Comments on Glyphosate Results

 From GM Watch:

Is there a link between glyphosate levels in breast milk and miscarriage?

Danish pig farmer Ib Pedersen has documented increased deformities and abortions in his herd, correlating with the amount of glyphosate in their urine. Now he's concerned about the reproductive health of American women after tests showed their breast milk contains high levels of glyphosate.

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2014/15382

 Ib told GMWatch:

 "The level of glyphosate in American mothers' breast milk was up to 166ug/l or 0.166 ppm. That is high. My sows which had 5 times the deformities, 5 times the abortions, and fewer pigs born in litters, had 0.028 ppm-0.048 ppm in their urine, compared to sows that only had 0.0028 ppm in their urine. That [0.048 ppm] is less than 1/3 of the amount in the breast milk.

 "To get 0.028 ppm-0.048 ppm in the urine, the sows had to eat 1.1 ppm in their food. To get 0.0028 ppm in their urine, they had to eat 0.2 ppm in their food.

 "Judging by my pigs, it is a wonder that these women can reproduce. The number of deformities and abortions in the pigs correlated with glyphosate levels in their urine. My sows with 0.048 ppm of glyphosate in urine aborted 1 in 20 pregnancies. Research should be carried out to see if there is a correlation between the amount of glyphosate in the women's breast milk or urine and the number of miscarriages they've had."

 Interestingly, a study of farming families in Ontario, Canada found a higher than normal rate of late miscarriages and pre-term deliveries associated with male glyphosate herbicide exposure.

(Savitz DA, Arbuckle T, Kaczor D, Curtis KM. Male pesticide exposure and pregnancy outcome. Am J Epidemiol. 1997;146:1025-36)

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 Do higher levels in breast milk as compared to urine show that glyphosate is bio-accumulative, meaning, it builds up in the body?

Anthony Samel, Independent scientist and co author of two Glyphosate papers, (which inspired this testing).

From Dr. Stephanie Seneff Senior Research Scientist, MIT

Stephanie Seneff, 

"It is certainly disheartening to know that glyphosate is present in breast milk, but lest you think this means you should not nurse your baby, please be aware that soy-based formula probably also contains glyphosate, possibly in even higher concentrations. The US government has conducted very few studies measuring the amount of glyphosate residue in food, but a report issued by the Department of Agriculture in 2011 showed that over 90% of 300 samples of soy contained glyphosate, and nearly 96% contained AMPA, a derivative of glyphosate. Today, 90% of the soy crop in the US is "Roundup Ready," which means you can spray Roundup on it and it won't die. Contrary to what was claimed, this growth in Roundup Ready crops has led to a tremendous increase in the amount of Roundup applied to our core crops over the past decade.

I had been intensely researching possible connections between autism and a variety of different toxic chemicals in the environment for many years before I thought to take a look at glyphosate as a possible contributor to autism.  This delay was of course a consequence of the widely disseminated message that glyphosate is nearly nontoxic to humans. However, once I started looking, I was astonished to find that all of the many comorbidities associated with autism could be explained by glyphosate's known mode of action on biological systems.  Anthony Samsel and I have teamed up to write two papers detailing our findings on the diverse ways in which glyphosate disrupts human physiology, and linking glyphosate to a number of diseases and conditions that are currently on the rise in the US - a partial list includes autism, obesity, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, and various gut disorders like Celiac disease and inflammatory bowel disease.  We are still researching this topic, and nearly every day we are discovering new ways in which glyphosate can negatively impact health.  The problem is that the effects are insidious -- glyphosate erodes your health slowly over time, so that it's hard for people to realize what's happening to them until it's too late."

Ronnie Cummings, OCA

“This is another in a long line of studies showing the many ways in which glyphosate poses a real danger to human health,” Cummins said. “It’s time for Americans to demand that the FDA, USDA and EPA ban this toxin for good. Until then, at the very least, the FDA must require labels on foods that contain this dangerous toxin. And the best way to do that is to require mandatory labelling of foods that contain genetically modified organisms, most of which derive from crops that require massive amounts of Monsanto’s Roundup.

We must also stop retailers from selling Roundup to consumers, for use on their lawns and gardens. And we need to put an end to the use of Roundup by municipalities to control weeds in parks and roadways. The best way to accomplish all of this is to ban Roundup and other glyphosate-containing herbicides and pesticides for good.” Cummins said.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_29697.cfm