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August 8, 2012
from
LatinAmericanHeraldTribune Website
The herbicide used on
genetically modified soy - Argentina’s
main crop - causes
brain, intestinal and heart defects in
fetuses,
according to the results of a scientific
investigation.
BUENOS AIRES
The herbicide used on genetically
modified soy - Argentina’s main crop - could cause,
...according to the results of a
scientific investigation released Monday.
Although the study “used amphibian embryos,” the results,
“are completely comparable to what
would happen in the development of a human embryo,” embryology
professor Andres Carrasco, one of the study’s authors, told Efe.
“The noteworthy thing is that there are no studies of embryos on
the world level and none where glyphosate is injected into
embryos,” said the researcher with the National Council for
Scientific and Technical Research and director of the Molecular
Embryology Laboratory.
The doses of herbicide used in the
study,
“were much lower than the levels
used in the fumigations,” and so the situation “is much more
serious” that the study suggests because “glyphosate does not
degrade,” Carrasco warned.
In Argentina, farmers each year use
between 180 and 200 million liters of glyphosate, which was
developed by the multinational
Monsanto and sold in the United
States
under the brand name Roundup.
Carrasco said that the research found
that,
“pure glyphosate, in doses lower
than those used in fumigation, causes defects... (and) could be
interfering in some normal embryonic development mechanism
having to do with the way in which cells divide and die.”
“The companies say that drinking a glass of glyphosate is
healthier than drinking a glass of milk, but the fact is that
they’ve used us as guinea pigs,” he said.
He gave as an example what occurred in
Ituzaingo, a district where 5,000 people live on the outskirts of
the central Argentine city of Cordoba, where over the past eight
years about 300 cases of cancer associated with fumigations with
pesticides have turned up.
“In communities like Ituzaingo it’s
already too late, but we have to have a preventive system, to
demand that the companies give us security frameworks and, above
all, to have very strict regulations for fumigation, which
nobody is adhering to out of ignorance or greed,” he said.
The researcher also said that, apart
from the research he carried out,
“there has to be a serious study” on
the effects of glyphosate on human beings, adding that “the
state has all the mechanisms for that.”
In the face of the volley of judicial
complaints related to the disproportionate use of agrochemicals in
the cultivation of GM soy, last February the Health Ministry created
a group to investigate the problem in four Argentine provinces.
Argentina is the world’s third-largest exporter of soy.
Argentinean Study Finds...
Roundup Ingredient Causes Birth Defects
by Elizabeth Renter
August 19, 2012
from
NaturalSociety Website
pesticidemachines
A study out of Buenos Aires has found
that glyphosate, an herbicide created by
Monsanto, and used on GMO soy in
Argentina, could cause birth defects in unborn children.
The most interesting thing about this
revelation is that the herbicide known as glyphosate in Argentina,
is also known to be connected with Roundup in the U.S.
Roundup
Ingredient Shown to Cause Birth Defects
According to the Latin American
Herald Tribune, researchers with the National Council
for Scientific and Technical Research conducted the study on
amphibian embryos.
The lead researcher says their results
are,
“completely comparable to what would
happen in the development of a human embryo.”
“The noteworthy thing is that there are no studies of embryos on
the world level and none where glyphosate is injected into
embryos,” said professor Andres Carrasco, one of the lead
authors of the study.
The amounts shown to cause birth defects
were said to be much lower than those levels used in fumigations.
However, it’s important to note that the
glyphosate was injected directly into the fetuses, not administered
via food products, as it would be in humans.
Still, it’s possible, because our food feeds our cells, which in
turn would feed an embryo, that digestion of foods containing the
chemical would have similar, though perhaps not as dramatic effects.
And of course this isn’t the only time
glyphosate and
Monsanto’s Roundup has been shown
to
cause birth defects.
GMO soy is Argentina’s leading crop. They are the world’s third
largest exporter, and they use between 180 and 200 million liters of
glyphosate annually. In agricultural regions, where the spraying of
this Monsanto chemical is common, numerous cancers have shown up
that are being associated with it.
A district called Ituzaingo, outside of Cordoba, has seen about 300
cancer cases in the last eight years.
This district houses only about 5,000
people.
“In communities like Ituzaingo it’s
already too late, but we have to have a preventative system, to
demand that the companies give us security frameworks and, above
all, to have very strict regulations for fumigation, which
nobody is adhering to out of ignorance or greed,” said Carrasco.
Carrasco, and others, are calling on the
government of Argentina to fund more in-depth research into the
effects of glyphosate on humans.
He says,
“The companies say that drinking a
glass of glysophate is healthier than drinking a glass of milk,
but the fact is that they’ve used us as guinea pigs.”
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