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Herbicide tolerant GM soya is insecticidal too

June 2022

Glyphosate-tolerant GM crops aren't something that usually bring insecticides to mind.  Indeed, historically, US soyabeans were only sporadically challenged by insect pests.  Things changed around 2000 with the arrival of the soybean aphid which can only be controlled by foliar spraying.  Hot on the heels of this pest invasion came dramatic increases in bean leaf beetle which prompted the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to issue an emergency exemption for neonicotinoid insecticidal seed treatments. 

GM crops adding to ecosystem collapse

June 2022



A key selling-point for 'Bt' insecticide-generating GM crops is that they reduce the need to spray chemical pesticides on the crop. It is claimed this makes them 'environmentally-friendly'.

Indeed, a study published in 2014, which combined data from 147 studies world-wide, showed a significant 42% reduction in the quantity of pesticide applied on Bt crops compared to conventional ones. This was much hyped as proof of the benefits of GM in agriculture by the pro-GM lobby and by the UK government committee which reported it. The study was, however, narrowly focused on comparisons of the weight of pesticide applied in kilograms per hectare or per year. Pre-emptive systemic insecticides, put on the seed but not sprayed onto the crop in the field, were not factored in.

Microbes on the chopping block

June 2022

It's being increasingly recognised that the diversity and stability of the microbial community in our gut (our gut microbiome) are closely linked to health [1]. For example, some bugs create important nutrients from our food, while others detoxify undesirable elements in our food: both are necessary for our health.
"... reductions in microbial diversity are directly associated with altered functionality of the gut microbiome, and are thought to represent a major instigating factor behind the growing global epidemic of chronic, non-communicable, metabolic disease. Such metabolic disorders include irritable bowel syndrome, type-2 diabetes, obesity, atherosclerosis, and several types of cancer." (Daisley et al.)
Regulators, manufacturers of glyphosate-based herbicides, and suppliers of glyphosate-tolerant GM seed all maintain there are no human health concerns with glyphosate exposure when the products are used as intended. This assurance includes the glyphosate residues in our diet.

Let's hope they're right because glyphosate is the most frequently detected pesticide in food. Also, testing has revealed traces of glyphosate and its breakdown produce, AMPA, in the urine of up to 90% of farmers in one US State, up to 95% of the general public (including children) in America, 30% of babies less than one month old in one US State, and up to 50% of people in Europe. These figures suggest there's a constant daily exposure to glyphosate from multiple sources, and that there may no longer be any unexposed population to use as a comparator.

The approval of glyphosate is based on the absence of acute toxic effects plus the assumption that because the herbicide disrupts an enzyme essential to all plants but entirely absent from animals, it can't possibly harm humans.

Researchers have pointed out that the major source of our exposure to glyphosate is residues in food and water, while the primary route of elimination of the herbicide from our bodies is in faeces. This makes our digestive system the part of our body exposed to the highest concentrations of the herbicide. Moreover, although glyphosate isn't directly active in human cells, many of the microbes in our gut depend on the very enzyme which glyphosate targets: these could certainly be harmed.

Broad measurements of, for example, gut microbe sensitivity to glyphosate, or the prevalence of different types of bugs known to be linked to health or disease, don't reveal any obvious problems. However, recent research using up-to-date, more sophisticated, analytical methods is telling a rather different story:
  • A universal finding seems to be that commercial formulations, which have additives to make the glyphosate more toxic to plants, also make glyphosate more toxic to microbes. Because the additives vary between formulations* any research based on a single brand name or on pure glyphosate can't be generalised to any other version of glyphosate-based contaminant in our diet. * In 2010, there were 750 kinds of glyphosate-based herbicide on the market in the US alone. Now, there are probably thousands world-wide
  • One study based on chemical glyphosate identified at least four different enzymes which perform the same role in different species of gut microbe but have different sensitivities to the herbicide. It concluded that 54 percent of species of the bugs in the human gut, or up to 25 percent of the total, are negatively affected by glyphosate.
  • Rat and human studies of gut microbes have found that, besides the known negative affect on the ability to form essential proteins, it seems glyphosate can be toxic to energy production, and can generate reactive stress chemicals which have been linked to cancer and other diseases.
  • Because it blocks a key biochemical pathway, glyphosate causes the accumulation of 'shikimate'. Shikimate can be beneficial in small doses but in high doses has been linked to cancer.
  • And, as if all this wasn't enough, it seems glyphosate can imbalance our gut microbes by boosting certain species which are able to use the herbicide as food.
All these effects are part of a vast, interactive community of microbes some of which vie with each other for supremacy and some of which help each other to thrive.

OUR COMMENT

When all's said and done, epidemiological surveys may be the only thing available to tell us what damage glyphosate-based herbicides (and the staple GM crops dependent on their use) are really doing to us. The findings of these so far haven't been too encouraging [2,3].

In fact, lack of regulatory independence, care and common-sense may have dug our health into a hole it will be very difficult to climb back out of.

HINT: The sooner regulators can be persuaded (by you) to look for and at the evidence of harm from glyphosate-based herbicides, the sooner we can correct our glyphosate-damaged health.


Background

[1] A TALE OF MICROBES, YOUR GUT AND DISEASE - December 2019
[2] HOW MUCH DISEASE IS ROUNDUP CAUSING? - December 2014
[3] WHAT GLYPHOSATE HAS ACHIEVED IN ARGENTINA - June 2018

SOURCES:

  • Carey Gillam, New glyphosate papers point to "urgency" for more research on chemical impact to human health, USRTK, 23.11.20
  • A. H. C. van Bruggen, et al., October 2021, Indirect Effects of the Herbicide Glyphosate on Plant, Animal and Human Health Through its Effects on Microbial Communities, Frontiers in Environmental Science
  • Glyphosate and Roundup disturb gut microbiome and blood biochemistry at doses that regulators claim to be safe, GM Watch 27.01.21
  • Robin Mesnage, et al., January 2021, Use of Shotgun Metagenomics and Metabolomics to Evaluate the Impact of Glyphosate or Roundup MON 52276 on the Gut Microbiota and Serum Metabolome of Sprague-Dawley Rats, Environmental Health Perspectives
  • Brendan A. Daisley, et al., 2021, Deteriorating microbiomes in agriculture - the unintended effects of pesticides on microbial life, Microbiome Research Reports
  • Lyydia Leino, et al., 2020, Classification of the glyphosate target enzyme (5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase) for assessing sensitivity of organisms to the herbicide, Journal of Hazardous Materials
  • Patrick Holden, Are glyphosate-based herbicides poisoning us and the environment? Chemicals in Agriculture, 5.02.21
Photo Creative Commons

Universal microbiome decline

June 2022


" ... there is a microbial component inherent to all known systems on Earth with cumulative evidence supporting that niche-adapted microbial communities ('microbiomes') play unequivocally important roles in total ecosystem functioning

... Emerging ideologies such as "Planetary Health" and "OneHealth" emphasize these fundamental roles of microbial metabolic processes in supporting macroscopic reality at the systems-level, and further suggest that microorganisms should be viewed as unified constituents rather than as separate entities, as they have been historically regarded."

(Daisley et al.)
How likely is it that glyphosate, an agricultural product with the capacity to kill all green plants, except those genetically modified to resist it, will have no adverse effects on the health of other living things?

Because glyphosate disrupts a vital enzyme present in all plants, but entirely absent from animals, it has always claimed a reputation for safety. Indeed, the herbicide appears to have no acute toxic effects on animals (including humans). However, many kinds of micro-organism do have the enzyme targeted by glyphosate, and it is certainly harmful to them. By extension, the individual 'microbiomes' - the functional communities of diverse microbes which live around, on and inside all animals and plants - will be altered by this herbicide: the inevitable adverse health effects of this have never been considered.

We have only recently become aware of the functional interdependence between an organism and its microbiome. Micro-organisms play a key role in making nutrients available, in excluding pathogens, and in the immune systems of all higher forms of life.

Our crops need the support of a healthy microbiome in a healthy soil for their own health. In many GM and non-GM fields, the soil is subject to glyphosate from multiple sources, such as, spraying, GM root exudates, treated plant debris, and in some soils the release of accumulated mineral-bound herbicide residues.

Unaccountably, regulators seem to ignore the fact that fungi are plants and are a vital sector of the soil microbiome. The anti-fungal effects of glyphosate lead to long-term stunting of plant growth and a gradual reduction of crop yields.

Many plants also depend on visits from healthy insect pollinators. Insects with a glyphosate-damaged gut microbiome don't do much foraging, or help much with our food supply.

Since 2000, feed rations of UK farm animals, particularly poultry and dairy cattle, have included significant quantities of GM maize and soya, both likely to be laced with glyphosate which will damage to our livestock's gut microbiome and health. Indeed, the herbicide has been detected in the urine of up to 96% of farm animals.

Shockingly, animals have been exposed to glyphosate and other microbe-killing chemicals for so long that we no longer have access to any baseline healthy microbiomes with which to compare and investigate the extent of the damage. It's possible that there's already been a mass-extinction of the microbes essential to health.

Indirectly, humans are on the receiving end of all the glyphosate-induced disruption to the health of our plant- and animal-based foods.

Modern industrial-age populations have undergone a systematic depletion of their essential microflora due to the use of antibiotics and disinfectants. Pesticides in our food and water are just another nail in the microbiome coffin.

Glyphosate and its derivative, AMPA, were found frequently in the urine of dogs and cats too, reflecting the GM components in pet food brands. How healthy are our pets?

Regulators have defined an 'acceptable daily intake' (ADI) which is the amount of glyphosate judged safe to ingest on a daily basis over a lifetime. The ADI is one hundredth of the largest dose at which no adverse effect has been observed (i.e. the 'no observed adverse effect level' or NOAEL). Perplexingly, the US 'no adverse effect level' is three and a half times that in Europe.

The amount of glyphosate residues legally allowed by US regulators in food has increased dramatically over the years. These approved increases seem to be in response to commercial farming demands rather than any science-based safety considerations.

A recent study on rats fed three regulatory-relevant doses of glyphosate (the ADI, the EU NOAEL, and the US NOAEL) and using up-to-date analytical methods ('omics'), found alterations in the gut microbiome at all levels of the herbicide tested.

Glyphosate is not, of course, the only suspect but, with its use boosted by the widespread growing of herbicide-tolerant GM crops, is the most frequently applied agrichemical in the world. Much the same issues arise for all the other GM-linked weed-killers now emerging on the market [1,2,3].

Canadian scientists, Daisley et al., who have carried out a detailed analysis of the "Deteriorating microbiomes in agriculture" due to the "unintended effects of pesticides on microbial life", conclude there is a pressing need to reassess the use of agrichemcials "through the lens of microbial ecology and the ... effects on host (animal and plant) physiology". This reassessment should include the updating of the legislative framework and long-term studies to reveal subtle, accumulative consequences.


OUR COMMENT

To protect your long-term health , you might like to draw your regulators' attention to the call for legislative improvement to include all levels of microbiome damage.

If you're interested in knowing more about the effects of glyphosate on people, check out MICROBES ON THE GLYPHOSATE CHOPPING BLOCK - May 2022 (coming up next).


Background

[1] DICAMBA - WORSE THAN GLYPHOSATE - October 2021
[2] ISOXAFLUTOLE - THE NEXT HERBICIDE HEADACHE? - October 2021
[3] 2,4-D ON THE MENU TOO - October 2021

SOURCES:

  • Brendan A. Daisley, et al., 2021, Deteriorating microbiomes in agriculture - the unintended effects of pesticides on microbial life, Microbiome Research Reports
  • Patrick Holden, Are glyphosate-based herbicides poisoning us and the environment? Sustainable Food Trust, 5.02.21
  • Robin Mesnage, et al., January 2021, Use of Shotgun Metagenomics and Metabolomics to Evaluate the Impact of Glyphosate or Roundup MON 52276 on the Gut Microbiota and Serum Metabolome of Sprague-Dawley Rats, Environmental Health Perspectives
  • Carey Gillam, New glyphosate papers point to "urgency" for more research on chemical impact to human health, USRTK, 23.11.20
  • A. H. C. van Bruggen, et al., October 2021, Indirect Effects of the Herbicide Glyphosate on Plant, Animal and Human Health Through its Effects on Microbial Communities, Frontiers in Environmental Science
  • Glyphosate and Roundup disturb gut microbiome and blood biochemistry at doses that regulators claim to be safe, GM Watch 27.01.21
  • Don M. Huber, AG chemical and crop nutrient interactions - current update, Fluid Fertilizer Foundation Proceedings Fluid Fertilizer Forum, Scottsdale, February 2010
Photo Creative Commons