Cancer Causing Glyphosate Labeled, as Scientists Push Food Evolution

What is going on with our food? I think that may be the question on everyone's mind these days. Between genuinely trying to have organic and natural foods to growing your own, people are wanting to make sure their foods are nutrition packed and vitamin filled. While it can be argued that todays foods, even heirloom seeds, have been poisoned by the bioaccumulation of chemicals in soil, people are still taking steps to get the most out of their meals.

When it comes to companies like Monsanto, who was recently purchased by pharmaceutical giant Bayer, looking at “food” and “products” are investigations within their own. Thankfully, due to the efforts of other people curious about the way Monsanto conducts business Glyphosate has been called out for what it really is. Glyphosate, the herbicide and the active ingredient in Monsanto Co's popular Roundup weedkiller, will be added to California's list of chemicals known to cause cancer, effective July 7, according to the state's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.

The agency said the designation under a state law known as Proposition 65 will proceed following an unsuccessful attempt by seeds and chemicals company Monsanto to block the listing in trial court.

Monsanto called the listing "unwarranted on the basis of science and the law." It has appealed the trial court's decision and vowed to continue its legal challenge. "This is not the final step in the process, and it has no bearing on the merits of the case. We will continue to aggressively challenge this improper decision," Scott Partridge, Monsanto's vice president of global strategy, said in an emailed statement.

Monsanto has not been granted a stay so the listing will go ahead next month, the state environmental office said.

Listing glyphosate as a known carcinogen under California's Proposition 65 would require companies selling the chemical in the state to add warning labels to packaging. Warnings would also be required if glyphosate is being sprayed at levels deemed unsafe by regulators, which we are all sure is occurring.

Even with these revelations coming to light, we're seeing a massive push from the company to still promote the use of chemicals on and within food. Back in May, more than 50 agricultural workers from near Bakersfield, California were exposed to a highly toxic pesticide which drifted over from a neighboring farm. Soon after, twelve of the workers reported vomiting and nausea.

Kern County released an announcement encouraging anyone exposed to seek immediate medical attention. They suspect the chemical causing the toxicity is chlorpyrifos, the active ingredient in an insecticide mainly marketed by DowChemical, under Dow AgroSciences.

Yet this is the chemical being used to protect food? If this causes effects on the skin and topical level, clearly it isn't something that should be ingested. Chlorpyrifos has been raising concern for decades, but its toxicity was not considered high. It was originally registered for use in 1965. In 2016, the EPA revised their human risk assessment, concerned for chlorpyrifos leaving residue on crops and leaching into groundwater.

The National Pesticide Information Center reports inhalation of chlorpyrifos can lead to “tearing of the eyes, runny nose, increased saliva and sweat production, nausea, dizziness and headache”. In higher doses, those exposed suffer from “muscle twitching, weakness or tremors, lack of coordination, vomiting, abdominal cramps, diarrhea, and pupil constriction with blurred or darkened vision.” Chlorpyrifos has also been found to be an endocrine disruptor. Other studies imply it interferes with child cognitive development. In a seven year study of pregnant women exposed to chlorpyrifos, children were shown to have higher incidences of autism and developmental delay.

Regardless, this March, environmentalists were outraged when the EPA surprisingly changed its perspective on chlorpyrifos. The decision to green light chlorpyrifos was made by EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, when he publicly denied proposals to ban the chemical.

In justifying his decision, Pruitt declared, “We need to provide regulatory certainty to the thousands of American farms that rely on chlorpyrifos, while still protecting human health and the environment… By reversing the previous Administration’s steps to ban one of the most widely used pesticides in the world, we are returning to using sound science in decision-making – rather than predetermined results.”

Sound science, right? The ramifications of sound science on humanity haven't been felt yet, and even so we are pushing forward. To clarify, I am not against science, but I am against the modification or engineering of all things natural merely because there are generational effects of which we haven't seen yet. Most of these situations compound on one another rather than dissolving, and this is another tenant of science; evolution.

Now, with the help of Monsanto money, the infamous host of the show Cosmos, Neil DeGrasseTyson, has launched a new film in an attempt to persuade the public to accept genetically modified foods (GMO’s). It isn’t the first time Neil has spoken out in favor of GMO’s, but he’s stepping it up to a whole new level with FoodEvolution, a production which hit theaters across America on June 23rd.

The film is all about promoting the idea that the science is settled around genetic engineering, but just two years ago 300 scientists signed a paper bluntly titled ‘No scientific consensus on GMO safety.’ Much like the dated consensus that tobacco products are safe, Tyson apparently believes that a consensus on GMO’s only includes scientists who already agree with him. “Instead of an objective look at the evidence, Food Evolution gives viewers the full Monsanto science treatment: any science that raises concerns about the possible health risks of agrichemical products should be ignored, while studies that put those products in a favorable light is the only science worth discussing.” – Stacey Malkan Co-Founder, US Right To Know

In an effort to demonize opposition to GMO’s, the biotech industry routinely recruits so-called journalists, scientists, and academics to push pro-corporate propaganda and slander anyone who questions the safety or ethics of genetic engineering or complementary pesticides and herbicides such as glyphosate. Even our agriculture wars are being waged with trolls. In the U.S. district court in San Francisco, plaintiffs in a pending lawsuit have accused Monsanto of using online trolls to counter negative posts online. The accusations were revealed after a judge ruled that pretrial documents from 50 pending lawsuits against the company could be released. The lawsuits allege that exposure to Roundup caused the plaintiffs or loved ones to developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma, while Monsanto covered up the product’s risks. The risk of Roundup has been a contentious issue for a number of years, and in 2016, the FDA finally started testing food for traces of the herbicide.

In the document, the plaintiffs allege that Monsanto has an “aptly named ‘Let Nothing Go’ program,” through which it responds to every accusation, “even Facebook comments.” The company is accused of doing this through third parties with no connection to the industry, and hiring them to post pro-Monsanto comments on new articles and its Facebook posts. It’s also accused of quietly backing organizations like the Genetic Literacy Project and American Council on Science and Health in the same way tobacco companies once did. Using several emails as evidence, the company has also been accused of ghostwriting studies that paint a favorable picture of its products. Earlier this year, Monsanto vice-president of global strategy Scott Partridge told Science that ghostwriting was an “unfortunate” term and “an inappropriate way to refer to the collaborative scientific engagement that went on here.”

These revelations help by starting to shed light on the corruption taking place within the agricultural and biotech industry. While getting cancer causing chemicals labeled may not seem beneficiary on the surface, it gives consumers the choice and knowledge of knowing, to some degree, the contents of the products their about to purchase. People need to think about what they're ingesting and the short-term, and even long-term, effects as well, and with science figureheads like Neil DeGrasse Tyson advocating GMOs it makes opposition and clarification that much more difficult as these pop icons and household names being used to promote agendas. The real question we have to keep asking is who does this benefit?