the Obama regime is “walking in lockstep” with Japan in their attempts to keep the truth of nuclear accidents from their citizens; which in the case of the Japanese can only be labeled as horrific as new evidence points to them knowing within hours of the Great Tsunami that their atomic reactors had melted down, but have only today ordered an evacuation of pregnant women from what are called “radiation hotspots.”
With a country that some scientists are now warning may soon become uninhabitable due to radiation damage, and with reports of mutant rabbits and radioactive whales now being reported, one wonders if in knowing the truth the American people would really want to follow Japan’s “example” instead of those people in Germany and Italy?
But, with an already documented 35% increase in the infant mortality rate for American mothers living in the western coastal regions of the US caused by radiation blowing onto them from Japan being ignored by these people there doesn’t seem to be much hope for them. (The EU Times)
http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online//International/18-Jun-2011/US-orders-news-blackout-over-crippled-Nebraska-Nuclear-Plant-report
Saturday, June 18, 2011
The Big Fukushima Lie Flies High
Published on Thursday, June 16, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/16-4
The Big Fukushima Lie Flies High by Karl Grossman
The global nuclear industry and its allies in government are making a desperate effort to cover up the consequences of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. “The big lie flies high,” comments Kevin Kamps of the organization Beyond Nuclear.
Not only is this nuclear establishment seeking to make it look like the Fukushima catastrophe has not happenedgoing so far as to claim that there will be “no health effects” as a result of itbut it is moving forward on a “nuclear renaissance,” its scheme to build more nuclear plants.
Indeed, next week in Washington, a two-day “Special Summit on New Nuclear Energy” will be held involving major manufacturers of nuclear power plants including General Electric, the manufacturer of the Fukushima plantsand U.S. government officials.
Although since Fukushima, Germany, Switzerland and Italy and other nations have turned away from nuclear power for a commitment instead to safe, clean, renewable energy such as solar and wind, the Obama administration is continuing its insistence on nuclear power.
Will the nuclear establishment be able to get away with telling what, indeed, would be one of the most outrageous Big Lies of all time that no one will die as a result of Fukushima?
Will it be able to continue its new nuclear push despite the catastrophe?
Nearly 100 days after the Fukushima disaster began, with radiation still streaming from the plants, with its owners, TEPCO, now admitting that meltdowns did occur at its plants, that releases have been twice as much as it announced earlier, with deadly radioactivity from Fukushima spreading worldwide, and with some countries now changing course and saying no to nuclear power, while others stick with it, a nuclear crossroads has arrived.
No health effects are expected among the Japanese people as a result of the events at Fukushima,” the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear industry trade group, flatly declared in a statement issued at a press conference in Washington last week.
"They’re lying,” says Dr. Janette Sherman, a toxicologist and contributing editor of the book Chernobyl: The Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment” published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2009. Using medical data from between 1986 and 2004, its authors, a team of European scientists, determines that 985,000 people died worldwide from the radioactivity discharged from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
The Fukushima disaster will have a comparable toll, expects Dr. Sherman, who has conducted research into the consequences of radiation for decades. “People living closest to the plants who receive the biggest doses will get sick sooner. Those who are farther away and receive lesser doses will get sick at a slower rate,” she says.
We’ve known about radioactive isotopes for decades,” says Dr. Sherman. “I worked for the Atomic Energy Commission in the 1950s and we knew about the effects then. To ignore the biology is to our peril. This is not new science. Cesium-137 goes to soft tissue. Strontium-90 goes to the bones and teeth. Iodine-131 goes to the thyroid gland.” All have been released in large amounts in the Fukushima disaster since it began on March 11. There will inevitably be cancer and other illnessesas well as genetic effectsas a result of the substantial discharges of radioactivity released from Fukushima, says Dr. Sherman. “People in Japan will be the most impacted but the radiation has been spreading worldwide and will impact life worldwide.”
The American Nuclear Society, made up of what its website says are “professionals” in the nuclear field, is also deep in the Fukushima denial camp. “Radiation risks to people living in Japan are very low, and no public ill effects are expected from the Fukushima incident,” it declares on its website. As to the U.S., the Illinois-based organization adds: “There is no health risk of radiation from the Fukushima incident to people in the United States.”
Acknowledging that “radiation from Fukushima has been detected within the United States,” the American Nuclear Society asserts that’s because we are able to detect very small amounts of radiation. Through the use of extremely sensitive equipment, U.S. laboratories have been able to detect very minute quantities of radioactive isotopes in air, precipitation, milk, and drinking water due to the Fukushima incident…The radiation from Fukushima, though detectable, is nowhere near the level of public health concern.”
Says Joseph Mangano, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project, “The absurd belief that no one will be harmed by Fukushima is perhaps the strongest evidence of the pattern of deception and denial by nuclear officials in industry and government.”
The World Health Organization has added its voice to the denial group. “For anyone outside Japan there is currently no health risk from radiation leaking from the nuclear power plant,” Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman, has insisted. “We know that there have been measurements in maybe up to about 30 countries [and] these measurements are miniscule, often below levels of background radiation…and they do not constitute a public health risk.”
WHO, not too incidentally, has a formal arrangement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in place since both were established at the UN in the 1950s, to say nothing about issues involving radiation without clearing it with the IAEA, which was set up to specifically promote atomic energy. On Chernobyl, together in an initiative called the “Chernobyl Forum,” they have claimed that “less than 50 deaths have been directly attributed” to that disaster and “a total of up to 4,000 people could eventually die of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident.” That nuclear Big Lie precedes the new nuclear deception involving the impacts of Fukushima.
As to background radiation, Dr. Jeffrey Patterson, immediate past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Public Health, says: “We do live with background radiationbut it does cause cancer.” That’s why there is concern, he notes, about radon gas being emitted in homes from a breakdown of uranium in some soils. “That’s background [radiation] but it’s not safe. There are absolutely no safe levels of radiation” and adding more radiation “adds to the health impacts.”
There has been a cover-up, a minimization of the effects of radioactivity since the development of nuclear weapons and nuclear technology,” says Dr. Patterson. Meanwhile, with the Fukushima disaster, “large populations of people are being randomly exposed to radiation that they didn’t ask for, they didn’t agree to.”
Dr. Steven Wing, an epidemiologist who has specialized in the effects of radioactivity at the School of Public Health of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, said: “The generally accepted thinking about the safe dose is that, no, there is no safe dose in terms of
the cancer or genetic effects of radiation. The assumption of most people is that there’s a linear, no-threshold dose response relationship and that just means that as the dose goes down the risk goes down, but it never disappears.”
Of the claims of “no threat to health” from the radioactivity emitted from Fukushima, that “just flies in the face of all the standard models and all the studies that have been done over a long period of time of radiation and cancer.”
As the radiation clouds move away from Fukushima and move far away to other continents and around the world, the doses are spread out,” notes Dr. Wing. “But it’s important for people to know that spreading out a given amount of radiation dose among more people, although it reduces each person’s individual risk, it doesn’t reduce the number of cancers that result from that amount of radiation. So having millions and millions of people exposed to a very small dose could produce just as much cancer as a thousand or a few thousand people exposed to that same dose.”
He believes “we should be focusing on putting pressure on people in government and the energy industry to come up with an energy policy that minimizes harm,” is a “sane energy policy.” Those who have “led us into this situation” have caused “big problems.”
And they are still at iteven with radioactivity still coming out at Fukushima and expected to for months. On Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington, the “Special Summit on New Nuclear Energy” will be held, organized by the U.S. Nuclear Infrastructure Council.
Council members include General Electric, since 2006 in partnership in its nuclear plant manufacturing business with the Japanese corporation Hitachi.
Other members of the council, notes its information on the summit, include the Nuclear Energy Institute; Babcock & Wilcox, the manufacturer of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant which underwent a partial meltdown in 1979; Duke Energy, a U.S. utility long a booster of nuclear power; the Tennessee Valley Authority, a U.S. government-created public power company heavily committed to nuclear power; Uranium Producers of America; and AREVA, the French government-financed nuclear power company that has been moving to expand into the U.S. and worldwide.
Also participating in the summit as speakers will be John Kelly, an Obama administration Department of Energy deputy assistant for nuclear reactor technologies;
William Magwood, a nuclear power advocate who is a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Matthew Milazzo representing an entity called the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future set up by the Obama administration; and Congressmen Mike Simpson of Idaho, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee Interior & Environment and Ed Whitfield of Kentucky, chairman of the House Energy & Power Subcommittee, both staunch nuclear power supporters.
Other participants, according to the program for the event, will be “senior executives and thought leaders from the who’s who of the U.S. new nuclear community.” Bruce Llewelyn, who hosts “White House Chronicle” on PBS television, is listed as the summit’s “moderator.”
There will be programs on the “State of the Renaissance,” “China, India & Emerging Global Nuclear Markets,” “Advancing Nuclear Technology” and “Lessons from Fukushima.”
As the nuclear Pinocchios lie, the nuclear promoters push ahead.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, has long specialized in doing investigative reporting on nuclear technology. He is the author of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power. He is the host of the nationally aired TV program, Enviro Close-Up (envirovideo.com).
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/16-4
The Big Fukushima Lie Flies High by Karl Grossman
The global nuclear industry and its allies in government are making a desperate effort to cover up the consequences of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. “The big lie flies high,” comments Kevin Kamps of the organization Beyond Nuclear.
Not only is this nuclear establishment seeking to make it look like the Fukushima catastrophe has not happenedgoing so far as to claim that there will be “no health effects” as a result of itbut it is moving forward on a “nuclear renaissance,” its scheme to build more nuclear plants.
Indeed, next week in Washington, a two-day “Special Summit on New Nuclear Energy” will be held involving major manufacturers of nuclear power plants including General Electric, the manufacturer of the Fukushima plantsand U.S. government officials.
Although since Fukushima, Germany, Switzerland and Italy and other nations have turned away from nuclear power for a commitment instead to safe, clean, renewable energy such as solar and wind, the Obama administration is continuing its insistence on nuclear power.
Will the nuclear establishment be able to get away with telling what, indeed, would be one of the most outrageous Big Lies of all time that no one will die as a result of Fukushima?
Will it be able to continue its new nuclear push despite the catastrophe?
Nearly 100 days after the Fukushima disaster began, with radiation still streaming from the plants, with its owners, TEPCO, now admitting that meltdowns did occur at its plants, that releases have been twice as much as it announced earlier, with deadly radioactivity from Fukushima spreading worldwide, and with some countries now changing course and saying no to nuclear power, while others stick with it, a nuclear crossroads has arrived.
No health effects are expected among the Japanese people as a result of the events at Fukushima,” the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear industry trade group, flatly declared in a statement issued at a press conference in Washington last week.
"They’re lying,” says Dr. Janette Sherman, a toxicologist and contributing editor of the book Chernobyl: The Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment” published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2009. Using medical data from between 1986 and 2004, its authors, a team of European scientists, determines that 985,000 people died worldwide from the radioactivity discharged from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
The Fukushima disaster will have a comparable toll, expects Dr. Sherman, who has conducted research into the consequences of radiation for decades. “People living closest to the plants who receive the biggest doses will get sick sooner. Those who are farther away and receive lesser doses will get sick at a slower rate,” she says.
We’ve known about radioactive isotopes for decades,” says Dr. Sherman. “I worked for the Atomic Energy Commission in the 1950s and we knew about the effects then. To ignore the biology is to our peril. This is not new science. Cesium-137 goes to soft tissue. Strontium-90 goes to the bones and teeth. Iodine-131 goes to the thyroid gland.” All have been released in large amounts in the Fukushima disaster since it began on March 11. There will inevitably be cancer and other illnessesas well as genetic effectsas a result of the substantial discharges of radioactivity released from Fukushima, says Dr. Sherman. “People in Japan will be the most impacted but the radiation has been spreading worldwide and will impact life worldwide.”
The American Nuclear Society, made up of what its website says are “professionals” in the nuclear field, is also deep in the Fukushima denial camp. “Radiation risks to people living in Japan are very low, and no public ill effects are expected from the Fukushima incident,” it declares on its website. As to the U.S., the Illinois-based organization adds: “There is no health risk of radiation from the Fukushima incident to people in the United States.”
Acknowledging that “radiation from Fukushima has been detected within the United States,” the American Nuclear Society asserts that’s because we are able to detect very small amounts of radiation. Through the use of extremely sensitive equipment, U.S. laboratories have been able to detect very minute quantities of radioactive isotopes in air, precipitation, milk, and drinking water due to the Fukushima incident…The radiation from Fukushima, though detectable, is nowhere near the level of public health concern.”
Says Joseph Mangano, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project, “The absurd belief that no one will be harmed by Fukushima is perhaps the strongest evidence of the pattern of deception and denial by nuclear officials in industry and government.”
The World Health Organization has added its voice to the denial group. “For anyone outside Japan there is currently no health risk from radiation leaking from the nuclear power plant,” Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman, has insisted. “We know that there have been measurements in maybe up to about 30 countries [and] these measurements are miniscule, often below levels of background radiation…and they do not constitute a public health risk.”
WHO, not too incidentally, has a formal arrangement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in place since both were established at the UN in the 1950s, to say nothing about issues involving radiation without clearing it with the IAEA, which was set up to specifically promote atomic energy. On Chernobyl, together in an initiative called the “Chernobyl Forum,” they have claimed that “less than 50 deaths have been directly attributed” to that disaster and “a total of up to 4,000 people could eventually die of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident.” That nuclear Big Lie precedes the new nuclear deception involving the impacts of Fukushima.
As to background radiation, Dr. Jeffrey Patterson, immediate past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Public Health, says: “We do live with background radiationbut it does cause cancer.” That’s why there is concern, he notes, about radon gas being emitted in homes from a breakdown of uranium in some soils. “That’s background [radiation] but it’s not safe. There are absolutely no safe levels of radiation” and adding more radiation “adds to the health impacts.”
There has been a cover-up, a minimization of the effects of radioactivity since the development of nuclear weapons and nuclear technology,” says Dr. Patterson. Meanwhile, with the Fukushima disaster, “large populations of people are being randomly exposed to radiation that they didn’t ask for, they didn’t agree to.”
Dr. Steven Wing, an epidemiologist who has specialized in the effects of radioactivity at the School of Public Health of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, said: “The generally accepted thinking about the safe dose is that, no, there is no safe dose in terms of
the cancer or genetic effects of radiation. The assumption of most people is that there’s a linear, no-threshold dose response relationship and that just means that as the dose goes down the risk goes down, but it never disappears.”
Of the claims of “no threat to health” from the radioactivity emitted from Fukushima, that “just flies in the face of all the standard models and all the studies that have been done over a long period of time of radiation and cancer.”
As the radiation clouds move away from Fukushima and move far away to other continents and around the world, the doses are spread out,” notes Dr. Wing. “But it’s important for people to know that spreading out a given amount of radiation dose among more people, although it reduces each person’s individual risk, it doesn’t reduce the number of cancers that result from that amount of radiation. So having millions and millions of people exposed to a very small dose could produce just as much cancer as a thousand or a few thousand people exposed to that same dose.”
He believes “we should be focusing on putting pressure on people in government and the energy industry to come up with an energy policy that minimizes harm,” is a “sane energy policy.” Those who have “led us into this situation” have caused “big problems.”
And they are still at iteven with radioactivity still coming out at Fukushima and expected to for months. On Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington, the “Special Summit on New Nuclear Energy” will be held, organized by the U.S. Nuclear Infrastructure Council.
Council members include General Electric, since 2006 in partnership in its nuclear plant manufacturing business with the Japanese corporation Hitachi.
Other members of the council, notes its information on the summit, include the Nuclear Energy Institute; Babcock & Wilcox, the manufacturer of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant which underwent a partial meltdown in 1979; Duke Energy, a U.S. utility long a booster of nuclear power; the Tennessee Valley Authority, a U.S. government-created public power company heavily committed to nuclear power; Uranium Producers of America; and AREVA, the French government-financed nuclear power company that has been moving to expand into the U.S. and worldwide.
Also participating in the summit as speakers will be John Kelly, an Obama administration Department of Energy deputy assistant for nuclear reactor technologies;
William Magwood, a nuclear power advocate who is a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Matthew Milazzo representing an entity called the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future set up by the Obama administration; and Congressmen Mike Simpson of Idaho, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee Interior & Environment and Ed Whitfield of Kentucky, chairman of the House Energy & Power Subcommittee, both staunch nuclear power supporters.
Other participants, according to the program for the event, will be “senior executives and thought leaders from the who’s who of the U.S. new nuclear community.” Bruce Llewelyn, who hosts “White House Chronicle” on PBS television, is listed as the summit’s “moderator.”
There will be programs on the “State of the Renaissance,” “China, India & Emerging Global Nuclear Markets,” “Advancing Nuclear Technology” and “Lessons from Fukushima.”
As the nuclear Pinocchios lie, the nuclear promoters push ahead.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, has long specialized in doing investigative reporting on nuclear technology. He is the author of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power. He is the host of the nationally aired TV program, Enviro Close-Up (envirovideo.com).
Friday, June 17, 2011
Monsanto's Deadly Legacy: Fifty Years of Birth Defects and Disabilities.
Monsanto's Deadly Legacy: Fifty Years of Birth Defects and Disabilities
August 10, 2011 marks 50 years since Agent Orange was first used by the US military in its war against Vietnam. Agent Orange was used for a decade, but its effects persist to this day, with three generations of exposed Vietnamese families and American veterans suffering from horrific birth defects and disabilities.
The 50th anniversary of Agent Orange will not be acknowledged with regrets or reparations by the US government or the American chemical companies, primarily Monsanto and Dow, who profited from its production and use.
Monsanto and Dow contaminated the land of Vietnam, destroyed the forests, killed, maimed, and crippled millions of people, but never admitted responsibility or paid a cent in compensation to the victims and their families.
Instead, Monsanto and Dow continue to profit from their poisons. In fact, they are currently seeking approval for genetically modified crops that can withstand massive doses of 2,4-D, one of the herbicides used in Agent Orange.
Take action to stop Monsanto and Dow's new 2,4-D resistant corn & soy
And now, scientific evidence is mounting that Monsanto's best-selling herbicide RoundUp also causes birth defects. A new generation of babies born near fields of "RoundUp Ready" (genetically modified) soy in Argentina are suffering birth defects as terrible as those found in the Agent Orange contaminated areas of Vietnam. A new report published this month alleges that regulators and the pesticide industry have long known about the RoundUp-birth-defect link - some for more than two decades - but kept the details hidden from the general public.
According to the report, co-authored by a number of scientists and published by Earth Open Source, Monsanto's Roundup, the most widely used herbicide in the world, causes birth defects as well as "endocrine disruption, damage to DNA, reproductive and developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity, and cancer" at amounts equivalent to pesticide residue found on produce.
In honor of the victims of Monsanto's Agent Orange on the 50th anniversary of its first use, Len Aldis of the Britain-Vietnam Friendship Society is calling for "an international ban on all products of Monsanto and that would and must include GMO."
Sign the petition for justice for the victims of Agent Orange -
http://www.capwiz.com/grassrootsnetroots/issues/alert/?alertid=50653501&type=ML
August 10, 2011 marks 50 years since Agent Orange was first used by the US military in its war against Vietnam. Agent Orange was used for a decade, but its effects persist to this day, with three generations of exposed Vietnamese families and American veterans suffering from horrific birth defects and disabilities.
The 50th anniversary of Agent Orange will not be acknowledged with regrets or reparations by the US government or the American chemical companies, primarily Monsanto and Dow, who profited from its production and use.
Monsanto and Dow contaminated the land of Vietnam, destroyed the forests, killed, maimed, and crippled millions of people, but never admitted responsibility or paid a cent in compensation to the victims and their families.
Instead, Monsanto and Dow continue to profit from their poisons. In fact, they are currently seeking approval for genetically modified crops that can withstand massive doses of 2,4-D, one of the herbicides used in Agent Orange.
Take action to stop Monsanto and Dow's new 2,4-D resistant corn & soy
And now, scientific evidence is mounting that Monsanto's best-selling herbicide RoundUp also causes birth defects. A new generation of babies born near fields of "RoundUp Ready" (genetically modified) soy in Argentina are suffering birth defects as terrible as those found in the Agent Orange contaminated areas of Vietnam. A new report published this month alleges that regulators and the pesticide industry have long known about the RoundUp-birth-defect link - some for more than two decades - but kept the details hidden from the general public.
According to the report, co-authored by a number of scientists and published by Earth Open Source, Monsanto's Roundup, the most widely used herbicide in the world, causes birth defects as well as "endocrine disruption, damage to DNA, reproductive and developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity, and cancer" at amounts equivalent to pesticide residue found on produce.
In honor of the victims of Monsanto's Agent Orange on the 50th anniversary of its first use, Len Aldis of the Britain-Vietnam Friendship Society is calling for "an international ban on all products of Monsanto and that would and must include GMO."
Sign the petition for justice for the victims of Agent Orange -
http://www.capwiz.com/grassrootsnetroots/issues/alert/?alertid=50653501&type=ML
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Alliance Calls for Stronger Measures to Protect Human Health, Wildlife From Dangerous Pesticides.
For Immediate Release, June 16, 2011
Contact: Heather Pilatic, Pesticide Action Network, (415) 694-8596
Jeff Miller, Center for Biological Diversity, (415) 669-7357
Alliance Calls for Stronger Measures to Protect Human Health, Wildlife From Dangerous Pesticides
WASHINGTON— More than 130 groups in 35 states, representing public health, food-security, sustainable-farming, farmworker and conservation interests called on the Environmental Protection Agency today to use all the tools at its disposal to protect public health and imperiled wildlife from harmful pesticides. The letter to the EPA, citing significant flaws in the pesticide registration process, comes as Congress considers legislation to weaken environmental protections and allow increased pesticide pollution. (http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/pesticides_reduction/pdfs/Pesticides_sign-on_letter_6-16-11.pdf )
“Pesticides pose a clear and preventable danger to our health and the environment. It’s time for the EPA to ensure pesticides no longer jeopardize human health, wildlife, the water we drink or the air we breathe,” said Jeff Miller, a conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Congress must do its part by stopping legislation sponsored by chemical corporations and their allies to strip important laws that safeguard future generations, farmworkers and wildlife from pesticide harms.”
The groups cite undue pesticide industry influence over EPA’s pesticide decisions under the Federal Insecticide Fungicide Rodenticide Act (FIFRA)—as well as documented pesticide impacts such as endocrine disruption, cancers and reproductive disorders for humans and wildlife—in requesting increased protections from harmful pesticide use. Specifically, the groups urge EPA to use the “rigorous scientific review process and strong legal protections” of the federal Endangered Species Act.
“The pesticide industry has subverted the intended protections of U.S. pesticide law under FIFRA. That law is broken. If enforced, the Endangered Species Act offers strong protections for our most endangered wildlife, with human health benefits because it requires a more rigorous scientific review process less susceptible to industry influence,” said Heather Pilatic, co-director of Pesticide Action Network North America. “Current independent science indicates that the low-level mixtures of pesticides to which we are all exposed contribute to children’s rising rates of neurodevelopmental disease and certain cancers, and impact the biodiversity that keeps our planet resilient.”
Pesticide use in the United States is regulated primarily under FIFRA, a 1947 labeling law that was last significantly updated 40 years ago and has been subject to major pesticide industry and farm-lobby influence. The Endangered Species Act is a stronger statute that requires formal consultation with federal wildlife agencies to assess pesticide impacts and develop measures to avoid harm to endangered species. The EPA has completed very few of these consultations. The Clean Water Act also regulates pesticide pollution by requiring federal permits for discharges of contaminants that enter waterways, including pesticides. A bill currently under consideration in the Senate, however, would exempt pesticides from the Clean Water Act.
In January, the Center for Biological Diversity and Pesticide Action Network North America filed the most comprehensive legal action ever brought under the Endangered Species Act to protect imperiled wildlife from pesticides. The suit seeks to compel the EPA to evaluate the impacts of hundreds of the most dangerous pesticides known to be harmful to more than 200 endangered and threatened species. The process would yield common-sense restrictions on some of the most harmful pesticides and safeguard human health (including for farmworkers and their families), drinking water and wildlife. Tellingly, Crop Life America, the pesticide industry’s main trade group, has stated that defeating this lawsuit is one of its top three lobbying priorities.
“Lobbying by pesticide interests to exempt pesticides from our strongest environmental laws will have cascading effects for generations,” said Pilatic. “Hundreds of groups have come together to call for more — not less — protection from pesticides.”
Background
More than a billion pounds of pesticides are used annually in the United States, and the EPA has registered more than 18,000 different pesticides for use. Scientific studies show widespread and pervasive pesticide contamination in groundwater, drinking water and wildlife habitats throughout the country. Farmers, farmworkers and their families, and rural communities face higher rates of Parkinson’s disease, many cancers, autoimmune disorders, neurodevelopmental problems and a host of other pesticide-linked diseases.
Through pesticide drift and runoff, pesticides can travel far from the areas where they are applied and into sensitive wildlife habitats. Some contaminated waterways are regularly subjected to toxic pulses of combinations of pesticides deadly to fish and other life. Pesticides are a particular threat to endangered species, biological diversity and pollinating insects and bats.
For decades the EPA has consistently failed to engage in required consultations to properly evaluate whether pesticides it registers are harmful to imperiled species. In 2004 the Center published Silent Spring Revisited: Pesticide Use and Endangered Species, detailing the EPA’s dismal record in protecting endangered species from pesticides. Lawsuits by conservation groups have forced the EPA to assess pesticide impacts on some endangered species, primarily in California, and resulted in temporary restrictions on pesticide use in sensitive habitats. In complying with court-ordered evaluations, the EPA has concurred that nearly every pesticide at issue is “likely to adversely affect” the at-risk species.
An example of the EPA failure to protect people and the environment is the controversial re-registration of the dangerous herbicide atrazine, a widespread pollutant of groundwater and drinking water that has been banned in the European Union. Atrazine chemically castrates male frogs at extremely low concentrations. Recent research also links atrazine to birth defects and endocrine disruption in humans, as well as significant harm to wildlife.
See an interactive map of endangered species threatened by pesticide use.
For a list of Frequently Asked Questions about pesticide registration and the lawsuit, click here.
Find out more about the Center’s Pesticides Reduction campaign.
Read information from PANNA on the environmental impacts of persistent poisons.
***************************************
Jeff Miller
Conservation Advocate
Center for Biological Diversity
351 California Street, Suite 600
San Francisco, CA 94104
Phone: (415) 436-9682 x303
Fax: (415) 436-9683
Web site: www.biologicaldiversity.org
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild plants and animals. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law, and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters, and climate that species need to survive. We want those who come after us to inherit a world where the wild is still alive.
Contact: Heather Pilatic, Pesticide Action Network, (415) 694-8596
Jeff Miller, Center for Biological Diversity, (415) 669-7357
Alliance Calls for Stronger Measures to Protect Human Health, Wildlife From Dangerous Pesticides
WASHINGTON— More than 130 groups in 35 states, representing public health, food-security, sustainable-farming, farmworker and conservation interests called on the Environmental Protection Agency today to use all the tools at its disposal to protect public health and imperiled wildlife from harmful pesticides. The letter to the EPA, citing significant flaws in the pesticide registration process, comes as Congress considers legislation to weaken environmental protections and allow increased pesticide pollution. (http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/pesticides_reduction/pdfs/Pesticides_sign-on_letter_6-16-11.pdf )
“Pesticides pose a clear and preventable danger to our health and the environment. It’s time for the EPA to ensure pesticides no longer jeopardize human health, wildlife, the water we drink or the air we breathe,” said Jeff Miller, a conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Congress must do its part by stopping legislation sponsored by chemical corporations and their allies to strip important laws that safeguard future generations, farmworkers and wildlife from pesticide harms.”
The groups cite undue pesticide industry influence over EPA’s pesticide decisions under the Federal Insecticide Fungicide Rodenticide Act (FIFRA)—as well as documented pesticide impacts such as endocrine disruption, cancers and reproductive disorders for humans and wildlife—in requesting increased protections from harmful pesticide use. Specifically, the groups urge EPA to use the “rigorous scientific review process and strong legal protections” of the federal Endangered Species Act.
“The pesticide industry has subverted the intended protections of U.S. pesticide law under FIFRA. That law is broken. If enforced, the Endangered Species Act offers strong protections for our most endangered wildlife, with human health benefits because it requires a more rigorous scientific review process less susceptible to industry influence,” said Heather Pilatic, co-director of Pesticide Action Network North America. “Current independent science indicates that the low-level mixtures of pesticides to which we are all exposed contribute to children’s rising rates of neurodevelopmental disease and certain cancers, and impact the biodiversity that keeps our planet resilient.”
Pesticide use in the United States is regulated primarily under FIFRA, a 1947 labeling law that was last significantly updated 40 years ago and has been subject to major pesticide industry and farm-lobby influence. The Endangered Species Act is a stronger statute that requires formal consultation with federal wildlife agencies to assess pesticide impacts and develop measures to avoid harm to endangered species. The EPA has completed very few of these consultations. The Clean Water Act also regulates pesticide pollution by requiring federal permits for discharges of contaminants that enter waterways, including pesticides. A bill currently under consideration in the Senate, however, would exempt pesticides from the Clean Water Act.
In January, the Center for Biological Diversity and Pesticide Action Network North America filed the most comprehensive legal action ever brought under the Endangered Species Act to protect imperiled wildlife from pesticides. The suit seeks to compel the EPA to evaluate the impacts of hundreds of the most dangerous pesticides known to be harmful to more than 200 endangered and threatened species. The process would yield common-sense restrictions on some of the most harmful pesticides and safeguard human health (including for farmworkers and their families), drinking water and wildlife. Tellingly, Crop Life America, the pesticide industry’s main trade group, has stated that defeating this lawsuit is one of its top three lobbying priorities.
“Lobbying by pesticide interests to exempt pesticides from our strongest environmental laws will have cascading effects for generations,” said Pilatic. “Hundreds of groups have come together to call for more — not less — protection from pesticides.”
Background
More than a billion pounds of pesticides are used annually in the United States, and the EPA has registered more than 18,000 different pesticides for use. Scientific studies show widespread and pervasive pesticide contamination in groundwater, drinking water and wildlife habitats throughout the country. Farmers, farmworkers and their families, and rural communities face higher rates of Parkinson’s disease, many cancers, autoimmune disorders, neurodevelopmental problems and a host of other pesticide-linked diseases.
Through pesticide drift and runoff, pesticides can travel far from the areas where they are applied and into sensitive wildlife habitats. Some contaminated waterways are regularly subjected to toxic pulses of combinations of pesticides deadly to fish and other life. Pesticides are a particular threat to endangered species, biological diversity and pollinating insects and bats.
For decades the EPA has consistently failed to engage in required consultations to properly evaluate whether pesticides it registers are harmful to imperiled species. In 2004 the Center published Silent Spring Revisited: Pesticide Use and Endangered Species, detailing the EPA’s dismal record in protecting endangered species from pesticides. Lawsuits by conservation groups have forced the EPA to assess pesticide impacts on some endangered species, primarily in California, and resulted in temporary restrictions on pesticide use in sensitive habitats. In complying with court-ordered evaluations, the EPA has concurred that nearly every pesticide at issue is “likely to adversely affect” the at-risk species.
An example of the EPA failure to protect people and the environment is the controversial re-registration of the dangerous herbicide atrazine, a widespread pollutant of groundwater and drinking water that has been banned in the European Union. Atrazine chemically castrates male frogs at extremely low concentrations. Recent research also links atrazine to birth defects and endocrine disruption in humans, as well as significant harm to wildlife.
See an interactive map of endangered species threatened by pesticide use.
For a list of Frequently Asked Questions about pesticide registration and the lawsuit, click here.
Find out more about the Center’s Pesticides Reduction campaign.
Read information from PANNA on the environmental impacts of persistent poisons.
***************************************
Jeff Miller
Conservation Advocate
Center for Biological Diversity
351 California Street, Suite 600
San Francisco, CA 94104
Phone: (415) 436-9682 x303
Fax: (415) 436-9683
Web site: www.biologicaldiversity.org
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild plants and animals. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law, and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters, and climate that species need to survive. We want those who come after us to inherit a world where the wild is still alive.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Environmental Illness in U.S. Kids Cost $76.6 Billion in One Year.
Environmental Illness in U.S. Kids Cost $76.6 Billion in One Year
NEW YORK, New York, May 4, 2011 (ENS) - It cost a "staggering" $76.6 billion to cover the health expenses of American children who were sick because of exposure to toxic chemicals and air pollutants in 2008, according to new research by senior scientists at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
Published in the May issue of the journal "Health Affairs," three new studies by Mount Sinai scientists reveal the economic impact of toxic chemicals and air pollutants in the environment, and propose new legislation to require testing of new chemicals as well as those already on the market.
In one of the studies, Leonardo Trasande, MD, associate professor of preventive medicine and pediatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and his team calculated the annual cost for direct medical care and the indirect costs, such as parents' lost work days, and lost economic productivity caring for their children, of these diseases in children.
"Our findings show that, despite previous efforts to curb their use, toxic chemicals have a major impact on health care costs and childhood morbidity," said Dr. Trasande.
Lead poisoning still costs the most at $50.9 billion a year, while autism is a distant second at $7.9 billion.
Intellectual disabilities cost $5.4 billion a year, exposure to mercury pollution costs $5.1 billion, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder costs $5 billion, asthma costs $2.2 billion, and childhood cancer costs $95 million.
"New policy mandates are necessary to reduce the burden of disease associated with environmental toxins," said Dr. Trasande. "The prevalence of chronic childhood conditions and costs associated with them may continue to rise if this issue is not addressed."
He advised reducing lead-based paint hazards and curbing mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.
"Given evidence that current ambient air quality standards remain insufficiently protective for children, ongoing efforts are needed to reduce outdoor air pollutant emissions and their consequences for children's breathing," he states in the study.
Obesity in children is also a result of toxic exposure, Dr. Trasande finds. "Emerging evidence, for example, is beginning to support the notion that endocrine-disrupting chemicals may contribute to the development of childhood obesity," he states. "Such chemicals are found in the environment, food, or consumer products and interfere with metabolism or normal hormone control or reproduction."
Dr. Trasande also reviewed an earlier study of 1997 data, which was conducted by Philip Landrigan, MD, and documented $54.9 billion in annual costs for childhood diseases associated with environmental toxins in the United States.
Dr. Landrigan is currently dean for global health, and professor and chair of preventive medicine, and professor of pediatrics, at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Reviewing this prior analysis, Dr. Trasande found that while exposure to lead and costs associated with asthma had diminished, new chemicals and new environmentally-induced diseases, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, have increased the overall burden of disease.
In a related article, also in "Health Affairs," Dr. Landrigan and Lynn Goldman, MD, dean of the School of Public Health at George Washington University, propose a three-pronged approach to reduce the burden of disease and rein in the effects of toxic chemicals in the environment.
Landrigan and Goldman say, "The linchpins of a new U.S. chemical policy will be:
first, a legally mandated requirement to test the toxicity of chemicals already in commerce, prioritizing chemicals in the widest use, and incorporating new assessment technologies
second, a tiered approach to premarket evaluation of new chemicals
third, epidemiologic monitoring and focused health studies of exposed populations."
"Implementing these proposals would have a significant impact in preventing childhood disease and reducing health costs," said Dr. Landrigan. "Scant legislation has been passed to reduce the risks associated with childhood exposure to toxic chemicals in the environment."
On April 14, U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg, New Jersey Democrat, introduced updated legislation to modernize the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 and protect Americans from exposure to toxins.
Lautenberg, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health, seeks to require, for the first time, that chemical manufacturers demonstrate the safety of industrial chemicals used in everyday household products.
Lautenberg's Safe Chemicals Act of 2011 would require safety testing of all industrial chemicals, and puts the burden on industry to prove that chemicals are safe in order to get on or stay on the market.
Under current policy, the Environmental Protection Agency can only call for safety testing after evidence surfaces demonstrating a chemical is dangerous. As a result, the EPA has been able to require testing for just 200 of the more than 80,000 chemicals currently registered in the United States, and just six have been banned.
"Even though only six chemicals have been banned, we have seen dramatic benefits from that action alone," Dr. Landrigan said. "The removal of lead from gasoline and paint is an example of the importance of this type of regulation."
In a separate article in the same journal, Perry Sheffield, MD, assistant professor of preventive medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, evaluated the little-studied correlation between air pollution and infectious respiratory illness in children, and the resultant health care costs.
Dr. Sheffield and her team analyzed hospitalization data between 1999 and 2007 for children aged one month to one year who had bronchiolitis - a type of viral lung infection with symptoms similar to asthma - and monitored the air quality surrounding in the hospitals where the patients were treated.
They found a statistically significant association between levels of fine particulate matter pollutant surrounding the hospitals, and total charges and costs for infant bronchiolitis hospitalizations.
As the amount of air pollutants increased, infant bronchiolitis hospitalization costs increased by an average of $127 per patient.
They concluded that reducing the average level of fine particulate pollutant by just seven percent below the current annual standard could save $15 million annually in U.S. health care costs.
"While more research is required to understand the full effect of air pollutants on infectious disease severity and health care costs," said Dr. Sheffield, "our findings are indicative of the tremendous impact new legislation on air quality control standards could have on the health of our children."
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2011. All rights reserved.
NEW YORK, New York, May 4, 2011 (ENS) - It cost a "staggering" $76.6 billion to cover the health expenses of American children who were sick because of exposure to toxic chemicals and air pollutants in 2008, according to new research by senior scientists at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
Published in the May issue of the journal "Health Affairs," three new studies by Mount Sinai scientists reveal the economic impact of toxic chemicals and air pollutants in the environment, and propose new legislation to require testing of new chemicals as well as those already on the market.
In one of the studies, Leonardo Trasande, MD, associate professor of preventive medicine and pediatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and his team calculated the annual cost for direct medical care and the indirect costs, such as parents' lost work days, and lost economic productivity caring for their children, of these diseases in children.
"Our findings show that, despite previous efforts to curb their use, toxic chemicals have a major impact on health care costs and childhood morbidity," said Dr. Trasande.
Lead poisoning still costs the most at $50.9 billion a year, while autism is a distant second at $7.9 billion.
Intellectual disabilities cost $5.4 billion a year, exposure to mercury pollution costs $5.1 billion, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder costs $5 billion, asthma costs $2.2 billion, and childhood cancer costs $95 million.
"New policy mandates are necessary to reduce the burden of disease associated with environmental toxins," said Dr. Trasande. "The prevalence of chronic childhood conditions and costs associated with them may continue to rise if this issue is not addressed."
He advised reducing lead-based paint hazards and curbing mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.
"Given evidence that current ambient air quality standards remain insufficiently protective for children, ongoing efforts are needed to reduce outdoor air pollutant emissions and their consequences for children's breathing," he states in the study.
Obesity in children is also a result of toxic exposure, Dr. Trasande finds. "Emerging evidence, for example, is beginning to support the notion that endocrine-disrupting chemicals may contribute to the development of childhood obesity," he states. "Such chemicals are found in the environment, food, or consumer products and interfere with metabolism or normal hormone control or reproduction."
Dr. Trasande also reviewed an earlier study of 1997 data, which was conducted by Philip Landrigan, MD, and documented $54.9 billion in annual costs for childhood diseases associated with environmental toxins in the United States.
Dr. Landrigan is currently dean for global health, and professor and chair of preventive medicine, and professor of pediatrics, at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Reviewing this prior analysis, Dr. Trasande found that while exposure to lead and costs associated with asthma had diminished, new chemicals and new environmentally-induced diseases, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, have increased the overall burden of disease.
In a related article, also in "Health Affairs," Dr. Landrigan and Lynn Goldman, MD, dean of the School of Public Health at George Washington University, propose a three-pronged approach to reduce the burden of disease and rein in the effects of toxic chemicals in the environment.
Landrigan and Goldman say, "The linchpins of a new U.S. chemical policy will be:
first, a legally mandated requirement to test the toxicity of chemicals already in commerce, prioritizing chemicals in the widest use, and incorporating new assessment technologies
second, a tiered approach to premarket evaluation of new chemicals
third, epidemiologic monitoring and focused health studies of exposed populations."
"Implementing these proposals would have a significant impact in preventing childhood disease and reducing health costs," said Dr. Landrigan. "Scant legislation has been passed to reduce the risks associated with childhood exposure to toxic chemicals in the environment."
On April 14, U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg, New Jersey Democrat, introduced updated legislation to modernize the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 and protect Americans from exposure to toxins.
Lautenberg, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health, seeks to require, for the first time, that chemical manufacturers demonstrate the safety of industrial chemicals used in everyday household products.
Lautenberg's Safe Chemicals Act of 2011 would require safety testing of all industrial chemicals, and puts the burden on industry to prove that chemicals are safe in order to get on or stay on the market.
Under current policy, the Environmental Protection Agency can only call for safety testing after evidence surfaces demonstrating a chemical is dangerous. As a result, the EPA has been able to require testing for just 200 of the more than 80,000 chemicals currently registered in the United States, and just six have been banned.
"Even though only six chemicals have been banned, we have seen dramatic benefits from that action alone," Dr. Landrigan said. "The removal of lead from gasoline and paint is an example of the importance of this type of regulation."
In a separate article in the same journal, Perry Sheffield, MD, assistant professor of preventive medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, evaluated the little-studied correlation between air pollution and infectious respiratory illness in children, and the resultant health care costs.
Dr. Sheffield and her team analyzed hospitalization data between 1999 and 2007 for children aged one month to one year who had bronchiolitis - a type of viral lung infection with symptoms similar to asthma - and monitored the air quality surrounding in the hospitals where the patients were treated.
They found a statistically significant association between levels of fine particulate matter pollutant surrounding the hospitals, and total charges and costs for infant bronchiolitis hospitalizations.
As the amount of air pollutants increased, infant bronchiolitis hospitalization costs increased by an average of $127 per patient.
They concluded that reducing the average level of fine particulate pollutant by just seven percent below the current annual standard could save $15 million annually in U.S. health care costs.
"While more research is required to understand the full effect of air pollutants on infectious disease severity and health care costs," said Dr. Sheffield, "our findings are indicative of the tremendous impact new legislation on air quality control standards could have on the health of our children."
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2011. All rights reserved.
Discovery of Bt insecticide in human blood proves GMO toxin a threat to human health, study finds.
Discovery of Bt insecticide in human blood proves GMO toxin a threat to human health, study finds
by Jonathan Benson, staff writer
(NaturalNews) The biotechnology industry's house of cards appears to be crumbling, as a new study out of the University of Sherbrooke, Canada, recently found Bt toxin, a component of certain genetically-modified (GM) crops, in human blood samples for the first time. Set to be published in the peer-reviewed journal Reproductive Toxicology the new study shreds the false notion that Bt is broken down by the digestive system, and instead shows that the toxin definitively persists in the bloodstream.
Industry mouthpieces have long alleged that Bt toxin, which is derived from a soil bacterium known as Bacillus thuringiensis, is harmless to humans. The built-in pesticide has been integrated into certain GM crops to ward off pests. Bt corn, for instance, has actually been designed to produce the toxin directly inside its kernels, which are later eaten by both livestock and humans (http://www.naturalnews.com/026426_G...).
In the recent study, researchers Aziz Aris and Samuel Leblanc evaluated 30 pregnant women and 39 non-pregnant women who had come to the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke (CHUS) in Quebec, Can., for a tubectomy. Upon taking blood samples, researchers detected the Bt Cry1Ab toxin in a shocking 93 percent of maternal and 80 percent of fetal blood samples. And 69 percent of non-pregnant women tested positive for the toxin in their blood.
All women involved in the study had been consuming a typical Canadian diet which, like in the US, is riddled with GM materials and toxins. Conventional soy, corn, canola, and potato products, for example, are in many of the foods eaten in both the US and Canada, which explains why Bt toxin was highly prevalent in the women's blood samples.
And the fact that Bt toxin was detected even in unborn babies shows that the chemical is easily passed from mother to child, and that it persists far longer than the biotechnology industry claims it does. Clearly, the toxin is harmful both to pests and to humans. Earlier studies have already shown that Bt toxin and other pesticides end up contaminating and persisting in the environment, which makes it a major public health concern.
Sources for this story include:
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/s...
by Jonathan Benson, staff writer
(NaturalNews) The biotechnology industry's house of cards appears to be crumbling, as a new study out of the University of Sherbrooke, Canada, recently found Bt toxin, a component of certain genetically-modified (GM) crops, in human blood samples for the first time. Set to be published in the peer-reviewed journal Reproductive Toxicology the new study shreds the false notion that Bt is broken down by the digestive system, and instead shows that the toxin definitively persists in the bloodstream.
Industry mouthpieces have long alleged that Bt toxin, which is derived from a soil bacterium known as Bacillus thuringiensis, is harmless to humans. The built-in pesticide has been integrated into certain GM crops to ward off pests. Bt corn, for instance, has actually been designed to produce the toxin directly inside its kernels, which are later eaten by both livestock and humans (http://www.naturalnews.com/026426_G...).
In the recent study, researchers Aziz Aris and Samuel Leblanc evaluated 30 pregnant women and 39 non-pregnant women who had come to the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke (CHUS) in Quebec, Can., for a tubectomy. Upon taking blood samples, researchers detected the Bt Cry1Ab toxin in a shocking 93 percent of maternal and 80 percent of fetal blood samples. And 69 percent of non-pregnant women tested positive for the toxin in their blood.
All women involved in the study had been consuming a typical Canadian diet which, like in the US, is riddled with GM materials and toxins. Conventional soy, corn, canola, and potato products, for example, are in many of the foods eaten in both the US and Canada, which explains why Bt toxin was highly prevalent in the women's blood samples.
And the fact that Bt toxin was detected even in unborn babies shows that the chemical is easily passed from mother to child, and that it persists far longer than the biotechnology industry claims it does. Clearly, the toxin is harmful both to pests and to humans. Earlier studies have already shown that Bt toxin and other pesticides end up contaminating and persisting in the environment, which makes it a major public health concern.
Sources for this story include:
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/s...
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Growing Roundup-Resistant Weed Problem
THIRD WORLD NETWORK BIOSAFETY INFORMATION SERVICE
Dear Friends and colleagues,
RE: Growing Roundup-Resistant Weed Problem
The adoption of crops that are genetically engineered to tolerate the herbicide Roundup has resulted in a growing number of weed species that are resistant to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, due to widespread use of the herbicide. This has also led to a decline in the effectiveness of glyphosate as a weed-management tool.
According to weed expert David Mortensen, during the period since the introduction of glyphosate-tolerant crops, the number of weedy plant species that have evolved resistance to glyphosate has increased dramatically, from zero in 1995 to 19 in June of 2010. Based on the most recent data, glyphosate-tolerant weeds were reported on 30,000 sites and affected up to 11.4 million acres, up from 3,251 sites covering about 2.4 million acres in 2007.
The cost of forestalling and controlling herbicide-tolerant weeds is estimated to cost farmers almost $1 billion each year, at an additional cost of $10-20 per acre.
The trend is set to continue and the problem of resistance may worsen if multiple herbicide-tolerant crops are introduced, as increased use of herbicides is expected.
With best wishes,
Third World Network
131 Jalan Macalister,
10400 Penang,
Malaysia
Email: twnet@po.jaring.my
Website: www.biosafety-info.net and www.twnside.org.sg
To subscribe to other TWN information mailing lists: www.twnnews.net
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Growing Roundup-resistant weed problem must be dealt with, expert says Physorg.com
September 14, 2010
http://www.physorg.com/news203697204.html
When Penn State weed scientist David Mortensen told members of the U.S. House Oversight Committee this summer that the government should restrict the use of herbicide-tolerant crops and impose a tax on biotech seeds to fund research and educational programs for farmers, it caused quite a stir.
The growing problem with weeds that have become resistant to the most common herbicide used by American corn, soybean and cotton farmers has gotten so serious that new strategies are needed to combat them, he contended.
Mortensen should know. The professor of weed ecology in the College of Agricultural Sciences has spent his career researching weeds that affect agricultural production, sustainable ways to control them, and the relationships between crops, native and invasive weeds, and pollinators. He has published several peer-reviewed papers on the subject in recent years.
The resistant weeds cannot be killed by the sole use of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide. Roundup has become broadly popular with farmers since the advent more than a decade ago of soybeans, cotton, corn and other crops that are resistant to the chemical. The weeds now
infest about 11 million acres -- a fivefold increase in three years, Mortensen reported.
The problem is most prevalent in cotton and soybean fields in the South but is spreading to other regions. And he told lawmakers it will get worse if farmers don't take measures to control the weeds, including nonchemical methods such as planting cover crops to suppress weeds, rotating crops and spraying herbicides other than glyphosate.
"With the rise of glyphosate-resistant weeds, farmers have to quit relying so heavily on Roundup to control weeds," he said. "Farmers value the convenience and simplicity of these crops without appreciating the long-term ecological and economic risks."
Testifying before the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee July 28, Mortensen explained that weed management is a serious matter for farmers. While weed management almost always comprises several tactics, herbicide use is central and accounts for 70 percent of all pesticides used in agriculture.
"Since the mid-1990s, adoption of genetically engineered crops resistant to the herbicide glyphosate has been widespread, and herbicide-resistant crops are now grown on more than 143 million acres of cropland internationally, with 92 percent of the U.S. soybean crop planted to glyphosate-resistant varieties," he said. "Genetic engineering makes it possible to take a crop that was formally susceptible to glyphosate and genetically transform it to be resistant to the plant-killing effects of the herbicide."
The adoption and widespread use of genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant crops has greatly changed how farmers manage weeds, enabling them to rely solely on a single-tactic approach to weed management (application of glyphosate). Unfortunately, Mortensen noted, this approach has resulted in an unintended, but not unexpected, problem - a dramatic rise in the number of weed species that are resistant to glyphosate and a resulting decline in the effectiveness of glyphosate as a weed-management tool.
"During the period since the introduction of glyphosate-resistant crops, the number of weedy plant species that have evolved resistance to glyphosate has increased dramatically, from zero in 1995 to 19 in June of 2010," Mortensen said.
This list includes many of the most problematic weed species, such as common ragweed, horseweed, johnsongrass and several of the most common pigweeds -- many of which are geographically widespread.
"In practice, the problem of glyphosate resistance goes far beyond a species count," Mortensen said. "More important, perhaps, is the increase in acreage infested with glyphosate-resistant weeds. The reported extent of infestation in the United States has increased dramatically since just November of 2007, when glyphosate-resistant populations of eight weed species were reported on no more than 3,251 sites covering up to 2.4 million acres."
In the summer of 2009, glyphosate-resistant weeds were reported on as many as 14,262 sites on up to 5.4 million acres, and the most recent summary indicates 30,000 sites infested on up to 11.4 million acres, according to Mortensen. In a period of three years, the number of reported sites
infested by glyphosate-resistant weeds has increased nine fold, while the maximum infested acreage increased nearly fivefold.
"There is reason to believe this trend will continue into the future," he said. "The cost of forestalling and controlling herbicide-resistant weeds is estimated to cost farmers almost $1 billion each year, at an additional cost of $10-20 per acre."
Mortensen expressed concern about herbicide- and germplasm-development companies responding to the glyphosate-resistance problem by developing a new generation of genetically engineered crops in which glyphosate-resistant cultivars are being engineered to have additional resistance traits introduced into the crop's genome.
"These additional gene inserts will confer resistance to other herbicide active ingredients, including 2,4-D and dicamba," he said. "For a variety of reasons, it is quite likely that such crops will be widely adopted. Disturbingly, that would result in a significant increase of older, higher use-rate herbicides in soybean and cotton production.
"If they are adopted in the way I expect they will be, herbicide use in soybean production would increase by an average of 70 percent in a relatively short time after the release of these new genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant cultivars."
Vapor drift of more toxic herbicides has been implicated in many incidents of crop injury and may have additional impacts on natural vegetation interspersed in agricultural landscapes, Mortensen told lawmakers. Scientists have documented that nontarget terrestrial plant injury was 75
to 400 times higher for dicamba and 2,4-D, respectively, than for glyphosate.
Together the herbicide and seed-breeding industries are moving to address the problem of resistance with crops that have been engineered to be resistant to multiple herbicide active ingredients, according to Mortensen. If these new crop introductions occur as reported, we should
expect to see herbicide use continue to increase and a significant proportion of those added herbicides will be older, less environmentally benign compounds, he predicted.
Mortensen suggested that federal regulation should play a strong role in forestalling the further development of herbicide-resistant weeds. He advocated steps that could significantly improve the sustainability of weed-management practices in American agriculture.
"Biotech companies are trying to deal with the problem by engineering new crop varieties that will be immune to more than one herbicide, but even those products will eventually run into resistance problems if farmers aren't careful," he said. "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and
the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service should require that registration of new herbicide/transgenic crop combinations explicitly address herbicide-resistance management.
"Regulations should limit repeated use of herbicides in ways that select for resistance or that result in increased reliance on greater amounts of herbicide to achieve weed control," Mortensen added. "We should provide environmental market incentives, possibly through the Farm Bill, to adopt
a broader integration of tactics for managing weeds.
"Transgene seed and associated herbicides should be taxed and proceeds used to fund and implement research and education aimed at advancing ecologically based integrated weed management," he concluded.
Provided by Pennsylvania State University
******
Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero, freelance writer and public speaker specialized in environment and development issues of global interest, including agricultural biotechnology, human health and environmental impacts of genetically engineered foods and crops, agroecology, food sovereignty, patents on life, climate change, peak oil, local self-reliance, green politics, and post-growth economics.
http://carmeloruiz.blogspot.com/
http://pr.linkedin.com/pub/carmelo-ruiz/b/6b7/a38
Dear Friends and colleagues,
RE: Growing Roundup-Resistant Weed Problem
The adoption of crops that are genetically engineered to tolerate the herbicide Roundup has resulted in a growing number of weed species that are resistant to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, due to widespread use of the herbicide. This has also led to a decline in the effectiveness of glyphosate as a weed-management tool.
According to weed expert David Mortensen, during the period since the introduction of glyphosate-tolerant crops, the number of weedy plant species that have evolved resistance to glyphosate has increased dramatically, from zero in 1995 to 19 in June of 2010. Based on the most recent data, glyphosate-tolerant weeds were reported on 30,000 sites and affected up to 11.4 million acres, up from 3,251 sites covering about 2.4 million acres in 2007.
The cost of forestalling and controlling herbicide-tolerant weeds is estimated to cost farmers almost $1 billion each year, at an additional cost of $10-20 per acre.
The trend is set to continue and the problem of resistance may worsen if multiple herbicide-tolerant crops are introduced, as increased use of herbicides is expected.
With best wishes,
Third World Network
131 Jalan Macalister,
10400 Penang,
Malaysia
Email: twnet@po.jaring.my
Website: www.biosafety-info.net and www.twnside.org.sg
To subscribe to other TWN information mailing lists: www.twnnews.net
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Growing Roundup-resistant weed problem must be dealt with, expert says Physorg.com
September 14, 2010
http://www.physorg.com/news203697204.html
When Penn State weed scientist David Mortensen told members of the U.S. House Oversight Committee this summer that the government should restrict the use of herbicide-tolerant crops and impose a tax on biotech seeds to fund research and educational programs for farmers, it caused quite a stir.
The growing problem with weeds that have become resistant to the most common herbicide used by American corn, soybean and cotton farmers has gotten so serious that new strategies are needed to combat them, he contended.
Mortensen should know. The professor of weed ecology in the College of Agricultural Sciences has spent his career researching weeds that affect agricultural production, sustainable ways to control them, and the relationships between crops, native and invasive weeds, and pollinators. He has published several peer-reviewed papers on the subject in recent years.
The resistant weeds cannot be killed by the sole use of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide. Roundup has become broadly popular with farmers since the advent more than a decade ago of soybeans, cotton, corn and other crops that are resistant to the chemical. The weeds now
infest about 11 million acres -- a fivefold increase in three years, Mortensen reported.
The problem is most prevalent in cotton and soybean fields in the South but is spreading to other regions. And he told lawmakers it will get worse if farmers don't take measures to control the weeds, including nonchemical methods such as planting cover crops to suppress weeds, rotating crops and spraying herbicides other than glyphosate.
"With the rise of glyphosate-resistant weeds, farmers have to quit relying so heavily on Roundup to control weeds," he said. "Farmers value the convenience and simplicity of these crops without appreciating the long-term ecological and economic risks."
Testifying before the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee July 28, Mortensen explained that weed management is a serious matter for farmers. While weed management almost always comprises several tactics, herbicide use is central and accounts for 70 percent of all pesticides used in agriculture.
"Since the mid-1990s, adoption of genetically engineered crops resistant to the herbicide glyphosate has been widespread, and herbicide-resistant crops are now grown on more than 143 million acres of cropland internationally, with 92 percent of the U.S. soybean crop planted to glyphosate-resistant varieties," he said. "Genetic engineering makes it possible to take a crop that was formally susceptible to glyphosate and genetically transform it to be resistant to the plant-killing effects of the herbicide."
The adoption and widespread use of genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant crops has greatly changed how farmers manage weeds, enabling them to rely solely on a single-tactic approach to weed management (application of glyphosate). Unfortunately, Mortensen noted, this approach has resulted in an unintended, but not unexpected, problem - a dramatic rise in the number of weed species that are resistant to glyphosate and a resulting decline in the effectiveness of glyphosate as a weed-management tool.
"During the period since the introduction of glyphosate-resistant crops, the number of weedy plant species that have evolved resistance to glyphosate has increased dramatically, from zero in 1995 to 19 in June of 2010," Mortensen said.
This list includes many of the most problematic weed species, such as common ragweed, horseweed, johnsongrass and several of the most common pigweeds -- many of which are geographically widespread.
"In practice, the problem of glyphosate resistance goes far beyond a species count," Mortensen said. "More important, perhaps, is the increase in acreage infested with glyphosate-resistant weeds. The reported extent of infestation in the United States has increased dramatically since just November of 2007, when glyphosate-resistant populations of eight weed species were reported on no more than 3,251 sites covering up to 2.4 million acres."
In the summer of 2009, glyphosate-resistant weeds were reported on as many as 14,262 sites on up to 5.4 million acres, and the most recent summary indicates 30,000 sites infested on up to 11.4 million acres, according to Mortensen. In a period of three years, the number of reported sites
infested by glyphosate-resistant weeds has increased nine fold, while the maximum infested acreage increased nearly fivefold.
"There is reason to believe this trend will continue into the future," he said. "The cost of forestalling and controlling herbicide-resistant weeds is estimated to cost farmers almost $1 billion each year, at an additional cost of $10-20 per acre."
Mortensen expressed concern about herbicide- and germplasm-development companies responding to the glyphosate-resistance problem by developing a new generation of genetically engineered crops in which glyphosate-resistant cultivars are being engineered to have additional resistance traits introduced into the crop's genome.
"These additional gene inserts will confer resistance to other herbicide active ingredients, including 2,4-D and dicamba," he said. "For a variety of reasons, it is quite likely that such crops will be widely adopted. Disturbingly, that would result in a significant increase of older, higher use-rate herbicides in soybean and cotton production.
"If they are adopted in the way I expect they will be, herbicide use in soybean production would increase by an average of 70 percent in a relatively short time after the release of these new genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant cultivars."
Vapor drift of more toxic herbicides has been implicated in many incidents of crop injury and may have additional impacts on natural vegetation interspersed in agricultural landscapes, Mortensen told lawmakers. Scientists have documented that nontarget terrestrial plant injury was 75
to 400 times higher for dicamba and 2,4-D, respectively, than for glyphosate.
Together the herbicide and seed-breeding industries are moving to address the problem of resistance with crops that have been engineered to be resistant to multiple herbicide active ingredients, according to Mortensen. If these new crop introductions occur as reported, we should
expect to see herbicide use continue to increase and a significant proportion of those added herbicides will be older, less environmentally benign compounds, he predicted.
Mortensen suggested that federal regulation should play a strong role in forestalling the further development of herbicide-resistant weeds. He advocated steps that could significantly improve the sustainability of weed-management practices in American agriculture.
"Biotech companies are trying to deal with the problem by engineering new crop varieties that will be immune to more than one herbicide, but even those products will eventually run into resistance problems if farmers aren't careful," he said. "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and
the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service should require that registration of new herbicide/transgenic crop combinations explicitly address herbicide-resistance management.
"Regulations should limit repeated use of herbicides in ways that select for resistance or that result in increased reliance on greater amounts of herbicide to achieve weed control," Mortensen added. "We should provide environmental market incentives, possibly through the Farm Bill, to adopt
a broader integration of tactics for managing weeds.
"Transgene seed and associated herbicides should be taxed and proceeds used to fund and implement research and education aimed at advancing ecologically based integrated weed management," he concluded.
Provided by Pennsylvania State University
******
Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero, freelance writer and public speaker specialized in environment and development issues of global interest, including agricultural biotechnology, human health and environmental impacts of genetically engineered foods and crops, agroecology, food sovereignty, patents on life, climate change, peak oil, local self-reliance, green politics, and post-growth economics.
http://carmeloruiz.blogspot.com/
http://pr.linkedin.com/pub/carmelo-ruiz/b/6b7/a38
Monday, June 13, 2011
Whole Foods admits its organic foods contain genetically modified ingredients.
Whole Foods admits its organic foods contain genetically modified ingredients
http://www.naturalnews.com/032628_Whole_Foods_GMOs.html
NaturalNews) Genetically modified foods have become so ubiquitous in the US that even the grocery store **Whole Foods** now admits it cannot keep biotech foods off its shelves. A representative for the corporation acknowledged in May of 2011 that the realities of the marketplace have forced a shift in the company's previous no-GMO's policy.
Joe Dickson, quality standards coordinator for Whole Foods Markets, notes that GMO's dominate the market, especially for corn, soy and canola crops from which ingredients in most processed foods are derived. **Until there's federal government mandated labeling of GMO ingredients, there's no way to tell if packaged products contain GMO ingredients," Dickson said. "Our approach is to work in the spirit of partnership with our suppliers ... to encourage them to take active steps to avoid GMO ingredients.**
In spite of public skepticism about GMO foods, the FDA has backed Monsanto and other corporations, declaring that modified foods do not require special labeling letting consumers know they are eating Frankenfoods. This is in contract to the European Union, where public concern over health issues resulted in a moratorium on GMO's. Many European countries, including France, Germany, Greece, Austria and Luxembourg have banned genetically modified foods, while other countries in the EU permit their sale only when products include clear labels of GMO ingredients.
Whole Foods' recent admission proves how successful the biotech companies have been in their efforts to replace foods unadulterated by hormones with Frankenfoods. The fact that one of the best-known purveyors of natural foods has decided to throw in the towel rather than holding the line against biotech foods means consumers will have fewer places to go in their quest to buy non-genetically engineered foods.
Jeffrey Smith points out in his book Seeds of Deception, the biotech industry has co-opted the watchdog agencies of the federal government and sought to silence critics in the media and the scientific community who question sloppy science which they use to **prove** the safety of Frankenfoods. Natural News readers should read Smith's book to understand the efforts Monsanto and others have gone to -- including smear campaigns and threats against those who seek to present other points of views and the theft of research materials contradicting their biotech claims that Frankenfoods are completely safe.
Even the long-standing EU **zero-tolerance** policy on biotech foods has shown signs of cracking in the past few months, as the Union considers lifting import restrictions which formerly kept US-grown GMO's from being sold in Europe. As reported on Natural News late last year (http://www.naturalnews.com/030828_G...), the forbidden information which surfaced through Wikileaks included documents revealing that the US government has conspired with the biotech companies to pressure European countries on the issue of genetically engineered foods.
Move past the propaganda put forth by Monsanto and their government lapdog agencies by educating yourself on the dangers of GMO's both on this website and in Jeffrey Smith's books and website. Try to keep your diet Frankenfood-free by finding a local food coop whose **quality standards** do not involve caving in to the biotech companies.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/05/25/Organic-foods-contain-modified-ingredients/UPI-50301306344505/?spt=hs&or=tn
http://www.naturalnews.com/031224_GMOs_contamination.html
http://www.responsibletechnology.org/
http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/Home/index.cfm
http://www.euractiv.com/en/trade/eu-gmo-ban-illegal-wto-rules/article-155197
A 35% Spike in Infant Mortality in Northwest Cities Since Meltdown.
http://www.counterpunch.org/sherman06102011.html
Weekend Edition
June 10 - 12, 2011
A 35% Spike in Infant Mortality in Northwest Cities Since Meltdown
Is the Dramatic Increase in Baby Deaths in the US a Result of Fukushima Fallout?
By JANETTE D. SHERMAN, MD
and JOSEPH MANGANO
U.S. babies are dying at an increased rate. While the United States spends billions on medical care, as of 2006, the US ranked 28th in the world in infant mortality, more than twice that of the lowest ranked countries. (DHHS, CDC, National Center for Health Statistics. Health United States 2010, Table 20, p. 131, February 2011.)
The recent CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicates that eight cities in the northwest U.S. (Boise ID, Seattle WA, Portland OR, plus the northern California cities of Santa Cruz, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Berkeley) reported the following data on deaths among those younger than one year of age:
4 weeks ending March 19, 2011 - 37 deaths (avg. 9.25 per week)
10 weeks ending May 28, 2011 - 125 deaths (avg.12.50 per week)
This amounts to an increase of 35% (the total for the entire U.S. rose about 2.3%), and is statistically significant. Of further significance is that those dates include the four weeks before and the ten weeks after the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster. In 2001 the infant mortality was 6.834 per 1000 live births, increasing to 6.845 in 2007. All years from 2002 to 2007 were higher than the 2001 rate.
Spewing from the Fukushima reactor are radioactive isotopes including those of iodine (I-131), strontium (Sr-90) and cesium (Cs-134 and Cs-137) all of which are taken up in food and water. Iodine is concentrated in the thyroid, Sr-90 in bones and teeth and Cs-134 and Cs-137 in soft tissues, including the heart. The unborn and babies are more vulnerable because the cells are rapidly dividing and the delivered dose is proportionally larger than that delivered to an adult.
Data from Chernobyl, which exploded 25 years ago, clearly shows increased numbers of sick and weak newborns and increased numbers of deaths in the unborn and newborns, especially soon after the meltdown. These occurred in Europe as well as the former Soviet Union. Similar findings are also seen in wildlife living in areas with increased radioactive fallout levels.
(Chernobyl -- Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, Alexeiy V. Yablokov, Vasily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V. Nesterenko. Consulting Editor: Janette D. Sherman-Nevinger. New York Academy of Sciences, 2009.)
Levels of radioisotopes were measured in children who had died in the Minsk area that had received Chernobyl fallout. The cardiac findings were the same as those seen in test animals that had been administered Cs-137. Bandashevsky, Y. I, Pathology of Incorporated Ionizing Radiation, Belarus Technical University, Minsk. 136 pp., 1999. For his pioneering work, Prof. Bandashevsky was arrested in 2001 and imprisoned for five years of an eight year sentence.
The national low-weight (under 2500 grams, or 5.5 lbs) rate has risen 23% from 1984 to 2006. Nearly 400,000 infants are born under 2500g each year in the U.S. Most of the increase in infant mortality is due specifically to infants born weighing less than 750 grams (I lb 10 1/2 oz). Multiple births commonly result in underweight babies, but most of the increase in births at less than 750 grams occurred among singletons and among mothers 20-34 years of age. (CDC, National Vital Statistics Report, 52 (12): 1-24, 2005.)
From an obstetrical point of view, women in the age bracket 20 to 34 are those most physically able to deliver a healthy child. So what has gone wrong? Clues to causation are often revealed when there is a change in incidence, a suspicious geographical distribution, and/or an increase in hazards known to adversely affect health and development.
The risk of having a baby with birth defects is estimated at three to four of every 100 babies born. As of 2005, the Institute of medicine estimated the cost of pre-term births in the US at more than $2.6 billion, or $51,600 for each infant.
Low birth weight babies, born too soon and too small, face a lifetime of health problems, including cerebral palsy, and behavioral and learning problems placing an enormous physical, emotional and economic burdens on society as a whole and on those caring for them. Death of a young child is devastating to a family.
As of June 5, 2011, The Japan Times reported that radiation in the No. 1 plant was measured at 4,000 milliseverts per hour. To put that in perspective, a worker would receive a maximal "permissible" dose in 4 minutes. In addition there are over 40,000 tons of radioactive water under that reactor with more radioactivity escaping into the air and sea. Fuel rods are believed to have melted and sunk to the bottom of reactors 1, 2, and 3.
Tepco, the corporate owner took more than two months to confirm the meltdowns and admitted lying about the levels of destruction and subsequent contamination, resulting in "Public Distrust." Over 100,000 tons of radioactive waste are on the site.
Why should we care if there may be is a link between Fukushima and the death of children? Because we need to measure the actual levels of isotopes in the environment and in the bodies of people exposed to determine if the fallout is killing our most vulnerable. The research is not technically difficult -- the political and economic barriers may be greater. Bandshevsky and others did it and confirmed the connection. The information is available in the Chernobyl book. (Previously cited.)
The biological findings of Chernobyl cannot be ignored: isotope incorporation will determine the future of all life on earth -- animal, fish, bird, plant and human. It is crucial to know this information if we are to avoid further catastrophic damage.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Janette D. Sherman, M. D. is the author of Life's Delicate Balance: Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer and Chemical Exposure and Disease, and is a specialist in internal medicine and toxicology. She edited the book Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and Nature, written by A. V. Yablokov, V. B., Nesterenko and A. V. Nesterenko, published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2009. Her primary interest is the prevention of illness through public education. She can be reached at: toxdoc.js@verizon.net and www.janettesherman.com
Joseph Mangano is an epidemiologist, and Executive Director of the Radiation and Public Health Project research group.
Weekend Edition
June 10 - 12, 2011
A 35% Spike in Infant Mortality in Northwest Cities Since Meltdown
Is the Dramatic Increase in Baby Deaths in the US a Result of Fukushima Fallout?
By JANETTE D. SHERMAN, MD
and JOSEPH MANGANO
U.S. babies are dying at an increased rate. While the United States spends billions on medical care, as of 2006, the US ranked 28th in the world in infant mortality, more than twice that of the lowest ranked countries. (DHHS, CDC, National Center for Health Statistics. Health United States 2010, Table 20, p. 131, February 2011.)
The recent CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicates that eight cities in the northwest U.S. (Boise ID, Seattle WA, Portland OR, plus the northern California cities of Santa Cruz, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Berkeley) reported the following data on deaths among those younger than one year of age:
4 weeks ending March 19, 2011 - 37 deaths (avg. 9.25 per week)
10 weeks ending May 28, 2011 - 125 deaths (avg.12.50 per week)
This amounts to an increase of 35% (the total for the entire U.S. rose about 2.3%), and is statistically significant. Of further significance is that those dates include the four weeks before and the ten weeks after the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster. In 2001 the infant mortality was 6.834 per 1000 live births, increasing to 6.845 in 2007. All years from 2002 to 2007 were higher than the 2001 rate.
Spewing from the Fukushima reactor are radioactive isotopes including those of iodine (I-131), strontium (Sr-90) and cesium (Cs-134 and Cs-137) all of which are taken up in food and water. Iodine is concentrated in the thyroid, Sr-90 in bones and teeth and Cs-134 and Cs-137 in soft tissues, including the heart. The unborn and babies are more vulnerable because the cells are rapidly dividing and the delivered dose is proportionally larger than that delivered to an adult.
Data from Chernobyl, which exploded 25 years ago, clearly shows increased numbers of sick and weak newborns and increased numbers of deaths in the unborn and newborns, especially soon after the meltdown. These occurred in Europe as well as the former Soviet Union. Similar findings are also seen in wildlife living in areas with increased radioactive fallout levels.
(Chernobyl -- Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, Alexeiy V. Yablokov, Vasily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V. Nesterenko. Consulting Editor: Janette D. Sherman-Nevinger. New York Academy of Sciences, 2009.)
Levels of radioisotopes were measured in children who had died in the Minsk area that had received Chernobyl fallout. The cardiac findings were the same as those seen in test animals that had been administered Cs-137. Bandashevsky, Y. I, Pathology of Incorporated Ionizing Radiation, Belarus Technical University, Minsk. 136 pp., 1999. For his pioneering work, Prof. Bandashevsky was arrested in 2001 and imprisoned for five years of an eight year sentence.
The national low-weight (under 2500 grams, or 5.5 lbs) rate has risen 23% from 1984 to 2006. Nearly 400,000 infants are born under 2500g each year in the U.S. Most of the increase in infant mortality is due specifically to infants born weighing less than 750 grams (I lb 10 1/2 oz). Multiple births commonly result in underweight babies, but most of the increase in births at less than 750 grams occurred among singletons and among mothers 20-34 years of age. (CDC, National Vital Statistics Report, 52 (12): 1-24, 2005.)
From an obstetrical point of view, women in the age bracket 20 to 34 are those most physically able to deliver a healthy child. So what has gone wrong? Clues to causation are often revealed when there is a change in incidence, a suspicious geographical distribution, and/or an increase in hazards known to adversely affect health and development.
The risk of having a baby with birth defects is estimated at three to four of every 100 babies born. As of 2005, the Institute of medicine estimated the cost of pre-term births in the US at more than $2.6 billion, or $51,600 for each infant.
Low birth weight babies, born too soon and too small, face a lifetime of health problems, including cerebral palsy, and behavioral and learning problems placing an enormous physical, emotional and economic burdens on society as a whole and on those caring for them. Death of a young child is devastating to a family.
As of June 5, 2011, The Japan Times reported that radiation in the No. 1 plant was measured at 4,000 milliseverts per hour. To put that in perspective, a worker would receive a maximal "permissible" dose in 4 minutes. In addition there are over 40,000 tons of radioactive water under that reactor with more radioactivity escaping into the air and sea. Fuel rods are believed to have melted and sunk to the bottom of reactors 1, 2, and 3.
Tepco, the corporate owner took more than two months to confirm the meltdowns and admitted lying about the levels of destruction and subsequent contamination, resulting in "Public Distrust." Over 100,000 tons of radioactive waste are on the site.
Why should we care if there may be is a link between Fukushima and the death of children? Because we need to measure the actual levels of isotopes in the environment and in the bodies of people exposed to determine if the fallout is killing our most vulnerable. The research is not technically difficult -- the political and economic barriers may be greater. Bandshevsky and others did it and confirmed the connection. The information is available in the Chernobyl book. (Previously cited.)
The biological findings of Chernobyl cannot be ignored: isotope incorporation will determine the future of all life on earth -- animal, fish, bird, plant and human. It is crucial to know this information if we are to avoid further catastrophic damage.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Janette D. Sherman, M. D. is the author of Life's Delicate Balance: Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer and Chemical Exposure and Disease, and is a specialist in internal medicine and toxicology. She edited the book Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and Nature, written by A. V. Yablokov, V. B., Nesterenko and A. V. Nesterenko, published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2009. Her primary interest is the prevention of illness through public education. She can be reached at: toxdoc.js@verizon.net and www.janettesherman.com
Joseph Mangano is an epidemiologist, and Executive Director of the Radiation and Public Health Project research group.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Monsanto in the News........
It’s official: Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide causes birth defects
http://redgreenandblue.org/2011/06/08/its-official-monsantos-roundup-herbicide-causes-birth-defects/
A new report by some top scientists has nailed it down, and Monsanto isn’t going to be happy. The Agri-giant has built its entire business model, including genetically modified (GMO) crops that dominate the US market, around its Roundup brand herbicide.
The last thing they want to admit is that it causes birth defects.
But that’s just what a group of scientists from a diverse group – including Cambridge University, the King’s College London School of Medicine, and the Institute of Biology, UNICAMP, São Paulo, Brazil – have found.
Key findings:
-- Industry (including Monsanto) has known since the 1980s that glyphosate causes malformations in experimental animals at high doses.
-- Industry has known since 1993 that these effects could also occur at lower and mid doses.
-- The German government has known since at least 1998 that glyphosate causes malformations.
-- The EU Commission’s expert scientific review panel knew in 1999 that glyphosate causes malformations.
-- The EU Commission has known since 2002 that glyphosate causes malformations. This was the year its DG SANCO division published its final review report, laying out the basis for the current approval of glyphosate.
The report goes into a good deal of technical detail to show how regulators bent over backwards to discount those studies, and make it look like there were no problems with Roundup.
How to hide behind bad science
One major problem – the studies are done on the cheap, and very few animals are used, so in order to see any results at all, the researchers are forced to use very high doses. Monsanto can then claim the doses were so high that of course there would be toxicity… but “There’s no evidence of toxicity at low doses”.
But independent studies (like Suresh, 1993) DO show toxicity at low doses. Regulators just ignored those studies completely…
The group noted that, even as pressure builds on Europe to allow sale of Roundup Ready GMO seeds (particularly from the Monsanto-infested Obama administration;
UPDATE: follow the link to read our earlier article, Monsanto employees in the halls of government), the EU has put off a review of Roundup’s safety from June of 2011 to… 2015.
How much Roundup are we eating? They’ve detected substantial residues in soybeans, and farmworkers are exposed in the fields – as are homeowners who use it on their gardens and passers-by who breath it when it’s sprayed on roadsides to keep down weeds.
The stuff is safe, right? It’s used everywhere.
You can read the full report at here. ( http://www.scribd.com/doc/57277946/RoundupandBirthDefectsv5 )
More on Monsanto and GMOs:
The Trouble with Monsanto and GMO – David Suzuki spells it out
http://redgreenandblue.org/2011/02/01/the-trouble-with-monsanto-and-gmo-dr-david-suzuki-spells-it-out/
Monsanto wants to control Canadian Alfalfa!
Scientists from a diverse group – including Cambridge University, the King’s College London School of Medicine, and the Institute of Biology, UNICAMP, São Paulo, Brazil – have found how dangerous are Monsanto's products & corporate strategies to hide the truth by hijacking government regulators responsible for protecting public safety. With government help, Public Health has been jeopardized for the sake of corporate greed.
Read the actual report for yourself:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/57277946/RoundupandBirthDefectsv5
The News item:
http://redgreenandblue.org/2011/06/08/its-official-monsantos-roundup-herbicide-causes-birth-defects/
The Scientist's explanation:
http://redgreenandblue.org/2011/02/01/the-trouble-with-monsanto-and-gmo-dr-david-suzuki-spells-it-out/
http://redgreenandblue.org/2011/06/08/its-official-monsantos-roundup-herbicide-causes-birth-defects/
A new report by some top scientists has nailed it down, and Monsanto isn’t going to be happy. The Agri-giant has built its entire business model, including genetically modified (GMO) crops that dominate the US market, around its Roundup brand herbicide.
The last thing they want to admit is that it causes birth defects.
But that’s just what a group of scientists from a diverse group – including Cambridge University, the King’s College London School of Medicine, and the Institute of Biology, UNICAMP, São Paulo, Brazil – have found.
Key findings:
-- Industry (including Monsanto) has known since the 1980s that glyphosate causes malformations in experimental animals at high doses.
-- Industry has known since 1993 that these effects could also occur at lower and mid doses.
-- The German government has known since at least 1998 that glyphosate causes malformations.
-- The EU Commission’s expert scientific review panel knew in 1999 that glyphosate causes malformations.
-- The EU Commission has known since 2002 that glyphosate causes malformations. This was the year its DG SANCO division published its final review report, laying out the basis for the current approval of glyphosate.
The report goes into a good deal of technical detail to show how regulators bent over backwards to discount those studies, and make it look like there were no problems with Roundup.
How to hide behind bad science
One major problem – the studies are done on the cheap, and very few animals are used, so in order to see any results at all, the researchers are forced to use very high doses. Monsanto can then claim the doses were so high that of course there would be toxicity… but “There’s no evidence of toxicity at low doses”.
But independent studies (like Suresh, 1993) DO show toxicity at low doses. Regulators just ignored those studies completely…
The group noted that, even as pressure builds on Europe to allow sale of Roundup Ready GMO seeds (particularly from the Monsanto-infested Obama administration;
UPDATE: follow the link to read our earlier article, Monsanto employees in the halls of government), the EU has put off a review of Roundup’s safety from June of 2011 to… 2015.
How much Roundup are we eating? They’ve detected substantial residues in soybeans, and farmworkers are exposed in the fields – as are homeowners who use it on their gardens and passers-by who breath it when it’s sprayed on roadsides to keep down weeds.
The stuff is safe, right? It’s used everywhere.
You can read the full report at here. ( http://www.scribd.com/doc/57277946/RoundupandBirthDefectsv5 )
More on Monsanto and GMOs:
The Trouble with Monsanto and GMO – David Suzuki spells it out
http://redgreenandblue.org/2011/02/01/the-trouble-with-monsanto-and-gmo-dr-david-suzuki-spells-it-out/
Monsanto wants to control Canadian Alfalfa!
Scientists from a diverse group – including Cambridge University, the King’s College London School of Medicine, and the Institute of Biology, UNICAMP, São Paulo, Brazil – have found how dangerous are Monsanto's products & corporate strategies to hide the truth by hijacking government regulators responsible for protecting public safety. With government help, Public Health has been jeopardized for the sake of corporate greed.
Read the actual report for yourself:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/57277946/RoundupandBirthDefectsv5
The News item:
http://redgreenandblue.org/2011/06/08/its-official-monsantos-roundup-herbicide-causes-birth-defects/
The Scientist's explanation:
http://redgreenandblue.org/2011/02/01/the-trouble-with-monsanto-and-gmo-dr-david-suzuki-spells-it-out/
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
EPA Takes Major Actions to Reduce Americans' Risks from Mouse and Rat Poisons
EPA Takes Major Actions to Reduce Americans' Risks from Mouse and Rat Poisons
Move will better protect children, pets and wildlife
WASHINGTON - To better protect children, pets and wildlife, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today that it is moving to ban the sale to residential consumers of the most toxic rat and mouse poisons, as well as most loose bait and pellet products. The agency is also requiring that all newly registered rat and mouse poisons marketed to residential consumers be enclosed in bait stations that render the pesticide inaccessible to children and pets. Wildlife that consume bait or poisoned rodents will also be protected by EPA's actions.
"These changes are essential to reduce the thousands of accidental exposures of children that occur every year from rat and mouse control products and also to protect household pets," said Steve Owens, assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. "Today's action will help keep our children and pets safe from these poisons."
Children are particularly at risk for exposure to rat and mouse poisons because the products are typically placed on floors, and because young children sometimes place bait pellets in their mouths. The American Association of Poison Control Centers annually receives between 12,000 and 15,000 reports of children under the age of six being exposed to these types of products.
In 2008, EPA gave producers of rat and mouse poison until June 4, 2011 to research, develop and register new products that would be safer for children, pets and wildlife. Over the past three years, EPA has worked with a number of companies to achieve that goal, and there are now new products on the market with new bait delivery systems and less toxic baits. These products are safer to children, as well as pets and wildlife, but still provide effective rodent control for residential consumers.
While many companies that produce rat and mouse poison products have agreed to adopt the new safety measures, a handful of companies have advised EPA that they do not plan to do so. Consequently, EPA intends to initiate cancellation proceedings under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, the federal pesticide law, against certain non-compliant products marketed by the following companies to remove them from the market:
* Reckitt Benckiser Inc. (makers of D-Con, Fleeject, and Mimas rodent control products)
* Woodstream Inc.(makers of Victor rodent control products)
* Spectrum Group (makers of Hot Shot rodent control products)
* Liphatech Inc. (makers of Generation, Maki, and Rozol rodent control products)
In addition to requiring more-protective bait stations and prohibiting pellet formulations, EPA intends to ban the sale and distribution of rodenticide products containing brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difethialone and difenacoum directly to residential consumers because of their toxicity and the secondary poisoning hazards to wildlife. These rodenticides will still be available for use in residential settings, but only by professional pest control applicators. The compounds will also be allowed for use in agricultural settings; however, bait stations will be required for all outdoor, above-ground uses to minimize exposure to children, pets and wildlife.
To help avoid rat and mouse infestations in and around homes, EPA stresses the importance of rodent prevention and identification measures such as:
* Sealing holes inside and outside the home to prevent entry by rats and mice
* Cleaning up potential rodent food sources and nesting sites
* Looking for rat and mice droppings around the kitchen
* Keeping an eye out for nesting material such as shredded paper, fabric or dried plant matter
* Finding evidence of gnawing and chewing on food packaging or structures
EPA also urges consumers to keep the following tips in mind whenever using rodenticides in their homes:
* Always place traps and baits in places where children and pets cannot reach them
* Use all products according to label directions and precautions
* Be sure to select traps that are appropriate to the type and size of rodent (e.g., rat vs. mouse)
More information on rat and mouse products that meet EPA?s safety standard: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/mice-and-rats
More tips and information on controlling rodents: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/controlling/rodents.htm
Note: If a link above doesn't work, please copy and paste the URL into a browser.
.....................................................................................
There are many safe and far more effective ways to control rats and mice in my free pest control book at: http://www.thebestcontrol2.com e.g., beer and aspartame.
Move will better protect children, pets and wildlife
WASHINGTON - To better protect children, pets and wildlife, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today that it is moving to ban the sale to residential consumers of the most toxic rat and mouse poisons, as well as most loose bait and pellet products. The agency is also requiring that all newly registered rat and mouse poisons marketed to residential consumers be enclosed in bait stations that render the pesticide inaccessible to children and pets. Wildlife that consume bait or poisoned rodents will also be protected by EPA's actions.
"These changes are essential to reduce the thousands of accidental exposures of children that occur every year from rat and mouse control products and also to protect household pets," said Steve Owens, assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. "Today's action will help keep our children and pets safe from these poisons."
Children are particularly at risk for exposure to rat and mouse poisons because the products are typically placed on floors, and because young children sometimes place bait pellets in their mouths. The American Association of Poison Control Centers annually receives between 12,000 and 15,000 reports of children under the age of six being exposed to these types of products.
In 2008, EPA gave producers of rat and mouse poison until June 4, 2011 to research, develop and register new products that would be safer for children, pets and wildlife. Over the past three years, EPA has worked with a number of companies to achieve that goal, and there are now new products on the market with new bait delivery systems and less toxic baits. These products are safer to children, as well as pets and wildlife, but still provide effective rodent control for residential consumers.
While many companies that produce rat and mouse poison products have agreed to adopt the new safety measures, a handful of companies have advised EPA that they do not plan to do so. Consequently, EPA intends to initiate cancellation proceedings under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, the federal pesticide law, against certain non-compliant products marketed by the following companies to remove them from the market:
* Reckitt Benckiser Inc. (makers of D-Con, Fleeject, and Mimas rodent control products)
* Woodstream Inc.(makers of Victor rodent control products)
* Spectrum Group (makers of Hot Shot rodent control products)
* Liphatech Inc. (makers of Generation, Maki, and Rozol rodent control products)
In addition to requiring more-protective bait stations and prohibiting pellet formulations, EPA intends to ban the sale and distribution of rodenticide products containing brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difethialone and difenacoum directly to residential consumers because of their toxicity and the secondary poisoning hazards to wildlife. These rodenticides will still be available for use in residential settings, but only by professional pest control applicators. The compounds will also be allowed for use in agricultural settings; however, bait stations will be required for all outdoor, above-ground uses to minimize exposure to children, pets and wildlife.
To help avoid rat and mouse infestations in and around homes, EPA stresses the importance of rodent prevention and identification measures such as:
* Sealing holes inside and outside the home to prevent entry by rats and mice
* Cleaning up potential rodent food sources and nesting sites
* Looking for rat and mice droppings around the kitchen
* Keeping an eye out for nesting material such as shredded paper, fabric or dried plant matter
* Finding evidence of gnawing and chewing on food packaging or structures
EPA also urges consumers to keep the following tips in mind whenever using rodenticides in their homes:
* Always place traps and baits in places where children and pets cannot reach them
* Use all products according to label directions and precautions
* Be sure to select traps that are appropriate to the type and size of rodent (e.g., rat vs. mouse)
More information on rat and mouse products that meet EPA?s safety standard: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/mice-and-rats
More tips and information on controlling rodents: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/controlling/rodents.htm
Note: If a link above doesn't work, please copy and paste the URL into a browser.
.....................................................................................
There are many safe and far more effective ways to control rats and mice in my free pest control book at: http://www.thebestcontrol2.com e.g., beer and aspartame.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Dow Shalt Not Bribe.........
Dow Shalt Not Bribe
1 Jun, 2011 - IST,
CBI files chargesheet in Dow pesticide case by Rajinder Nagarkoti,TNN
PANCHKULA: A special CBI court in Panchkula on Tuesday framed charges against a senior Central government official and his aide, who were allegedly bribed $32,000 by officers of Dow Agro Sciences India Ltd Mumbai, a subsidiary of Dow Chemicals, to push substandard pesticides in the Indian market.
Special CBI judge A S Narang on Tuesday framed charges against Ratan Lal Rajak and middleman Satyabroto Banerjee under various sections of Prevention of Corruption Act.
Rajak was posted as a plant protection advisor to the government of India at the directorate of plant protection, quarantine & storage in Faridabad.
According to the chargesheet, Rajak was a member of all the three committees of the Faridabad-based directorate that allowed the sale of DE-Nocil products in India.
The Dow scam was unearthed by US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2007. It had also fined Dow Chemicals $325,000 for bribing the officials in India to fast-track permission to sell its pesticide brands that are banned in the US and many other countries.
The bureau had filed the chargesheet in 2010 on the basis of information given by US authorities.
In 2001, Dow Chemicals had taken over the Union Carbide Company, which was lying closed after the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/environment/pollution/cbi-files-chargesheet-in-dow-pesticide-case/articleshow/8671900.cms
1 Jun, 2011 - IST,
CBI files chargesheet in Dow pesticide case by Rajinder Nagarkoti,TNN
PANCHKULA: A special CBI court in Panchkula on Tuesday framed charges against a senior Central government official and his aide, who were allegedly bribed $32,000 by officers of Dow Agro Sciences India Ltd Mumbai, a subsidiary of Dow Chemicals, to push substandard pesticides in the Indian market.
Special CBI judge A S Narang on Tuesday framed charges against Ratan Lal Rajak and middleman Satyabroto Banerjee under various sections of Prevention of Corruption Act.
Rajak was posted as a plant protection advisor to the government of India at the directorate of plant protection, quarantine & storage in Faridabad.
According to the chargesheet, Rajak was a member of all the three committees of the Faridabad-based directorate that allowed the sale of DE-Nocil products in India.
The Dow scam was unearthed by US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2007. It had also fined Dow Chemicals $325,000 for bribing the officials in India to fast-track permission to sell its pesticide brands that are banned in the US and many other countries.
The bureau had filed the chargesheet in 2010 on the basis of information given by US authorities.
In 2001, Dow Chemicals had taken over the Union Carbide Company, which was lying closed after the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/environment/pollution/cbi-files-chargesheet-in-dow-pesticide-case/articleshow/8671900.cms
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)