Monthly Archives: June 2014

To the leader of Green Party of Canada, Elisabeth May, about a sense of betrayal

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There is apparently a motion, or a resolution, to be placed on the table for voting by the Green Party members next week. The motion is about changing the party’s policy in GMO. So far it had been against adoption of GM technology with its patented seeds, monoculture and pesticide dependent model in Canadian agriculture. But now, they are contemplating a reversal of policy and support of GM Crop and pesticides for Canadians.

This is considered so outrageous a development by many sustainable living and ecologically conscious people, and by a vast majority of the population that do not like GMO and pesticide, that it shocked the traditional Green supporters.

So, following the original wording of the proposed motion, I wrote the leader of the Green Party, Ms Elizabeth May, the following letter. The original wording of the motion is taken from their site and copied below my letter.

From: Tony Mitra
Subject: Inviting you to take part in the nationwide testing of Glyphosate poisoning
Date: June 26, 2014 at 9:57:58 PM PDT
To: Elizabeth May

WHEREAS  the Government of Canada has never conducted nor ordered any independent study on long term effects of Genetically Engineered crop and its associated pesticides on the environment, on Canada’s biological diversity and on people;

WHEREAS  the Government of Canada has never even set up or encouraged any lab in the country to test for presence of Glyphosate (the main poison in Monsanto’s RoundUp week killer) in human body fluids or human food;

WHEREAS  the Government of Canada only accepts toxicological study of industrial toxins from the promoters of the product, which is a case of conflict of interest;

WHEREAS  the Government of Canada fires Health Canada scientists should they find bio-engineered products of foreign corporations to be lacking in sufficient evidence of being safe;

WHEREAS  Health Canada and Environment Canada keeps mentioning working with EPA of the US to assess safety of agricultural products such as RoundUp ready crop and their associated pesticides, where EPA itself does not engage in independent study of safety and bases its approval on reports submitted by the product maker;

WHEREAS  there is clear evidence of a revolving door policy between the industry and the Government in both USA and Canada, allowing unprecedented level of control and interference by a handful of corporations in driving national agriculture, forestry, environment and trade policies;

WHEREAS retired scientists from EPA have blown the whittle on how corrupt EPA is, ref “Poison Spring” by Dr. EG Vallianatos;

WHEREAS Canada signed the Cartagena protocol but never ratified it, and did not put in place international standards in preservation of our biological diversity from unintended harm from introduction of living modified organisms, while over 160 other countries did;

WHEREAS calling genetically engineered agricultural products, with associated pesticide driven model to be “green” and associated with the Green Party is considered by the people to be a joke and a betrayal;

WHEREAS there are enough evidence from independent scientists, such as Seralini, Goulson, Pusztai and many others, that GM corn and RoundUp can be very harmful for mammals, in studies conducted in Europe, and if Canada finds those studies to be doubtful, prudence and precautionary principle would demand that Canada conducts its own “independent” study on it instead of listening to the promoter of the product, and yet Canada did not conduct any truly independent safety study on GM products and pesticides;

WHEREAS it is an open secret that education is no more public funded and science is now shackled to funding from Industry, which does not like its product to be found wanting, as a result of which science is losing its objectivity and neutrality and has become biased, vindictive to differing views, and pugnacious and feared;

WHEREAS  the Government of Canada ignores all the independent safety warnings, such as extremely uncanny and strong correlation between usage of Glyphosate and rise of all kinds of chronic disease and their pathway links – through papers of Nancy Swanson, Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff;

WHEREAS overwhelming majority of the people in Canada as well as in USA do not like pesticides and GMO and will avoid it if labelled and reasonable alternatives are available:

WHEREAS promotion of this unproven and potentially dangerous GM agriculture model is likely to push Canada into a future where all the food Canadians eat will be owned by a foreign corporation and small organic farmers have to go extinct or convert to grow only GMO, and where they have no more any right to save their own seeds;

WHEREAS this model of corporate control may be dangerous for Canada’s food security and very foundation of her political and economic independence;

WHEREAS supporting GM technology flies in the face of the very concept of being “Green”;

WHEREAS a growing number of Canadians stopped believing the Government on GMO and pesticides and are engaged in direct  self driven and funded initiative to conduct a nationwide test of Glyphosate in people, their environment and food;

WHEREAS our counterparts in the US are also engaged in a coast to coast testing of Glyphosate of their body fluids and food;

THEREFORE, we request, that you too join this grassroots movement, paying for your own urine sample for measuring Glyphosate content if any, costing around $32 only for batch processing in a lab in the US, and also paying for another homeless or low income person that does not have the luxury of eating carefully selected organic food, and cannot afford even $32, to get his/her urine tested. Please write email to glyphosate.testing@gmail.com to join and partake in the test and encourage your other party members to do the same. Also, while you and your party is always begging the people for donations, here is a counter suggestion of donating back some of that public fund towards a crowd sourcing scheme to allow homeless and poor people to pay for their own Glyphosate test at : https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/nationwide-glyphosate-testing.

Thanking you
Tony Mitra
(Address and tel #)

And now, the original wording of the motion the full text here :

Comments: 

This policy motion will force a rewrite of G06-p14, G06‐p34, G06‐p53, 1998 Environment, 1996 and 1998 Agriculture policies, which declare support for a complete ban on the Canadian use of genetic engineering in agriculture and pesticides, and oppose experimentation and research by Agriculture Canada.

Preamble: 

WHEREAS national science academies of the U.S., Britain, Germany, France, China, India, Brazil, and Mexico, Third World Academy, World Health Organization, International Council for Science, European Academies Science Advisory Council, Health Canada, U.S. National Research Council, American Medical Association, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Society of Toxicology, Washington State Academy of Sciences, American Society for Cell Biology, American Society of Plant Biologists, Scientific American magazine, Science magazine, European Commission’s review of 130 studies across 25 years from 500 independent research groups, an Italian review of 1783 studies, and 600 peer-reviewed papers have concluded that genetically engineered foods are safely regulated;

WHEREAS bioengineered organisms from anthocyanin-rich purple tomatoes to vitamin A-rich golden rice have no universal biochemical traits distinct from products developed through thousands of years of traditional breeding;

WHEREAS peer-reviewed literature over a 20-year timeframe found bioengineered Bt contributing to biodiversity through decreased insecticide usage in northern China (Nature, 2012), with similar findings from a Landes Bioscience review of 155 papers (Carpenter, 2011), and a Nature Biotechnology review of 49 peer-reviewed journals surveying farmers of 12 countries, finding the greatest bioengineering benefits for developing world farmers (Carpenter, 2010);

WHEREAS dissenting papers identifying health harms in animals have methodological errors such as missing hypotheses, testing of specific products like NK603 instead of the engineering process, or retraction like with the Food and Chemical Toxicology journal to the 2012 Seralini study;

Operative: 

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Green Party of Canada will support Health Canada’s existing regulatory regime for genetically engineered foods and will permit bioengineering experimentation by Agriculture Canada.

Letter to Minister of Health, Canada

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Letter to the Minister of Health – Govt of Canada

The Honourable Rona Ambrose, P.C., M.P.Health CanadaBrooke Claxton Building, Tunney’s PasturePostal Locator: 0906COttawa, Ontario K1A 0K9
cc: Libby Davies, MPNew Democrat Health Critic542-N Centre BlockHouse of CommonsOttawa, ON   K1A 0A6 Libby Davies, MPNew Democrat Health Critic2412 Main StreetVancouver, BC V5T 3E2
cc: Hedy Fry, MPLiberal Health CriticRoom Number 800 Justice BuildingHouse of CommonsOttawa, ON, K1A 0A6 cc: Hedy Fry, MPLiberal Health CriticDenman Place Mall, 106 – 1030 Denman StVancouver, BC, V6G 2M6
cc: Alex Atamanenko, MP337 Columbia Ave,Castlegar BC V1N 1G6

Friday, June 20, 2014

Dear Honourable Minister Ambrose

Subject: Testing body fluids including milk for presence of Glyphosate, for Canadians

We are a group of concerned citizens in a grassroots organization, Canadians for Glyphosate Testing, that wish to know the extent to which this synthetic killer chemical named Glyphosate has entered our living space, our food and our body.

Glyphosate is the active poison in Monsanto’s RoundUp weed killer and in many other brands today, and is the highest selling poisonous chemical in the planet. It is also suspected to be linked with rapid rise of many serious illnesses from autism and cancer to celiac, crown’s, infertility and others, and with possible species extinctions in the past 20 years.

People are basically fed up with inaction from our medical and political system with regard to finding out to what extent people may have been poisoned by Glyphosate. it is their right to know, so they decided to engage directly and get the tests done with their own money, bypassing the entire Government health system.

In this endeavour, we were shocked to learn that there is no lab in Canada that can even test Glyphosate in body fluids. This is being considered as evidence that the Canadian Government never considered accumulation of this weed killer in humans as a safety concern, despite doubts raised on the subject globally both by independent scientists and public. Canada apparently has never ordered any long term independent study, outside of control of the industry or politicians, to test toxicity effects on mammals due exposure to Glyphosate or its accumulation in body. Canada does not even have a lab to check presence of Glyphosate in animals and people. Labs here can apparently test for Glyphosate only in water and soil, and nothing else, that too at a relatively steep cost of $250 to 300 per test – quite out of range for ordinary Canadians.

We have thankfully found labs in the US that will use ELISA screening (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) method to test for Glyphosate in all kinds of matrices such as water, urine, soil, milk, and various kinds of food at a more reasonable cost of $100 to 150.

Further, we found that some labs may consider performing these tests in large batches, if there is public interest, thus bringing the price substantially down, within reach of average people. Thus, the people in Canada are now engaging in a nationwide Glyphosate testing initiative. Groups are forming in all regions that will collect samples and order testing in batches, collecting funds to do so. Poor & homeless people are likely more exposed to the toxin since they cannot afford to be selective on what they eat. They are also least likely to be able to afford testing their urine. So we initiated a crowd funding scheme to support them.

Testing of milk, both human breast milk from nursing mothers and cow milk has posed a problem. Although individual labs can do these tests in USA for over $100, we could not find any lab initially that could do batch processing of milk at a lower cost.

Testing milk is important. Monsanto claims that Glyphosate does not pose a problem even if ingested by mammals, because the body flushes it out through urine and feces. Based on that assumption, the limit to which the chemical can be present in the environment has been set higher. Therefore, finding it in breast milk, or even cow milk, would prove that mammals cannot flush it all out and it can accumulate, and that the limits allowed in the Environment should be lowered drastically. Glyphosate has been discovered in breast milk from nursing mothers in the US recently.

Luckily, we have obtained details of how a lab can separate the clear liquid in milk from the white fatty matter so that this clear liquid can then be tested accurately for Glyphosate, using the ELISA kit. Technical documents on this have been passed to a few inquisitive US and Canadian labs. We hope that some day, Canadian labs would be able to test human breast milk, cow milk and a whole range of other food products economically, for Canadian citizens, even if the Government or the healthcare industry will not engage in it.

The purpose of this writing is two fold. This is not to plead with the Government to consider funding this Citizen’s test. People believe that the ministry of health might only look for excuses why this test should not be done. The people have therefore decided to bypass the Government and conduct their own tests, and find out how much they have been poisoned and from what sources.

The reason we write this are to ask:

  1. If the Government might consider assisting and encouraging a few labs in Canada to expand their services to include low cost volume processing of human body fluids as well as food etc for presence of Glyphosate, so that we do not have to send money overseas and support the US lab science industry. We should be supporting our own.
  2. Why does the Government bother setting safe limits of Glyphosate in water, if it does not care if the same Glyphosate accumulates humans and animals?

Please also note, this grassroots group is transparent and open source. This letter may be circulated among members, volunteers, local organizers and the general public, through emails, social media or on the web, and may get into my own blog at – www.tonu.org.

Thanking you

On behalf of Canadians for Glyphosate Testing

Tony Mitra
Blog: http://www.tonu.org/
Web: http://gmofreenetwork.com/

Continent Wide Glyphosate Testing – calling local organizers

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Dear all,

We regretfully announce that the below offer has been withdrawn by Creative Diagnostics, USA, before the first batch of samples could even be shipped. This has caused disappointment among some, but has also resulted in renewed effort to find a lab that will serve the people at a price point that is affordable for the people. More folks are now working to make this happen. We shall keep you all appraised. Meanwhile, folks still have the option of getting the same tests done through Microbe Inotech Laboratories, the details of which is covered here. July 7th, 2014.

We finally have a solution and a quotation – mass scale Glyphosate testing at affordable cost – all in USD.

A major breakthrough has been achieved in negotiation and technical preparation for processing of milk – cow milk and human breast milk – using the same ELISA kit. And now, even Soy Milk, which is strictly speaking a vegetable product – can also be tested.

This is considered important since accumulation of Glyphosate in milk would bolster the proof that the nasty molecule jumps our internal safeguards and does not fully get flushed out through urine and feces. Nursing mothers should seriously consider getting their breast milk checked, and at this price, it is almost a no brainer for those that are employed and not financially stressed. For those that do not have nursing women at home, testing for store bought milk is a good way to check if and how we might be getting our dose of poison. It is a well known fact that factory farming of dairy cows with GM corn and soy feed are usually laced with Glyphosate and that this is expected to be in the animals milk. Further, we have been advised by scientists that once it is in the cow, it will be in the milk and it cannot be filtered out through pasteurization or other follow up processes. This means, milk from those cows, sold in stores, or processed to produce butter, cheese, or added to bread or cake, are all expected to contain Glyphosate.

Those of you that are still wondering what Glyphosate is – it is the molecule that is the prime killer in Monsanto’s RoundUp herbicide, and suspected by many to be linked with a series of chronic and serious illnesses as well as possible species deaths. But unfortunately for us, the Government of Canada, or the US Govt has apparently not conducted any test of its own, or ordered any independent tests free from political or the industry control, to see if this weed killer is causing any harm to the living eco-system or to human beings.

Above is the basic breakdown, for Canada. All prices are in USD and the cost is same for USA except the shipping cost, which will be $20 or so less for USA, far as I remember.

The basic explanation is in the table itself, but what it means is that:

We need local groups in each region in Canada, to organize and muster people that are willing to pay for at least 40 samples. The basic cost will be 28.50 per test or water, urine and blood. It will be 29.50 for cooking oil such as canola. And it will be 31.50 for soil, bread and corn.

For liquids, it needs to be in 2 mL botles. For solids: 5-10g/tube.

In case we stick with line item 3, i.e. water, urine and blood, the total cost should be USD 1140. The box we receive will have the white insulated container and also a cage and 40 tubes in it along with a cold pack. The cold pack needs to be put in a fridge, to cool it down and then, when samples are drawn and in the box, the cold pack needs to be inserted before it is shipped out.

We have Jenny White, Rob and Tina in Ontario that will prepare the first batches from Toronto region. I expect to have more batches from Edmonton and places in Alberta and I am hoping Craig can muster up a batch from Montreal.

Wally Martine and friends in the Tri-City region are getting together to muster local groups there. We also have Stephanie from Vancouver island that will work with others to be the first to order this service for the islanders.

We are hoping that the moms from Squamish will also get organized on this. Wishing them the best of luck. We have not yet had direct message from the Maritime Provinces. It is our hope that they too will join the nationwide effort sooner rather than later.

[youtube 4GEQ8JqmBIY]

Meanwhile, Moms Across America group has taken this up for a coast to coast testing drive. Also, Catherine from Minnesota is a volunteer that works closely with us and might round up more local groups from her region. I hope more people come forward to join the tests.

Eventually we shall have a need for some web-database guy to help prepare the database that will put up the results, without personal names and ID, so the real picture emerges on how much poisoning North Americans are subjected to – thanks to Glyphosate.

More on this later. Those that are wondering what the 96T ELISA kit is all about, the picture above is only an abbreviation of the first two steps. It involves addition of standard samples, antibody solution and enzyme conjugate before washing the plate and adding of substrate/colour solutions, stopping solution and finally a calibration, or measurement, of the resultant colour. That, in a single sentence is what 96T ELISA test – which stands for Enzyme-linked Immunosorbet Assay – is all about.

Those that wish to get organized – and need flyers, can download this one.

This offer is for batches of 40 only. So anybody that is willing to muster up 40 samples from each region and collect the funds for this, and is ready to place order – please send email to either me, or to Glyphosate Testing Canadian or US team or check with Zen Hunneycutt of Moms Across America.

Canada needs a lab. If we all ask our doctors and hospitals that we wish to test ourselves and our food for presence of Glyphosate, and if the doctors and hospitals in turn start asking the laboratory chains, eventually a lab or two will start offering this service. Therefore, I appeal to all Canadians, please join hands with us in asking for a Glyphosate test of your urine, or blood, or breast milk of nursing mothers, as well as your bread, your meat, milk, cooking oil and other packaged and raw food.

Exchanges with Dairyland

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(To Satupo, parent company behind the Dairyland milk products)

July 16, 2014

Dear Ms Elke,

Thank you for your response today July 16th, to my message dated June 20th.

I have the following for your record:

  1. My question was not if your milk product satisfied existing standards, but more specifically, if you would like to join us in testing your milk for presence of Glyphosate. By your below answer, your firm appears to be unwilling join us in this test. In such a case we shall proceed to test it ourselves.
  2. Your message seems to imply that you expect Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and Health Canada to enforce science based standards such as  Glyphosate in food. But you did not clarify who enforces it, and what the standards with regard to Glyphosate in milk might be. Appreciate if you can advise us what limit is set for Glyphosate in milk, who is doing the testing, and what the results are.
  3. We believe no one has ever tested any milk in Canada for Glyphosate, because we cannot find a single lab in this country that is prepared, or set up, to test Glyphosate in milk, or in fact any other food. I would request you to name us a single lab inside Canada that you know will test milk for Glyphosate. We are consequently sending your milk samples to USA for testing.
  4. We have no desire to speak with Canadian Dairy Farmers, whose contact you did not include, nor did you copy us in when you sent our email to them. We believe it should be your responsibility to check if Dairyland milk products contain the largest selling week killer in the planet as a response from our query, irrespective of what Health Canada, Canadian Food Inspection Agency or Canadian  Dairy Farmers think about it. Since cost of a mere couple of hundred dollars for each test should not break your bank, we had expected you to readily join this exercise to prove that your milk is clean, or learn if there is a cause for concern. However, you must have your good reason to be reluctant to test it, while falling back on existing regulations, or as in this case, a lack of it.
  5. We also note you did not respond to the comment that it is very hard for a consumer to find a contact details of a real person in your organization
  6. Further, since we are a grassroots, and we follow people’s wishes and concerns, and since people are concerned about Glyphosate and are getting engaged in testing it at their own cost, we shall be putting up your response as well as this note, as a follow up to my earlier message to you, which is already on the web, at : http://www.tonu.org/2014/06/23/dairyland/
  7. When we test your milk products in a certified lab in the US, we shall be disclosing the results too on the web for all to see. We hope the results would turn out clean without trace of Glyphosate. We have raised crowd funding efforts and private donations to collect funds to pay for testing urine, breast milk of nursing mothers as well as some food items, such as your milk. A lot of people have contributed, including Mr. Alex Atamanenko, Member of Parliament, House of Commons, Ottawa.

I am copying this message to Mr. Alex Atamanenko, MP, who is very keen on the topic of testing humans and food for traces of Glyphosate, which is suspected to have links with a series of diseases and who has been writing to the minister of Health in Ottawa to look into this matter.

Thanking you

With best wishes

Tony Mitra

(Address and contact)

(Dated July 16, 2014)

Dear Mr. Mitra:

Thank you for contacting Saputo regarding glyphosate in milk products.  Please accept our apology for the lengthy delay in responding to your e-mail.

We would like to assure you that we take food safety and quality assurance very seriously and comply with all standards and regulations applicable to our operations.  In addition, we rely upon Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, respectively, to set standards for residue limits of compounds such as glyphosate in food products and to ensure that these science-based standards are applied and enforced.  We have also referred your letter to the Dairy Farmers of Canada, the national organization representing Canadian dairy farmers that ship quality milk from their farms to our company and all of the other dairy processors in the country.

We appreciate you taking the time to contact us in this regard and would suggest contacting the Dairy Farmers of Canada directly if you have any additional questions.

Sincerely,

Deborah
Consumer Relations Coordinator
Marketing Department
Saputo

Saputo Dairy Products Canada G.P.
6800 Lougheed Highway
Burnaby, BC, Canada  V5A 1W2

Tel:  1-800-672-8866 / Fax:  604-588-1284
www.saputo.com

Dairyland

June 20, 2014,

Subject: Testing for Dairyland brand of milk sold in local stores, for presence of Glyphosate

Good day,

We, Canadians For Testing Glyphosate, a citizen’s grassroots body, are engaging in a massive citizen driven nationwide program to test if Glyphosate is present in our water and soil, in our body, and in the food sold in our stores, such as in Safeway, 7450 120th St in Surrey, BC.

In case you are wondering what Glyphosate might be – it is the active ingredient (poison that kills organisms) in Monsanto’s ‘RoundUp’ herbicide weed killer, and what is suspected to be linked to rise of a multitude of serious illnesses and deaths, and possible species extinctions in the last 20 years.
In that respect, we intend the following items that may contain Dairlyland brand of products such as:

  • Regular milk
  • Organic Milk
  • Chocolate milk
  • Strawbery milk
  • Egnog
  • Buttermilk
  • Cream
  • Lactose Free Products

etc

Our legal team is advising that we do not really need to either inform you or take your permission to test these products, if we buy these items and draw the sample from there to send to the labs, and that we have the right, as citizens living in a free country, to test the food that we buy to eat or drink from any store that are open to public.

However, this note is sent to seek your opinion on this, and to check if you might like to join us in this test. Good quality tests involving, say the ELISA method (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) costs around $150 or so per test in an accredited lab and possibly less in batch processing in other labs.

We shall be glad if your organization decides to join us by funding some of these “independent” tests on your own products, or shares data with us about your own third party testing results. We are planning to conduct them any way, but thought it might look better if your store were perceived to be cooperating.

Please note, we are only focussing on Glyphosate for now, and we are also checking many many items that are not your products.

Also, should you have an objection to the testing, i.e. if your position is that we may drink your product and feed our family with it, but we may not test it, I shall appreciate if you shall validate that with a proper statement.

Lastly, we aim to be a transparent organization that let the public know of our involvements in this regard, so this letter, and others like it, may be circulated among members and in social media and internet, for others to either write similar letters, or compose their own.

Absence of a response may be taken as you do not feel comfortable discussing this matter with us.

Please also note, we wished to send an email to your parent corporation Saputo, but could not locate their email address. Please also note, we failed to find even your email address and the mechanism you provided to send you any suggestion or comment to be very restrictive through this on line form. Here in Canada, even the prime ministers office has an accessible email for the people.

I shall be more than happy to meet you or speak with you about our effort, and shall be looking forward to any response from you.

Thanking you
On behalf of Canadians for Testing Glyphosate
Tony Mitra
(contact)

Letter to Agropur Cooperative about testing for RoundUp herbicide in their milk

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We could not find an easy way to send an email to Agropur Cooperative regarding a citizen’s nationwide plan to test ourselves, our environment and our food, for presence of Glyphosate, in Monsanto’s weed killer RoundUp. In that effort we wished to include various brands of milk products, such as the Dairyland, Silk and Natrel group.

We prefer to have a name, a rank and an email address of firms that sell us food, so citizens can directly send them messages of public concern. However, there seem to be a serious effort by these firms to hide behind a wall of secrecy, and make it really hard for people to find contact details of relevant persons to write to with either a complaint or a suggestion. Agropur Cooperative was found even worse than the others, because their online complaint box allows only short messages, too short for us to send the attached email.

So, we said we wished to test their milk for Glyphosate and since we could not find an easy way to send them this letter electronically and directly, we are putting it up on the web, and sending them the link. We are still hoping that the firm will cooperate with our effort, especially if their milk is free of Glyphosate while competitors might not be.

Agropur Cooperative, Consumer Response
Subject: Testing for presence of Glyphosate in milk products
Good day,

We, Canadians For Testing Glyphosate, a citizen’s grassroots body, are planning to engage in a large scale citizen driven nationwide program to test if Glyphosate is present in our water and soil, in our body, and in the food we buy in our stores.

In case you are wondering what Glyphosate might be – it is the active ingredient (poison that kills organisms) in Monsanto’s ‘RoundUp’ herbicide weed killer, and what is suspected to be linked to rise of a multitude of illnesses, deaths, and possible species extinctions in the past 20 years.

In that respect, we are planning to be checking a few brands of milk including milk from Natrel. The range of products we might test, could include the fine filtered, lactose free, organic, flavoured, enriched and cafe versions etc.

Our legal team is advising that we do not really need to either inform you or take your permission to test these products, if we buy these items, taken them home and draw the sample from there to send to the labs, and that we have the right, as citizens living in a free country, to test the food that we buy to eat or drink from any store that are open to public.

We have identified labs, in the US, that can test for Glyphosate in milk. This test is considered vital for us. Monsanto claims that the toxin does not accumulate mammals even if ingested, and that it gets flushed out through urine. Therefore, any presence in milk would be proof that the claim may be false and that if it can accumulate in cows, it can also accumulate in humans that drink this milk. On the other hand, if some of your milk products prove to be Glyphosate free, in other words if Glyphosate was not present in the food cycle of the dairy cattle that provided the base stock, then the people can list out those products as safe to drink with regard to this pesticide.

This note is sent to seek your opinion on our plan to test your products, and to check if you might like to join us in this initiative. Good quality tests involving, say the ELISA method (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) costs around $150 or so per test in an accredited lab in the US. We shall be glad if your organization decides to join us by funding some of these “independent” tests on your own products. It might look good if your firm was perceived to be cooperating.

Please note, we are only focussing on Glyphosate for now, and we plan on a wide ranging scheme that will test many items which are not your products at all.

Should you have an objection to testing your milk products, i.e. if your position is that we may drink your milk and feed our family with it, but we may not test it, we shall appreciate if you will validate that with a proper statement.


We aim to be a transparent organization that let the public know of our involvements in this regard, so this letter, and others like it, may be circulated among members and in social media and internet, for others to either write similar letters, or compose their own.
Absence of a response may be taken as you do not feel comfortable discussing this matter with us.
Please also note, we failed to locate a proper name of a contact person with an email for your parent company in Canada. Even the prime ministers office has an accessible address and email contact for the people. We find this lack of easy access with a credible name, rank and contact email from vendors that demand such details from people writing to them through a heavily restricted on line comment section to be anti-people, poor in quality control tools and not too transparent.

We shall be more than happy to meet with you or speak on phone about our effort, and shall be looking forward to any response you might have.

Some of our friends in USA, also engaging in similar activity, might also approach you regarding products sold in American stores.

Thanking you

On behalf of Canadians for Testing Glyphosate
Tony Mitra
(address)

Letter to the BC Ministry of Environment, regarding Glyphosate testing

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To: The Ministry of Environment, British Columbia, through the office of the Primier

Subject: ELISA testing for Glyphosate – an inquiry

Good day,

This letter is to ask if your office might assist a group of citizens in locating a suitable laboratory in Canada that will engage in batch processing using ELISA kits for measurement of presence of Glyphosate in various samples.

We are a large and growing group of Canadians that want to engage in self funded initiative to have a large number of samples tested for Glyphosate (the active ingredient in Monsanto’s RoundUp weed killer) in our water, urine, breast milk, cooking oil, processed food, raw grains etc.

We are not interested at this point of time to debate or engage in any discussion with any scientist or Politician about whether Glyphosate in food is acceptable as a health risk or not. We simply indent to find out if it is present and to what extent in which sample.

We are also not requesting for any Government funding for this project. Citizens are going to spend money out of their own pocket for this test, as they believe it is their right to know if any specific synthetic chemical that they are concerned about is in their food web or not.

This request is merely to see if your office might assist in finding a suitable laboratory in Canada.

We have been looking around for such labs and have so far failed to locate a single lab in Canada that are accredited to test Glyphosate in anything except water and soil. They mostly seem to use HPLC (High-performance liquid chromatography) method which is also costly for individual citizens.

Meanwhile, we have received more favourable quotes from the US, using ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) screening method, for individual tests for around $100 to 130, and also much lower costs for batch processing using ELISA kits, at almost half the cost. There are yet more labs that are not accredited to test Glyphosate yet, but are able to provide the service, presumably with comparable accuracy, at even a fourth of the cost. We are investigating these sources. A large number of concerned Americans too are joining us in the same quest.

There are courier charges involved in shipping to the US, along with possible customs formalities, which we are looking into.

Meanwhile, if indeed Canada has no labs that can test for Glyphosate in body fluids, in our food and drinks, using ELISA batch processing as a public service where people can pay for these tests themselves, at their cost, then can we request your good Government to consider setting such a lab up in BC ? That way we do not have to send money and samples across the border to help science lab industry in the US, and can support our own institutions instead.

We hope your office would be interested in looking into this.

I shall be happy to speak with you on phone, should you have more questions.

Thanking you

On behalf of Canadians for Glyphosate Testing

Tony Mitra.

(address)

Meanwhile, a crowd sourcing program started to raise $6,000 to get the homeless and low income group, suspected to be most affected by Glyphosate in their body through junk food, charity food and food bank supplements. If you can, please consider donating $5,10 or whatever you can spare.

Nationwide Glyphosate Testing

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Canadians are fed up with a Government that is not perceived to be telling the truth or testing if Canadians are getting poisoned with RoundUp weed killer.

[youtube QfyCo4urS6U]

Whenever independent scientists raise alarm on the increasing level health risks being faced by the people through increased usage an exposure to Glyphosate, the killer poison in Monsanto’s RoundUp, such scientists get sacked, or their funds removed, labs closed down, papers retracted, gag order imposed and banished from the scientific community.

There has hardly been examples of such one sided censorship of science every since Copernicus got into trouble with the Church groups for stating what was obvious about the relative movements of the Sun and planet earth.

Credibility of mainstream science, be it from EPA or USDA or from Health Canada, has sunk below zero, and acquired a negative value, so much so that if a Government agency says this or that pesticide is good for us, people will form their own opinion that the pesticide MUST be bad. People no more trust the Government, or the scientists working for them, or the biotech lobby that appears to have captured the Government and international agencies that relate to sale and trade of these items.

So, Canadians have decided to engage in a massive citizen action to test how much Glyphosate poisoning (poisoned by Monsanto’s RoundUp weed killer) they have been subjected to, through their water, their soil, their food and how much of it has gotten inside of them. They do not wish to engage in any scientific debate on it with the health care wing of the Government any more, since the Government has not, and apparently will not, engage in any independent third party analysis of long term health risks posed by GMO or pesticides through any institution that is outside of economic or political control of either the biotech industry or the Government. Canadian Government is perceived to have given up on any pretence on supporting independent safety analysis of carcinogens that it unleashes on its people.

So, Canadian citizens are engaging in testing for themselves, for their own knowledge, of how much poisoning they have been exposed to. They are going to do this bypassing the entire political establishment, entire mainstream scientific community and the medical profession, all political parties and all organized NGO or activism groups. This is a grassroots organization that is from the people, by the people and for the people. They want to know, they believe they have a right to know and they are going engage directly themselves, to find out.
A lot of low income group people may be unable to even pay $25 for testing their urine of the bread they buy from the local Walmart of Safeway, food banks or various sources of junk food. Yet, eating the most economical food available to them, they may be more exposed than many others. Some may already be sick.

So we have a crowd funding scheme to pay for these needy brothers and sisters. Click on the image below to go there.

COST ESTIMATE

  • Dr. Samsel : Urine, breast milk or water. US$ 100. Paid directly to Dr. Samsel at P.O. Box 131, Deerfield, NH 03037, USA. Dr. Samsel will send the sample kit and the questionnaire to the candidate.
  • A Canadian lab will test Glyphosate in water for CAD 105. Can be done through us.
  • US Labs will do batch tests of water, urine, bread, corn, cooking oil etc for about CAD 28 each plus courier charges, for batch processing using ELISA 96T kit for about 40 samples at a time, through us. They are not acredited.
  • US Labs will process batch of 96 for the same samples as above, but tested through a certified lab, for $50 to 60 per sample. to be done through us.
  • Microbe Inotech Laboratories, St. Louis, MO, USA will do water & urine (USD 110), Breast milk $130, Soil or grain for $145 US. Through us.

Here is a link to the original pdf about joining up, for those that need to download and print, in case you wish to pass it to local community members or concerned citizens. We are looking for regional coordinators.

If you wish to join up – write to Glyphosate.testing@gmail.com
or stay tuned to this blog site. We shall overcome.

Letter to the BC Ministry of Agriculture on Glyphosate Testing

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To: The Government of British Columbia
Ministry of Agriculture
Date: June 13, 2014

Good day

I represent Canadians for Glyphosate Testing – a grassroots organization that is engaging in cross Canada mass testing for Glyphosate, the active poison in Monsanto’s RoundUP weed killer, in our water, our urine, feces, breast milk of mothers, and in the food sold in our stores.

We are doing it on our own as we feel that our Government has neglected to engage in this important task. How we know the Government has neglected this task is because we have asked about it to the Federal Government without getting a clear answer, and because we have discovered that Canada does not have labs where a citizen can test for Glyphosate in human body fluids, or in animals or food products.

I found your web page at (http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/pesticides/g_1.htm) interesting, since it alerts people about pesticide poisoning. It however makes no mention of testing if people have been poisoned with Glyphosate, which we find regrettable.

We have located labs in the US that will test for Glyphosate in human and animal body fluids as well as food. Costs run between $25 or so for bulk-tests or over $100 for individual tests.
We have started the process of people paying for their own tests, and to gather a nationwide database on where Canada stands with regard to Glyphosate poisoning. We are doing it without the government.

Being a true grassroots organization, we reject political parties, and distance ourselves from NGO or special interest groups.

We are sending this note to your ministry, because we believe it is the Agriculture industry that may be most responsible for Glyphosate poisoning in our country, and to check if you might like to join us in any way to conduct this “third party” independent testing. While approval of RoundUp herbicide along with 2,4-D etc are the job of Health Canada in Ottawa, we believe responsibility for allowing application of these nasty substances in British Columbia, without there being any independent test on their safety, done anywhere in Canada or in the entire universe, rests at your feet.

We believe you already know about the epidemic level rise of serious illnesses that show strong correlation with the rise of Glyphosate usage in the US. We do not have corresponding correlation for Canada – not because there is no relation, but because data on year by year Glyphosate usage, and year by year reported illnesses on Crohn’s, Celiac, Kidney Failure, Autism, infertility, birth defects etc on humans are not available from Government sources. Should you be able to get those details for us, say for the past 20 years, we shall be very thankful.

Being an open source, transparent, grassroots organization with nothing to hide, we intend to let our members and the general public know that we sent you this letter. It may therefore be circulated through email, social media and the internet.

Looking forward to your input and possible assistance in getting a large scale testing undertaken in BC, and to check if BC can have an accredited lab that can test Glyphosate in human and animal body fluids at a cost point that are within reach of the lower income people, who are suspected to be most affected by Glyphosate poisoning through junk food and food bank supplements.

Should you be willing to have a meeting to discuss these issues, we shall be glad to present our delegation to talk these out with you. Meanwhile, we are proceeding with our nationwide drive to check level of Glyphosate poisoning in us, and we wonder if you will support, or frown at this citizens action.

Thanking you
With Best wishes
Tony Mitra
(address & tel)

Links:
www.tonu.org

2nd Letter to Mayor, Delta, BC about testing for Glyphosate

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To: Ms Lois Jackson,
Mayor, Delta, BC
Dated June 12, 2014

Good day.

I had written to you on May 15, 2014 (http://www.tonu.org/2014/05/15/deltamayor/) on this topic, but received no response.

This letter is a reminder that we are still awaiting a response, and to keep you updated and to see if you or the Municipality of Delta, which collects our taxes, and which is our representative local Government, might have any interest in the wellbeing of its residents regarding exposure to nasty pesticides.

We have started a nationwide drive to check how much of Glyphosate is present in our drinking water, agricultural runoff, in our food sold in stores, and in our body. The basic concept is described in the blog :http://www.tonu.org/2014/05/31/glyphosate_testing-ca/. This is a citizen’s direct action, since our Governments so far appears non-plussed about it.

In case you are wondering what Glyphosate might be, it is the active ingredient (poison that kills) in Monsanto’s RoundUp weed killer. We have found no evidence that any government in Canada or any organization, have ever tested for accumulation of this weed killer in human body fluids or in food sold in local stores, or grown in local farms. This chemical is suspected to be involved in epidemic level rise of various auto-immune diseases. Government and the industry are resisting independent study of the effects of this pesticide on environment, on food and in people. Of relevance is a new book – ‘Poison Spring’ by Mr. Vallianatos, who worked for 25 years in EPA (Environment Protection Agency, USA) and describes how the EPA has continuously bypassed safety and allowed poison makers a free hand in running the institution. Our Ministry of Health has, instead of conducting independent safety checks on these substances, approves them based on tests done by the poison maker, and on EPA approval. I have spoken with the author and whistleblower Mr. Vallianatos himself. You can find it here : http://www.tonu.org/2014/06/06/poisonspring/

We have also written to Walmart and Safeway to check if they might like to join us in our testing food items sold in their store, for presence of this weed killer (http://www.tonu.org/2014/06/12/walmart-safeway/), but have not received any response.

The grassroots organization is citizen funded and a lot of people have joined hands to make this happen. Those that can afford to pay, will fund their own tests of samples collected by them, while we have just created a crowd funding program yesterday for others to contribute, so that poorer sections of the population, who cannot afford to pay for their tests, but who are likely more affected by Glyphosate poisoning, can be tested :https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/nationwide-glyphosate-testing/x/7927653

We have also written to the BC ministry of agriculture and forestry, for release of data about the quantity and type of pesticides used in wood preservation industry in BC (http://www.tonu.org/2014/05/10/pesticide-in-bc-forestry/) and followed it up with a letter to the MLA Mr. Scott Hamilton (http://www.tonu.org/2014/05/20/scott_hamilton/). We have received letters of acknowledgement from both, though are still waiting for the data.

Incidentally, some of these questions have been picked up by MP Alex Atamanenko of BC and placed directly with the Minister of Health, in Ottawa. MP Mr. Atamanenko informed me from Ottawa about it:http://www.tonu.org/2014/05/29/atamanenko/

We shall be attending Municipal Council meetings in near future where we might present these questions to your council.

Meanwhile, here is a second request to you, to see if the Municipality or its environment, food, agriculture or health initiatives have any interest in joining our effort, or to use some of the tax it collects from us, to test how much RoundUp, the the most used Pesticide in Canada, has gotten in our water, our urine, in breast milk of our nursing mothers and in the food that are sold in our stores, in Delta BC.

Should there be another mechanism for approaching your good office to raise these questions – I shall be obliged if you advise me the details.

Being a fully transparent and citizen supported initiative, this letter may be circulated among friends and other partners, by email, on social media, and on internet.

We shall be more than happy to see you, or meet your council, or converse with you on phone on this matter that is considered to be of utmost importance by a large body of people.

Thanking you
Tony Mitra
(address & Tel)

Asking Walmart & Safeway about Glyphosate in food they sell

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To, the Manager,
Walmart, 
12451 88th Avenue, Surrey, BC, V3W 1P8, (604)-597-7117

Subject: Testing for food sold in Walmart Store, for presence of Glyphosate

Good day,

We, Canadians For Testing Glyphosate, a citizen’s grassroots body, are engaging in a massive citizen driven nationwide program to test if Glyphosate is present in our water and soil, in our body, and in the food sold in our stores, such as in Walmart, Surrey, BC.

In case you are wondering what Glyphosate might be – it is the active ingredient (poison that kills organisms) in Monsanto’s ‘RoundUp’ herbicide weed killer, and what is suspected to be linked to epidemic level rise of a multitude of serious illnesses and deaths, and possible species extinctions in the last 20 years.
In that respect, we intend to test food items from your store such as :

Baby formulae
Cow milk
Bread
Corn
Canola and other cooking oil
Beet
Meat products such as Beef, Chicken and Pork

Our legal team is advising that we do not need to either inform you or take your permission, to test these products, and that we have the right, as citizens living in a free country, to test the food that we buy to eat from any store that is open to public.

However, this letter is sent to seek your opinion on this, and to check if you might like to join us in this test. Good quality tests involving, say the ELISA method (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) costs around $150 or so per test in an accredited lab. We shall be glad if your organization decides to join us by funding some of these “independent” tests on your own products.

We are planning to conduct them any way, but thought it might look better if your store were perceived to be cooperating.

Also, should you have an objection to the testing, i.e. if your position is that we may eat what we buy from you, but we may not test it, I shall appreciate if you shall validate that with a proper statement.

Lastly, we aim to be a transparent organization that let the public know of our involvements in this regard, so this letter, and others like it, may be circulated among members and in social media and internet, for others to either write similar letters, or compose their own.

I shall be more than happy to meet you or speak with you about our effort, and shall be looking forward to any response from you.

Absence of a response will be taken as you do not feel comfortable discussing this matter with us.

Thanking you
On behalf of Canadians for Testing Glyphosate
Tony Mitra
(address)

To, the Management, supplier.support@safeway.com, ecredi@safeway.com
Safeway, Canada 
7450 120 St, Surrey, BC, (604) 594-7341

Subject: Testing for food sold in Safeway, for presence of Glyphosate

Good day,

We, Canadians For Testing Glyphosate, a citizen’s grassroots body, are engaging in a massive citizen driven nationwide program to test if Glyphosate is present in our water and soil, in our body, and in the food sold in our stores, such as in Walmart, Surrey, BC.

In case you are wondering what Glyphosate might be – it is the active ingredient (poison that kills organisms) in Monsanto’s ‘RoundUp’ herbicide weed killer, and what is suspected to be linked to epidemic level rise of a multitude of serious illnesses and deaths, and possible species extinctions in the last 20 years.
In that respect, we intend to test food items from your store such as :

Baby formulae
Cow milk
Bread
Corn
Canola and other cooking oil
Beet
Meat products such as Beef, Chicken and Pork

Our legal team is advising that we do not need to either inform you or take your permission, to test these products, and that we have the right, as citizens living in a free country, to test the food that we buy to eat from any store that are open to public.

However, this letter is sent to seek your opinion on this, and to check if you might like to join us in this test. Good quality tests involving, say the ELISA method (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) costs around $150 or so per test in an accredited lab. We shall be glad if your organization decides to join us by funding some of these “independent” tests on your own products. We are planning to conduct them any way, but thought it might look better if your store were perceived to be cooperating.

Also, should you have an objection to the testing, i.e. if your position is that we may eat what we buy from you, but we may not test it, I shall appreciate if you shall validate that with a proper statement.

We aim to be a transparent organization that let the public know of our involvements in this regard, so this letter, and others like it, may be circulated among members and in social media and internet, for others to either write similar letters, or compose their own.

I shall be more than happy to meet you or speak with you about our effort, and shall be looking forward to any response from you.

Absence of a response will be taken as you do not feel comfortable discussing this matter with us.

Incidentally, we found it rather difficult to locate an applicable contact email for making suggestions to the Manager of the Store in the address given above. In that respect, the Safeway website seemed designed make it difficult for customers to send any email to the management. It seemed designed to tell customers many things, but with no mechanism to listen from them. Thus, we send this message to the only two emails we could locate after some searching around, at http://suppliers.safeway.com/canada/edi_can/edi_contact.asp.

Should this message be better directed to another person or department, I request that this be done.

Thanking you
On behalf of Canadians for Testing Glyphosate
Tony Mitra,
(address)
tony.mitra@gmail.com