Agro-toxins and birth defects in Indian Cattle

I got a bunch of photographs from rural India, in the district of Bankura from a farmer I know – Bhairav Saini. A calf was born in his property from a cow he owns, that had an opening in the region where the umbilical chord is attached. As a result of the opening, part of the calfs stomach and intestine had spilled out and was resting on the grass.

Villagers got hold of a veterinarian who, with help of the onlookers, pushed the stomach back inside the stomach cavity and stitched up the opening in the skin. No idea if the diaphragm was damaged or still functional. Dirt and external bacteria likely also entered the calk from the opening since it is highly unlikely that the field operation could be done with proper disinfecting done on parts entering the calf. The calf is reportedly not doing well, and I suspect it will not survive lone and likely will succumb from infection induced as a result. However, perhaps nothing else was possible to be done under the circumstance.

Why did it happen?

The question to ask is – why did this birth defect happen and is it a rare occurrence or an increasingly more frequent birth defect in herbivores. From records on wildlife and domesticated cattle in North America, this kind of birth defect was virtually unknown prior to 1995. It was first noted only in 1995 and has been increasing in frequency ever since. It is perhaps not a coincidence that the practice of directly spraying genetically modified Roundup Ready crops with glyphosate started from the mid 1990s and has since reached astronomical proportions not only through roundup ready GM crops but also by the practice of desiccation where conventional seed crops are sprayed with glyphosate prior machine harvesting.

I contacted wildlife scientist Ms Judy Hoy, cellular biologist Anthony Samsel, plant pathologist Don Huber and others regarding this birth defect. The malady might be identified as herniated umbilicus, where the opening for the umbilical chord does not get closed, and the stomach spills out at birth. Don Huber said this defect also qualifies as Spina Bifida. Gastroschesis is the medical term when organs end up outside of their designated body cavity – as identified by Anthony Samsel. This defect was apparently unheard off prior to 1995. But since then, it has been seen with increasing frequency among gazing animals both wild and domesticated. It is suspected that whatever they are grazing, is allowing unwanted toxins to enter the body of the pregnant mother, which in turn is causing serious birth defects.

Why is 1995 significant?

Judy Hoy did not tell me why 1995 is significant, but I have explained already that direct spraying of glyphosate on food crops started at the time. Whatever was sprayed on the seed crops, would also remain in the stocks, which often became animal feed.

However, Bhairav Saini grows organic food. He does not use industrial pesticides on his field. Other than clean food, he only bought store bought wheat (cheapest wheat available) for the cow. I am still trying to find out if that cheap “ration” wheat is produced in Punjab and if they have started the practice of desiccating wheat with glyphosate prior to machine harvesting. Alternately, if the cheap wheat is imported, where does India import its wheat from ? I know they are importing toxic lentils from Australia and Canada.

Anthony Samsel has noted that presence of glyphosate already increases certain heavy metals such as lead (Pb) and Cadmium (Cd) in crops. If pregnant mothers are exposed, both of these heavy metals can by themselves be instrumental in triggering serious birth defects. If glyphosate is also present in the feed, then it could be indirectly involved as a catalyst. These issues need further study, and we wait for Anthony Samsel to complete his investigation. I do not know of anyone else anywhere on earth that is actually trying to study these issues at the level of cellular biology. Unfortunately neither the industry nor the government provides any funds for such research and scientists often have to scrounge around for pennies, or sell personal property, to raise funds to continue such research.

Indian agriculture policy is designed to make small farmers go extinct. Western policy on scientific research is designed to make independent research scholars like Antony Samsel to go extinct too, so independently verified information will not be available anywhere on earth regarding problems of using agro-toxins. Honest scientists in the west and honest farmers in the east, are both to go the way of the dodo.

I shall come back here to complete this issue as more information comes to light. Meanwhile, my thanks go to farmer Bhairav Saini for taking the pictures, research scholar Soumik Banerjee for contacting me about it, wildlife scientist Judy Hoy for her diagnosis of the birth defect and Anthony Samsel for his input on glyphosate and heavy metal link to such birth defects.

One thing is for certain – this malady, in domestic cattle, herbivorous wildlife and in humans, is going to appear in increasing frequency, in the coming decade.

Welcome to modern agriculture.

 

The story behind CFIA testing food for glyphosate

There is more to a story than what goes around. I have seen enough part truths and veiled truths about how CFIA test results ended on my table, that resulted in writing of the book “Poison Foods of North America”.

The story going around is that the Canadian Government might have tested foods for glyphosate merely because WHO made a declaration that glyphosate was a probably human carcinogen. This is not true. Canada does not have the reputation of being that concerned about food safety. Had that not been the case, Canada would not be the producer of the most toxic foods of all, along with the US.

The story started long before WHO declared carcinogenicity of glyphosate. First, it started with me getting acquainted with scientists such as Anthony Samsel, Stephanie Seneff, Don Huber and Thierry Vrain, and being convinced that I should pay a lot more attention to the ravages of glyphosate and stop being fixated at GMO along. I needed to understand that Roundup Ready GM crops were first invented in order to sell more glyphosate, and that glyphosate was far and away the most sold biocide on earth and it was far more dangerous than DDT that was banned back in the 1960s. It was then that I got the first jolt. I had completed touring Canada with Thierry Vrain in 2014. It started with me getting fed up with the anti-GMO groups that refused to join hands with me to start asking questions to the government and to force them to a) disclose hitherto hidden safety documents and to b) start finding ways to test food for glyphosate.

MP Atamanenko

It took me a few hundred calls to the Canadian labs to eventually discover that Canada not only never tested food for glyphosate, which was being used in Canadian agriculture for more than 40 years, but that there was not a single registered lab in Canada that would test food for glyphosate. A very small number of labs tested glyphosate at the time, but only in samples of soil and water. Nothing else.

Sure, they could test food if needed. But they had to devise protocol for same, get accredited and spend a lot of money to set up new sections in their lab, where new instruments would be used, without contaminating sections where soil and water were tested for glyphosate. All this costs money. Since the Government and the medical system was not asking for testing of foods for glyphosate, there was no market for it. Tony Mitra asking for a handful of samples was not a reasonable market indication.

It was then that I started writing to the Government, starting with the Health Ministry under the then Harper Government, to do something so that labs start testing foods for glyphosate – the most used herbicide in Canada. My efforts caught the attention of MP Alex Atamanenko, who called me up from Ottawa and asked for a copy of my letter to the health minister Ms Rona Ambrose. He took that letter, added his own cover letter and demanded that Ms Ambrose responds to my letter and makes a statement on why Canada has no lab that would test glyphosate in food and why the government was not testing the most used herbicide in Canadian agriculture.

That, more than WHO declaring glyphosate as a probable carcinogen, got the government to start testing glyphosate in all foods. Had the Government really been concerned about cancer risk, then it would have done an honest job of analyzing the results and discovering that Canada produces the most toxic foods on the planet along with the US, and would have done something to arrest the toxic avalanche. But Canada did not take any of the corrective measure. Instead, to hide the fact that Canadian foods were more toxic than other countries, it mixed all results, took an average, which was much lower than Canadian figures and make a blank and dishonest declaration in April 2016, that CFIA has done the tests and found foods to be quite alright.

Anyhow, here is my 22 minute rant on the issue.

 

Glyphosate references

There is a very powerful global effort to censure and restrict all efforts to expose problems with glyphosate. The effort comes from the industry and influences governments, media, and academia. The level fo witch hunt would put the days of Copernicus and Joan of Arc to shame.

Science has thus been degraded so much that it has lost its neutrality, its objectivity, its honesty and its relevance in determining safety of agrochemicals – pushing us back to worse times than the Russian block faced during the dark Soviet era of state controlled propaganda and suppression of dissent. Consequently, many citizens like me have developed extreme suspicion about anything that comes out of the government or the industry, and consider most of them are packs of lies.

When it comes to glyphosate, it is therefore the view of public that are aware, is that honest debate on glyphosate is an oxymoron. First, industry’s stronghold on science has to be removed, then independent research without influence of industry or politicians or government officials have to be encouraged. Documents and research papers have to be allowed to accumulate and add to the body of science without censure for twenty years. Let the chips fall where they may. After that, honest debate on the science of glyphosate may be possible. Right now, I am more interested to encourage the citizens to stand up against a government that is showing signs of extreme corruption and blindness an through out politicians that act as lap dogs of the industry rather than protector fo the people.

And yet, I do get called time to time from institutions including agricultural colleges, in India, to speak my mind. India has not yet gone completely over to the dark side like the western institutions. But India is on the way. Anyhow, they still have enough people including educated young, to not only understand and believe that the industry has spoiled science, has spoiled agriculture, food, healthcare and environment, and resistance is necessary.

Thus, I have this blog to list some references for people interested, to see what was said by the slim number of scientists that tried to alert us about glyphosate and about the GM technology.

Some universities requested that my presentation should provided reference material too, with regard to science behind glyphosate’s toxicity. The request might look justified, but it poses problems because what we have today in the name of science is a very far cry from what the western society promotes. Remember the days of the Soviet Union. We were told that they use propaganda for science and severely suppress dissent. Most of that is true. However, the wheel has not turned. There is no Soviet Union. But the west has taken up the tactic, and its corporate industry uses all its combined might to control governments, media and science. Nothing can be researched by scientific institutions without their permission. Nothing can be approved or disapproved by any Government without their say so. Nothing can be published anywhere without their consent.

Therefore, finding honest research that discovered toxicity of glyphosate in normal academic literature might be similar to the famed Bengali saying – সোনার পাথরবাটি – which means stone utensils made of gold – an oxymoron. If it is made of stone, it cannot be made of gold and vice versa. If science on glyphosate has been captured by the industry then there is not going to be research on adverse effects of glyphosate. Duh !

Nonetheless, it is not a homogenous world, and even the industry with all its financial clout, slips up. So there are increasing amounts of documents here and there, and the witch hunt that goes on to attack scientists that dare speak against glyphosate.

1) Anthony Samsel – Stephanie Seneff’s research work
I have already created a blog with all peer reviewed papers of Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff. These can be found here.

in my view, no other group of scientists have done as much research and unearthed as much detail on how many ways glyphosate hurts all living biology including humans. It is therefore not surprising that Samsel and Seneff faced attack as well as censure. Even publications such as GM watch would cover Seralini but not Samsel-Seneff. Monsanto and some governments tried to get the publisher of the Journal ENTROPY to pull their first paper on glyphosate interfering with cyp-450.  The publisher sent them a letter that it was going to be pulled, but the US editor of the Journal ENTROPY came to their defense and argued with the publisher. The publisher resolved the controversy and then posted a journal position that they would not be adversely  influenced by the opinions and demands of both GOVERNMENTS or corporations.  Thus the paper still stands.  The set of 6 glyphosate papers by Samsel and Seneff have had more than 60,000 reads and hundreds of Journal citations at Research Gate by academics in over 100 countries. When their first paper was published WIKIPEDIA added the Samsel and Seneff knowledge to the Glyphosate page.  Within a few days an argument ensued by reviewers and WIKIPEDIA took all of the information down.  I watched the arguments online at WKI.  We have never been referenced by WIKIPEDIA since.  It is suspected that Monsanto was responsible for removing Samsel and Seneff from the Wikipedia page on Glyphosate. One can assume with some justification that the industry is comfortable defending some of the others, but are alarmed at Samsel and Seneff, enough to get them be de-listed from Wikipedia.

2) Glyphosate disturbing honey bee microbiome

Glyphosate perturbs the gut microbiota of honey bees. The abstract says:

Glyphosate, the primary herbicide used globally for weed control, targets the 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS) enzyme in the shikimate pathway found in plants and some microorganisms. Thus, glyphosate may affect bacterial symbionts of animals living near agricultural sites, including pollinators such as bees. The honey bee gut microbiota is dominated by eight bacterial species that promote weight gain and reduce pathogen susceptibility. The gene encoding EPSPS is present in almost all sequenced genomes of bee gut bacteria, indicating that they are potentially susceptible to glyphosate. We demonstrated that the relative and absolute abundances of dominant gut microbiota species are decreased in bees exposed to glyphosate at concen- trations documented in the environment. Glyphosate exposure of young workers increased mortality of bees subsequently exposed to the opportunistic pathogen Serratia marcescens. Members of the bee gut microbiota varied in susceptibility to glyphosate, largely corresponding to whether they possessed an EPSPS of class I (sensitive to glyphosate) or class II (insensitive to glyphosate). This basis for differences in sensitivity was confirmed using in vitro experiments in which the EPSPS gene from bee gut bacte- ria was cloned into Escherichia coli. All strains of the core bee gut species, Snodgrassella alvi, encode a sensitive class I EPSPS, and reduction in S. alvi levels was a consistent experimental result. However, some S. alvi strains appear to possess an alternative mechanism of glyphosate resistance. Thus, exposure of bees to glyphosate can perturb their beneficial gut microbiota, potentially affecting bee health and their effectiveness as pollinators.

My point is – if it can hurt bee microbiome, it can hurt human microbiome too. But instead of arguing about it, I’d like folks to start testing on lab mammals.

3) Three papers from Channa Jayasumana (Sri Lanka)

a) Glyphosate, Hard Water and Nephrotoxic Metals: Are They the Culprits Behind the Epidemic of Chronic Kidney Disease of Unknown Etiology in Sri Lanka?
b) Simultaneous exposure to multiple heavy metals and glyphosate may contribute to Sri Lankan agricultural nephropathy.
c) Drinking well water and occupational exposure to Herbicides is associated with chronic kidney disease, in Padavi-Sripura, Sri Lanka.

4) Andres Carrasco
The story of the Pampas. This vast stretch of plains in Argentina used to be teaming with wildlife.
Glyphosate-Based Herbicides Produce Teratogenic Effects on Vertebrates by Impairing Retinoic Acid Signaling.

5) Gilles-Eric Séralini
Republished study: long-term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerantgenetically modified maize
.

6) Árpád Pusztai
Pusztai’s case is a classic example of censuring of scientific research that questions products that harm the people but enhances corporate profit. He was commissioned by the British Government to check safety of genetically engineered potato. He found them to be potentially harmful. He got sacked. His findings published in journals on this topic, got retracted. Later, the medical journal “The Lancet” published it not as an article but as a letter. Pusztai, 36 years working in the UK, saw his career in UK ended because of objecting to GM crop of Monsanto. The most famous toxicologist in Europe got sacked for disagreeing that GM crops where safe.
Effect of diets containing genetically modified potatoes expressingGalanthus nivalis lectin on rat small intestine
.

7) Emails between wildlife scientist Judy Hoy & Justin Gude of MDFWP.
Link file.

8) Dr. Mercola on Obama signing the “Monsanto Protection Act.

Continued …

Glyphosate, the endocrine killer

This is my second attempt at flyer or hand bill making, covering another aspect of glyphosate – as an endocrine disruptor. This one is not easy to explain in vernacular language. There are no local words for some of the terminology. Also the mechanism of endocrine system is a bit complex. But I have done the best I could.

To my engineer’s logic, endocrine system is a sort of remote control mechanism, not too unlike the TV remote we use to flip channels. Whereas the TV remote often works wirelessly with infra-red light, or some other band of the electromagnetic spectrum, the endocrine system inside our body works wirelessly through chemical signalling. One can think of it as a chemical messaging system, whereby certain glands in our body manages to control distant organs, without the use of “wires” or our nerves.

The glands that are often associated with releasing such chemical signals are pituitary, pineal, thyroid, adrenal, pancreas, ovary (females) and testes (males).

The liquid chemicals that carry such signals are often called hormones. These hormones can be proteins, but not always. There are generally four derivatives, from amino acids, proteins, fatty acids and cholesterol.

Apart from these, there are other glands/organs that too produce chemical substances, sometimes called peptides, which also perform functions in remote parts. In fact, the placenta for pregnant women, which nurture a fetus through gestation is also considered to be a kind of a gland which does release specific chemicals to induce specific growth related steps in the fetus. Unlike the rest, a placenta is for one time use and is discarded after childbirth. When and if the woman gets pregnant again, a new placenta is formed within which the new fetus is nurtured.

The problem with glyphosate is – it throws a spanner into the endocrine works. As a result, one can have hormones released at the wrong time, or in wrong quantity or in defective condition or of inferior quality so they do not perform as intended.

Unfortunately, the medical establishment as well as the state is often tight lipped about it, due to the power and influence of the Pharma and agro industry.

The job of resisting this menace therefore, rests largely on the citizens. Good news is – many provinces in India are now, one by one, legislating restrictions on use of glyphosate. Bad news is, it is not yet happening in West Bengal. Without rising public pressure, it is not going to happen soon. This is where the citizens need to get involved.

The story of glyphosate does not end here. This is to be gradually released.
Thank you.

Glyphosate for rural Bengal

As my days in India is slowly drawing to a close, I have become hard pressed to complete various writings, mainly focussed on glyphosate as an unwanted element in our food web, but also including problems relating to Government policy on agriculture from scientific standpoint as well as socio-economic issues where small holder farmers are perhaps to be forced out of farming by design, so agriculture can be captured by corporations and share holders, for profit, while food sovereignty, food safety as well as welfare of hundreds of millions of farmers and health concerns of over a billion citizens are up for grabs.

The issues here are complex. Most Indians I meet, know less than zero about almost any of it. Very very few people ever heard the name Codex Alimentarius, or glyphosate, or amino acid. Very few understand how our body actually processes food.

To write about these, for the average folks, and that too in vernacular language where many of the English technical terms do not have a suitable local word due to non-use, is not easy for someone like me.

Nonetheless, I understand that such literature is required, in English as well as in local languages. I also understand that, for various reasons, I might be among the best suited to compose such material.

Consequently, I wrote this one page flyer, or hand bill, which can not only be shared on social media which, at the end of the day, may not be the best way in my view in achieving direct measurable positive result on the ground, but also be printed and posted in rural areas where village folks could read the local language. If the text is simplified to the degree where it is comprehensible to the layman – all the better.

This is my first attempt, on the property of chelation by glyphosate and how that affects us. Since they say a picture is worth a thousand words, I included a picture of hemoglobin protein, which is mentioned in the text. I borrowed the image from the internet, since I did not have the time to draw it from scratch. I added a few Bengali words on it.

I shall perhaps repeat that in English too. While I can speak and read Hindi, unfortunately I am not good at writing it any more, although I could do that as a child. So I cannot do it in Hindi at this point of time.

Skyrocketing MRL by Codex

To : Dr. D. Kanungo, dkanungo@nic.in

Date : Friday, March 8, 2019

Subject : Codex Alimentarius – 38th Session of the Codex Committee on Pesticides, Fortaleza, Brazil, April 2006 – setting of safe MRL for glyphosate in food and feed.

Dr. Kanungo,

You were mentioned at the top of the Indian delegation that attended the above Codex meeting in Brazil in April 2006, when MRL levels of glyphosate in many food and feed items were agreed upon, as reproduced here. I have a few questions to you in this regard. 

Glyphosate MRL set for banana is 50 ppb (parts per billion) or 0.05 mg/kg, while the same for Maize is 5,000 ppb and that for unprocessed wheat bran is 20,000. Do you have actual proof that only 50 is safe for banana while much higher values for Maize and even higher for wheat bran are also safe? If you have seen these proofs I request you to make it available to me or to the people of India.

However, selected reports from scientists claiming they have checked and found glyphosate to be safe at this or that level – is not proof. Rather, these are third party opinions, which can always be selectively filtered to promote a false idea of safety. Actual proof of safety consists of raw data and supporting report of actual tests conducted, involving test animals, say rats. A group of such animals are subjected to a measured dose of glyphosate in their food, while an identical group of animal are also observed, living an identical lifestyle and eating identical food, but without any glyphosate. Health parameters of these two groups are recorded for their entire life span, say two years, and then onto the next generation’s lifetime, totalling perhaps three or four years. This comparison is usually the basis by which the testing team prepares their report on if that level of concentration of glyphosate in that kind of food does or does not increase health risks to the target animals. For example, if the clean eating rats show up a natural rate cancer or another specific disease in 5 percent of the population, and if the rate for the same disease in glyphosate exposed population turns out to be 10 percent, then the test team might conclude that glyphosate, at that specific dose in that kind of food, doubles the cancer risk to the test animal.

I suspect India does not conduct such tests, and has been getting documents under control of the very industry that benefits from sale of the biocide such as glyphosate, presenting a conflict of interest. I am also aware that even such suspected compromised proof of safety has been kept hidden by the Government of India.

This letter is to see if your group actually knew anything about the safety of glyphosate and might be wiling to share it with the public, or if the Indian delegation might have been pressured by the government or the industry or the lobby, to support the industry by perhaps overlooking public safety. I have noted from the Codex documentation, that the Indian group did not object to the MRL limits.

I have reason to suspect India is being mass poisoned by imported pulses and grains that contain extremely high levels of glyphosate, under the argument that such levels of glyphosate contamination is deemed safe by the Codex, one that your group accepted back in 2006. I suspect this mass poisoning is one of the root causes behind the runaway rise of multiple groups of diseases in the country, as well as forcing more Indian pule farmers into insolvency. Hence I write this letter in an effort to get to the truth of why India agreed to setting such arbitrary and unproven levels of MRL for glyphosate in food.

This letter is for the benefit of the people of India, and may be shared with  the public, along with any response received, or not received.

Hoping for a response,

Santanu Mitra

49/65 Prince Gulam Mohd Shah Road, Golf Gardens, Kolkata 700033

9831713068

Copied to:

1) Ram Vilas Paswan, Minister of Food – ramvilas.p@sansad.nic.in
2) Tapan Kanti Rudra IAS – FSSAI West Bengal – cfswb10@gmail.com
3) Ms. Ministhy S., FSSAI Uttar Pradesh – commissionerfda.up@gmail.com,
fdaupgov@gmail.com
4) Smt A Shanthi Kumar, FSSAI Telengana – prlsecy_hmfw@telangana.gov.in
telanganacfs@gmail.com
5) Sh. Vishal Chauhan, FSSAI Sikkim – healthsecyskm@yahoo.com
6) Sh. K.S. Pannu, FSSAI Punjab – md_phsc@yahoo.in
7) Dr. V. Candavelou, FSSAI Puducherry – secywel.pon@nic.in
8) Ms. Archana Patnaik, FSSAI Odisha – foodsafetyodisha@gmail.com
9) Dr Pallavi Darade, FSSAI Maharashtra – comm.fda-mah@nic.in
10) Dr. Rathan U Kelkar, FSSAI Kerala – foodsafetykerala@gmail.com
11) Smt. Poonam Markundaya, FSSAI Andhra Pradesh – peshichfw@gmail.com,
cfwhyd@yahoo.com

Books

In the last twenty years or so, proportion of printed books I read by flipping physical pages have greatly reduced, while electronic or e-book I read from my iPad, and audiobooks I “listen to”, have dramatically increased.

There are many reasons. The first – I have always been a very heavy reader, right from my childhood. Consequently, I simply ran out of space to store all this many books, no matter how many book shelves I buy, in multiple homes spread across multiple continents where I stayed at one time or another.

The other reason is – I do not usually go for popular novels, or fiction. An overwhelmingly high number of the books I read are non-fiction, and educational I nature. Example – I have not read even one Harry Potter book, but have read around half a dozen of Charles Darwin alone. Unfortunately, there has not been munch interest in reading such books by my family members. In other words, I am the only one reading my kind of books in my home. After I have read one – it just becomes a space consuming dead weight never to be touched by a human hand again.

Ultimately such a book will likely become expensive fuel for someone’s wood burning fireplace, if one still has such a contraption.

Consequently, I have more electronically delivered books, than printed ones. They take up virtually no space. My iPad can store several hundred e-books. My computer can store thousands of e-Books and audio books. My phone too can store a hundred audio books at any time easily, and help me “listen” to them while siting along at a cafe, or having dinner by myself, or even when sitting on the potty. I have not counted how many such books I have across multiple formats and in multiple languages, but my rough guess is, it should be above 500 and less than a thousand.
This is not counting all the printed books I have bought or been presented with.

The images here are a minuscule sample of them – but a pattern can be seen here. I have spent a lot of time understanding human beings – their history, their evolution, their track record and their projected path into the near future. Part of it can be attributed to natural curiosity. Where did I come from. Where am I going. Added to that, is a near solidified belief that the planetary environment on earth is going to become major obstacles to life as usual for the living planet, and business as usual for the human society. These roadblocks or major environmental obstacles will not be of extra terrestrial origin, such as an asteroid strike. Nor will they be geologic, like massive volcanism from the earth’s core. They will be created at the surface and be a direct result of human interference.

My belief has hardened over a long period of observation of the rapidly changing world around me, and supplemented by books from on history to economy to paleoanthropology.

I no longer believe man to be God’s finest creation – first because man is not the finest but the worst creature on earth, which in turn proves the second point – that God does not exist, else He could never have made such a humongous blunder of creating humans in the first place.

Besides, the history of evolution of life has proved, time and time again, that once in a while a creature evolves with what appears to be super-competitive traits, and begins to sort of dominate the planet. But then, soon enough, the qualities that made the animal competitive begins to turn against him or his environment, and eventually, the creature goes extinct, to be replaced by another group of a wholly different model type.



Dinosaurs, as a group, lasted almost 160 million years on earth. It needed a massive asteroid strike to put at end to their reign.

In comparison, modern humans have been here for a mere 50 thousand years and we have cooked as well as poisoned and rotted the planet is such a short time in breathtaking speed, so much so that we ourselves have to go and will are taking most of the living world with us.

One interesting side note is – noting the control that the religious groups still exert on freedom of expression. Two hundred years after Darwin’s writings, his three books on evolution by natural selection of all creatures except humans are freely available across formats. However the one book, which applies the same logic to origin of Humans, namely the book “Descent of Man” is heavily restricted. There is no audiobook on it so far by reputed content providers, which I find incredible. You can, thankfully, still get an e-book and a printed book. You can also get chapter by chapter audio rendition of the book free of charge by the volunteer organization such as LibriVox.

But even the advertisement for the printed version is careful enough to describe the book as describing the “controversial theory of evolution”.

There is nothing controversial about evolution, in my mind. The only controversy involves the stupidity of man and the extraordinary control that bigots have on free speech in the very western society that boasts of freedom of speech.

Anyhow, this short post on books is perhaps a window to my search of my own identity. A line from a Bengali song of Tagore rings true, so I added it – my quest to understand myself is never going to end.

Yogendra Yadav misses the bus

Before it gets into my book as a chapter, it needs to be preserved on my blog as a post.

My job is not to take people down per se, but to chronicle the anatomy of India’s agricultural collapse, which I believe is going to happen sooner or later.

Also, I now believe India to play the end game in the global destruction of agriculture, as one of the precursor to the ecological collapse that the planet is also facing, of which one part, mass extinction, is now ongoing.

In that context, I feel it important to chronicle this anatomy of a failure from another angle. Sustainability is being euthanized by politicians of all hue. They cannot help it. It is in the global political DNA. It is up to the people, to fix it, or let it continue. But then, human society too has the DNA equivalent of the lemming.

And so the story goes …

Avik Saha and Yogendra Yadav spoke at the NUJS university hall on the 20th about Farmer distress and democracy. I went to attend it, along with Rabin Banerji. I found another person I knew there – Somnath Mukherjee of AID, New Jersey, USA.

I had a lot of expectation, being aware of how they were evicted from AAP some years ago, and how they promoted clean politics as al alternative platform for a new India.

But I have been greatly disappointed with the talks. I consider this to be a lesson that political change may not come to India from political leaders of any hue, and that the people would have to wrench the mantle away from leaders and take initiative at grassroots level. How such a movement lead by millions of people can succeed without a head – I have no idea. But the heads have gone toxic, or have lost the clue, has been amply demonstrated repeatedly across the world, across India, and once again demonstrated by the least likely of the candidates – Yogendra Yadav and Avik Saha of the Swaraj Abhiyan movement. This also proves, sadly, politicians are politicians first, everything else later.

I decided to place this observation on my blog, to be perhaps incorporated into a book to cover my trip in India, since India is in many ways the epicentre of the endgame representing the global destruction of sustainable farming. I had given my impression already on the social media of Facebook. But here, it can be better preserved.

To put it briefly and bluntly, I have not been impressed by Mr. Yadav. Mr. Saha has little to say of real substance other than bringing issues to the court. Yadav’s comments were, to me, far more relevant and damaging, to Indian agriculture and the farming community.

While their intension may be honest & noble, which I now begin to question, I was surprised by some seriously disastrous points that Yadav promoted such as wanting to lift all trade restrictions on agriculture, while in fact India is already reeling under hundreds of millions of tons of toxic pulses being imported from Canada/Australia, thus mass poisoning the people on one side and pushing more Indian farmers to insolvency on the other. I am thunderstruck that Yadav would propose more of the same.

He also missed the bus on a number of major issues that bug India relating to impending loss of food sovereignty by capture of the food web by local and foreign corporations, doling out highly toxic food in the process, linked with an impending collapse of the healthcare and agriculture system from this disasterous policy grounded in Anericanisation of Indian agriculture, wrong syllabus being adopted in agriculture colleges and a systen designed to finish off indian farmers & farming.

And talking about democracy – both of them failed to nail the coffin by stating that the most important stakeholder in democracy is the citizen – that democracy has been hijacked – and that the cause of the failure is the citizens of India abdicating its most important duty, of vigilance and upkeep of the democratic process, instead of watching cricket, Bollywood movies or aping the west. He failed to identify one of the root causes of the degradation of the Indian society is that education and English language has now become a path to cultural slavery of the US. Yadav spoke about “Desi modernism” but appeared to lack 20/20 vision on the very definition of either Desi or Modernism.

He mentioned a book about the great Irish potato Famine. I would have suggested he reads Tagore’s 1922 English essay – “Robbery of the Soil”, if he had allowed me to speak during the question and answer session.

I am done with these two gentlemen.

No matter what happens to their personal standing and stature, they cannot provide solution to India’s agrarian crisis, food sovereignty crisis or related healthcare crisis by selectively missing out major root causes.

They arrived an hour late, keeping everyone waiting – I seriously dislike public figures who take the public for granted and waste their time.

Even worse, they had no time for me to voice my concerns during the question and answer session, since they were short of time and only allowed a few students to ask questions, none of which covered my points. What a waste of effort and time at least on my part.

Sad.
Listening to Yadav, one could bid goodbye to India’s sustainable, farmer and people friendly agriculture, to be euthanized by new age Indian politicians of all hue. Rest in peace, Indian farming. You had a great run for over five thousand years, before politicians learn to poison it all. It’s time to say good bye.

Tony Mitra

Bayer Acquisition – Exit glyphosate, enter glufosinate ?

headline of the week mentions Bayer, the new owners of Monsanto, declaring a decision to have summaries of safety test studies on glyphosate made pubic on its transparency platform. In my view, such headlines are misleading and might not cover the whole truth.

The story starts in the early 1970s in the US, when Monsanto submitted these safetyy test documents on glyphosate to the Environment Protection Agency (EPA).

Not every nation is falling for poisoning itself with glyphosate. There are a small group of small nations that are ahead of the rest of the planet and attempting to preserve nature, flora, fauna and agriculture, and thus preserve all life, humans included. One could take their example.

The papers should have included proof that presence of glyphosate in food did not harm humans or animals.

Such proof usually involves laboratory tests on health of two groups of identical animals, where one group was exposed to glyphosate in their food, while the other lived the same lifestyle and ate the same food, but without glyphosate. The comparison of health parameters of these two groups, are used to determine if glyphosate makes the test animals sick compared to the other group, or not.

Such safety test report should contain both the summary report from the scientists conducting the tests, as well as all the supporting raw data, based on which these summaries were made.

Finally, the regulatory authority, such as the EPA, is obliged to make these safety test reports and data public, and subject to public scrutiny.

North America started with glyphosate first and has used it the most. As a result it is perhaps unsurprising, that their foods are the most toxic with glyphosate poisoning, as tested by the Canadian Government and shown in the book ‘Poison Foods of North America’ by Tony Mitra.

What makes glyphosate unique, along with some other related GM products, is that these safety test reports, records and raw data have been kept hidden from public for over 45 years now, by all governments everywhere. Meanwhile the public is bombarded by a plethora of unsubstantiated “independent scientific reports” that declare glyphosate to be safe. These independent reports, without supporting data, are just third party opinions and worth little more than bad quality toilet paper.

However, the table might be turning now, with an unbelievable rise of hitherto unknown or uncommon diseases suspected linked to glyphosate. However, there is not too much of independent research going on about glyphosate, primarily because the biotech corporations have mostly managed to control the research.

One of the most disturbing identity of glyphosate is that it biologically mimics glycine, one of the twenty amino acids that make up all the proteins. Only glufosinate is comparable in the sense that it mimics glutamate, another of the 20 amino acids that form the building block of all life. Unfortunately, there is insufficient research being conducted anywhere, on these aspects of glyphosate, and also glufosinate, in destroying everybody’s biology, by molecular mimicry and wrongful entry into our proteins.

Anyhow, things might be changing, as things sometime do. Many smaller nations have started banning glyphosate. Many states and regions within nations, such as in India and Sri Lanka, are selectively or regionally banning glyphosate. A key court case in the US has gone against Monsanto, where glyphosate was accepted as the reason behind the litigant, Mr. Dewayne Johnson, getting terminally ill with cancer.

Anyhow, Monsanto has now been purchased by Bayer, who is killing the Monsanto name because of the negativity attached to the company.

Under this backdrop, comes this news that the so called “transparency platform” of Bayer, will disclose “summaries” on glyphosate safety studies. I personally have a poor opinion on such summaries mainly because they usually lack supporting raw data and proof of safety, and because Monsanto had been tightly controlling past research on glyphosate and only allowed flattering reports to get published.

We shall not know the full truth about glyphosate’s safety, irrespective of smokes and mirrors from Bayer’s transparency platform without honest independent research outside of control of the biotech industry.

Independent nations should not accept safe limits for glyphosate as set by the western nations with a vested interest or the international bodies such as Codex Alimentarius that have long been infiltrated by corporate lobbies. They need to either conduct independent and unbiased test of glyphosate themselves and set their own safety standard, or ban glyphosate from their agriculture. Farsighted nations are already doing that, such as Venezuela, Mali, Nepal, Bhutan, Senegal and Bolivia. France and Germany are reportedly looking for a way out of glyphosate dependent agriculture. When will the rest of the world wake up ?

It is good to remember that institutions such as Codex Alimentarius has long been infiltrated by biotech lobbies promoted by the US and US controlled regions, to the extent that today member nations have less say than these corporations. Nations such as India would be sacrificing its food sovereignty and the future of its own farming and farmers, by following safety limits on glyphosate set by Codex Alimentarius instead of banning it first and checking its safety independently later if it likes. . Note how the US and UK opposes establishment of worldwide for sovereignty rights to farmers and nations.

So what is behind this Bayer’s disclosure regarding a possibly selective and partial transparency on glyphosate safety?

Well, some of my scientist friends, such as Thierry Vrain of Canada, suspect that glyphosate has gotten so controversial and indefensible that Bayer may be planning to kill Glyphosate, and replace it with their own glufosinate. Phasing out glyphosate might need dexterity if Bayer wants to avoid being sued into bankrupcy. Is this transparency ploy an attempt to engineer a safe exit for glyphosate and a safe entry for glufosinate?

After all, Bayer’s baby – glufosinate, is the only other broad spectrum herbicide that is also a mimic of yet another canonical amino acid – glutamate, and has similar potential to cause biological havoc by wrongly getting into proteins.

So Stephanie Seneff rightly ponders about a shift to glufosinate that  could open up another wave of new diseases due to new kinds of protein disfunction, and bring more misery to the living world.

All this is happening because independent nations are not acting to the best interest of its citizens, and is bowing to western efforts to control their food web through toxicity. Ultimately, this is the responsibility of the citizens, you and me, to either preserve national food sovereignty, or to give it up.

Thats all for today.

A glyphosate letter to FSSAI

To: Mr. Pawan Kumar Agarwal, CEO, FSSAI, ceo@fssai.gov.in

Copy to: Persons listed below

Date: Friday, November 16, 2018

Subject:  Glyphosate in seed crops imported from Canada, Australia

Mr. Agarwal,

I draw your attention to the report from Times of India, linked below, regarding FSSAI making a press release with assurance that pulses, beans and pea imported into India might be safe from glyphosate poisoning.

I would advise against arriving at such a hasty statement based on evidence that might deserve a lot more scrutiny.

Following items need clarification, from the newspaper report:

  1. Very few samples were found to contain glyphosate
  2. The level of glyphosate found were within limits
  3. Glyphosate may have been used by some countries to control weed.

I shall offer a counter point of view and suggestion on each of these points, as follows:
1) Very few samples contain glyphosate:

Countries such as Canada and Australia do not use glyphosate only for weed control. They use it to desiccate (kill and dry) crops just before harvesting. The process involves direct spraying of the crop at close distance with glyphosate, to force the crop to die and dry out, before the harvesting machine is used. This guarantees presence of and high concentration of glyphosate in harvested seeds. The level of contamination with glyphosate is usually an order of dimension higher than if the poison was used on the ground prior to planting the seeds, for weed control. That fact bears proof by CIFA’s own tests, the results of which have been published in “Poison Foods of North America”. Any crop that is desiccated with glyphosate prior harvesting cannot have no glyphosate. Therefore, if tests in India show no glyphosate in those crops, the quality of those tests are suspect.

I would also draw your attention to the fact that High pressure liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MSMS), the method usually used for high level of accuracy and repeatability for detecting glyphosate, is an exacting science and the attending lab technician needs to be highly skilled to identify the spectrogram of glyphosate among all the other signatures, separate it out and quantify it. Therefore, if the lab assistants are not sufficiently trained especially in this task, the results can be less than perfect. This method is not something where the sample is shoved inside a machine, and the lab attendant then watches his smart phone and awaits accurate results to be spewed out by the machine.

I would strongly suggest that the Government of India obtains a written guarantee from all exporting nations such as Canada and Australia, that they do not use glyphosate, or any other poison, for desiccation of the crops before harvest. I would suggest FSSAI investigates reliability of these tests and to explain how crops desiccated with glyphosate can have no presence detected. Further,  these results should be disclosed to the people so that they can stand public scrutiny.

I would also recommend that you arrange for tests of the seeds grown in Canada and earmarked for shipment to India, be independently tested in certified labs in Canada and results submitted to you prior shipment.

2) Level of glyphosate were within limits:

India has not set a safe limit for glyphosate. Further, India has not approved Glyphosate for use in agriculture at all. Therefore, no glyphosate can or should be considered as “within limit”. There is a possibility that FSSAI has been coaxed to accept limits set by Codex Alimentarius, which is very high and influenced by the toxic chemical lobby, to hoodwink innocent third world countries into importing toxic foods.

I had sent an earlier email to FSSAI officials warning about this, and am copying it here for your records.

India needs to reset limits set by external entities and set its own limit by conducting tests on lab animals subjected to measured doses of glyphosate. India is more than able to carry out honest tests and set its own safety limits than be coaxed by standards set under control of the same interests that make the profit in sale of such toxic foods. Allowing Codex Alimentarius’s limits for glyphosate in seed crops is like appointing a fox to guard the hen house.

3) Glyphosate is used by some countries to control weeds
This statement  is only partially true and not so relevant in this case. Glyphosate is used here as a killer poison to kill the crop itself, and not weeds, just prior to harvesting. Therefore, describing it as a weed killer is essentially passing misinformation. It is used as a crop killer, and not just weed killer.

I hope you shall pay attention to these facts and help India set very high, rather than very low, standards of food safety that is geared for keeping Indian citizens safe rather than keeping exporting nations make a profit at the expense of ill-health for people of India.

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Thank you

Santanu Mitra

49/65 Prince Gulam Mohd Shah Road, Kolkata 700033, India
+91-98317 13068, tony.mitra@gmail.com

Link to TOI news article: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/pulses-beans-imported-into-india-safe-for-consumption-fssai/articleshow/66640252.cms

Copy to:
 Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, Minister, food & public distribution, min-food@nic.in, ramvilas.p@sansad.nic.in

Mr Sanjeev Hans, PS to Minister, psfoodmin@nic.in

Mr Ashish Bahuguna, Chairperson, FSSAI, chairperson@fssai.gov.in

Ms Machavi Das, CMCO, madhavi.das@nic.in

Mr Kumar Anil, Advisor, advisor@fssai.gov.in
 Ms Rubeena Shaheen, Director, rubeena@fssai.gov.in

Mr Sunil Bakshi, Advisor, sbakshi@fssai.gov.in

Mr Bhaskar N, Advisor, advisor.qa@fssai.gov.in

Ms Suneeti Tateja, Director, suneeti@fssai.gov.in

Mr Raj Singh, Head, r.singh@nic.in

Mr. Prof. Ram Gopal Yadav, Rajya Sabha, Govt of India., Chairman, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare, ramgopal.yadav@sansad.nic.in

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