Create a demand for Glyphosate lab in Canada

Posted on December 8, 2014 by admin

Glyphosate is the poison in Monsanto’s RoundUp herbicide, the most used weed killer in Canada. It is used on RoundUp ready GM crops, and also as desiccant on non GM crops. it is to be used on prairies with designed GM alfalfa. It is being sprayed from the air on Canadian forests by logging companies. It is everywhere.

There is a rising body of study that point to possible link between our exposure to this chemical and an unparalleled rise of various chronic diseases in North America.

Here in Canada, there is no lab that will test citizen’s urine, or blood, or breast milk of nursing mothers, for traces of Glyphosate. There is no lab in Canada where one can test the food we buy in our store, for presence of Glyphosate.

Are there such labs available in other regions ? Yes, USA has them. There are labs in the rest of the world, but not in Canada.

Why are there no labs in Canada ? Because no doctor, no hospital, no environment ministry or health ministry is asking for routine and broad range testing of Canadian people and Canadian food, for glyphosate poisoning. Labs are commercial ventures. They will provide a service only if there is sufficient demand.

So, here is an appeal for all Canadians – join us and create a demand. All you need to do is ask your doctor, or hospital, or clinic, to arrange for a test of urine, or blood, or breast milk for nursing mothers, as well as a few heavily used food brand for your family such as a brand of milk, or bread, or meat. If enough doctors or hospitals started asking around for this test, this would generate a demand, and some labs would respond to it and start offering this service. Right now, a few Canadian labs offer the service of testing Glyphosate in water, and soil. Unfortunately, they will not test it in your food, or your body fluids as of now.

For those that wish to learn more about what Glyphosate is, and why it should be a matter for concern – read the bottom section of this blog, where a copy of a letter recently written by retired Canadian genetic engineer Dr. Thierry Vrain to the health minister is included, covering this very subject, with scientific references to international studies. You can also check my own blog from the summer, where I asked for a nationwide testing for Glyphosate, and how our efforts are delayed due to the roadblock of not having any lab in Canada, and sending samples overseas or across the border is proving difficult and costly.

I am also including another external link : The microbiota Crisis and how Glyphosate is killing animal micro biome, including our own, and how this micro biome is vital for all us in the animal kingdom.

Above is a sample letter. Use it if you like, or modify it as needed. Wording of the same blank letter is shown below. Do not offer to pay for the tests as of now. Idea is for doctors and hospitals to start enquiring about testing Glyphosate in food and in people. If enough demand is perceived, some labs will start offering this service.

We intend to self-label our food

Idea is for us to contribute in testing our food. I could pay for testing one or two brand of food, apart from my own urine etc. Someone else would test another food item. We shall keep loading the findings on the internet in a sort of nationwide list. Eventually, with hundreds of citizens pulling in, we shall have hundreds of food items tested and self-labelled, so to speak, for the rest of the nation to check on. Then, for those that do not like to have Glyphosate in their food, or those that already find Glyphosate within themselves and are looking to identify and exclude those food items from where it might be intruding from, they can then start automatically banning those food items that are tested with high Glyphosate content. This self-driven citizens action bypasses the entire political circus of trying to convince Ottawa politicians to pay heed to public concerns, an exercise so far proving to be very difficult thanks to the financial clout of the foreign corporations that peddle the toxic stuff onto us.

That is one reason we need a lab. Besides, Canada is not a fourth world country – or we hope not. The first, the second and the third world already have labs for testing Glyphosate. It is a national shame that Canada has none.

So, please help Canada in helping ourselves on this important task.

The plan is not just to get a lab. A lab is the first step, which we should not even have had to deal with, had our Govt been careful. The Govt has not been so, and we now have to work extra for the first part – of getting a lab.

Once we have the lab, Canadians can then do into a citizen-driven self labelling drive. I would test a few food products myself, out of my own pocket if need be. If two hundred Canadians from coast to coast, decided to test one food item each, apart from testing ourselves, then Canada would have two hundred food items tested. Results would be put up on the internet, for the rest of 35 million Canadians to check up on, and decide what to buy and what not to. We can do this without asking Ottawa politicians for anything.

Citizens can, and in this case, may have to, take care of our health and environment issues on our own, since the Govt seems to have abandoned the cause. Citizens will label the food. Citizens will selectively ban the food according to label and need.

Thats the plan.

Sample letter 1

To : Doctor, or Nurse, or Hospital etc

From : Your name

Date :

I am concerned that my corn, soy or wheat based food may contain traces of a herbicide called glyphosate. I would like to get my body fluids and possible fat tissue sample tested for the presense of glyphosate to see if I am accumilating any of it in my body.

If I supply you with the samples, can you please arrange to get them tested?

I would prefer for the results of the tests to be sent to me personally, as well as to your office.

Samples I wish to test: Urine (2 samples), blood(1 sample), milk (1), bread(1), cooking oil(1) – (Please modify this letter and the list of items you wish to test, to suit your situation).

Appreciate your prompt action in this.

Thanking you,

Name & address

Sample letter 2

To : Doctor, or Nurse, or Hospital etc

From : Your name

Date :

I wish to test some samples for Glyphosate. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Round-Up herbicide and is being liberally sprayed on much of my food, both GMO and non GMO. I am concerned that this Glyphosate is migrating into my body, and may adversely affect my health.

If I supply you with the samples, can you please arrange to get them tested?

I would prefer for the results of the tests to be sent to me personally, as well as to your office.

Samples I wish to test: Urine (2 samples), blood(1 sample), milk (1), bread(1), cooking oil(1) – (Please modify this letter and the list of items you wish to test, to suit your situation).

Appreciate your prompt action in this.

Thanking you,

Name & address

Note from a Canadian lab, about testing Glyphosate in urine and food

Hi Tony:

We will look into the method once there is a demand, we cannot allocate resources to the development of a method for which there is no market at the moment. Also it will be a non-accredited method at this point.

Thanks.

Dr. Thierry Vrain’s letter to Rona Ambrose, health minister

October 27, 2014

To the Honorable Rona Ambrose, Minister of Health

Re: herbicide pollution and GMO labeling

Minister,

The confusion about the safety of GMOs is quite simple to address. The only GMOs in our agriculture are Glyphosate Modified Organisms also known as RoundUp Ready crops and the only GMOs in our food supply are from those crops. RoundUp Ready crops are engineeredto be sprayed with the herbicide RoundUp and this technology has become so successful that RoundUp has become a major pollutant (1). This chemical pollution is antibiotic, it impacts the microbiome, impairs CYP enzymes, and depletes food of essential mineral micronutrients. As a background paper for the impact of this pollution I offer my speaking notes to the American College of Nutrition conference last week in San Diego (Texas). Most of the studies I cite were published in the last five years.

Glyphosate is the active ingredient of the herbicide RoundUp, a new molecule created in 1960 by Stauffer Chemicals – a US company with a business of cleaning industrial pipes and boilers of mineral scales. The mineral deposits (same as in electric kettles) are called scales, and the pipe cleaning chemicals are called descaling agents. Glyphosate was patented in 1964 in the US as a powerful and very broad spectrum descaling agent (2). Meaning, it binds to metals indiscriminately and does a great job at “dissolving and preventing minerals from being reactive or bioavailable in solution”. When the descaling solution was disposed of in nature, it was obvious that it killed plants. The chemical company Monsanto promptly bought the molecule, patented it as a herbicide in 1969, and got it commercialized in 1974 (3). This molecule is making history because glyphosate has become the most successful agricultural chemical in North and South America wherever RR seeds are used. The farmers using this technology get simpler and cheaper weed management and despite
higher input bills and sometimes disappointing yields, and with weed resistance spreading fast, they adopted it in troves (4).

The herbicide RoundUp had a completely novel chemistry for a herbicide in 1969. It was deemed to kill plants by bonding to only one protein enzyme in the chloroplasts – the same enzyme that is also in bacteria and fungi. Enzymes are metalloproteins with a metal atom as a cofactor at the active site of the molecule. Bacteria and plants and fungi have a metalloprotein called EPSPS for short and 5-Enol Pyruvyl Shikimate-3 Phosphate Synthase if you want to know what it does. It works with other metalloproteins to “make” several of the building blocks of proteins, the aromatic amino acids. These molecules are also building blocks for a large number of aromatic molecules we call secondary compounds. Glyphosate binds tightly to the manganese atom at the centre of the EPSPS metalloprotein, so tightly that the protein cannot move and do its work making aromatic amino acids. No protein synthesis means there is no metabolic work possible, a quick death for the plant, or the fungi or the bacteria.

Animals do not make their own aromatic amino acids since they lack the shikimate pathway with the EPSPS metalloprotein. Because of its presumed mode of killing plants, glyphosate was pronounced innocuous to humans and registered as such in 1974 in the USA. Glyphosate has no acute toxicity, and at the time of registration in the US, and even since, nobody has bothered to check for chronic effects beyond 3 months. Considering the chemical properties of this pollution one would expect long term chronic effects, very similar to rickets, scurvy, or beri beri, for lack of micronutrients. The Industry sponsored feeding studies proving the safety of GMOs do not include testing for the safety of glyphosate. None of them bother to mention the residue levels of glyphosate in the feed. Meanwhile, a fast growing series of independent studies in various countries published in the last 5 years have ascertained the impact of glyphosate on various cellular enzymes and organs of animals and human cells.

The first RoundUp Ready crops to be commercialized were soy and corn, released in 1996. Since then, a handful of RR crops have been adopted enthusiastically by farmers, particularly in North and South America. Today close to 500 million acres of soya and corn, and cotton, canola, and sugar beet, are engineered to be sprayed with RoundUp. About 40% of all RR crops are grown in the USA, most of the rest are grown in Brazil, Argentina, Canada, and a few other countries. RR crops are now sprayed with close to two billion lbs of glyphosate every year, and so much of that finds its way into processed food and feed that the EPA had to raise the legal residue limits last year to accommodate a new reality (5).

Glyphosate is antibiotic, a powerful and broad spectrum antibiotic (6). The mode of kill is again alleged to be very selective. The glyphosate molecule impairs the functioning of the shikimate pathway in bacteria the same way it does in plants. Only one enzyme is affected in a pathway that animals do not possess. The antibiotic patent describes its effectiveness to kill bacteria at 1 ppm and this was confirmed last year in Germany (7). At this point I usually spend a minute or two explaining why a low level antibiotic diet for the rest of your life is not a good idea. I describe the recent interest of the medical field in a large joint research project involving many Universities to decipher the huge community of thousands of species of bacteria that call us home. The Human Microbiome project is the equivalent of the Human Genome project in its scope. We are vastly outnumbered, roughly ten to one – one hundred trillion bacterial cells call our lower intestine home. They are forever sending signaling molecules to each other and to all human organs, particularly the brain. All animals depend on their symbiosis with these bacteria, and humans are no exception.

They are the teachers of our immune system, they make many neurotransmitters for our brain, and have a strong connection to the heart and the whole digestive tract. They literally feed us all kinds of molecules that we require – we call them essential, like vitamins and such. They digest and recycle most of our food. Most human organs rely on molecular signals from the microbiome for normal functioning. As goes the microbiome, so does its human shell. A recent review of the medical literature on celiac and other diseases shows the link to imbalances of the microbiome that are fully explained by the antibiotic properties of glyphosate (8). And the same authors published another review of the impact of glyphosate on the CYP enzymes and the microbiome. Samsel and Seneff have suggested that glyphosate’s suppression of CYP enzymes and its antibiotic effect on the human microbiome are involved in the etiology of many chronic degenerative and inflammatory diseases that have grown to epidemic proportions since 1996, since the advent of the RoundUp Ready technology (10).

We lack any official data on residues of glyphosate in food or in water in Canada – no epidemiological studies of any kind have ever been done. All we have are the legal maximum residue limits now allowed by the EPA in RoundUp Ready foods, human cereal 30 ppm, animal grain 100 ppm, soybean 120 ppm, and everything else in between (5). Here an inquisitive mind will ask why there is such a high residue limit for cereal when none of the grains are engineered to be sprayed with RoundUp. This is when you learn that RoundUp is sprayed on many non-engineered crops with the intent to kill them right before harvest. This is done to mature and dry the crops quickly to make them easier and cheaper to harvest. The RoundUp herbicide has now become a dessicant.

There is direct toxicity to animal cells because glyphosate binds to metals indiscriminately, and not just in plant cells. It binds to metals in solution and to metal co-factors at the centre of metalloproteins anywhere. For example glyphosate binds to the iron atom at the centre of a large family of protein enzymes called CYP. There are 57 different CYP enzymes in the human body, and approximately 20,000 in animals, plants, bacteria and fungi. The CYP enzymes are oxydizers, the first line of digestion and detoxification of most substrates. David Nelson wrote in a review of the CYP enzymes: “The CYP enzymes of humans are essential for our normal physiology and failure of some of these enzymes results in serious illnesses (9,10).

Nancy Swanson has made public her statistical analyses of the US Centre for Disease Control’s statistics about the health status of America when placed next to the statistics of the US Department of Agriculture about the spread of RoundUp Ready soy and corn. Her correlation analyses show very high coefficient values suggesting strong links between glyphosate residues in RoundUp Ready food and chronic illnesses (11).

Medical and chemical reviews and peer reviewed studies have explained the mode of action of glyphosate and its impact on many metalloproteins. Human cell studies have shown acute toxicity (12-15) and animal studies have shown chronic toxicity (16-21). Glyphosate bioaccumulates in the plants and in any animal that eat the plants.

Glyphosate accumulates in the lungs, the heart, kidneys, intestine, liver, spleen, muscles, and bones … and chronically ill people have higher residues in their urine than healthy people.”(22)

To conclude this presentation of the nutritional status of Glyphosate Modified Organisms, I would say that crops sprayed with RoundUp, whether they are RoundUp Ready or not, contain residues of glyphosate, that foods made from RoundUp Ready soy and corn and sugar and canola, etc … are depleted of the minerals that are bound to the glyphosate molecules (23). Foods made from crops containing residues of glyphosate are by definition depleted of minerals and toxic.

Minister, your reassuring words have been quoted widely. “Currently, there is no… scientific evidence, that says genetically modified foods are unhealthy. It is impossible for us to mandate a label, because our labels have to be based on evidence that it is an unhealthy product for Canadians.” I hope you have found here the scientific evidence you require to act and that you join over 60 governments in the world who have found this evidence compelling enough in the past few years, to legislate some form of labeling or ban RoundUp Ready crops and the herbicide RoundUp.

Respectfully,

Dr. Thierry Vrain

thierryv@telus.net

Literature cited

About Green Party Vision statement on GMO

Posted on December 6, 2014 by admin

I had recently written to Ms Elisabeth May, leader of the Green Party, regarding a perception that she was only promoting labelling of GMO, which we consider wholly inadequate. This is the second email I had sent to her in the past year. I did not receive any response from the first one, and am not holding my breath for any response now either.

Nonetheless, I did read up on the party’s vision statement, and paid particular attention to the agriculture section, point 1.15, page 20 to 25 and including fisheries and forest management.

I liked what I saw, and am curious to learn how the party proposes to implement some of its vision, if not in the federal Government, where its membership strength is minuscule, to Municipal levels such as in city of Vancouver, where it has a better representation, having four members in Council, school board and park board. I am contemplating writing to councillor Adriane Carr, to ask her about her plans to usher a GE free resolution and bylaws that push back at industrial chemical and toxin dependent food system, and bring in small farmer produced clean and local food into the food chain.

There is another reason for this interest. Folks from the rest of Canada, where municipal level fight back against GMO has not yet happened, are keen to learn how BC does things in this regard, and would be taking notes on it, either contesting Municipal elections the Green ticket, or as independent candidates, or coaxing their existing Municipal councillors to see the light, when it comes to Sustainable and healthy agriculture.

Meanwhile, here is a part of text from the green vision, that I would like to include here, and perhaps include in my book of essays, Canada under GMO attack:

Our food security and safety are threatened directly by agribusiness, as factory farms crowd chickens, turkeys, cows and pigs into inhumane and unhygienic conditions, creating the risk of serious health threats from toxic spinach to mad cow disease and swine flu. Animals are often pumped full of antibiotics and hormones, while many crops are now genetically modified and treated with pesticides.

This is a welcome start of the section. It describes where Canada is with regard to how our food supply is being degraded by unhealthy, unhygienic and potentially toxic ingredients, not to mention the potential loss of our biodiversity through theft or contamination from patent holding foreign corporations that aim to own any living organism that one could make money on. Based on such statements, I expect the Green party policy to lay down action items that its candidates would initiate, to redress our agriculture, food security, and ecology.

The health of Canada’s population today and in the future depends on the environmentally sustainable production of wholesome food. We believe that local organic agriculture must play a role in mitigating climate change, providing food security, restoring soil health, improving human health, protecting water, and providing sustainable livelihoods for citizens. We must restructure our agricultural markets to sustain farming and provide farm families with a fair share of the consumer food dollar. We want to expand local small-scale agriculture and support a rapid transition to organic agriculture rather than subsidizing costly agro-chemicals, industrial food production and genetically modified crops.

All of the above text is pertinent. I like the portion made in bold (by me), because it, in my view, will reverse a dangerous trend in Canada. That trend is to de-populate the agricultural heartland, forcing small farms to go extinct and small farmers to move to be part of a new urban unemployed class. And while this goes on, larger and larger tracts of the agricultural land falls prey to massive scale industrial agriculture employing a minimum number of contract farmers working for a pesticide peddling toxic model owned by a bunch of foreign corporations and their local partners in crime. To me, this is a crime, to suck out rural farming livelihood, and converting a healthy community into a wasteland of corporate greed.

On a side note, it has been mentioned that small organic farmers, while employing more people, producing healthier and likely more food than the industrial model, cost of food itself might rise. I am not certain if it would rise, but if that happens, I personally would accept that, as a price we must willingly pay, for good food, sustainable future, and for ensuring that our organic farmers are earning enough to stay in the profession.

People need healthy food and the healthiest food choices are local. With growing concerns over economic and climatic instability, a reliable domestic food supply is essential.

Agreed. More than that, local food is essential for a healthy economy where our money stays in the community, and where food does not have to consume huge amounts of energy for transportation across thousands of km. Irrespective of what the economic voodoo artists tell us, it is an unacceptable policy in my view, where local farmers go out of business so that I can eat cheap food coming from California or Mexico or Philippines, all in the name of “progress”. Thats not progress – thats baloney.

The document then goes on to state what Green Party MPs would do:

Amending the Canadian Food Inspection Agency mandate to remove any obligation to promote Canadian agri-business, ensuring the focus is on food safety and food safety only, with enhanced resources for inspection and monitoring.

I am not fully certain what the above means, but suspect that there is a mandate in place currently, which removes any obligation for the Govt to support Canadian agri-business. If I read this correctly, then the current Govt policy would give equal preference foreign agri-products and base its selection on safety alone. If this is true, this is an outrageous mandate. First of all, all things being equal, the Govt MUST give preference to local products. The Govt is supposed to be for the people – Canadian people, and not for foreign corporations. Next, the very concept of food safety has been hijacked. There is no food safety analysis done by anybody in Canada. The Govt accepts bogus statements from the very promoters of the agri-business product, which constitutes a conflict of interest.

Not only that, the very science on agriculture has been hijacked by the industry, where public funding is missing, and the industry has turned vicious and intolerant of any dissent. Canadian food sovereignty, food security, independence and local economy is being crushed to facilitate profiteering by a few foreign corporations and their local collaborators.

If I read this part correctly, then the mandate does require to be removed. The question is, do I read it correctly, and where is this mandate ? Can we get a copy of its details ? Who can help here ? I think the public deserves to know.

Ensuring the quality and wholesomeness of food by strengthening the monitoring of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, growth hormones, non-therapeutic antibiotics and insecticides in food production, processing and storage, with the goal of an orderly reduction in detectable residues of these substances until they reach undetectable limits.

Excellent. Cannot argue with that – except one point. Canada does not have a lab that will test either the people, or their food, for presence of Glyphosate. I urge the Green Party to take notice of that, and put it in its agenda to address it.

Establishing federally funded, community-guided school lunch programs across Canada to ensure that ourchildren have daily access to healthy local food and can learn about sustainable food production and healthy eating. Strengthening Plant Protection and Health of Animals Programs with measures to ensure the integrity of farm food products. Improving and strengthening the Canadian Organic Standard. Providing transitional assistance for those switching to certified organic farming practices. Ensuring that no animal by-products are used in ruminant animal feed. Strengthen testing for BSE by implementing 100% testing (testing of every slaughtered animal) as soon as the process of detecting BSE in blood samples is perfected.

All agreed. Good idea. I would have added one more clause. Organic certification is costly, and the industrial chemical and toxin gene pushing agriculture model is the primary suspected source of contamination that an organic farmer needs to take care of. Therefore, I believe industrial chemical and GMO farming business should a) pay higher tax which goes to offset the cost of preventing contamination for the organic farmer and b) pay for the organic certification. In other words, organic farmers should receive a subsidy from the Govt, which the Govt would extract from higher taxes for industrial farming. Also the same higher taxes would pay for certification of organic farms, providing additional economic relief for small local organic farmers.

The document then goes on to state:

Provides Food Security by: Moving towards regional food self-sufficiency across Canada, as we begin the shift to organic agriculture as the dominant model of production. Supporting the “200 kilometre diet” and locally grown food through expansion of farmers’ markets and local culinary tourism activities. Promoting rooftop gardens, cultivation of green urban space for agriculture, food production in cities and suburbs, and community gardens. Protecting the right of farmers to save their own seed. Promoting heritage seed banks and seed exchange programs.

I agree with every one of these points – like music to my ears.

Reduce Corporate Control of the Food supply by: Reforming agriculture regulations to challenge corporate concentration. Ensuring that farm support payments are farm-based (not production-based) to encourage more farms and more farmers. Encouraging organic farming methods to improve farm profitability and sustainability.

Again, cannot argue with that. I also applaud the Green Party for stating these points clearly and without ambiguity, whereas the strategy statement from NDP appears to skirt around specifics, in comparison.

Improves Agricultural Research by:
Ensuring that new plant cultivars and animal breeds remain in the public domain.
Shifting government-supported research away from biotechnology and energy-intensive farming and towards organic food production.
Increasing publicly-funded research into organic farming techniques.
Establishing new policies for private research efforts to ensure that they are in the best interests of family farmers and consumers.
Preventing the patenting of lifeforms.
Ensuring that developers of genetically engineered crops are liable for any damage those crops cause.

I cannot stress enough how important these points are. New breeds of plants or animals should remain in public domain. They remain God’s creation and they cannot be property of any corporation. All research into better hybrids will be for the benefit of the people and not for profiteering. This will remove the incentive to shove shitty products onto the people, and killing alternatives and monopolizing the market with dubious crops.

We stopped public funding of Agriculture and allowed biotech industry to highjack research as well as the very science, turning it into a biased propaganda machine instead of a scientific tool. We need to redress it by public funding.

Stop patenting lifeforms and stop accepting such patents. Living organisms were not created by these corporations. They merely tinkered and poisoned a few organisms, by first stealing the genome of a healthy organism that should have been the property of a nation of a people. They are thieves engaged in biopiracy. They should be tried, not allowed patents and profits from their act.

And yes – make GMO producers and pesticide peddler liable to be sued for damages, including class action lawsuits.

The document then goes on to address the GMO or GE food issue

Genetically engineered (GE) organisms pose a potentially serious threat to human health and the health of natural ecosystems. Many Canadians want to follow the example of the European Union and ban GE crops. At a minimum, GE products must be labelled, giving consumers the right to know, and to say no to GE foods.
Although polls show that 8 in 10 Canadians want mandatory labeling of GE foods and food ingredients, the federal government has not acted. In 2004, the Standards Council of Canada adopted a Standard for Voluntary Labelling but it has not been widely adopted.
The government is not exercising enough oversight and control. In fact, Agriculture Canada is promoting GE technology, forming partnerships with biotech companies and partnering in the research initiated by the biotech industry. Agriculture has already experienced the harmful impact of GE crops. Herbicide-resistant (Roundup Ready) canola has escaped and become a noxious weed.
Greens understand that GE organisms and “terminator” technologies come with health and environmental risks. All food products containing GE organisms or their products must be labeled. It is up to the companies that produce and promote GE organisms to prove that they are safe. No such organism should be released into the environment until it is proven to pose no unacceptable risks to human or animal health or to the environment.

This is all true, but it bypasses the issue of Glyphosate and other herbicides. It also does not address the fact that such poisons are also sprayed on non-GM food as desiccant, therefore exposing us to getting poisoned even without eating GM ingredients. There is enough independent material out there that show strong possible links between Glyphosate and various diseases that are rising in North America. None of these possibilities have been studied by independent units and are effectively being ignored by our Govt. Therefore, declaring biocide content is as important, if not more so, than declaring GM content.

Also, Canada regretfully does not have a lab where Canadians could test either their food items, or their body fluids such as urine or blood, for presence of Glyphosate. Most Canadians do not even know. Such labs are available in most other regions of the world as well as in USA. Canadians are placed in a particularly unfortunate situation where they cannot even test how much of these poisons are in them and in their food. I would strongly urge the Green Party to include it in their vision statement, to ensure that Canada has at least a few labs that will offer this service, and that the Govt will initiate testing or help Canadians financially, to test themselves and their food for presence of these herbicides.

And then, the Green Party vision document goes on with:

Green Party MPs will work to:
Ban experimentation with planting and promotion of new GE crops. This includes a ban on further GE research (except for traditional seed selection and grafting) at Agriculture Canada and a ban on companies such as Monsanto owning patents to GE products developed through joint research with Agriculture Canada.
Implement the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, a protocol within the UN Biodiversity Convention, which Canada signed and ratified in 1992 and which came into force in 2003. The Cartagena Protocol requires the adoption of new products to be guided by the precautionary principle, which balances the economic benefits of innovation with public health and ecological integrity.
Require mandatory labeling of all GE foods and food ingredients.
Support local,provincial and territorial GE organism-free zones where these local jurisdictions declare that genetically modified plants and animals are not to be part of the agricultural mix.
Prohibit field testing commercial use, sale and importation of “terminator” (genetic use restriction) technologies.
Maintain the ban on GE wheat and oppose GE alfalfa.
Place a moratorium on field-testing genetically modified trees while an expert panel of the Royal Society of Canada examines the risks.

While all of the above is commendable, there are a few errors in their statement, relating to Cartagena Protocol.

First, the protocol focuses on protecting a country from inadvertent damage to its biodiversity, from imported LMO (Living Modified Organisms, which is UN-speak for GMO).

Next, Canada signed it, meaning it showed intent to implement it. However, Canada never ratified it. In other words, Canada is one of a very few countries that have failed to follow through with legislation that would have protected Canadian biodiversity from damage, or contamination from imported GMO or theft Canadian plant and organization’s genome by foreign corporations.

Canada therefore is in an unenviable position with regard to protecting its biological diversity, its flora and fauna, from biopiracy. I urge the Green party to not only correct its statement, but also pledge to redress this shortcoming soonest.

Summary

I applaud Green Party’s vision statement, and have the following observations/suggestions/questions:

What is Canada’s Food Inspection Agency mandate with regard to promoting Canadian food product ?
Canada has no lab that will test Canadian’s body fluids or food for presence of Glyphosate. I suggest that the Green Party addresses this shortcoming.
Canada signed the Cartagena Protocol on Biodiversity protection, but did not ratify it. 168 other countries have. This is a major shortcoming in Canada and our biological diversity is up for grabs by foreign biotech corporations and are being stolen right under our nose. I would suggest the Green Party not only correct its statement, but also address the shortcoming.

Letter to Elisabeth May about Green Party on GMO

Posted on December 2, 2014 by admin

To: Honorable Elizabeth May, MP

Green Party of Canada – Founder

Subject : GMO, RoundUp herbicide, and Green Party policy on it

Good day Ms May.

I write to you, again, on the topic of GMO and more particularly, on Monsanto’s RoundUp herbicide with its active agent Glyphosate.This is not the first time I have written to you, but this is likely the first that will also go on my blog, which has a steady traction of over a thousand hits a day globally, but viewed mostly by Canadian and US citizens. I never got a response from you so far, but would be happy to receive one on this critical item.

I have been hoping to see a clear and unambiguous policy statement from the Green Party with regard to Genetically Modified Organisms and especially its partner in crime – Glyphosate, or RoundUp herbicide, that goes with all RoundUp Ready crop.

I have seen messages and comments that link the Green Party with a desire to have all GM foods labelled. I shall therefore presume for now, that the Green Party’s response to the issue is to push for GMO labelling law.

Unfortunately, this is considered by some of us to be not only insufficient to prevent the ongoing ecological and health disaster facing Canada, but actually side steps the prevention issue altogether.This is why we feel a labelling law is insufficient:

Labelling GMO might have been meaningful if half the food in the stores were GMO with the other half non GMO and the price being similar for both. Unfortunately that is not the case and labelling does not have any practical meaning if 80 to 90 percent of all food contain GM ingredients and the alternative organic food is minuscule in quantity and costlier thanks to the way the Government has helped the industrial agriculture and hindered small organic farmers.

Therefore, labelling is considered by us an effort to pull fool the public into thinking that this measure will protect them. No GM product or Glyphosate has been independently verified by a Canadian body, to be safe. By independent body, we mean a group that are outside of control of the biotech industry as well as Ottawa politicians.

Therefore, only banning of GMO that are not independently verified in Canada is the safe solution until proven safe – and Municipalities are working towards it, thought it should have been a federal matter.We are inundated by industry controlled, and therefore biased, science documents that confuse the issue of if GM crops are safe or not. However, there is enough evidence that herbicide, pesticide, insecticide are all poison and are harmful to the living world. It is for this reason the biotech industry does not like to debate if RoundUp is safe or if Glyphosate in our food is desirable. There is a rising body of evidence that is beginning to emerge showing possible link between Glyphosate and rising levels of auto-immune disease in North America.

Glyphosate is not only present in GM crops, but also used as desiccant on non-GM crops such as wheat. This means, eating non-GM bread, which will slip through the GMO-labelling effort, can still poison us with Glyphosate. These are the reasons why GMO labelling is considered to be an unproductive exercise. Should you desire to catch up on study on Glyphosate, we can connect your office up with scientists from around the world that are trying to work on this issue, despite industry attempting to muzzle these efforts.

Glyphosate is used not only on food, but soon to be used on prairie lands (alfalfa), and is already being sprayed from the air on Canadian forests. GMO labelling of food will not address these chemical attacks.

Glyphosate is patented not only as a herbicide but also as a broad spectrum antibiotic – meaning it kills not only plants but also most bacteria. That includes our gut bacteria or micro-biome as the medical profession is calling it these days. We are apparently a symbiotic organism and need our micro-biome to perform essential services for our well being that we ourselves cannot perform. We can help you catch up on it should you desire. That makes Glyphosate particularly dangerous for the entire animal kingdom, from insects such as bees to mammals such as humans, because we all need our micro-biome to keep us healthy and functional.

The way this RoundUp is being forced on our food, our land, and our hills and forests, amounts to a virtual chemical attack on Canada. No living organism of any kind may in future belong to Canada or be God’s creation. All would be owned by patent holding foreign corporations. This, Ms May, is more than just a concern about GM food. This is brings up the question of Canadian sovereignty.

The point this letter is trying to make is – that labelling GMO does not even come close to addressing this rising threat.We are losing faith in mainstream political parties in Ottawa and the political system that is increasingly awash with corporate funding. We are therefore looking for solutions from the bottom up. We had hoped that Green Party might prove to be an exception. Unfortunately, we have not seen any evidence of Green Party being different, on the GMO issue so far. I hope you can prove us wrong.That is the reason I write this letter to you. Any answer I receive, or do not receive, would be reflected on my blog.

With greetings for the festive season, and wishing you the best,

Tony Mitra

[address & phone number]

tony.mitra@gmail.com

Tony Mitra

Exploring citizens duty on food security, environmental sustainability, covid and freedom issues.

Monthly Archives: December 2014

Create a demand for Glyphosate lab in Canada

We intend to self-label our food

Sample letter 1

To : Doctor, or Nurse, or Hospital etc

From : Your name

Date :

I am concerned that my corn, soy or wheat based food may contain traces of a herbicide called glyphosate. I would like to get my body fluids and possible fat tissue sample tested for the presense of glyphosate to see if I am accumilating any of it in my body.

If I supply you with the samples, can you please arrange to get them tested?

I would prefer for the results of the tests to be sent to me personally, as well as to your office.

Samples I wish to test: Urine (2 samples), blood(1 sample), milk (1), bread(1), cooking oil(1) – (Please modify this letter and the list of items you wish to test, to suit your situation).

Appreciate your prompt action in this.

Thanking you,

Name & address

Sample letter 2

To : Doctor, or Nurse, or Hospital etc

From : Your name

Date :

I wish to test some samples for Glyphosate. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Round-Up herbicide and is being liberally sprayed on much of my food, both GMO and non GMO. I am concerned that this Glyphosate is migrating into my body, and may adversely affect my health.

If I supply you with the samples, can you please arrange to get them tested?

I would prefer for the results of the tests to be sent to me personally, as well as to your office.

Samples I wish to test: Urine (2 samples), blood(1 sample), milk (1), bread(1), cooking oil(1) – (Please modify this letter and the list of items you wish to test, to suit your situation).

Appreciate your prompt action in this.

Thanking you,

Name & address

Hi Tony:

We will look into the method once there is a demand, we cannot allocate resources to the development of a method for which there is no market at the moment. Also it will be a non-accredited method at this point.

Thanks.

Dr. Thierry Vrain’s letter to Rona Ambrose, health minister

About Green Party Vision statement on GMO

Letter to Elisabeth May about Green Party on GMO