Monthly Archives: August 2018

Western Producer bypassing uncomfortable subjects?

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I made the below post on this article. I thought the site might lack the guts to publish it. So I am copying my post here. However, Two days down the line, I cannot see my post there at all. So I guess someone lost the guts to keep it there.

Uncomfortable truths?

Perhaps my mention of Canada hiding the safety documents on glyphosate is a touchy issue. This glaring and legal pot hole is avoided by the Government and supported by the mainstream media by simply keeping the topic from the people. I personally do not trust  Platforms such this Western Producer. Could it be that they avoid the issue on purpose, to keep it under the wraps, or could it be that they are intellectually incapable of grasping the concept of proof of safety?

Then there is this observation from me about selective focus of Canadian media where only western, so called “white” nations are newsworthy, and brown or blacks are not. Could such comments be getting under the skin of the platform? Cancer patient in California winning against Monsanto in court is big news, but dead farmers in Sri Lanka are not. Italy cancelling Canadian wheat is mentionable news, but that India is waking up to poisonous Canadian lentils is not yet news, and will not be news till it actually begins to bite them in the back?

Whatever the case, here is what I posted there. I might make a video of it, or refer to this blog in future.
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I am a Indian-born Canadian citizen and food security activist, and author of the book “POISON FOODS OF North America” based on analysis of CFIA test results on glyphosate. I have had quite a few hitherto unsuccessful meetings with federal and provincial (BC) politicians and ministers to push back at glyphosate in agriculture or anywhere else on the planet, unless Canada discloses hitherto hidden test records on safety of glyphosate, which the Govt received from Monsanto back in the 1970s and has been hiding till date. In my view of the constitutional law, no product may be released to the people without releasing its safety document. And yet, the government hides it, and replaces it with a plethora of “independent scientific repots” from around the world, selectively picked, that declare glyphosate to be safe.

All those reports are third party opinions and nothing more. Proof of safety involves exposing a group of test animals in laboratory conditions with measured dose of glyphosate, and comparing their health parameters, through the life of those animals, with health parameters of identical animals living identical lifestyle and eating identical food but without glyphosate. This comparative study is what comprises of proof if glyphosate is, or is not, safe. Pubic have a right to this data and be able to independently scrutinize it to check if the test and analysis was done honestly and there was no cheating. As the California court report indicates, Monsanto cheated and purposefully down played evidence of harm to test animals that were subjected to glyphosate. Worse yet, Monsanto has a habit of testing rats for only 3 months and not the life of the rats (usually 2 years), so that the test is concluded before some of the slow developing diseases, such as growth of cancerous cells, can be clearly identified and measured.

I have been battling the Canadian Government through Access to Information act appal so it releases all documents originally received from Monsanto back in the 1970 based on which health Canada first approved glyphosate for agriculture, or alternately I am given in writing that I do not have the right to those documents. The Government has indirectly agreed I have the right to the documents and yet it drags its feet for ever, hoping I shall die of old age so they can close the file.

Meanwhile, the analysis of Canadian seed crops that are desiccated with glyphosate show high continuation in virtually all cereals and products made from them. this includes wheat, rye, barley, oats, etc. That is not all, even seed crops that are not so common in Canadian diet but is grown in large quantities for export, such as pulses, are also desiccated. Millions of tons of red lentils are exported to India. India has not approved use of glyphosate in any food crop and only allows controlled amount in tea gardens. My book ‘POISON FOODS OF NORTH AMERICA’ shows the high contamination of glyphosate in lentils imported by India. I have warned Indians about it. I have been invited in multiple towns in India, such as Delhi (Capital) as well as Kolkata and Bangalore, to speak to people about this mass poisoning of India with a herbicide that is illegal in India and whose safety documents are hidden by the Canadian Government. This news has been picked up in more than a dozen mainstream papers in India, both in English and local languages.

Two provincial governments have passed orders to clamp down on all illegal sale, distribution or use go glyphosate in the last two weeks. One opposition MP has brought my warning to the floor of the Indian parliament during zero hour question and answer and changed the minister of Food for not taking care of protecting Indians from poisons that are banned in Indian agriculture but coming in bushel full from imported crops. The Ministry has promised to look into it and protect Indians from this menace.

I have met at least two provincial ministers in India who are far more receptive than Canadian ministers have been, I am sorry to say. The environment minister of the state of West Bengal invited me to write. a letter to him with attached documents covering a few issues, so he can bring it up in cabinet discussions – about how to push back at glyphosate on two fronts, one is from pulses imported from Canada and Australia and the second from illegal use of glyphosate pushed through corrupt agents trying to misguide farmers.

I know Canadian press, media and even social/agricultural platforms have an involuntary bias of primarily noticing what happens in western countries, such as Italy, California, France, Germany etc, and not what happens in countries with people that have dark skin, such as Sri Lanka or India for example. Otherwise, the issues taking place across India since I arrived to warn them of glyphosate laced lentils from Canada, or what happened in last four years in Sri Lanka, where huge number of farm workers died from kidney failure after starting to use glyphosate to spray sugarcane crops etc, would have made front page news.

I am trying my best to make India

  • demand that Canada discloses the forty five year old hidden safety documents of Glyphosate and lets Indians to independently verify honesty and validity of those papers,
  • Immediately cancel all imports of Canadian grains unless each parcel can be demonstrated to be free of all biocides that are not approved for use by India,
  • Initiate broad based testing of all food for glyphosate and pay special attention to all imported grains from countries that are known to desiccate any crop with glyphosate
  • Initiate independent lab test on safety of glyphosate to a few species of mammals, conducted through the entire life cycle of the animals, and
  • disclose all data to the public.

I have been told near 8 million acres of farmland is allocated in Saskatchewan just to grow lentils for export to India, while nobody is measuring effects of it on wildlife and people’s health. I will not bother giving links on these because your admin might remove them.

For the sake of Canadian people and what is left of Canada’s forests and biodiversity, I am doing my best to convince Indian federal politicians and provincial governments to federally cancels or provincially disallow sale of any and all grain imports from Canada unless each parcel can be proven to be poison free.

Pardon any typo, since I wrote this on the fly and do not have the time to proof read it.

Cheers and have a great day everybody.

This is an emerging and evolving story – about ravages of glyphosate. Canadian media and agriculture is not just biased towards whatever happens in western so Called white skinned nations, but also are particularly ill-educated about nature and biodiversity, or how biocides work on living biology. IN short, the global positions seem to be shifting or turning on its head. Canada behaves more and more like a colonial era third world country with a slave mentality to whatever is doled down by USA or whoever holds its leash, and brown skinned nations begin to display better democratic character despite working against lots of odds.

Derecognition of good scientists

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Dark ages of Glyphosate resistance

While on the subject of the planet being poisoned by glyphosate, other toxins, micro plastics, Chemtrail and a myriad of other things, all in the name of development, there is something else that gets missing in the noise.

There is a need for us to step back a bit, and look at it from afar, and reflect with a wider viewpoint an look for root causes that go deeper than scratching at the surface.

And that is how I end up writing chapters like this one for my book in the making – Lonely Road, footprints of a food security activist.

West took a leading role in many issues of global significance. This involved development of a functional democratic system represented by one-man-one-vote in a modern sense. This also meant developing a culture that separated the church from the state, and encourage secularism and rule of law, where everybody was equal in the eyes of the law, where universal education was a birthright, along with basic healthcare and social security.

It was the west that lead the world in scientific research in many fields and proved to be catalytic in development of a wide swatch of modern scientific research.

It created the League of Nations and later the United Nations, so that a single powerful nation cannot wage war on another on personal opinion, but where there was need for international mediation and effort to use peaceful means to conflict resolution first, a system where might did not equate right. 

There is perhaps no need for me to elaborate on this. West produced people like Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Karl Marx and Adam Smith. The west had the most advanced nations on earth, with the highest standard of living. People from the rest of the world aspired to migrate to the west in order to have a better life.

All this is fact and undisputed.

However, like the great eastern philosopher Confucius of the past had stated – change is the only unchanging fact of life. Everything must and will change.

So, too, is the case with what the famed “west” represented. So, to go back to issues – while the west still dominates in scientific research, it is more often than not conducted by people working for western institutions but themselves originating from outside. Theory of Charles Darwin is most challenged today in the western school system, rather than in any other place. United Nation has been castrated and rendered into a hapless eunuch by none other than the United States. United States makes unilateral decision to wage war on whoever it likes, whenever it likes and wherever it likes. Standard of living in the rest of the world is catching up fast with the west. China arguably already has more millionaires than the US does. On GDP based on purchasing power parity, there are more non-western nations in the top ten than western nations. Everything people feared about communism, is coming true under capitalism.

Democracy has been hijacked in almost all the western nations, replaced with a form of fascist crony capitalism where out of state shadow commercial actors decide how the state will function, while the public only decide who the symbolic but otherwise useless face of the Government will be such as a prime minister or president. Biotech science has never been more biased, tilted, controlled and abused, without neutrality, objectivity and honesty in the west, than ever before. It can hardly be called science. West does not have free press any more. In fact, the whole world is fast losing all free press. Human rights is an illusion, everywhere, but especially noticeable in the west.  Corporations have more rights than citizens with votes. Medical system is geared to keep unhealthy people sick, and to make healthy people unhealthy.

The legal system does not provide justice. Instead it provides revenue through catering to whoever can pay more. Education system is degenerating to the dark ages. School children in the west comparatively get the stupidest scores on an international scale. The western education system is busy dumbing down everybody.

And in the midst of it all, we have an ocean of toxicity into our food system, in residential lots, public parks, meadows, marshes, forests, rivers lakes and oceans – all in the name of progress.

I could go on and on ..

But, when it comes to the specific ravages of Glyphosate, let it be said that this planet destroying technology not only originated in the west, but gets most of its driving force from the west.

Citizens of the west have lost the art of resisting evil. They have long capitulated.

I do not see leadership emerging out of the west on this area at all – no matter how long and how hard I peer into the topic.

This is not to say that leadership is emerging out of the east or south or some other direction. But the rest of the world does not appear to have totally capitulated like the west has. There is a raging battle in big and small nations outside fo the west. This is my view and I am increasingly comfortable with this view.

The west has capitulated. No leadership may be expected out of the west to lead us out through this toxic wilderness. The west is going to take the planet and flush it down the toilet.

Along with this abject capitulation, comes a large swatch of disgruntled people from the west that are increasingly aware of the destruction of their belief and value system but unable find a way out. Like mindless groupies they flock around an increasing number of instant “guru” that are mushrooming out of this toxic landscape like maggots on a carcass.

And in the middle of this depressing scenario, there is a concerted effort to assassinate character of a handful of honest scientists that are still trying to shine a light. These good guys are now the target not only of the corporate controlled system but also of the army of mindless zombies that came out of the disgruntled and disenfranchised citizenry looking for something to do.

Victimisation of the good guys is an established policy

I need to say it clearly here. There is a concerted effort to downgrade and trivialise scientists that speak an unpleasant truth. This effort to trivialise select scientists, and deny them access to reputed journals and mainstream coverage, is a well established tactic used by the biotech and big Pharma industry and the political and media system that are often in cahoots with them.

It is the west that, in modern times, hounded and destroyed people like Árpád Pusztai, Andrés Carrasco, Andrew Wakefield, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange. And the so called civil society of the west, went along and did nothing to stop it.

This so called civil society also includes lots of media savvy gurus that appear to be among the “good guys”. To me, they are a new breed of phoney, hypocritical people masquerading as good guys in order to milk a system.

This new breed of instant guru class will be taking donations from folks in order to fight the Monsanto dragon. But, behind the scene they appear to be in cahoots with the industry doctrine of denying recognition of scientists that did pioneering work to expose, for example, glyphosate. They will not be averse to take whatever information they can gather from these scientists, and then pass them off as their own information, or keep the source muddied. Either way, the victimisation of the handful of scientists still left to do work in exposing glyphosate will be kept under the carpet and out of sight by these media savvy false gurus and talking heads.

They victimise the last of the remaining honest, hard working, fearless scientists that are still somehow able to scrounge around for funds and are able to do some research on the bad effects of glyphosate, and often come out with ground braking information to this end.

Non-recognition of Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff

Scientists that are victims of such selective tarnishing by the “phoney” good guys are, for example, Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff.

Dr. Stephanie Seneff

I have a very strong distaste for such false gurus, and need to make my view public.

Unlike these phoney characters making a career out of milking this toxic problem of glyphosate and GMO, I do not collect donations from people. I do not run an NGO and do not wait for public support me. I do not need anybody’s help. I do have a book, but it is a reference book and I do not ask folks to even buy it. Most folks are incapable of handling a 400 page book of reference data on glyphosate. In short, I do not need anybody. Consequently, I do not need to sacrifice my freedom of thought, expression and speech on this issue. And damned if I am going to sacrifice it just to be popular.

I dislike proverbial good guys like Jeffrey Smith, Michel Antoniou, Vandana Shiva, Robin Mesnage, Carey Gillam and the rest because of what I consider their dishonesty in projecting only half truths and either selectively denying recognition of people like Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff or working overtime to convince me why I should not take Samsel/Seneff seriously. I am done considering such blabbermouths as anything other than thugs pretending to be something else.

Many of them make a career out of milking the system rather than trying to solve it. They appear to be in cahoots with the same industry they badmouth and follow their doctrine of denying acknowledgement of select scientists and their contribution, because what these scientists say is uncomfortable. But it is alright to steal their words and make hay with knowledge and information gained from them.

These are the kind of scum that we find masquerading as the spearhead of a dysfunctional resistance system in a region that is speeding towards a toxic doomsday, California court case of Johnson versus Monsanto notwithstanding.

The picture at left is of Anthony Samsel, in San Francisco with Michael Baum last year when Samsel testified before the CA EPA and gave them the Lymphoma cancer data and the malignant Hemagioendothelioma cancer data he extracted from Monsanto’s raw data files.  Monsanto hid the data from the report summary to the EPA.  He gave the extra data he found to Michael Baum  which their consultant Chris Porter had missed – information received from Anthony Samsel.

I don’t need a fan club

I have said it before and I shall say it here again – I know that many of these hypocritical false guru characters have a large fan club. I know some of this fan club members are also my  friends or follow me on social media. I know I am likely to annoy many of them by criticising these undesirables that they idolize. And I know I might alienate such people.

Well, thats OK with me. Unlike Smith, Shiva and the rest of the gang, I do not need public support. Whatever I do, I do by myself, and within my means. So, I for one do not mind at all if ardent admirers of Vandana Shiva, or Jeffrey Smith etc leave my circle of acquaintance. It was nice knowing you, and good bye.

Injustice to Samsel and Seneff is a symptom of a degenerative west

But I shall be damned if I do not speak truth as I see it, with regard to the injustice done to scientists like Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff by what I judge as phoney and hypocritical group leaders that feed on human misery while pretending to be against glyphosate.

Damned if I am going to support lies and liars just to be popular. I am through with that crap.

This article will, after adding to it and polishing it off, go into a chapter or a section of my next book – Lonely Road.

Glyphosate causing birth defect in domestic cattle

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Prominent underbite in a calf

There is an unending series of bad news and devastation across the landscape, triggered by suspected harmful effects of man made toxins in our midst. This blog is to do with glyphosate in the food and feed of domestic cattle. The material for this blog is provided by Montana used wildlife scientist Judy Hoy.

I had received a lot of information over the years from Judy. She is listed as one of the four scientists I have most learned from regarding the ravages causes globally by glyphosate. Her name and picture, along with those of Anthony Samsel, Stephanie Seneff and Don Huber, occupy one slide of my presentation on glyphosate when I am asked to speak, in India.

Deer from New Brunswick, Canada

I had contacted her when folks from New Brunswick, Canada, contacted me asking about the weird phenomenon being noticed among hunted deer, which showed mismatched jaws. She confirmed this is merely an extreme case of a common birth defect where a fetus in a mothers womb is poisoned by specific toxins such as glyphosate. The reason for this damage is complex, but has to do with disruption of some of the growth programs in the fetus, due to damage to hormones, enzymes and other proteins that are critical, and also from severe deficiency of specific mineral nutrients during that phase of foetal development. Both these conditions will happen if glyphosate is in the food and foliage that the pregnant mother forages and eats. Glyphosate will get itself mis-incorporated into proteins by being an analog of glycine. Glyphosate will also steal minerals from food by being a chelator.

There has been a lot of feedback from Judy over the years about degeneration in North American wildlife and the very real possibility that its very survivability is now questioned. Wildlife in North America, in other words, faces a serious existential threat and likely will go under due to birth defects not just in jaws but in many organs including reproductive organs. Percentage of bison, and all kinds of deer wild goats and sheep, as well as other carnivores and herbivores, that have visible birth defects including malformed reproductive organs, as observed by naked eyes and available from photographs and video, are approaching 100%. Many of them will not be producing viable off springs to propagate survival of the species. We have brought nature and wildlife to the brink through man made toxins.

But what about domestic cattle?

I wondered what was happening to domestic cattle, which should be far more affected by glyphosate through greater human contribution in their food and feed. Well, here is what Judy had to say about it, along with a few pictures of calves from Mexico.

Hi Tony,

Cattle in the United States, Mexico and of course Canada are born with an underbite, just like the wild grazing animals. Here in our area, some of the larger ranchers were loosing up 30 or 35 calves each spring in the late 1990s, through 2001. I put letters to the editor in our local papers saying that the symptoms on the calves were consistent with thyroid hormone disruption as a result of mineral deficiencies. I also told local veterinarians. I suddenly stopped hearing about birth defects on calves here in our area and called a rancher friend to ask him if the ranchers were doing something different. He said they were having their cows tested to determine what minerals they were deficient in and then giving their herd the specific minerals they needed. That apparently mitigated the birth defects significantly, suggesting that chelation of the minerals the livestock obtained in grass and hay by exposure to the Roundup on the grass or hay was the likely culprit. As far as I know, their grass and hay was never tested for glyphosate, because the ranchers wouldn’t believe that Roundup was responsible. Many spray their Roundup Ready alfalfa fields and didn’t want to admit that they were poisoning their own animals. Funny how that works.

Mexican Brahman calf with underbite

Most of the ranchers here in our area that I asked never actually admitted that their calves had a high rate of underbite, except for one rancher’s wife, who told me in 2003 that about 1/3 of their calves were born with underbite. In addition to calves, domestic goats, sheep and camelids here in the United States are also born with underbite. I was told that in 2001, over 50 horse foals born that spring in our county were shot because they were born with an underbite. Livestock owners don’t want anyone to know that their livestock have birth defects. They will kill a newborn rather than admit it, because they are all told that it is bad genes of the parent animals. Livestock owners are afraid no one will buy their animals if people know that there is a fairly high prevalence of birth defects in their herd. Apparently, giving lots of minerals while the cow, sheep, goat, mare, etc. are pregnant, keeps the prevalence of birth defects down. Also, most livestock owners, except for horse breeders don’t even look at the mouth of their newborn livestock, so don’t know the prevalence.

If you type in (an animal species, like beef calves underbite images) on Google, lots of photos will come up that were posted by people of calves with underbite from throughout the United States. The same happens if you type domestic goat, sheep, llama, horse foal, etc. – lots of photos that have been posted from throughout the U.S.

Wildlife scientist Judy Hoy of Montana

I have been communicating for some time with a veterinarian in Mexico. I have attached two photos of the same Brahman calf born with underbite that he sent me. They have sprayed fields there in Mexico that are close to where the cattle graze in their pastures. They are very careful about breeding, so there is no way that their prized show Brahman calves are inbred.

I think that the Brahman cattle in India have a fairly high prevalence of underbite, but I have no way to tell for certain. I have seen photos on the internet of Brahman cattle with underbite taken in India and a lot of domestic goats there with underbite.

Underbite in a Mexican Brahman calf

Just like the Fish and Game departments are hiding the birth defects on the wild grazing animals to protect their ability to sell hunting licenses, the livestock owners hide the birth defects on their livestock so people will keep buying their animals. That makes it really difficult to get anyone to do something to stop the cruel, inhumane poisoning of the newborns. It has been much easier to just say that the few researchers who have worked on the issue are wrong, lying or don’t know what they are talking about. I get that a LOT here in Montana.
We included small samples of beef calves and domestic goat kids in our 2011 study which I attached so you can see the prevalence. Of 20 goat kids that I examined from several small herds for that study, every kid had a fairly severe underbite, making prevalence 100% in 2009 in the small sample. You can share this information with whomever you want.

I will send the study by Wetransfer.

I hope this helps.

All the best,
Judy

What about India ?

Question that remains to be answered is, what about India? Glyphosate has penetrated into the Indian landscape, legally or illegally, through a combination of corruption among chemical pushing agents and government officials in pushing it where it should not be used, along with ignorance of unaware farmers, abject lack of control or supervision by the Government of India, and possible tacit collusion by the pesticide industry.

However, we shall not know the extent of the damage unless one starts vigorous investigation and record keeping of the conditions of newborn domestic cattle.

This will be an added item to alert Indians about, including elected officials. India needs its own Judy Hoys, just as Canada and every other nation does.

Another thing, please take pictures of calves with an underbite in India and send me, with date, location and any other relevant detail you can find. This will be important to track how much glyphosate and other toxins have already entered the food and feed of the pregnant cattle in India.

Tony Mitra

Releasing glufosinate tolerant crop is a braindead thing to do

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There are three recently published scientific papers that seem to indicate that glufosinate can trigger microcephaly.

Microcephaly is a serious birth defect where a baby is born with an impaired brain and a smaller head than normal. The cause for this birth defect can include pregnant mother being subjected to acute starvation, or more commonly, exposure to toxins.

There has been various hot debates around the world on the reason this defect. The birth defect has been noticeable where pregnant women may have been exposed to agro-chemicals such as glyphosate in regions such as Argentina or the Yakima valley in USA. Zika virus has been blamed for some of the cases of microcephaly. However, scientists believe the real culprit to be NALED insecticide often used to kill mosquitoes, to be the cause at least in the Yakima valley and possibly also in Brazil. NALED, like Glyphosate, is also an organophosphate. However, glyphosate has remained under focus in many other regions including in the US due to the sheer volume of it being used and the plethora of diseases it is suspected to be connected to, including brain disorder, it being an amino acid analogue of glycine and easily able to cross the blood brain barrier.

In Argentina, Roundup-Ready soy is being replaced reportedly by another GM seed variety that is tolerant to glufosinate, because glyphosate had become a controversial and hated herbicide, and was also starting to fail due to extensive resistance among the weeds.

While discussing this with US scientist Stephanie Seneff, she pointed out three recent science papers that seem to also link glufosinate with microcephaly. These three papers are as follows:

The first paper, from 2010, involving research in Florida and Texas, in the US, finds a conserved glutamate to be critical in the construction of an enzyme called Asparagine Synthetase.

The second paper from 2013 involving an international group from Canada, Israel and the US, points to encephalopathy resulting from a deficiency in this same asparagine sythetase enzyme, which is essential for the development and function of the brain.

The third – from a French group, published in 2016 indicates that female rats exposed to glufosinate at a critical stage of pregnancy lead to neurogenesis or impaired brain in the babies.

Now, Stephanie pointed out, as had Anthony Samsel to me before, that just as glyphosate is an amino acid analogue of glycine, glufosinate is an amino acid analogue of glutamate. Both glycine and glutamate are among the 20 canonical amino acids that are used as basic building blocks of life, for protein construction of all living biology on planet earth.

So, while getting rid of glyphosate is an absolute must, replacing it with glufosinate is the very worst alternative imaginable.

This is not only of vital importance to Argentina and everybody else going for glufosinate based herbicides, but also for India, where genetically engineered mustard has been under focus for a while.

I personally was astonished and horrified to learn that this GM mustard was tolerant to glufosinate. I found that to be far more dangerous and objectionable, than whatever gene altering of mustard might do to the consumer. However, the best I know, the debate in India remained focused on the theory of genetic alternation and its legal, social, economic and political implications. Glufosinate, far as I recall, remained under the radar, much like glyphosate has remained under the radar in India until local papers and MPs started picking up my warning that India was likely being mass poisoned with glyphosate from imported pulses, and the matter reached both the Indian Parliament as well as pulse growers association in Canada.

Just a minder – one more time:

  • There are 20 amino acids that form all the proteins of all the living world.
  • Glycine is the most common of them all.
  • Glyphosate mimics glycine and thus gets inside our proteins, turning them rogue.
  • Glyphosate is suspected to cause a plethora of diseases through multiple mechanisms that affect living cellular biology. This includes cancer, autoimmune disease and brain disorder.
  • Glutamate is another of the 20 amino acid building blocks of life.
  • Glufosinate mimics glutamate.
  • Glufosinate will very likely also lead to encephalopathy or partially formed brains in newborns, as the three papers mentioned here indicate.

For India – GM mustard is glufosinate tolerant – a braindead way of developing new food strains.
For Argentina – replacing Roundup ready soybean with glufosinate tolerant soybean represents a catastrophic failure of safety concerns.

My thanks go to Stephanie Seneff for bringing this to my attention while discussing glufosinate resistance. I am forever grateful to Samsel, Seneff, Huber and Hoy for keeping my eyes open on this issue.

The image at right on Microcephaly and the figure for India, found through google search, puzzles me. How many cases are found in India. It says less than 1 million. But one million is a lot. Is it less than 10,00 or 1,000?

If I take annual birth rate to be around 20 million one million cases of microcephaly would mean an extreme high rate of one in twenty or 5% !

I would really love to get my hands on the real figures for India, and also the trend. Is the occurrence of microcephaly rising year to year ? If so, how much?

By the way, the red arrow in the image above is my addition.

If you google Microcephaly in India, the search result starts to show up a whole list of links relating to zica virus. There are regions where the zica virus has reportedly been present since the 1940s and yet there is no microcephaly. On the other end, there are cases of microcephaly where no zica virus has been found. But reports that link microcephaly with exposure to glufosinate is given right here, below, though in real life, the direct link has not yet been established. Potentially, glufosinate can lead to microcephaly since it is a neurotoxin. The insecticide NALED (Formula: C4H7Br2Cl2O7P), often used for mosquito control, has been almost always present where microcephaly has been noted, with the exception of Argentina. The warning is even present on the package of NALED – not to let it get into drinking water. In other words, it can harm any animal eating or drinking it.

What is going on with google search ?

The three papers can be read or downloaded here:
1) A Conserved Glutamate Controls the Commitment to Acyl- adenylate Formation in Asparagine Synthetase
2) Deficiency of asparagine synthetase causes congenital microcephaly and a progressive form of encephalopathy
3) Perinatal Exposure to Glufosinate Ammonium Herbicide Impairs Neurogenesis and Neuroblast Migration through Cytoskeleton Destabilization

4) Separately – Watanabe 1997 comes to the same conclusion on glufosinate. Although glufosinate was not considered to be teratogenic, mutagenic nor carcinogenic, this study found that it indeed was teratogenic in mice and rats in whole embryo culture, and that it specifically induces apoptosis in the neuroepithelium of developing embryos

Don Huber sent a note:

Tony,
Keep up the good work!  Also remember that all of these chemicals are
mineral chelators and that minerals are the enzyme cofactors for all of
these processes cited.
Thanks for sharing.
Don
Don M. Huber
Professor Emeritus, Purdue University


Anthony Samsel explaines : Glufosinate cannot be used in place of Glyphosate on genetically engineered crops unless they have been specifically engineered to be resistant to this herbicide. The encoding of the Phosphinothricin acetyltransferase (PAT) gene imparts glufosinate resistance.

Dual herbicide (Glufosinate and Glyphosate) resistant genetically engineered crops, which include some varieties of corn etc have both the PAT gene and a glyphosate tolerant gene.  I have 50 varieties of these GE corn hybrids in my seed refrigerator for experimental purposes which also includes these GLyphsoate/glufosinate  dual herbicide resistant varieties. 
 
The Glyphosate resistance genes include:
 
  1. The cp4 epsps gene.
  2. The cp4 epsps (aroA:CP4) gene is the gene which produces an over abundance of 5-enolpyruvyl-3-phosphoshikimic acid impart resistance 
  3. The Glyphosate oxidoreductase gene (GOX)  
  4. The gat4621 gene which uses the glyphosate N-acetyltransferase enzyme to catalyze the inactivation of glyphsaote herbicide.  It essentially converts glyphosate to the N-acetyl form rendering it non-toxic to the plants.
  5. There is also the mepsps gene which is a modified 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-ohosphate synthase (EPSPS) enzyme which imparts Glyphosate resistance.
Glufosinate is an analog of Glutamic acid one of our 20 proteinogenic amino acids.  Its principal metabolite found in urine and feces is 3-[hydroxy(methyl)phosphinoyl]propionic acid.  Glutamate has been used in reference to Glutamic acid.  I like to use Glutamic acid.  Glufosinate is an analog of Glutamic acid.  You can see the difference between Glutamic acid (the anion) and Glutamate below.  Glutamic acid in H2O ionizes attaching a hydrogen atom (glutamate form).  Glufosinate, an analog of glutamic acid, has an amine group in place of an oxygen molecule.
It is possible that glufosinate can also cause microcephaly.  Glufosinate is a neurotoxin.  Glufoiosinate was found to have teratogenic effects in mice (Watanabe, 1997) as apoptosis (cell death) in the neuroepithelium of developing embryos.

The abstract of the Watanabe/Sano paper is copied here:

Herbicides containing glufosinate ammonium are widely used in many countries including Japan. Many Japanese cases of accidental and suicidal poisoning by glufosinate have been reported since 1989. We report a case of a 64- year old man who ingested glufosinate in an attempted suicide. The patient suffered mental disturbances and hematological changes together with gastrointestinal effects shortly after ingesting the poison, and later developed generalized convulsions, impaired respiration and circulatory failure. During recovery he exhibited loss of short-term memory (retrograde and anterograde amnesia). Neurotoxicity is a characteristic of glufosinate poisoning, although the mechanism is not clear. From the analysis of clinical symptoms of previously published cases, glufosinate toxicity appears to arise both from the active ingredient and the surfactant in the formulation.

The glufosinate containing herbicide brand used in the above case was reported to be BASTA, the same product the GM mustard developed for release in India is reportedly resistant to.

Cheers and have a great day all.

Tony Mitra

Are the wheels of Glyphosate juggernaut in India about to hit potholes?

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Yesterday a Telegu language newspaper from Hyderabad, the province of Telengana, came up with this news on glyphosate, and indirectly mentioned what I had been talking about, without naming me.

A helpful organic farming entrepreneur from Hyderabad, Mr. Ramchandra has translated it over the phone for me. It says, in brief:

  • Glyphosate is very dangerous
  • It is used to kill weeds but it is also killing people
  • Sri Lanka had banned it in 2014 because farm workers were dying from kidney failure
  • Argentina banned it in 2017, because of pregnant women exposed to glyphosate were experiencing two to four times more birth defects than national average.
  • India has allowed glyphosate to be used for tea plantations, but the approval for this use may be controversial and questionnable.
  • Provinces of Andhra Pradesh and Telengana are working to ban this herbicide. An investigation is being initiated by the Government into possible corruption and briery involved where farmers are illegally being encouraged to use this herbicide by unscrupulous people for financial gain. As a result, glyphosate is illegally being used everywhere.
  • 87% of Red Lentil (Masoor Dal) imported into India from Canada is reported to be highly contaminated by glyphosate.
  • India is also importing pulses from Australia that are highly poisonous from glyphosate.

So, is the glyphosate juggernaut in India turning a corner, and coming to a possible road block in future? Are breaks beginning to be applied to the wheels of this juggernaut ?

Meanwhile, in Bengal, I have so far met two minsters of the government of West Bengal, India, regarding glyphosate. These are Mr. Purnendu Basu, minister of skilled labour (ex minister of agriculture) and Mr. Subhendu Adhikari, the minister of environment. While the issue of glyphosate has been brought to their ear, there has been no positive movement as yet, for the government to start focussing on the ravages to the land and its biomass from illegal and reckless use of glyphosate.

Having said that, I am lagging behind on a letter I am supposed to write to the Environment Minister as a follow up. I am delayed because I am unable to lay y hands of two documents that I was asked to attach to the letter. These are:

  • Copy of the original order from Sri Lanka, banning the import, sale, or use of glyphosate
  • Document showing the intent of the Government of Telangana, with regard to considering banning of all illegal use of Glyphosate. This is a new development, the details of which I do not have much information.

Mr. Adhikari, the Minister of Environment, Government of West Bengal, in the middle, with me with a cap on, and Dr. Samar Bagchi at right.

The fact that I am unable to get any help on the above two items, and do not know who to ask, is causing some frustration from my end. I hope to nail those two issues subsequently. Meanwhile, I appeal to all readers, if you can help, please do. However, please do not send me links to news articles about Sri Lanka and glyphosate. I do not need them. I am only looking for official document, signed by a Government official, such as the president of someone, passing the order or confirming the decision that the government of Sri Lanka is banning glyphosate.

And as to Telengana, I need whatever original document is available, for example, and appeal make to the government by some official, asking it to ban glyphosate.

Then there is a plan to go talk with rice farmers in the district of Purulia about glyphosate. But I must convert my presentation into Bengali, something I have never done on this technically heavy subject. But Mr. Rabin Bannerji has helped convert some rice farmers to move away from input intensive, chemical dependent hybrid rice to sustainably grown, chemical free organic folk rice, black rice in particular. This is a remarkable story in itself and whether the effort survives or fails in the micro level may be a pointer to if India is going to save itself at a macro level, from going under, both in agriculture as well as in its biodiversity and ecosystems. I am therefore interested to see first hand what Mr. Bannerji is doing in Purulia. I am told the audience would largely be women rice farmers and largely illiterate – but not uneducated. These women did not study beyond the first few years in school, so they might be considered barely literate. But they are certainly not uneducated. The instinctively know the wisdom of living in harmony with nature instead of in conflict with it.

Meanwhile, on the scientific front, we have already spoken many times about glyphosate being an amino acid that is analog to glycine and how it gets mis-incorporated into protein construction, thus producing dysfunctional proteins that trigger a plethora of diseases.

I often converse on email with scientists such as Anthony Samsel, Stephanie Seneff, Don Huber, Judy Hoy, Andé Comeau, and Thierry Vrain. When I hear something I like I ask them if I might quote it. And here is one quote from Stephanie seneff, about glyphosate getting into proteins as an amino acid.

The discussion that was preceding was various salts of glyphosate that are in the herbicide packages. Apparently, glyphosate itself is not too soluble in water. Therefore, corporations selling the herbicide cannot sell larger concentrations into smaller packages of solution that is easier to transport. In order to increase solubility in water, the producer sells it in some form of salt of glyphosate that is readily soluble. That solution ionises glyphosate and the salt making it easy not just for the plants to pick the toxin up, which often kills them if they are a weed, but also for animals to pick them up to, as explained by Stephanie Seneff above.

 Then there is the question of the metabolite of Glyphosate. Most things usually decay or breakdown over a period of time. So does glyphosate too. However, some of the first stages of such decay produces variants that are still very toxic, such as AMPA. It is no more a mimic of glycine, but it is very harmful on its own, without being picked up in place of glycine in protein construction. This is explained by Anthony Samsel below.

A lot is now known about harmful effects of Glyphosate and its first stage metabolites. A lot more needs to be discovered, as explained by Samsel in the last two sentences above.

To be continued …