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October 17, 2018
from
SustainablePulse Website
A new
testing program
organized by
The Detox Project
in coordination
with
Kudzu Science,
has released the
first ever results
for glyphosate
(Monsanto's Roudup)
levels in human hair,
in an
extraordinary announcement
on Wednesday.
The unique project, which began in July 2018, has already discovered
the world's most used herbicide,
glyphosate, in a number of hair samples at over 66 parts per
billion (ppb), which is a much higher level than the average urine
level of 3 ppb reported by the University of California San
Francisco in 2016.
The main metabolite of
glyphosate,
AMPA, was also found in some of the
hair samples at even higher levels than glyphosate itself.
From a small set of 10 initial samples collected from the public in,
-
the U.S.
-
Europe
-
Australia,
...it was shown that:
-
7 samples
contained glyphosate levels above the Limit of Detection (66
ppb) but below the Limit of Quantification (200 ppb)
-
6 samples
contained AMPA(the main metabolite of glyphosate)
above the Limit of Detection (330 ppb) but below the Limit
of Quantification (1000 ppb)
-
3 samples
contained
glufosinate above the Limit
of Detection (33 ppb) but below the Limit of Quantification
(100 ppb)
The
Kudzu Science mass spectrometry
gold standard method used for testing glyphosate, AMPA and
glufosinate is fully validated, which gives these results even more
significance.
The Detox Project Director,
Henry Rowlands, stated Wednesday,
"Even at this early
stage of testing we believe it is vital to warn the public and
regulators that glyphosate is being found in human hair.
The levels found are surprising to everyone involved, as we have
been working on urine testing with university and commercial
laboratories over the past four years and we have never seen
such results."
One of the main questions
now for the public, scientists, regulators and the pesticide
industry, is,
how are such levels
of the world's most used herbicide first entering the blood
stream and then ending up in our hair?
Hair - A New
Era for Pesticide Testing
It is only recently that new developments in laboratory technology
and science have enabled pesticides to be tested accurately in hair.
Hair testing is now set
to replace urine and blood as the preferred matrix for
public pesticide testing for the following reasons:
-
Hair testing
shows your exposure to pesticides over a period of 90-120
days
-
Urine Testing
shows your exposure for approximately 14-21 days
-
Blood Testing
shows your exposure for 2-3 days
Hair Testing also has
some other advantages:
Some of the recent
developments in hair testing for pesticides have been reviewed and
published by the Luxembourg Institute of Health and French
Ministry of Agriculture.
Another peer-reviewed paper, published during an ongoing study by
the U.S. National Institutes of Health, concluded that
ongoing exposure of children to environmental pesticides can now be
sensitively detected by the analysis of children's hair and house
dust.
Dr. Vincent Peynet, Director of Kudzu Science, stated:
"Our initial testing
involves 33 of the most ubiquitous pesticides used in the home
and 32 of the most ubiquitous pesticides used in agriculture.
You can receive
online results within 15 days of your hair samples being
received by the Kudzu Science laboratory."
"This is just the start, we are developing a variety of hair
tests for the public, which will be released over the coming
months," Dr. Peynet added.
Rowlands concluded that,
"The Detox Project
aims to use this extraordinary new tool to change how the
general public views glyphosate and other pesticides.
We can only do this
by showing people around the world how pesticides build up in
their bodies over the long-term."
To get your hair tested
or to find out more about the project please
click here.
You can also test your food and water for glyphosate using new
affordable
strip tests here.
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