Asking Walmart & Safeway about Glyphosate in food they sell

Posted on June 12, 2014 by admin

To, the Manager,
Walmart,
12451 88th Avenue, Surrey, BC, V3W 1P8, (604)-597-7117

Subject: Testing for food sold in Walmart Store, for presence of Glyphosate

Good day,

We, Canadians For Testing Glyphosate, a citizen’s grassroots body, are engaging in a massive citizen driven nationwide program to test if Glyphosate is present in our water and soil, in our body, and in the food sold in our stores, such as in Walmart, Surrey, BC.

In case you are wondering what Glyphosate might be – it is the active ingredient (poison that kills organisms) in Monsanto’s ‘RoundUp’ herbicide weed killer, and what is suspected to be linked to epidemic level rise of a multitude of serious illnesses and deaths, and possible species extinctions in the last 20 years.
In that respect, we intend to test food items from your store such as :

Baby formulae
Cow milk
Bread
Corn
Canola and other cooking oil
Beet
Meat products such as Beef, Chicken and Pork

Our legal team is advising that we do not need to either inform you or take your permission, to test these products, and that we have the right, as citizens living in a free country, to test the food that we buy to eat from any store that is open to public.

However, this letter is sent to seek your opinion on this, and to check if you might like to join us in this test. Good quality tests involving, say the ELISA method (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) costs around $150 or so per test in an accredited lab. We shall be glad if your organization decides to join us by funding some of these “independent” tests on your own products.

We are planning to conduct them any way, but thought it might look better if your store were perceived to be cooperating.

Also, should you have an objection to the testing, i.e. if your position is that we may eat what we buy from you, but we may not test it, I shall appreciate if you shall validate that with a proper statement.

Lastly, we aim to be a transparent organization that let the public know of our involvements in this regard, so this letter, and others like it, may be circulated among members and in social media and internet, for others to either write similar letters, or compose their own.

I shall be more than happy to meet you or speak with you about our effort, and shall be looking forward to any response from you.

Absence of a response will be taken as you do not feel comfortable discussing this matter with us.

Thanking you
On behalf of Canadians for Testing Glyphosate
Tony Mitra
(address)

To, the Management, supplier.support@safeway.com, ecredi@safeway.com
Safeway, Canada
7450 120 St, Surrey, BC, (604) 594-7341

Subject: Testing for food sold in Safeway, for presence of Glyphosate

Good day,

We, Canadians For Testing Glyphosate, a citizen’s grassroots body, are engaging in a massive citizen driven nationwide program to test if Glyphosate is present in our water and soil, in our body, and in the food sold in our stores, such as in Walmart, Surrey, BC.

Baby formulae
Cow milk
Bread
Corn
Canola and other cooking oil
Beet
Meat products such as Beef, Chicken and Pork

We aim to be a transparent organization that let the public know of our involvements in this regard, so this letter, and others like it, may be circulated among members and in social media and internet, for others to either write similar letters, or compose their own.

I shall be more than happy to meet you or speak with you about our effort, and shall be looking forward to any response from you.

Absence of a response will be taken as you do not feel comfortable discussing this matter with us.

Incidentally, we found it rather difficult to locate an applicable contact email for making suggestions to the Manager of the Store in the address given above. In that respect, the Safeway website seemed designed make it difficult for customers to send any email to the management. It seemed designed to tell customers many things, but with no mechanism to listen from them. Thus, we send this message to the only two emails we could locate after some searching around, at http://suppliers.safeway.com/canada/edi_can/edi_contact.asp.

Should this message be better directed to another person or department, I request that this be done.

Thanking you
On behalf of Canadians for Testing Glyphosate
Tony Mitra,
(address)
tony.mitra@gmail.com

Letter to Scott Hamilton, MLA, Delta North, BC

Posted on May 20, 2014 by admin

To MLA Scott Hamilton, North Delta
cc: Jennifer Newman, Constituency Assistant to Minister Steve Thomson, BC Govt.
cc: Ministry of forestry, BC Govt.
cc: MLA Vicky Huntington, South Delta

Subject: Request for data on Pesticide use in BC wood processing industry,

Dear Honorable MLA Hamilton

Good day,

I am an engineer, a citizen journalist, a blogger (www.tonu.org), a podcaster, a videographer and a food security activist.

You are my representative in the legislative assembly of British Columbia, and I have been asked by the secretary of the Minister of Forestry, Mr. Steve Thomson, to approach you with my request. For reference I include an email sent to the honourable Minister Steve Thomson.

We, the citizens of Canada and residents of BC, are concerned about the rising pesticide load on the agricultural land, the forests and the aquatic ecosystem of the province, and wished to check how far the local Government has actually performed independent testing for presence of any potentially harmful substance in our environment that could be attributed to industrial activity.

While this effort is still ongoing, people are getting ready to conduct their own tests, thus bypassing the political process if need be, to find out if harmful contaminants have entered their neighbourhood.

From documents released by Environment Canada, I tried to use the information on latest records of pesticide use in different provinces, and by dividing that with area and population of each province, tried to get a per capita and per unit area pesticide load in a table. I include this table for your reference.

We note from the Environment Canada document, that a high percentage of pesticide use in BC is on wood preservatives, presumably due to concentration of lumber processing plants.

We would therefore like to know what kind of wood preservatives have been used in the past and being use now. Specifically, we are looking for figures, in Kg of toxic metals such as chromium, copper, tin or arsenic.

Further, we wished to know if Tributiltin (TBT) had been or is being used as wood preservative in the province and the Kg amount that may have been used so far.

All these are toxic and harmful to human health. Many of these items are now banned from industrial use in various parts of the world. TBT for example, has been banned from Marine use, where earlier it was used as anti-fouling paint on ships underwater hull, to prevent encrustation of barnacles. This was killing marine lifeforms and is now banned.

Based on information thus received, it is the wish of the people, to engage in conducting tests of the ground water, soil, and human and animal body fluids for the presence of these materials.

Ideally, such tests should have been conducted by the health and/or environment ministry, and not left to the industry which may have a vested and conflict of interest in such tests.

In absence of such tests performed by the BC Government, we plan to do it ourselves.

Meanwhile, we request information, from the Government and through you, on :

A year upon year breakdown of the amount (by weight) of which kind of pesticide has been sold and used in the province.
Specific types of wood preservatives that have been and are being used in the wood processing industry in BC and in which areas these are concentrated.
Has the Govt of BC conducted independent study of presence of toxic chemicals or elements used by the industry, in the environment where they could harm the living planet including humans and livestock? If “yes” I would request for copies of these reports for public consumption.

Since I am part of a large body of grassroots organizers and since many of them are involved in this effort, and since this is a transparent above board effort of the people, this email may be put up on line or circulated for information.
In the coming March Against Monsanto event this May 24th in Vancouver, where thousands are expected to gather, I have been asked to address the people, and would have liked to mention a few elected officials that are working for us in finding the information thus requested.

I would have preferred to get encouraging feedback from the elected politicians, and thus would have mentioned them at the rally. Unfortunately, we have not received a single response from any elected official at the provincial level, although a number of elected Councillors have shown support for the effort, and a few MPs are also considering it.

I would therefore appreciate if you could assist us in finding the right answers to the pesticide distribution in BC, and help reduce cost of endless tests to find out what is more prevalent where. I would be glad to speak with you on phone on this, and pay you a visit should you so prefer. I would also like to take your name, in case you offer help and if you allow, in the march against Monsanto, as an example of an elected MLA that is helping us find further information on this very important issue.

Hoping for a positive response
With much regards
Tony Mitra
10891 Cherry Lane, Delta, BC, V4E 3L7, Canada
tony.mitra@gmail.com

Letter to Mayor Jackson, Delta, BC, about testing for Glyphosate

Posted on May 15, 2014 by admin

To: Ms Lois E. Jackson, Mayor, Delta, BC, mayor@delta.ca

Dated : Thursday, May 15, 2014

Mayor Jackson

Subject: Canadians arranging to test their urine and water for presence of Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer – requesting your moral support

Dear Mayor Jackson,

Good day.

We are a group of concerned Canadians from Delta, BC, and across the land all the way to the east coast of Canada, that are arranging to have our waters, urine, blood and mothers breast milk tested by ourselves, for presence of Monsanto’s week killer Roundup. This is in recognition of fact that a rising tide of serious illness in north America may be linked to an ever increasing release of Glyphosate as a weed killer, as an agricultural desiccant, and an antibiotic, on our agricultural fields as well as out forests and watersheds.

We are in discussion with labs in Canada and the US for suitable bulk quote for such a test and building of data base on the spread of this week killer in human blood, organs and tissues across Canada. There are claims made by Monsanto and other producers of Glyphosate in herbicides that identify this chemical as harmless to animals and only affects plants, and any ingestion is promptly flushed out by humans without accumulation in our body and without causing any harm. As a result EPA has raised the presence of Glyphosate to be considered safe for food to a level several thousand times higher than that in Europe. It has recently been proven by tests conducted on human urine, blood and mothers breast milk, that the claim of safety for humans in false, that it bio-accumulates and crosses several safety boundaries to be able to enter blood and breast milk. Further, it has been established by independent scientists that the item wrecks havoc with our micro-biome which is responsible for producing a lot of our enzymes, vitamins and other essential bio-chemicals which makes it possible for us to function properly.

I personally know and speak with many such scientists, and will provide references to two conversations, one with Dr. Anthony Samsel (http://www.tonu.org/2014/05/14/samsel/) and another with Dr. Stephanie Seneff of MIT (http://www.tonu.org/2014/04/19/stephanie-seneff/) about the harmful effects of Glyphosate. These scientists have been studying Glyphosate for years.

You probably know that an organization in the US, named Moms Across America (MAA) have already started doing such tests by themselves, and some shocking results are coming up, including presence of this toxin in their mothers milk.

So, grassroots groups are joining up across Canada, to arrange for similar testing of human body fluids as well as ground water, for presence of Glyphosate, at their own cost. I am part of it, and am writing to find out if this effort may have your moral support. All we intend to do is find out if the weedkiller is already accumulating in our bodies, and then let the chips fall as they may.

Ideally, such a test should have been conducted by Health Canada, or Environment Canada, or corresponding ministries within individual provinces, or departments of Environment within Municipalities. However, since the Govt has taken no initiative to investigate this potentially huge health risk, citizens are arranging to take initiative in their own hands, bypassing the political establishment.

I write this to you, asking if you might like to lend your support to this effort. We do not seek financial support, nor do we seek your organizational or campaigning support. We simply ask if you are willing to publicly come out in support of this grassroots movement, by lending a few words of encouragement in writing that we can use, or to have your voice recorded and added in future audio podcasts, which will be made to cover this issue.

You are the fourth elected official I write this to, and the first one from a Municipality. I wrote a letter to MP Alex Atamanenko of NDP yesterday after speaking with his legal assistant team. I also wrote two other personalized letters earlier today, to South & North Delta MLAs Ms Vicky Huntington and Scott Hamilton. For now, I am not planning on writing to any more elected politicians. However, this being a transparent grassroots organization that exchanges views with others, I may inform of my effort to reach your office as a sample for others across Canada to consider doing the same in their own areas.

There is a high level of interest by people across Canada. We know about this interest since I am part of a team that have been touring the length and breadth of Canada speaking to folks on invitation, on the potential harm of GMO and pesticides in agriculture and environment on one side, and the need for citizens to take initiative without waiting for politicians on the other side, and have now links with groupings from the east coast of Canada to the west coast, and have a huge number of volunteers ready to send samples for testing, at their own cost. Thats how we know.

I would appreciate your feedback if you consider this effort worth providing your moral support, or not. Absence of any response would be taken as either your disagreement that such a test should at all be conducted to check if Roundup weed killer is accumulating in our bodies, or that you find this movement politically unacceptable in your point of view.

Should you be interested to meet me and a few like minded citizens face to face, I shall be most glad to pay you a visit.

Hoping for a positive response,

With best wishes

Tony Mitra

10891 Cherry Lane, Delta, BC, V4E3L7, Canada

tony.mitra@gmail.com, www.tonu.org 604-649 7535

A letter to the Govt of New Brunswick, department of forest management

Posted on April 20, 2014 by admin

To: Government of New Brunswick – Forestry

Ms Gail Elliott, Administration, Regional Unit

Government of New Brunswick, Canada

cc: Honorable Mr. Hugh J. Flemming, Minister of Health, New Brunswick

cc: Dr. Thierry Vrain, Genetic Engineer, retired, Agriculture Canada,

Subject: Data regarding past annual release quantities of herbicide containing Glyphosate in Forestry and agriculture, in New Brunswick

Dear Ms Elliot

Good day. I am a retired engineer, a nature lover, citizen journalist and blogger, and food safety activist with some contact with the world of scientists on study of Glyphosate and its effects on people and environment.

Dr. Thierry Vrain, copied, is a genetic engineer that worked for 35 years with Agriculture Canada before retiring, and is a critic of GMO and its associated herbicide Glyphosate, on account of health risks and absence of sufficient testing in Canada.

We are coming on invitation to speak to a gathering in Fredericton on the 2nd of May, and would like to invite you and your colleagues to attend the meeting. Details are:

St. Mary’s Anglican Church

780 McEvoy Street

Fredericton, NB E3A 3B7

Friday, May 2nd, 2014

7:00PM-9:00PM

Host: NB Community Harvest Gardens Inc.

www.nbchg.org

info@nbchg.org

I would also like to present to you a recent audio podcast I made through talks with two scientists, Dr. Don Huber, professor emeritus, University of Purdue, and Dr. Stephanie Seneff of MIT, USA. Both these scientists have done extensive research on Glyphosate and its possible harmful effects on living world, both bacteria and higher animals such as wildlife, cattle and humans. We would request you to consider listening to them:

Meanwhile, we request you to kindly provide us, or point us to the right direction where we might find, the year upon year release (use) of the forest herbicide of types Forza, Vision and Vantage Forestry, which are listed in the Government web site on forest management as the brands used on New Brunswick forests, each of which contain Glyphosate as its active ingredient, far as we could see.

We are enclosing one recent article from Dr. Stephanie Seneff and Dr. Anthony Samsel that came out in Interdisciplinary Toxicology for your reference. Perhaps you are already aware of it.

The paper shows links with rapid rise of various disease and release of Glyphosate in agriculture, but the effect may be the same if Glyphosate released on forests got to animals and people.

Anyhow, we have been checking if concerned people can have their blood, urine, or breast milk tested for presence of Glyphosate. This is an initiative recently started in the US by a group named Mothers Across America and the some of the results are rather disturbing, with Glyphosate noted to be present in mothers breast milk in some cases.

We are also checking if similar tests can be done for those Canadians that might be concerned, or live near or downhill of the forests where Glyphosate is being sprayed. There is also an appeal from Deer biologists in New Brunswick that claim that wildlife is under serious harm through Glyphosate exposure.

We wonder if you might be interested to discuss or join hands with us in encouraging independent testing on presence of Glyphosate in humans and animals in New Brunswick. If there is no trace of Glyphosate, the matter can be put to rest and results publicized. If on the other hand results show presence of Glyphosate and if they correlate with people having health issues, then it might indicate a need for further investigation and a kicking in of the precautionary principle.

We understand use of Glyphosate makes business easy, and keeps cost down for the logging industry, but we are sure you will put health of people and environment on a higher priority than just profit for the logging firms.

By copy to Honorable Mr. Hugh Flemming, Minister of health, we are keeping him advised and also extend the request assist us in organizing some sample testing done for presence of Glyphosate within body fluids, of people of New Brunswick that might be living close to areas of Glyphosate application, or are suffering from some of the Chronic diseases such as Celiac, Intestinal infection, Cancer, Kidney injury, renal disease, Parkinson’s, all of which, according to study by Dr. Seneff, Dr. Samsel, Dr. Huber and Dr. Swanson, show strong correlation with increase in application of Glyphosate in USA.

A similar study in Canada would require the data on annual use of Glyphosate and record or reported illnesses, for Canada and also New Brunswick. We request that this data be made available to us.

In case this message should be directed to the another person in the department of forestry, appreciate if you will do that for us.

Hoping to see you or get a chance to shake hands when we are there.

Looking for to your response

With thanks

Tony Mitra

10891 Cherry Lane, Delta, BC, V4E 3L7, Canada

604-649 7535

tony.mitra@gmail.com

www.tonu.org

=======================================

From: Natural Resources Info / Ressources naturelles Info <dnr_mrnweb@gnb.ca>

Subject: RE: Data regarding past annual release quantities of herbicide containing Glyphosate in Forestry and agriculture, in New Brunswick

Date: April 20, 2014 at 5:53:03 PM PDT

Thank you for visiting the Department of Natural Resources Website.

Hours of operation: Monday to Friday, 8:15 am to 4:30 pm.

Your e-mail inquiry was forwarded to the appropriate office. A representative will contact you via e-mail during regular business hours.

Thank you.

************************************************************************

Nous vous remercions d’avoir consulté le site Web du Ministère des Ressources naturelles.

Heures d’ouverture: lundi au vendredi, 8 h 15 à 16 h 30.

Votre courriel a été transmis au bureau approprié. Le ou la représentant(e) communiquera avec vous par courriel pendant les heures normales d’ouvertures.

Merci.

A letter to the minister of Agriculture, PEI

Posted on April 18, 2014 by admin

Honourable George Webster,

Minister of Agriculture

Prince Edward Island

Dated: Friday, April 18, 2014

cc: Minister of health, honourable Mr. Doug W. Curie, PEI

cc: Lori Barker, Executive Director, Canadian Cancer Society, PEI division,

cc: Dr. Thierry Vrain, retired genetic engineer and spokesperson against GMO and pesticides in Agriculture.

Subject : Use of Glyphosate, 2,4-D and other pesticides/herbicides and fungicides in agriculture and cosmetic lawn use in Prince Edward Island and possible links with rise of various illness in the Province.

Dear Honorable Minister Mr. Webster

Good day.

I am an engineer by profession, a resident of British Columbia and a food security activist and citizen journalist on food security and food safety issues, and have a reasonably wide connection with scientists, agriculture policy analysts, NGOs, grassroots organizations, MLA and MPs from multiple continents including in Canada. I was born in India, lived for extended periods in Hong Kong, USA and now in Canada. I am a Canadian citizen.

I write this letter with some concern and questions with regard to health issues that might be of concern for residents of Prince Edward Island. There has been messages and articles and talks about rise of illnesses in Prince Edward Island which may be higher when compared to the rest of Canada. This is on top of awareness that diseases in Canada in general may also be rising rapidly in the past two decades or so. There is more reliable data and research done on the same issue across the border in the US, with Government released data, that shows an alarming rise in various chronic illness from Cancer, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, to leaky guts, Chrone, obesity, diabetes and autism.

There is a rising awareness that some of it may be linked with a corresponding rise in the release of pesticides in the environment, as well as rise in the use of GMO (Genetically modified organisms) that entered into our food chain without any independent safety analysis by anybody within Canada or elsewhere.

Dr. Nancy Swanson had plotted a series of Graphs of rising of the chronic illnesses mentioned in my letter above, and release of Glyphosate, the active ingredient of Monsanto’s herbicide brand named Roundup. She obtained both sets of data (illness records and Glyphosate release) from the respective departments of the US Govt. It shows a striking and uncanny correlation in the rise of illness trend that seems to match to a ’T’ the rise of release of Glyphosate pesticide.

Such correlation graphs show there is a similarity in trend. it does not prove that the illness is directly attributed to the rise in pesticide level. However, such similarity does show a strong possibility that the two might be linked. Therefore, precautionary principle would demand that a serious and independent (meaning not influenced by either Government or pesticide industry) scientific tests be done, especially in labs using scientists that are not funded by the Biotech corporation in any way. Unfortunately, this has never been done by anybody.

So, back to the issue of possible rise in Cancer, obesity and various other illnesses in PEI, I tried to check on two items :

If the Municipalities in PEI have, or have not, passed any bylaw banning the use of cosmetic lawn pesticides.
If anybody tried to get people’s blood, or urine or mothers breast milk, tested for presence of Glyphosate.

I found out that the answer to both are in negative. I would like to get a confirmation of this from your good office.

Further, I am told that the Government of PEI has apparently a special kind of act, or law, in force that limits the ability of the elected Municipal Governments and does not allow them to even pass bylaws banning cosmetic lawn pesticides. This is a routine bylaw passed by many municipalities across Canada. I am not aware of any special law enacted by the Government of PEI that denies this right to its own Municipalities.

I would request you to advise me if this is true, and what the text of that law or act is, and how it may be overturned to allow the PEI municipalities the same rights as the rest of Canada in fulfilling the wish of its people and pushing back at use of poisons for cosmetic purpose.

About the other item, we are a large group of organizations and concerned people in Canada that are looking towards getting the ground water, as well as human urine tested for presence of Glyphosate by a reputed lab. We are in contact with scientists across the border in USA that have helped labs in the US do such tests for people in the US. We are also looking for labs in Canada that might do similar tests without having to send the samples far away.

Based on the results, especially in Prince Edward Island, and especially from people that might be living closer to the agricultural lands and or otherwise exposed to the pesticides, as well as those who are already sick including the children – we are trying to get scientists to agree to analyze the data and come up with their comments and suggestions if there is a cause for concern and if so, what might be the likely environmental factors that are leading to this malady.

I seek your assistance, as well as that of the ministry of health and the local office of Canadian cancer society, in this endeavour. The public will likely take initiative on their own. But it would be better, and look better, if the branches of Government that should be concerned about safety of its people are also on board in this effort.

Incidentally, Dr. Thierry Vrain, retired genetic engineer and myself will be in Prince Edward Island to speak at a gathering to alert the people about potential risks in cultivating and consuming either GMO or food grown with methods that employ heavy use of pesticides. It would be an honour if you all will also attend so we could meet and shake hands.

As a last request, may I ask for data on year upon year release of various pesticides in PEI as well as total reports of diseases such as Cancer, Autism, Obesity, Parkinson’s, leaky guts, Diabetes etc from say the beginning of the 1990s till date, specifically for Prince Edward Island ?

Thanking you and hoping for a response