Those of you that keep track of the issues relating to glyphosate, might be aware that a terminally ill cancer patient from California is suing Monsanto that his exposure to glyphosate gave him the cancer. This is the first of its kind court case, from what I gather from the news.

The man, Mr. Dewayne Johnson, was a school groundskeeper, who used Roundup (glyphosate) up to twenty times a year for many years, working as a pest manager for a county school system. He is dying of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer that starts in the lymphatic system and is rooted in the body producing too many abnormal white blood cells.

His attorney claims to represent more than 2,000 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma sufferers who used Roundup extensively. Mr. Johnson’s case is the first to go on trial because he is nearing death.

Now, this is what I have to say on all this.

While I personally feel sad and horrified that so many people that used glyphosate in the US are known to suffer from this form of cancer, I have strong misgiving about such court cases. First, my understanding is that in a court, a person, or an organization, is to be presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

And in this and all other cases, there is no absolute scientific proof, far as I can guess, that the unfortunate people got their cancer definitively from glyphosate and not for some other reason. And in absence of such definitive proof, glyphosate, and along with it Monsanto, is going to go scot free.

I know about the IARC report, from World Health Organization, listing glyphosate as a “probable” carcinogen. I am also aware of other reports that state the opposite, i.e. glyphosate is “unlikely” to be carcinogenic. All these, to me, as well as to the courts, are “opinions” and do not prove either way, if the litigant did or did not get cancer from glyphosate.

Mr. Dewayne Johnson, contracted non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma from handling glyphosate, and is suing Monsanto.

The proof, in my view, can only be established in a proper carcinogenicity test by a group of research scholars using proper lab facilities and using lab animals exposed to measured doses of glyphosate and their health parameters compared with identical animals that are not exposed to glyphosate.

I know that Monsanto conducted many such tests. I know Monsanto submitted these test results to regulatory authorities of all Governments that have approved the use of glyphosate as a herbicide. I also know that all those governments are hiding these reports and have not made them public, which makes its approval illegal, in my view.

Further, I do not know of any country or any research group that is conducting carcinogenicity or other safety tests on glyphosate. I know of Dr. Seralini’s work in France which involves Roundup and not exclusively glyphosate. I do not know of any that did such tests specifically with glyphosate except in isolated cases such as Dr. Carrasco in Argentina.

The best way to solve this issue, as far as scientific proof and law in concerned, is first of all to force all government regulatory authorities, starting with EPA of the US and Health Ministry of Canada, to make public all safety tests on glyphosate, and then to ask independent experts to review and scrutinize these reports. Further, all nations should initiate independent tests on safety of glyphosate, irrespective of whatever the Monsanto reports are suspected to be hiding.

And lastly, whenever there is a mention of cancer, the public and news media starts hyperventilating.  But glyphosate can make you ill and kill you a thousand different ways apart from cancer of the lymphatic system. Why is dying of cancer any worse than dying from Kidney failure or having your brain turned into a vegetable?

Apart from demanding disclosure of safety records, and demanding independent study of glyphosate’s safety, there is another way – public pressure on the political system. After all, in a democracy, the people are supposed to be masters of their destiny and should decided if they will or will not allow glyphosate to be present in their food and environment, irrespective of what Monsanto, the pesticide traders or the industrial farmers might say. But for that to happen, people have to do something real, like performing hard duties of a citizen, and not just “sharing” stuff on Facebook.

I have been fighting a lone and so far unsatisfactory battle single handed with the Canadian government regarding safety records on glyphosate. I say single handed because because I got no real support. I am itching to go back home to Canada so I can start badgering our do-nothing politicians on this. I would have loved to see more Canadians follow suit in their own capacity, and hope that perhaps some day it will become the main talking point on elections and a politicians ability to win or lose may also hinge on his stand on glyphosate. 

Anyhow I have succeeded in making at least a dozen elected politicians, from municipal to federal, conscious of the fact that I am hell bent on spoiling their election campaign because they either refuse to push back at glyphosate, or prefers to sit on the fence. Also, I have forced at least one federal election (MP) candidate to withdraw from the race on account of me raising enough stink about his history of working for a firm that regularly sprayed glyphosate over British Columbian forests.

My parting advise to folks sharing these articles on social media is – spend less time on passing around this kind of news and more time on pushing back at rogue politicians, whose actions are the main reason why Mr. Johnson and hundreds of thousands of others are suffering today around the world because of glyphosate, as are a wide swath of our flora and fauna.

I am quite amazed at the degree of ignorance on glyphosate, not just among the general public, but also among people that have been engaged in fighting GMO for a generation, as well as farm workers that have been using it for a generation.

There is also a report from Sri Lanka that tea garden workers that used glyphosate as weedkiller are suspected to have contracted Esophageal cancer. Clearly, farm workers and everybody using glyphosate as a weed killer around the world, should seriously be keeping track of not just the court case of Mr. Johnson, but also be vocal activists to demand safety test and data on glyphosate, and as long as such data is kept hidden and such tests are not being conducted, to refuse to use it and insist that glyphosate be banned from their world.

I am right now in India, where awareness on glyphosate is as abysmal as it is elsewhere. Glyphosate has penetrated deep into this country with or without Monsanto, both legally and illegally. Farm workers are taught to use the term “dava” or “oushad” meaning “medicine” instead of “poison” when they refer to glyphosate. It should be illegal to use the term ‘medicine’ for weed killer poisons like glyphosate.

My name is Tony Mitra. This is what I feel and I am going to include these issues when and if I talk to people here in India on this topic. Thank you.

There are groups and there are people that make a career out of badmouthing Monsanto. Some of them become pretty good at it, and attract a lot of following, and donations.

But, looking from afar, a critical thinker and the citizenry might like to verify if hanging out with and supporting such people and groups are helping or hurting the cause. Globally, GMOs are increasing and not decreasing. Further, people are more poisoned by glyphosate through non-GMO seeds than Roundup reading GMO seeds.

Take western talking heads that make videos standing under the famous Eifel tower and talk about the Delhi High-court verdict that denies Monsanto to patent genetic signature of GM crops like Bt Cotton. They gloat over it as it it is a great victory of the downtrodden brown and black people that have historically been colonized and abused and their culture destroyed by the white man’s greed. As if Monsanto is the embodiment of the British Empire and that the Delhi High-court has put a stop to this new age white man’s high-tech colonization. In actuality, the original patent stays, but Monsanto has been restricted to charge the original small royalty set by the Government for its seeds and is not allowed to increase royalty. Further, Monsanto is allowed patent rights to the original physical characteristics of the Bt. Cotton Seeds, and not its genetic blue-print. Thus, any number of Indian seed companies can now improve upon that original Bt. Cotton seed, make 30 new varieties, equally toxic and unwanted, of Bt. Cotton, have them patented and sell to an ever increasing number of Indian farmers, all toxic and all designed to be marketed in such a way that indigenous organic royalty free seed varieties go extinct, without having to pay any royalty to Monsanto. Farmers can then pay royalty to Indian seed companies, and be the land can then be poisoned more by by Indian corporations, and less by Monsanto. This is “progress”, according to these anti-GMO talking heads.

This might be bad for Monsanto’s goals of monopolizing all of India’s cotton market, it is even worse for India and Indians, who can now be sunk under an avalanche of runaway varieties of GM cotton (Bt Cotton), all legally, all approved by the Government and exposing Indian farms, people and ecology to this increased threat.

Above is my six minute rant on this.

And then these talking heads ask you for your money, so they can continue to do their business as usual spreading misguiding news and false flag cases, and trapping your money. You feel good as if you did something useful, while actually your money is used to ensure it can do nothing useful in resisting either GMO or glyphosate or toxicity in food and nature.

This is what controlled opposition does.

These talking heads and anti-GMO groups make a profession out of staying away from resisting glyphosate. Take India, for example. GMO patents are being discussed and fought in courts, but toxicity through glyphosate appears to be outside of the local radar, and reached even remote biodiverse eco systems at the foothills of the Himalayas and tiny rubber plantations. Also, a huge amount of toxic lentils, pulses and chickpea are imported from countries that are the producers of the most toxic foods on earth. Nobody tests foods for glyphosate here and folks have no idea what glyphosate can do or how much of it is already in their daal.

I believe, people are better off staying away from such talking heads, saving them money and spend their time, and energy against politicians, not Monsanto, because it is the politician that is betraying the people’s trust by allowing agro-corporations to poison the people, and because it is the politician whose employment, or unemployment, should be in your hands.

Stop listening to the controlled opposition. Stop barking up the wrong tree. And learn to confront your political representative, setting her or his feet to the fire about testing local food for glyphosate, and for voting to protect your food from toxic poisons that benefit agrochemical industries.

There is a press report going around about a warning from me that people of India might be getting a steady dose of slow poison through lentils in their diet. India appears to import a lot of pulses from Canada, and from Australia and Myanmar. I have seen test records of Canadian grown pulses which are all desiccated by glyphosate, unless one sources certified organic products which are not available in any large quantity. I also have seen results of test on Australian Moong Dal (known as mung beans in Canada) as tested by CFIA which also had over a thousand ppb of glyphosate. India is importing these. Consumers do not seem to know if and when they are buying Canadian lentils or lentils mixed with local produce, and how much glyphosate is in their dal.

The third country that India appears to import a lot from is Myanmar. I have not seen any rest results from Myanmar, but from what I hear about Myanmar buying a lot of glyphosate for the purpose of growing pulses, which are exported to India. So, all in all, I suspect glyphosate in entering the Indian stomach in ever increasing doses and is likely one of the major contributing factors behind the apparent runaway increase of autoimmune diseases I see among friends and family this time around in India, something that I did not see some years ago.

Meanwhile, there is perhaps a misconception that dal grown in India is more toxic with glyphosate, than pulses imported from Canada. I do not believe that to be true, although a few small samples of yellow split pea from India shows high glyphosate. In general, pulses grown in Canada and USA have significantly higher level of contamination by glyphosate in test after test conducted by CFIA.

The graphs above shows the story of chickpea grown in North America, organic and conventional, compared with the same in the rest of the world combined. Yes organic is cleaner than conventional, but both are astronomically more contaminated if grown in North America compared to anywhere else.

 Chart above shows all the lentil samples from Canada placed against India. 87% of Canadian lentils are contaminated and the average level of contamination is 282 ppb. Only 40% of Indian samples were contaminated while the average was 25 ppb.

But at the end of the day, the people of India need to find ways to force their government to initiate broad based testing of food for glyphosate concentration and to make all results public. That is the only way Indian consumers will know how much of glyphosate they are consuming daily from their food. Also, they should most certainly get their government to separately test imported pulses and all grains from western producers who are known to use glyphosate as a desiccant, and be very careful of importing crops with glyphosate content that is much higher than the local produce.

As to the safe maximum residue level, the people should demand to see the documents that prove that glyphosate, at any level of contamination, has been actually proven to be safe for mammals.

Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff have written a series of peer reviewed papers on problems with glyphosate. They have been published on Researchgate. One can read or download published articles free of charge. Samsel and Seneff have so far a series of six articles published there about glyphosate. All of them are relevant. The later ones deal with hitherto less known aspects of glyphosate which describe newer threats of having glyphosate in our food and environment. The seventh article is being prepared.

I have read the articles and downloaded them for future reference. I decided to separately make available the pdf copies of those articles, all listed in one place, for easy access. This blog is that place. Please note, if you wish to read the original from the Researchgate. You may also do it from here, by either clicking on the original link at the bottom of the abstract, or clicking on the (pdf) link next to each article heading, such as Glyphosate I or Glyphosate II. You may first read the abstracts of each paper and move on, or decide to read/download the full article. There is also an additional list of all the pdf files at the bottom of this blog.

Glyphosate I (pdf)

Glyphosate’s Suppression of Cytochrome P450 Enzymes and Amino Acid Biosynthesis by the Gut Microbiome: Pathways to Modern Diseases.

Abstract
Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup ® , is the most popular herbicide used worldwide. The industry asserts it is minimally toxic to humans, but here we argue otherwise. Residues are found in the main foods of the Western diet, comprised primarily of sugar, corn, soy and wheat. Glyphosate’s inhibition of cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes is an overlooked component of its toxicity to mammals. CYP enzymes play crucial roles in biology, one of which is to detoxify xenobiotics. Thus, glyphosate enhances the damaging effects of other food borne chemical residues and environmental toxins. Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body. Here, we show how interference with CYP enzymes acts synergistically with disruption of the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids by gut bacteria, as well as impairment in serum sulfate transport. Consequences are most of the diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet, which include gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. We explain the documented effects of glyphosate and its ability to induce disease, and we show that glyphosate is the “textbook example” of exogenous semiotic entropy: the disruption of homeostasis by environmental toxins.
Glyphosate’s Suppression of Cytochrome… (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236211603_Glyphosate%27s_Suppression_of_Cytochrome_P450_Enzymes_and_Amino_Acid_Biosynthesis_by_the_Gut_Microbiome_Pathways_to_Modern_Diseases[accessed Apr 13 2018].

Glyphosate II (pdf)

It starts with the Canada-India link on lentils and ends with possible glyphosate-heavy metal link just disclosed by Anthony Samsel.

It took me several months of stay in India, to come to the conclusion that the most important link between glyphosate and INDIA, for the people living here, might be through Canadian lentils.

I already had rear 8,000 test records from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency on foods tested for glyphosate, and further near 100,000 records of other biocides in food. I already knew how bad the lentils and chickpea were, from the Canadian tests.

I knew Canada was growing and exporting lentils to India. I knew Jodi Koberinsky of Ontario was doing her Masters degree work on this Canadian lentil to India issue.

I knew the Canadian Province of Saskatchewan grew most of these lentils, having allocated upward of 7 million acres of land to it. India was unable to cope with local demand for pulses and Canada had become by far the largest exporter of pulses to India.

I also knew, by analyzing the CFIA data, that Canada along with USA produced the most toxic of all foods on earth, and that lentils grown in Canada contained high levels of glyphosate, averaging several hundred parts per billion and that over 80% of Canadian lentil samples were contaminated with glyphosate.

I also saw lentils imported from India and tested by CFIA showed lower levels of glyphosate. This points to the possibility that India is also using glyphosate in lentil production, but perhaps not as much as Canada, or that the so called Indian lentil were mixed up already with Canadian product.

Lastly, I knew from young women like Stephanie of British Columbia who lived in the agricultural belt in Saskatchewan, how her family was poisoned by aerial spraying of glyphosate around her home, how her dogs got sick, her children and pregnancy got affected, how they themselves got sick and finally how things started turning around when they migrated out of that place and resettled in British Columbia, where aerial spraying is used over forests, regrettably, but not over agricultural and residential areas.

I knew most folks in India ate lentils, either in their original form or as powdered version added to various processed foods.

And now, from several articles, I came to know that Canada was perhaps the largest exporter of pulses to India and the amount sold to India is considerable – enough to perhaps make a major impact in the slow poisoning of the Indian population.

Not just that, I now had information from friends that even in the remote and biologically diverse regions of the Himalayan foothills, where travel itself is difficult, glyphosate was already being sprayed around rubber plantations. Glyphosate had reached far corners of India as the first arrivals of a civilization gone toxic.

However, folks in India were not yet sufficiently aware of the extreme dangers associated with the use of glyphosate. I was mulling over all these issues, when I called Anthony Samsel in New Hampshire, USA, for a chitchat on glyphosate, lentils and how glyphosate might be affecting the very DNA of a plant by switching wrong genes on or off.

Anthony Samsel told me about the suspected Glyphosate-Heavy metal link and the need to test lentils with different levels of glyphosate and heavy metals like Lead, Cadmium, Aluminum.

This was breaking news.
This also could be the link that India needed.

India needed to:

• send samples to Anthony Samsel, which I would engage in arranging
• find ways to get the local government agencies to test imported lentils against glyphosate and find ways to reject the shipment if glyphosate content was high.
• get the government to engage in large scale and broad based testing of its food for glyphosate contamination and release the results to the people.
• get the government to disclose hitherto hidden safety document that is supposed to prove that glyphosate does not harm higher mammals.

I would also need to send Saskatchewan’s lentils to Anthony.

So, for now, lentil-heavy metal link was the breaking news, and the lentil-glyphosate link might just be the 900 pound gorilla at India’s dinner table, as well as all folks in North America that drop in to eat Indian food at local restaurants, as well as those that eat processed, packaged food that contains ground lentil powder.