Tag Archives: Glyphosate in food

Minister Qualtrough agrees to a meeting

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Mar 22, 2016 — Minister Carla Qualtrough has agreed to a 45 minutes meeting about this petition. I am in the process of gathering a small but potent group to to see the Minister.

Here is an email sent to a few, which explains the issue, and should serve as an update.

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Dear friends,

Here is an update on the Glyphosate issue along with a proposal, if one of you feel strongly enough to join me to meet our MP and minister Carla Qualtrough on April 1st afternoon in Delta BC.

In order to explain, I need to give the background.

Glyphosate is a toxic chemical that is the primary ingredient in the commercial weed killer brand named “RoundUp”. It is produced by Monsanto. It is by far the most used herbicide in Canadian agriculture, same as in USA and some other countries. Because it is used in agriculture, this chemical is expected to be in our food, and as such, is being found in various foods such as cereals, packaged food, milk, beef and poultry.

That Glyphosate is safe for us, is supposed to have been verified by Health Canada, before approving its use. In order to verify that, it is expected to see results of safety tests conducted on target animals exposed to this chemical. Health Canada says it has seen that, but in all the 30 years of its use in Canada (and 35 years in USA), no citizen of any country has been allowed to see these safety test data.

I have a communication ongoing with the Ministry of health, Ottawa, through Access To Information Act, demanding that the Government releases any and all safety tests it has seen that is supposed to indicate that Glyphosate is safe for animals, or give me the legal reason why it cannot show me these documents. The Government has acknowledged I have the right (as should any Canadian) to see the safety records, but is dragging its feel and finding excuses to delay the process, which started under the Harper Government and, far as I can tell, is continuing under the Trudeau Government.

Meanwhile, I have a separate online petition, asking the Canadian Govt to release all safety test documents on Glyphosate to the Canadian public. That petition has over 22,000 support signatures, 98% of whom are Canadian. Their comments, my follow up information and the list of all supporters would make over 500 pages of printed matter.


After having a string of email communication with Dr. Seralini of France, I am preparing to open a separate ‘Access To Information’ case with the Government of Canada, to check if it has at all seen any safety tests on the entire formulation of the herbicide “RoundUp” with all its ingredients, which, together, is suspected to be more dangerous than Glyphosate alone by an order of dimension, perhaps hundreds of times more dangerous.

Meanwhile, I wrote to Minister Carla Qualtrough recently about Glyphosate, about the fact that Canadians have not been able to verify if the chemical is safe, and that, according my understanding of the law (Carla is a lawyer), if the safety data of a product cannot be disclosed to the people, the product itself cannot be released either. I then asked her to grant me an audience of a half hour, where I may tell her about this petition and hand over the 500 odd page document with a request to her to consider taking that material to Ottawa and deliver it to the Minister of health, even on the floor of the parliament if need be, and ask her to either respond to the Canadian people’s demand to release the hitherto secret safety documents, or explain why Canadians do not deserve to see these safety records, or perhaps agree to a parliamentary debate over this issue.

I asked Minister Qualtrough to let me know in case she is unwilling to see me, so I can widen my search and find any MP, even an opposition one, who is willing to place this item on the floor of our Parliament for a general debate. I have reason to believe this chemical is also triggering a possible extinction of our flora and fauna through release over our forests from air, by logging companies.

I have been notified by the office of Minister Qualtrough, through email and two separate phone calls, that:
1) I may visit her office for 45 minutes on 1st April.
2) I may bring the 500 odd page document
3) I may bring a few like minded folks, if I wished.

That is the story.

I am in the process of getting a wide-ranging but small group, to come with me. I write this to you to ask if any one person (sorry, no more room) among you might feel passionate enough to accompany me.
have two noted persons that agreed to visit Delta and join me. One is Dr. Thierry Vrain, who should need no introduction here.

The other is Kenneth Young, Canadian Military veteran, advisor on chemical defoliant to Canadian and many other international institutions, Canadian Veteran Advocacy group, and strong advocate on speaker on permanent damage done to veterans through exposure to toxins starting from Agent Orange, and going on to Glyphosate. He has spoken three times at March against Monsanto events in Downtown Vancouver along with me and Thierry, and travels widely across Canada and overseas on this issue. Currently in Ottawa meeting with a Government sponsored committee to contribute in the consultation on possible policy changes needed to deal with toxic exposure and pesticides. He agreed to come to Delta on his own and join me on April 1st in this meeting and lend his voice as needed.

I also have some nature lover and passionate Delta residents wishing to join me for the meeting.

In summary, the primary object of the meeting is to highlight legality of releasing a chemical into our food web while hiding its safety record from the people, and if Canadian citizens have or do not have a right to demand public release of these documents, the volume of which I am advised by Health Canada to go beyond 130,000 pages, all of them kept secret for over a generation.

So, if there is someone here that wishes to join up, let me know. We are in the talking process to figure out how to manage the 45 minutes and who might talk on what. We are also planning a lunch or something on April 1st in Delta, prior to the meeting to iron out any issue and to present a cohesive front.

Thanks and best wishes
Tony Mitra

Material towards the online petition on public demand for disclosure of safety documents have gone so large that I am contemplating converting it all into a future e-Book for record keeping.

Meanwhile, a new blog might me done on the people that are preparing to join me for the meeting. Who they are and what they might do, etc. I will work on this next week.

Rosemary Mason sends a letter

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Rosemary Samson is a British Scientist. I came to know more about her from her article in Journal of Biological Physics and Chemistry, this year, the heading of which is in the image below. Clicking on the image should take you to the article itself.

I knew we were in a phase on a major mass extinction. Still, it was both depressing and chilling, to face facts as Rosemary articulated. It forces us to look at the world afresh, and stop accepting business as usual model of existence for our human race. We were hurtling towards a cliff, and it is wholly man made, or more specifically, made by the GDP addicted technologically savvy corporate driven economic model of human development.

Subsequently, I got to speak with her, and even had her read out a section of Tagore’s “Robbery of the soil”, which, a century down the line, still appears so relevant on a global scale.

Anyhow, she did sign my petition, requesting the Canadian Government to disclose to the people what direct safety test data it has seen that indicates glyphosate (RoundUp herbicide) may be good for agriculture. You can find the petition by clicking on the image below.

And since she signed the petition, she started getting emails of my updates. Fast forward to an incidence where one of the persons that signed the petition had an uncomplimentary comment to make about qualifications of Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff and essentially question the wisdom behind the petition. This is a time proven tactic of the pro-Monsanto lobby shills, to divert from the topic at hand, and try to insult scientists or people  that are objecting to the chemical onslaught on Canada through large scale toxicity and endocrine disruption. And me being me, I made an update touching on the subject of Anthony Samsel speaking to me about the sealed Monsanto safety test documents on Glyphosate, first part of which can be seen here:

 

And that prompted a letter from Rosemary Mason. She said:

Dear Tony
Good that you have got Anthony Samsel on board!
You might be interested in this new document I have just sent to the medical worthies in the UK…who as you can see are promoting the corporations.
I am not sure that you are aware that EFSA has approved glyphosate…it claims it has no effects on human health or the environment. But in Chapter 3 on human health page 56, and Chapter 4 Loss of Biodiversity and chemicals in the environment page 72, I am disputing this.
 
We haven’t a hope of winning unless we get the press in the UK to publish, but it becomes increasingly unlikely.
This is my last document!
Warm regards for Christmas.
Rosemary

Her open letter to the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of UK can be read by clicking on the image below:


And of course, Rosemary was referring to the last of the papers on Glyphosate so far published by Samsel/Seneff team : Glyphosate, pathways to modern diseases IV: cancer and related pathologies, published in Journal of Biological Physics and Chemistry 15 (2015) 121–159 Received 5 August 2015; accepted 24 August 2015

. That can be read in full by clicking the image below:

My thanks go to Rosemary Mason of UK. I also hope that the British, and indeed the Europeans, will show sanity and courage in the face of unprecedented pressure from US trade, industry and Government lobby, and will act to save their own land, eco-system and people first, and American commercial interest later.

Canada should start for testing glyphosate

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Time to ask our governments to start testing people and food for glyphosate

Things have changed in the past year. We have been badgering the previous (Harper’s) Government in Ottawa for two years to get labs set up in Canada where people could test their urine and food for glyphosate. Some of our letters to the minister has been hand carried by then MPs to the then Minister of Health to respond to.

Sample table of compiled results

Sample table of compiled results

The good news is – today an increasing number of Canadian labs are coming up to test food items for detection of glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in RoundUp herbicide.

Unfortunately, we still have not located a lab that will test glyphosate in human body fluids such as urine, blood or mothers breast milk. We hope that happens soon. But we have now found ways to send samples across the border to USA for testing, which was proving to be expensive and difficult due to US customs rules.

Meanwhile, from various communication we have had with the Canadian Government, including through the Access To Information Act, it appears increasingly unlikely that our Government has actually seen any result of safety test of glyphosate, and may have approved it based on maker’s own statement and third party opinions. We are trying to look through this cobweb by asking the Government to disclose and make public what safety test it saw while approving Glyphosate. The response has been unsatisfactory less than transparent, with a veil of secrecy wrapped around the issue.

So, a separate petition is promoted on line, for the new Minister of Health to disclose safety test data on Glyphosate for people to verify.

Meanwhile, it is perhaps now our duty as citizens concerned about public health and quality of food, to keep our provincial Governments informed of the fact that glyphosate may have been approved circumventing the law and without studying any safety test record. It should therefore be of interest to the local governments to start testing our food and our people, to see concentration of glyphosate, and to let the people know of these results. This testing is now possible and within reach of the Government, since tests only cost from CAD 100 to around 250.

Meanwhile, we the citizens can initiate limited testing ourselves within our means, and start putting the results up on line for people to see. A sample table is put up here.

Folks interested to write to their governments, federal, provincial and municipal, we encourage you to do so and invite you to join our collective effort.

This may not be easy for a single person, but together, we can force our Governments to show diligence in ensuring that safety information as well as contamination from toxins are measured and people are kept informed.

This is a blog that will likely evolve as the efforts coalesce. Watch this space and feel free to contact me.

Thanks

Tony Mitra

Meanwhile, here is a brief list of Glyphosate MRL from Health Canada on various food items

GLYPHOSATE MRL – by Health Canada

Database reveals questions, and offers hints

I started looking afresh at the Health Canada public website for details put up my PMRA on pesticides in food, and their maximum recommended Residue limit in various kinds of food.

First, the unit used for MRL (maximum residue limit) was not mentioned in the results of search. For example, if you search for safe maximum residue limit of glyphosate in wheat, it will produce result of 5, but will not say if it is 5 ppm, or 5 mg/Kg of the wheat, or 5 mg/Kg body weight for the consumer or 5 ppb or what. This absence of indication of unit is something I found puzzling and also unprofessional. I had to ask a lab test expert from New Brunswick, who told that form his quick look, the unit appears to be ppm. I presume it is ppm in the wheat itself, in other words 5 mg/Kg of wheat.

I intend to dig into this a bit more regarding PMRA’s limits, and what unit is used, and what exactly it means.


The other interesting things I noticed were, in general, as follow

1) Most all factory farmed animal products including meat and milk are declared to have some MRL value for glyphosate.

2) Most all vegetable products are not in the list, probably an indication that these are not expected to have any traceable glyphosate, hence no limit has been set.

Deduction to be made from the above two – if you are deadly serious about reducing glyphosate – you might consider becoming a vegan, or seriously cut down on animal products.

Among vegetables there are tantalizing exceptions.
Soybean and Corn being known as large RoundUp ready crops, and most north American sugar coming from sugar beet – these are expected to have glyphosate, hence they also have MRL levels declared. So, if you want to avoid glyphosate, stay away from them.

Garden grown beet apparently is OK, as well as most other vegetables and fruits.

But for Mustard – watch out.

This one family, strangely, has multiple varieties listed with wildly varying figures.

Some are not in the list, such as standard (non branded) mustard and seed, indicating these are unlikely to have glyphosate. But other kinds, condiment type, oil seed type, and Hare’s ear mustard, can have as high as 10 ppm glyphosate. I have no idea what these are, but am very aware that GM mustard is already being grown in some places, which must have some brand name. GM mustard is also being shoved down India’s throat, so they produce a heck of a lot of it for local consumption and perhaps also for export. I do not know their brand names or where they originate from. but this multiple variety of mustard oil convinces me to be very careful about it.

Sugarcane cane is not listed, even if some of it is grown in Asia with glyphosate desiccation. So sugarcane question remains confusion.

I do not know why refined beet sugar does not have an MRL but sugar beet has a high MRL. Is it because Health Canada accidentally missed it, or could the refining process somehow remove the glyphosate? Can someone answer these questions.

I have included my first jotting of these partial readings into my blog, where I wish Canada starts testing their food, to see where the glyphosate levels in food are at this moment.

I understand the Govt is right now testing a lot of food, and might re-adjust these MRL figures as new information comes to light.

I am jotting this down so that future adjustments might be noticed.

Its a lot of work and takes a lot of time. Anybody wants to pitch in and help, is most welcome.

Meanwhile, this response comes back from the Access To Information (ATI) and Privacy Act Division of Health Canada, about revealing the safety test documents relating to glyphosate that the Government is supposed to have studied before approving use of glyphosate in agriculture

Disappointing response from Provincial Governments on Glyphosate

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I received an email, from the Ministry of Health, British Columbia, in response to my below letter. It is disappointing, and appears to shirk responsibility of health concerns relating to Glyphosate.

My letter to the ministry had , two basic items, a question and a suggestion.The question was if the BC Govt had conducted any test of food grown in BC for presence of Glyphosate, and if so, to make the results public.

  1. The question was if the BC Govt had conducted any test of food grown in BC for presence of Glyphosate, and if so, to make the results public.
  2. The suggestion was – if it had not tested any food, to put forward a scheme to start testing local grown food for presence of glyphosate, and again, to make that information available to the public.

I cannot copy paste the response here or anywhere, since it comes with a warning, that this email was intended for me only, and any distribution, copy or disclosure by any one else is prohibited.

However, I suppose I can still write my impression of what the letter says.

First, it avoids giving direct answers to either of the two points above. What is says in essence, are as follows:

  1. That the ministry is watching WHO announcement on carcinogenecity of glyphosate with great interest.
  2. Health Canada is responsible for food safety
  3. PMRA has published its re-evaluation of Glyphosate this year, and has considered glyphosate is unlikely to affect health if used according to label directions.
  4. The letter provides various links to Govt documents relating to i) glyphosate re-evaluation, ii) pesticide product evaluation database, iii) maximum residue limit for pesticides etc.
  5. The email ends with a suggestion that, although I am in contact with the federal Govt, I might consider contacting PMRA directly, and provides their email address.

It might have been more honest for BC Health Ministry to simply answer my question directly, such as:

A) No we have never tested food for glyphosate,
B) No we do not intend to test food for glyphosate even if labs are now available, since we believe this is Ottawa’s matter.

I decided to update the blog with this information, and then consider what next we might do.

Here are sample letters sent to two wings of the Government of British Columbia, Canada – the ministries of Health, and Agriculture, asking them to either disclose results of locally grown or sold food they have already tested for glyphosate, or, if they have not, to engage in a systematic effort to stat testing now, and to make the results available to the public

I am enclosing this sample letter so that people from other provinces and even states south of the border could consider writing to their respective local governments, and for people in our province of British Columbia could send the same or their own version of appeal to our Ministers, demanding that the government start testing our food, and to keep the people advised on results.

To: Minister Terry Lake,
Government of British Columbia, Ministry of Health
( Also, separately, to Minister Norm Letnick,
Government of British Columbia, Ministry of Agriculture
Minister Lake,
Subject: Testing of food for glyphosate contamination in BC 
I am a citizen and a resident of British Columbia.
I am concerned about possible links between glyphosate (in RoundUp and other brand herbicides) in our agriculture, and ill-health, as well as lack of information on which food contains how much of it. You are aware of a rising number of papers showing possible link between glyphosate and various illnesses, as well as World Health Organization reclassifying glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen.My reason for writing to you is two fold.

The first is to learn if the British Columbia Government has tested food grown in BC, and/or sold in BC, for presence of Glyphosate. If it has, and if the results are available online for public, I request you to direct me there. If the results are not available, I request you to make them available to me.

The second part is a suggestion, in case the BC Government has never checked for Glyphosate in our food system. May I then request you to set up a system so that crops grown in BC as well as food sold in our stores be checked and catalogued periodically for presence of glyphosate, and the results be made available to the consumers. I am willing to assist you in this work should you so require.

I have separate communication initiated with the newly formed federal Government in Ottawa on a related issue about verifying safety of glyphosate through direct study of tests conducted on target animals instead of indirect decision based on third party statement. However, I believe, under the Canadian Constitution Act, our provincial Governments probably has enough jurisdiction to engage in direct action in ensuring that the people of British Columbia have sufficient information on what non-food elements have gotten is in their diet, especially glyphosate, which may have an adverse effect on their health. I am available to be of assistance in this effort, should the Government require.
I would here bring to your attention an emerging fact that more and more Canadian labs are now beginning to offer testing of food for glyphosate, something that was not available even a year ago.

I enclose a recently published fourth part of a series of science papers published in peer reviewed journals by two independent scientists from the US that do not take any support from the biotech industry. The paper covers their analysis of links between glyphosate and a number of diseases including cancer.
Thanking you
Tony Mitra
(contact)

Link to Samsel’s paper : Glyphosate, pathways to modern disease, part IV

MANITOBA

Here is a letter sent by Rose Stevens to the Manitoba Minister of Health, Ms Sharon Blady:

To: Minister  Sharon Blady
Government of Manitoba, Ministry of Health
Minister Sharon Blady,
Subject: Glyphosate and it ‘ s presence in MB food system
I am a citizen and a resident of Manitoba.
I am concerned about possible links between glyphosate (in RoundUp and other brand herbicides) in our agriculture, and ill-health, as well as lack of information on which food contains how much of it. You are aware of a rising number of papers showing possible link between glyphosate and various illnesses, as well as World Health Organization reclassifying glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen.  I am still waiting for that meeting with yourself, Dr Thierry Vrain and myself, but have not heard back from your office in months.  This subject will make a very interesting issue during the up coming provincial elections in 2016.
My reason for writing to you is two fold.
The first is to learn if the Manitoba governement has tested food grown in MB, and/or sold in MB, for presence of Glyphosate. If it has, and if the results are available online for public, I request you to direct me there. If the results are not available, I request you to make them available to me.
The second part is a suggestion, in case the Manitoba Government has never checked for Glyphosate in our food system,may I then request you to set up a system so that crops grown in Manitoba as well as food sold in our stores be checked and catalogued periodically for presence of glyphosate, and the results be made available to the consumers. I am willing to assist you in this work should you so require.
My collaegue, Tony Mitra from British Columber has a separate communication initiated with the newly formed federal Government in Ottawa on a related issue about verifying safety of glyphosate through direct study of tests conducted on target animals instead of indirect decision based on third party statement. However, I believe, under the Canadian Constitution Act, our provincial Governments probably has enough jurisdiction to engage in direct action in ensuring that the people of Manitoba have sufficient information on what non-food elements have gotten is in their diet, especially glyphosate, which may have an adverse effect on their health. I am available to be of assistance in this effort, should the Government require.
I would here bring to your attention an emerging fact that more and more Canadian labs are now beginning to offer testing of food for glyphosate, something that was not available even a year ago. 
Over twenty thousand  Canadians have already signed this  recent petition requesting that our government disclose the safety test data on glyphosate   
https://www.change.org/p/minister-of-health-canada-justin-trudeau-health-canada-prove-glyphosate-is-safe?recruiter=16360852&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=share_email_responsive
I enclose link to recently published fourth part of a series of science papers published in peer reviewed journals by two independent scientists from the US that do not take any support from the biotech industry. The paper covers their analysis of links between glyphosate and a number of diseases including cancer.

https://www.academia.edu/17751562/Glyphosate_pathways_to_modern_diseases_IV_cancer_and_related_pathologies?auto=view&campaign=weekly_digest

Sincerely 
Rose Stevens
Manitoba