Glyphosate disrupts oestrogen-linked genes

April 2015

The bases for claims that glyphosate herbicide is safe in food are that it acts on a biological process that is only present in plants, not animals, and that any glyphosate absorbed during digestion passes through the body unchanged.

Both of these are true.

However, the present-day, massive, volumes of glyphosate sprayed on, and absorbed by, most GM commodity crops has focused attention on whether the assumptions about glyphosate's 'inert' nature in animals tell the whole story.

Glyphosate and kidney disease - emerging details

April 2015

The suspicion that glyphosate herbicide is a critical contributor to the epidemic of Chronic Kidney Disease of Unknown Aetiology (CKDu), in certain agricultural areas in the world [1] has now been further investigated and the findings published.

Natural food is simple

April 2015

Dr. Kellogg's corn flakes, patented in 1896, were probably the original, very simple, health food (even if no one would eat them until they were transformed into complex junk).

More recently, 'corn' has become associated with stuff that's definitely not in the healthy-choice section. For example: the number one staple junk food is corn syrup, then there's GM corn chock-full of its very own insecticide and specially accumulated weed-killer; and meat from intensively-reared livestock fast-fattened with GM corn to get them to market before their health buckles, washed down with milk from intensively reared dairy herds producing more milk than their bodies can handle (assisted by GM growth-hormone injections for good measure).

Milking (pardon the pun) the rising consumer concern about the cruelty involved in this routine extreme exploitation of cows to give them their daily pinta, scientists have invented Muufri (a worse pun).

GM safety testing needs today's science

April 2015
It was thought-provoking to read about a Monsanto-sponsored review of glyphosate safety studies. 

The review wasn't published in an open-access journal, meaning that only the abstract is available. However a response by scientists, whose conclusions of harm caused by the herbicide had been dismissed in the review because their end-points (markers of toxicity) had not previously been used revealed the biotech industry's view of 'safety studies'. It seems the industry position is that glyphosate (used on and accumulated by most GM crops) is unquestionably safe because historically-recognised end-points have proven it so, and that any further science is therefore wrong.

There are a number of problems with this logic.

Roundup harms the liver

April 2015

Safety regulation of 'Roundup' herbicide is based solely on its active, weed-killing, ingredient, 'glyphosate'*. Roundup formulations have a variety of added substances needed for glyphosate to be effective, but these are considered inert, and thus irrelevant, to safety. 

*Note. Most GM crops are 'Roundup Ready', having been genetically transformed to tolerate glyphosate and accumulate it.
The result has been that glyphosate, and by implication Roundup, has a reputation for being the safest herbicide on the market. Indeed, acute exposure to pure chemical glyphosate has to be at a very high dosage before it becomes toxic, and this is true for both plants and animals.

However, sceptical scientists are questioning the validity of current 'safety' tests based on glyphosate alone. Their problem is that glyphosate is always used in a formula combined with adjuvants because otherwise it doesn't penetrate the cells and doesn't kill the weed.

GM soya harms new-born goats

April 2015
GM-free Scotland has regularly voiced concerns about the lack of GM-food safety studies focused on the most vulnerable populations, especially the very young. Routine feeding tests use healthy, post-weaning laboratory rats fed standard laboratory chow with optimised nutrition: they won't identify problems in infancy.

During the first hours after birth, before the mothers' milk as we know it is produced, suckling mammals receive 'colostrum'.

Colostrum is a clear fluid of concentrated nutrients. It's packed with essential fats and proteins including immune system and growth promoters, protective antibodies and tissue maturation factors. These antibiotic properties of colostrum plus its role in intestinal cell development are thought to be responsible for the formation of a healthy digestive system and gut microbial flora.

In other words, colostrum is what the vulnerable newly-born need to protect themselves from disease and to form the healthy organs and tissues vital for their future growth.

So, what happens to the mother's colostrum when she eats GM food?

Glyphosate through your skin

April 2015
Your skin is the largest organ of your body. It consists of an underlying layer of living 'dermal' cells which grow continuously, and at the same time undergo a special form of programmed death. This proliferation and die-off is carefully orchestrated to produce, and continuously maintain, the protective outer 'epidermis'. The epidermis is waterproof, elastic, and provides a barrier to biological, physical and chemical damage.

Skin function is vital to health. Its function depends on the integrity of its structure. And its structure depends on the integrity of the living dermal cell physiology.

In the modern world, our skin is exposed to a host of potentially harmful chemicals.

One such chemical is glyphosate herbicide, widely used in rural and urban weed control, and heavily sprayed on GM crops, most of which have been genetically transformed to survive it.