Yellow journalism

Used to be a time when each town had one or two family owned newspapers, and collectively a nation had a lot of variety in their news services. Each paper may or may not have a particular tilt in its presentation – pro poor, pro rich, left or right, anti this or anti that.

Together, they presented multiple angles and points of view on issues that mattered to the people, and to the nation.

Unfortunately, that is not how things are today, thanks to extreme consolidation of the news media. Today a single mogul or media house, who may not even be from your country, can own every large paper and coax all of them to to push its own bias on an entire nation.

Ideally, there should have been an anti-monopoly laws that prevent this from happening, but then, there are a lot of things that should have happened in Canada but did not.

Here is an example – of what I consider to be yellow journalism. This article came out in Globe and Mail on October 29. This looks like an angry reaction to an interview that CBC conducted on Dr. Shiv Chopra, in relation to the TPP deals  in general, and about possible import of American milk from cows treated with growth hormones in particular. The CBC interview with Dr. Chopra can be found here.

In my opinion TPP is engineered to promote profiteering by corporations against the interests of a nation and gives these corporations extraordinary power to prevent national Governments from protecting its market, its interest, or its people from predatory practices by these corporations. In its basic form, it can be argued that such deals are anti-democratic, and there are justifiable reasons one can have objections to such deals.

This lady might be beholden to the religion of corporate greed or share holder profiteering. Anyhow, her article appears to be aimed at trashing Dr. Shiv Chopra’s life work, particularly because Chopra was vocal in his criticism of TPP and questions the safety of American milk treated with rBGH.

Perhaps she considers a corporate driven USA to be the reference point of every heavenly thing that earth has seen, meaning, if something happens in USA, then it must be the best thing.

One could take this kind of convoluted logic to an extreme, and claim that, if USA has most per capita people in jail, then Canada should follow suit and start jailing our people right and left, because, by that mind set, we are badly lagging behind USA in this important area.

Dr. Chopra was employed as a top scientist in Health Canada involved in approval of products that went into human food system. His concern was human health and safety.

The bovine growth hormone (rBGH) was being touted as the next best thing since our species ancestors lost their tail and got down from trees, figuratively speaking. Injecting cows with this growth hormone is supposed to force ( they used more Gandhian terminology such as “induce” instead of force) the cows to produce more milk than they would normally do.

Shiv wanted to see safety tests done on this product before approving it. This is a very normal request, especially from someone in his position. His job was not to see if the injection does indeed result in more milk. His job was to check if that milk could be harmful to people who drank it.

So he asked for test results to be submitted to him. These results would normally involve sample mammals such as rats or rabbits to be injected with this hormone, and then the blood chemistry and milk chemistry of these animals as well as other health parameters to be measured, and compared with another set of animals of the same species that were not treated with this hormone. The resultant comparison of raw data is expected to indicate if the treated animal remained healthy, if its milk did not contain undue amounts of growth hormone, if its body did not produce unwanted antibodies as a reaction to the hormone, if its milk did not contain anything other than what normal milk should contain, etc.

Normally, it would not be necessary for an approval authority to ask for these safety test data, because it would automatically be included by the producer in their application. But, for reasons better known to the producers, this safety test documents were excluded from the file and Shiv Chopra did not have them.

So he asked for them. Simple.

But, instead of providing the requested information, the producer went over his head to the politicians, and got Shiv Chopra sacked. Not only that, the Government passed a gag order on Shiv, so that he would not be allowed to speak about the circumstance under which he was fired. Dr. Chopra had to fight this gag order in court and had that lifted, before he could publish a book – Corrupt to the core, to expose endemic corruption within Health Canada.

That is the story about Shiv Chopra, and rBGH. That hormone remains unapproved in Canada and milk treated with it remains banned from import. A majority of European nations have outright banned the hormone in their dairy industry. But now, thanks to TPP, such milk may enter Canada through the back door.

That is what concerns Dr. Chopra, and that is what he spoke about.

The article in Globe and Mail essentially amounts to a murder of truth, and an sorry example of corporate driven yellow journalism. You can see your yourself by clicking on the picture.

I do not fault the woman for the twisted view she is projecting. Not every one is knowledgable. Not everyone is perfect. People have a right to be stupid. I however fault Globe and Mail for putting it up. But then, I started this blog on the issue of death of true investigative journalism. Globe and mail article proves that in Canada, free press has been replaced by free jokes.

The question in my mind is – should I consider Globe and Mail same as junk mail.

Wayne James on sustainability in farming and politics

Wayne James is an organic farmer, overseeing 150 acres of ancestral farmland, and lives near the town of Beausejour, Manitoba.

He is also a Green Party candidate from Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, Manitoba.

The farm was organic in his grandfathers time. During his fathers time, it followed the Govt promoted trend and became chemical dependent, toxic and unsustainable for the land and the planet.

Wayne has reconverted it back to organic. He does not do it to make a huge profit, though it pays the bills. He did it to live in harmony and in partnership with the land and the living planet and hopes to leave the land and the environment as good for the future, as it was in the past when his ancestors first stepped on this land.

He does not promise miracles for the constituents of his rural riding, but invites them to join hands with him in a responsible, sustainable stewardship of their land and environment that is recklessly being destroyed in the phoney promise of growth, development and economy that is actually pushing degradation, poverty and decay on Canada.

Here is a 7 minute video where Wayne speaks with Tony Mitra, about his views on farming, economy and why he entered politics.

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Rose Stevens volunteers to improve voter participation in their riding

Rose Stevens is a holistic practitioner, an organic farmer, a concerned citizen and a fire breathing anti-GMO/Glyphosate activist from Manitoba. She is knocking on doors and talking to people at the dentists, the grocer, the gas station and anywhere else she finds people in their rural spread out riding, convincing people to register and vote, and vote for Wayne James of the Green party – and support the platform of clean air, clean water, clean food and clean politics.

I spoke with her and below is the ten minute talk as a podcast which you can listen to, by clicking on the play button below.

Glyphosate poisoning test for Canadians

This is a follow up announcement for all Canadians.

We have been trying for a long time to have a system by which Canadians can test themselves for glyphosate poisoning, and also test their food to learn where the poison is coming from. Now, finally, some solutions are coming up. But there are also changes in the offing. The original lab that was offering the test in USA may not do so after Nov 30. A new system is being looked at through another commercial lab. So our advice at this moment is to hang on and wait to see what comes up in Jan 2016, unless you already paid and have to send samples across right now. Organizations that with to be involved in collection and handling of samples for as a shipping transit point from Canada to US labs, please contact me.

People interested in joining us to lobby various segments and layers of our Government and healthcare system to pay for some of these tests – please contact me. We need to present an unified, or collective, voice.

Please who believe in the need for testing glyphosate, and would like to join our effort in Canada, please consider contacting Tony. The time is right, with a new federal Government in place. Meanwhile watch this space.

Canada did not have a lab that would test body fluids or food for glyphosate content. We still don’t. However, things are changing. Public awareness on the dangers of Glyphosate is rising daily, along with an awareness that our Government does not test imported toxins for possibility of harm, but bases its decision on third party information, and is influenced by foreign corporate power more than a genuine concern for any long term safety of the people. Thankfully, there are still some institutions that are willing to rise up against this trend. World Health Organization is one. It recently classified glyphosate as a class 2A probable human carcinogen.

Meanwhile, US-EPA started mumbling about testing American food, for glyphosate content, a mumble that is likely to be echoed by the Canadian counterparts.

A lab or two in Canada are appearing ready to test vegetables and processed food for presence of Glyphosate. This will be covered in another blog, as we get organized to start testing our food.

Meanwhile, a lab in the US is offering citizens test of urine, water and breast milk for glyphosate. These labs are using high end High Performance Liquid Chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MSMS) methods and are offering these tests at substantially lower rate than before.

Payment and schedule details

Payment and schedule details

And, our earlier problems of finding an easy way for Canadians to send body fluids across the border to labs in the US, has been solved, thanks to cooperation from Henry Rowlands of Feed The World Group. For logistical and technical reasons, testing of breast milk is not offered to Canada right now, but urine and water can be sent. I shall remind people here that in Canada it is possible now to test soil, water as well as food for Glyphosate already, using both ELISA and HPLC-MSMS methods. Click on the above image to find details of when the next batch of urine samples might be ready for testing, and how to pay for it. Meanwhile those that have already paid for the test, in Canada and not yet sent their samples, follow this instruction and send the samples to Tony Mitra.

But for urine, which is so important for people to know if they have been poisoned or not, now Canadians can pay directly on line to the testing scheme, and then follow instructions specific to Canadians, as described in the attached video, regarding sending urine samples.

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Please follow the instructions on the above you tube video, and the attached flyer below. Please do pass this information around to others that might be interested.

The idea of this test comes from realization that our Governments and Medical systems have been turning a deaf ear when it comes testing if the most used toxin in Canadian food system and agriculture has been poisoning our children, our elderly and ourselves.

This is the first prong of our citizens initiative to test ourselves bypassing our do-nothing Government. The second prong will be to test our own food by ourselves, possibly using one of our own Canadian labs. Details for that will be followed up by a separate blog and perhaps another “how to” video.

If you have any question, feel free to contact me.


As results are coming in, it has become clear that nearly everyone of us are exposed to glyphosate, one way or another. Its only a matter of degree. As the first batch of people are expected to be those already concerned about glyphosate and likely are careful to eat good food, the results are likely to be lower than the national average when a broad cross section of the population are checked, including those that are unable to be selective of what they eat, and those that are unaware.

Link to this blog has been sent to folks people across the world that I have had the pleasure of communicating with in regard to Glyphosate testing. Only one of the email did not go through. The failed emails are listed below:

1. Ms Sinvia Bishop – elected municipal councillor of my town, Delta, BC : sbishop@delta.ca. The emails service returned a note that my email was rejected by her server.

The remarkable story of Richard Miller

Richard Miller was a healthy, barely thirty young man back in the 1990s, when he started getting sick with an incurable and permanently present migraine headache. The illness made him unfit to work every so often. Some days he would be unable to get off his bed, or keep his food down. He was visiting the Hospital sometimes 18 to 20 times a year. He lost his regular job. He spent countless thousands of dollars trying to cure himself, without success. He got progressively sicker, became obese, developed blood cholesterol and other problems, got into an indenting list of medicines he had to take. But nothing helped.

Then, in the fall of 2013, he saw Dr. Mercola on TV, in Hawaii. The doctor was taking in calls from the public. So Richard called him, and luckily got through. The doctor, after listening to his story, suggested that Richard tries to go 100% organic for a month, and see if that helps.

Richard did. On the tenth day, he woke us without a headache and feeling better than he had for the last 20 years. The experience changed him. Today he looks trim and healthy, years younger than his fifty plus years. And along with himself, he is changing his very neighbourhood in Chilliwack, BC, Canada.

Now, he is a messiah that is converting his neighbourhood, one house at a time, to get them to start growing their own organic food in their own front and/or backyard, and promoting chemical free food, including organic sprouts. In order to help convince his neighbours, Richard passes out free seeds, saplings, compost, and even his own about, to help a neighbour get started.

Watch the remarkable story of Richard Miller, in his own voice.

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Anthony Samsel and Monsanto’s Secret on Glyphosate

Dr. Anthony Samsel got hold of the Trade Secret files on Glyphosate from EPA, that had been sealed and protected from public eye for 35 years. He had to sign a legal agreement not to copy or show those documents to anybody, although he is allowed to study the content and talk of his own opinion about them.

And express his opinion he did. IN an hour long telephone interview with me, he disclosed how Monsanto used unethical means and unrelated information from other tests, to find an excuse to ignore what their own tests glaringly showed – evidence of harm to the animals exposed to Glyphosate.

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I broke the talks into two parts, part 1 of 19 minutes and part 2 of 12 minutes. The rest of the conversation was more from me and less from Dr. Samsel and covered issues within Canada, and how Glyphosate might have been approved by the Canadian Govt. Those issues I feel are outside of the main scope of this blog and this topic – which is – Glyphosate is unsafe to be in our food or environment. All herbicides are unsafe to be in our food or in cattle feed or in nature. These chemicals should be banned. Also, the practice of using unrelated, contaminated, historical controls to explain away glaring evidence of harm in lab tests is a practice that should be banned in science.

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In my view – what Monsanto did was not science. It was voodoo.

Nationwide Glyphosate Testing comes to Canada

Feed The Word is offering the first validated public testing for glyphosate in the World for urine and water. The lab that created the testing is based in the U.S. and therefore there are difficulties for Canadian citizens to get involved in the testing project. However, we believe we have now solved these difficulties and we would like to involve Canadian citizens in this vital public testing.

Feed The Word is offering the first validated public testing for glyphosate in the World for urine and water. The lab that created the testing is based in the U.S. and therefore there are difficulties for Canadian citizens to get involved in the testing project. However, we believe we have now solved these difficulties and we would like to involve Canadian citizens in this vital public testing.

This testing will also provide the first validated peer-reviewed data for use in challenging Canadian regulators on the World’s most used herbicide – glyphosate.

NATIONWIDE GLYPHOSATE TESTING, a Canadian citizen action grassroots group, is  proud to join hands with Feed The World to bring a hassle free first step effort for Canadians to get their urine or water tested in a high quality per reviewed system for detecting Glyphosate, at a price which is a third of what a commercial lab in the US might charge. We are aware that Canada does not even offer a lab at the moment to the public for testing Glyphosate in people, food, animals or plants.

The future aim of Feed The World and Canadian Citizen group, with local NGOs is to push for a lab in Canada to either develop a method for testing or to license the U.S. method – however long it might take. Canada deserves a lab that tests for glyphosate in biological samples as a long-term solution.

PAYMENT : US$ 119 per sample.  To register and pay for the testing visit here: http://feedtheworld.info/glyphosate-testing-test-yourself/ Results will be sent within 12 weeks of receipt of sample via e-mail.

Sample Collection in Canada : Feed The World, with the help of Tony Mitra, has set up a collection point in Canada for urine and water samples. The cost of the postage to the Canadian address needs to be covered by you. Please send Mr. Tony Mitra a message via e-mail on or before the day you send the package to his address: glyphosate.testing@gmail.com and tony.mitra@gmail.com. For more information – watch this page time to time watch this page.

Send sample to: After registering and paying for the test, send sample, with registration details to : Tony Mitra, 10891 Cherry Lane, Delta, BC, V4E 3L7, Canada.

Please send Tony Mitra a prior message via e-mail: glyphosate.testing@gmail.com and tony.mitra@gmail.com. For more information – check www.tonu.org. Your samples will then be sent to the lab in batches so effort will be made to time them so that early samples do not wait too long in Canada before shipment to the US.

NEWSFLASH : We are informed that two more countries – Switzerland and Australia, has decided to follow the Canadian example and join the global effort to get Glyphosate detected in people.

Flyer:

To download the above flyer, click on it . It will take you to another page with the pdf file displayed. Download it from the file menu. Link :
http://www.tonu.org/tonu/Mypics/MP09/MP375_GlytestCanadaFlyer02.pdf

 Dr. Anthony Samsel on Glyphosate & Cancer

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Kate Storey of the Green Party nails it on GMO and Glyphosate

Kate is an organic farmer based in Manitoba. She is also the Agriculture critic of the Green Party and an aspiring politician that is standing for the coming federal and provincial elections, hoping to be either an MP or an MLA.

For me this was a back to back interview with two candidates of the Green Party. They are on a fast growth track, far as I can see, but are starting from a near zero level. Their system and policies stand apart from any other conventional party.

Besides, being concerned about Canada’s food security and this chemical and biological attack we are subjected to through foreign biotech corporations efforts to own everything in Canada and our politicians penchant to sell Canada piece by piece to the lowest bidder is, at least to me, a national crisis whose root is in political corruption and can only be resolved politically, by electing good people into our parliament. Just like Politicians have a duty to protect the land and the people, a task in which they are failing, citizens have a duty, to ensure good people get elected, and to keep our politicians in check. A functioning democracy needs both elements – good politicians and involved citizens.

I wanted to ask her questions that relates to the particularly unenviable position that Canada is in, with regard to exposure to transgenic organisms and nasty biocides such as Monsanto’s RoundUp herbicide and others being used on our food system, our prairies, forests, parks and everywhere else.

I wanted to ask her if the Green Party might bolster its policy on UN convention on biodiversity and the Cartagena Protocol on biosafety, by proposing to ratify the Cartagena Protocol and actually pass a law that will protect indigenous flora and fauna. She agreed this is a good idea and asked me to send her the details. Members of the party can propose amendment on their party policy and she was a member, so she would consider helping the party adopt it.

Then she spoke for around ten minutes straight, describing the Green Party agriculture policy, possibly reading it out, and covered a lot of ground so we did not have to ask each item one by one. I was concerned about the rural heartland being depopulated as small farmers were driven to extinction, and becoming unemployed job seekers while mega corporate farms replaced them and turned to extremely energy and input dependent toxic chemical dependent mono-culture regime that only bring illness to the people and lifelessness to the land while impoverishing the people. She did a good job explaining all of that in one shot.

Then we went to another difficult issue – political alliance in ridings where the left vote is split and the conservatives gain by stealing the seat there. I got a response from Tom Mulcair about his effort to form an alliance with the Liberals, but that the Liberals refused. He did not mention the Greens.

Kate spoke on record that the NDP had refused to form any alliance with the Greens. The Greens had tried very hard to form alliance with both Liberals and the NDP but apparently none of the larger parties were interested. This is a tragedy, in my mind, because ego of the parties get in the way and open the path for the Conservatives, who are ruining the country.

I should be asking Tom Mulcair again to clarify the issue of alliance with the Greens.

Kate opposes absentee owners of the farm land and supports agriculture cooperatives for helping small farmers and dependence in local food instead of our cauliflowers coming from California.

Pesticide use has increased instead of decreasing, with widespread adoption of GM crops. The party is aware of Glyphosate poisoning of people and proposes all children being tested for Glyphosate.

I did not interrupt her to state that Canada does not even have a lab that will test children or our food for Glyphosate content. Canadian labs at this moment only offer testing Glyphosate in water and soil. I am personally involved in trying to coax labs to offer this service on one side, and asking the people to demand this test, so as to create a “demand” for this service, so that labs take note and get on board.

I should be asking Kate to consider writing in a policy to help in this effort so Canada gets a few labs that will test Glyphosate in people and food.

I asked her about mandatory voting law. Its not mandatory in Canada, and Canadian voter participation is rather poor. She things this is a great idea, as is the issue of proportional representation. The problem is, I thought, that current senators may never vote these systems in, because they are the beneficiary of the absence of these laws.

However, these are necessary goals and can only happen with public pressure and public demand.

She said NDP is in power in Manitoba and that they have a policy to support proportional representation, and yet, they have not passed this law. So,  somebody needs to ask NDP Manitoba about it. Perhaps I shall ask them by email, and see what they say.

Kate predicts that the Greens will get somewhere between ten and twenty seats in the next federal election, with British Columbia leading the way and perhaps PEI following suit.

All in all, this is one politician and hopefully a future MP that I really enjoyed speaking with.

I do hope she wins, and gets to kick some butt in Ottawa.

The podcast is just over 31 minutes long. You can listen to it by clicking the play button at the bottom of this page.

Dr. Josette Wier continues her battle against pesticides

Dr. Josette Wier, a doctor and an activist against pesticides, was born in France. She is 68 years old. She has a 120 Acre plot at Smithers, northern BC. She wishes to plant organic grain there, but has not managed the economics of it yet, so presently leases the land for hay. She does not earn anything from it – but gives the hay away freely. She intends to try out experimental crops in small lots to see what works and what does not. She is not aiming to get her products certified organic right now, because it is an expensive proposition, but would like to grow her crops as if they were organic.

There is a shortage of information and knowledge on what can be grown there sustainably. The region’s history of settlements is barely a century old, where settlers came, cleared the forest and created the farm land. Nobody has tried growing human cereals, though some have grown animal feed there. There was a government funded study in an experimental farm decades ago, to see what can be grown there. But, the Government has shut that down quite a while ago. The information thus collected is apparently lost or lying in someone’s barn without any effort to preserve. Reportedly a research student in the University of Northern British Columbia, UNBC, is trying to find that information and is lamenting at the difficulty of finding, preserving and building on that knowledge base.

Josette has a few more things that sets her apart. She has been battling pesticide use in Canada, as an activist and a litigator, for 15 years or so. She took the provincial Government followed up by taking the Federal Govt to court for practice of injecting arsenic based pesticide into hundreds of thousands of BC forest trees to fight the pine beetle attack, and for spraying RoundUp by the logging corporations. After several years of court battle , she eventually won both her cases, and the practice was halted. But this happened only after EPA had withdrawn approval of the practice in USA due to proven harm to environment.

Josette however does not consider it a victory, since the BC Government does not seem to know what to do with the hundred thousand trees that still stand with arsenic and Glyphosate in them, and are poisoning woodpeckers, mice, insects and a whole lot of the food chain. During this long battle, she came to learn a lot about the harmful effects of Glyphosate.

As if that was not enough, Dr. Josette Wier has come across a new challenge in the last few years in Smithers. Her district voted itself to want to be GMO free through a resolution in 2013. However, an Alberta farmer has landed on her town, bought a large plot, and has started planting and growing GM RoundUp Ready Canola, and spraying RoundUp, more than the recommended limit, on his property bordering Josette, causing pesticide trespass onto her property over the fence, as well as using RoundUp on crown property ditches which is illegal even in Canada.

Further, he appears to be using it more often and in larger quantity than recommended by the producer (Monsanto) and seller (Croplife). Also the new farmer apparently does not follow best practice guidelines recommended in Croplife brochure, about informing bee keepers and neighbours before spraying, so the neighbours could take precaution.

Josette says she and her family is genetically inclined to fall prey to Cancer more easily than others. She has officially complained to the district board. But nothing much happens.

It appears that the use of Glyphosate is approved by Health Canada based on study by the maker of the product, provided the user follows the guidelines provided in the package. The strange thing is – there seem to be no oversight or regulator, to ensure that the guidelines, however questionable, are being followed.

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Josette has filed a case with the Farm Industry Resource Board on this issue as well as given written letters to the farmer in question, advising him of the recommended practice per CropLife and Monsanto documentation and requesting him to maintain a buffer, use the herbicide no more than recommended level and keep neighbours and bee keepers advised ahead of time. None of these requests are being followed.

I am planning to create a two part video, 15 minutes each, of Josette’s talk, and plan to drive to her place in summer,  a 12 hour drive, for a look sea and taking pictures (right now there is a lot of snow on the roads and is not a good time to drive there).

This video was created based on my talks with her.

A few notes:
She is asking for a buffer around her property where no herbicide is sprayed. This is better than no buffer. But we know that is insufficient as the spray drifts in the air. Also, it may get into the underground water, and also go in agricultural runoffs and contaminate the neighbourhood anyway.

The issue here, is another example where we may be having a Government that appears determined to poison the countryside for the sake of a handful of Auber-powerful corporations. Is this an onset of fascism? Are we having a Government of the Corporations, for the Corporations and by the Corporations, while maintaining a thin and crumbling facade of democracy and rule of law?

If any of you know the student of UNBC that is searching for the missing documents about the experimental farm in Bulley-Nachako regional district, that was shut down by the Government, I would request you to pass me her contacts so I can catch up on that story.

This is not the only battle on Josette’s plate. She has the pipeline and the other toxic agendas to fight against too. My heart goes out to this spirited doctor, and member of CAPE (Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment).

For those that might want  to offer a suggestion for Dr. Wier – send me a note.

Canada’s unenviable record of resisting Glyphosate and GMO

Here is something that I wrote, on a long chain of email based discussions on what we Canadians or British Columbians might do, to resist the GMO onslaught.

Hi Dag, and everyone else.

Guess this is a kind of email-brainstorm discussion on the topic. I shall state my feelings on it, if I may, based on Dag’s very good analysis, which is still quite different from mine.
I look at it this way, but am not proposing that everyone else must agree:
  1. Glyphosate is a greater health risk, proven, than GMO. Glyphosate combined with vaccine additives make a drastically more dangerous cocktail of poison. Glyphosate is in more things than just our food, and is killing more than just humans. Glyphosate is now being used even on non-GMO crops as desiccant, so it is expected to have higher concentration on non-GMO food than even on GMO crops. Lastly, without Glyphosate, a majority of the GMO  (roundUp ready crops) will automatically die off. IN other words, eradicating GMO will not stop Glyphosate, but eradicating Glyphosate will more or less kill the largest swatch of GMO. So, at least in my view, Glyphosate is to be the primary target of my energy. The only thing worse is, 2,4-D is coming, together with Glyphosate and smart stacks.
  2. I disagree that Canada in the last ten or twenty years have gone a long way forward  in fighting off GMO. I do not know how to judge public awareness, but by mathematical numbers, the support for fighting off GMO is pitiful in my eyes. Where venues should pack thousands of people, even hundreds of thousands, we see tens and twenties and at times a few hundred. I do not consider this progressing forward. To me this is regressing backward. Further, if I check the details of how many GMO crops Canada managed to stop, and compare than with how many GM crops Canada has allowed in, in the last two decades, I come to the conclusion that Canada is singularly the worst nation in the planet (along with USA) when it comes to approving GM products in our food. Official figures through UNO affiliated bodies say USA and Canada have over 100 GMO products on their food shelves, while Europe has less than ten, and countries like India have just one. So, if I consider we are making progress, then I am in denial, and I am part of the problem, not part of the solution.
  3. When strategizing, I must take into account that GMO and pesticides are entering Canada through our political system, and that both mainstream political parties, i.e. the conservation’s and the liberals, are allowing wholesale introduction of it, much like the republicans and the democrats in the US. NDP has a slightly shrouded agriculture policy that appears to be against GMO and pesticide  but does not spell it out clearly and unambiguously. I have learned to be suspicious of policy statements that are vague and avoids calling a spade a spade. The agriculture policy of the Green Party appears to be the only one that is unmistakably, unambiguously and clearly, against introduction of patented GMO and pesticide laden agriculture, forestry and ecosystem management practices. Not just that but they seem to be the only party that highlights the dangers of the trade deals we are entering into that allow foreign nations and corporations to sue us if we do not import their toxic packages. But then, the Green Party is a long way off from forming a Government.  Some  MLA and MPs have said, including emails to me, that there is no hope for Canada (on the GMO/pesticide issue as well as many others) unless we get proportional representation. However, nobody seems to know how to bring about proportional representation when such policy changes will have to be voted by the very MPs that support the current unjust system. What we have is a mockery of democracy, and the onset of a full blown fascism, and unless we fix that, all the talk about resisting GMO is just that – talk. So, to me, resisting GMO or pesticide cannot be divorced from politics. This is a political problem – a crisis of civilization, and not one of just science or sociology. Our democracy has gone down the toilet.
  4. I am appalled at the apathy of Canadian citizenry, especially of the younger generation that seems to have no time for anything other than be preoccupied with themselves. In that sense, I believe the youth is disconnected in general, but Canadian youth appear to be particularly more self-absorbed and myopic compared to youth of other continents. So, again from my point of view, I am trying within my meagre means to get ordinary citizens to re-engage with the rotten political system of this country. I have been vigorously involved within my means in the local municipal election – supporting good candidates and exposing those that sit on the fence on the GE free issue on my blog (www.tonu.org) naming rogue politicians, mayors and the like and putting up their pictures, as well as highlighting honest politicians that pledge to fight for eradication of GMO and pesticides. I am happy to note the only politician I went door to door to canvas in support of (ms Heather King) won the election in Delta. I am trying to organize a weekly trip to the local town halls where municipalities conduct their business in front of the people, and trying to give a free ride to anyone wanting to attend them from my neighbourhood. I find it appalling that the halls are bare and there are more councillors and municipal staff than there are public attending them. These, to me, are some of the root illnesses of our society, our civilization and our culture – just my view.
  5. In the last provincial election, I went door to door supporting candidates in Surrey, and Langley area that were standing on the Green ticket – not because of the party, but because they had integrity and would not mince their words on GMO and pesticide. They all lost their elections, but that hardly changes my position on what I as a citizen consider my duty of supporting good candidates.
  6. I am contemplating who to support in the next general election and what strategy I might adopt as a citizen. I already have at least one candidate and a very strong personality on anti-GMO and anti-pesticide battle. She is Brandie Harrop of Sherwood Park, Alberta standing on the Green ticket. I have not yet found a similar candidate, of any party or independent, in BC, but the search in on.
  7. I aim to promote and highlight people that make a difference, such as Arzeena Hamir, April Reees, Harold Steves, Sheryl McCumsey, Huguette Allen, Wendy Bales, Josette etc. These are hero and heroines of far greater importance, in my book, than a hundred Vandana Shiva, or Jeffrey Smith, Rachel Parent, or any other name on the horizon. These are people that are trying to “do” something, and not just talk about it and look pretty on tv. And I am always looking out for more of the unsung hero and heroines of Canada. I cannot get enough of them.
  8. I think GE free resolutions are a great starting point, but it needs to go further, and Municipalities need to push the button and find ways to pass bylaws and not just resolutions, on banning on growing GMO, or find ways to make it difficult or uneconomic for GMO / pesticide using farmers. I know legally agriculture in Canada is supposed to be a federal jurisdiction. But I have studied enough of it to know that both Provincial Governments as well as Municipalities can push at this boundary continuously, and preferably with many Municipalities together – to alter the situation. I also come from the land of Gandhi, who said, if there is a law that is unjust, then it is our duty to break that low. Growing clean food should be a basic human right and any law that curtails it is an unjust law in my book. That is part of the civil disobedience that Henry David Thoreau talked about almost two centuries ago.
I do not propose or expect folks here to agree with me much. I am just stating my own analysis on it and what I aim to do about it. I shall join hands with others occasionally where our views overlap.
Yes, we are in it together, but we are not a monolithic pack and I am not here to work under a narrow agenda. Most agendas I have so far seen, appear irrelevant and do not go far enough for me. But, I accept that for a lot of folks, thats all they can do.
By the way, there is a lot of bogus information, ill-information, half-information, or veiled misinformation going around in the name of science, while promoting the notion that GMO and herbicides are good for us and good for the planet. Don’t be swayed by such propaganda of the corporatocracy. Here is an example, that claims to state the “truth about glyphosate“:

Thanks and best wishes
Tony Mitra
.
[More to come here. Watch this space]

Create a demand for Glyphosate lab in Canada

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

  1. Battaglin W.A., Meyer M.T., Kuivila K.M., Dietze J.E.  2014. Glyphosate and its degradation product AMPA occur frequently and widely in US soils, surface water, groundwater, and precipitation.  J. Amer. Water Res. Assoc. 50, 275-290.
  2. U.S. Patent  3,160,632 Stauffer Chemicals 1964
  3. US Patent 3,455,675 Monsanto Chemicals 1969
  4. Fernandez-Cornejo J., Wechsler S.J., Livingston M. and Mitchell L.  2014.  Genetically Engineered crops in the United States.  USDA Economic Research Report No. (ERR-162) 60 pp.   http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/1282246/err162.pdf
  5. EPA 2013 MCL (US Environment Protection Agency legal Maximum Contaminant Levels).
  6. U.S. Patent Number 7,771,736  Monsanto Chemicals 2010.
  7. Shehata, A.A., Schrödl, W., Aldin, A.A., Hafez, H.M. and Krüger, M.   2013. The effect of Glyphosate on potential pathogens and beneficial members of poultry microbiota. Curr. Microbiol. 66:350-358.
  8. Samsel, A. and Seneff, S.  2013.  Glyphosate, pathways to modern diseases II.  Celiac sprue and gluten intolerance. Interdiscip. Toxicol. 6: 159-184
  9. Nelson, D.  2013. A world of cytochrome P450s. Philo. Transac. Royal Soc. London B 368 No 1612.
  10. Samsel, A. and Seneff, S.  2013. Glyphosate’s suppression of cytochrome P450 enzymes and amino acid biosynthesis by the gut microbiome: pathways to modern diseases. Entropy 15: 1416-1463.
  11. Nancy Swanson – Seattle GMO examiner.
  12. Gasnier, C., Dumont, C., Benachour, N., Clair, E., Chagnon, M.C. and Séralini, G.E. 2009.  Glyphosate-based herbicides are toxic and endocrine disruptors in human cell lines. Toxicology 262: 184-191.
  13. Benachour N. and Seralini, G.E.  2009.  Glyphosate induces  apoptosis in human umbilical, embryonic, and placental cells. Chem. Res. Toxicol. 22: 97-105.
  14. Koller, V.G., Fürhacker, M., Nersesyan, A., Mišík, M., Eisenbauer, M. and Knasmueller, S.  2012.  Cytotoxic and DNA-damaging properties of glyphosate and Roundup in human-derived buccal epithelial cells. Arch. Toxicol. 86: 805-813.
  15. Thongprakaisang, S., Thiantanawat, A., Rangkadilok, N., Suriyo, T. and Satayavivad, J. 2013. Glyphosate induces human breast cancer cell growth via estrogen receptors. Food Chem. Toxicol. 59: 129-136.
  16. Senapati ,T., Mukerjee, A.K. and Ghosh, A.R. 2009. Observations on the effect of glyphosate based herbicide on ultrastructure (SEM) and enzymatic activity in different regions of alimentary canal and gill of Channa punctatus (Bloch). J. Crop  Weed 5: 236-245.
  17. Paganelli, A.,  Gnazzo, V.,  Acosta, H.,  López, S.L. and Carrasco, A.E. 2010. Glyphosate herbicides produce teratogenic effects on vertebrates by impairing retinoic acid signaling. Chem. Res. Toxicol. 23: 1586-1595.
  18. Vecchio, L., Cisterna, B., Malatesta, M., Martin, T.E. and Biggiogera, M. 2004. Ultrastructural analysis of testes from mice fed on genetically modified soybean.  Eur. J. Histochem. 48:448-454.
  19. El-Shamei, Z.S.; Gab-Alla, A.A.; Shatta, A.A.; Moussa, E.A.; Rayan, A.M.  2012. Histopathological changes in some organs of male rats fed on genetically modified corn.  J. Am. Sci. 8: 684-696.
  20. Séralini, G.E., Clair, E., Mesnage, R., Gress, S., Defarge, N.,  Malatesta, M., Hennequin, D. and de Vendômois, J.S.  2014. Republished study: Long-term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize. Environ. Sci. Eur. 26:14
  21. Clair. E, Mesnage, R., Travert, C. and Séralini, G.É. 2012. A glyphosate-based herbicide induces necrosis and apoptosis in mature rat testicular cells in vitro, and testosterone decrease at lower levels. Toxicol. in Vitro 26: 269-279.
  22. Kruger, M., Schledorn, P., Schrodl, W., Hoppe, H.W., Lutz, W. and Shehata, A.A.  2014. Detection of glyphosate residues in animals and humans. Environ. & Anal. Toxicol. 4:2
  23. Zobiole, L.H., Kremer, R.J., de Oliveira, R.S. and Constantin, J. 2012. Glyphosate effects on photosynthesis, nutrient accumulation, and nodulation in glyphosate-resistant soybean.  J. Plant Nutri. Soil Sci. 175: 319