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.