Tag Archives: Argentina

Agrochemical drift causing diseases and death in Argentina and Georgia

Pesticide poisoning has rapidly increased in Argentina as Monsanto-seed pesticided crops ramped up. Meanwhile in Georgia, 90+% of common crops already are doused in pesticides. What effects are all those poisons having on our own children and adults?

Michael Warren and Natacha Pisarenko wrote for AP today, Argentines link health crisis to agrochemicals,

Argentine farmworker Fabian Tomasi wasn’t trained to use protective gear as he pumped pesticides into crop dusters. Now at 47, he’s a living skeleton.

Schoolteacher Andrea Druetta lives in a town where it’s illegal to spray agrochemicals within 550 yards of homes, and yet soy is planted just 33 yards from her back door. Recently, her boys were showered in chemicals while swimming in their backyard pool.

Sofia Gatica’s search for answers after losing her newborn to kidney failure led to Argentina’s first criminal convictions for illegal spraying last year. But 80 percent of her neighbors’ children surveyed carry pesticides in their blood.

Meanwhile, German researchers found pesticides in all samples of urine, and back in the U.S.A. and Canada, researchers found pesticide metabolites in 95% of schoolchildren tested.

90+% of cotton, soybeans, peanuts, and corn around here are doused in agrochemicals, and even Continue reading

Monsanto blocks independent GMO research in the U.S. –L.A. Times op-ed

Doug Gurian-Sherman writes No seeds, no independent research:
Multibillion-dollar agricultural corporations, including Monsanto and Syngenta, have restricted independent research on their genetically engineered crops. They have often refused to provide independent scientists with seeds, or they’ve set restrictive conditions that severely limit research options.
In case you wondered why all the research seems to come from other countries, such as Argentina and France, as shown in this documentary from Germany? Well, now you know.

-jsq

Germans document glysophate poisoning

The promise of Roundup:
“No tilling, just seed, spray, and harvest.”
Adriana Alvarez, who lives next door to an Argentinia GM soy field, says:
“They came from this side and sprayed the entire field. Here he turns, spraying all the time.”
The farmer was wearing a mask. That’s more than no-till farmers around here do.

Interesting statistic that in Argentina soy production increased 35-fold between 1996 and 2003 while Roundup use increased 56 times. And eventually it doesn’t work at all, because it breeds resistant weeds. In Georgia it took only ten years to produce mutant pigweed that not just Roundup but not even paraquat can kill. Many farmers are realizing that it’s cheaper, more effective, and more profitable to plow the weed under in the fall and plant a winter cover crop. Even mutant weeds are not resistant to cold steel.

The documentary points out many products in German stores that include GM soy. In Argentina, it’s even worse, with increasing numbers of birth defects.

They interview Prof. Andrés Carrasco about his research on amphibians:

“The hemispheres do not separate, like you can see here. If you look closely you can see one brain. Glyphosate can cause this kind of mechanisms, for it is an enzymatic toxin.”

Monsanto refused an interview, responding in writing:

“Monsanto is convinced of the safety and usefullness of its products and its contribution to efficacious agriculture.”
As Dr. Carrasco has been known to say:
“Son hipócritas, cipayos de las corporaciones, pero tienen miedo. Saben que no pueden tapar el sol con la mano.”

“They are hypocrites, those corporate lackeys, but they are afraid. They know they can’t cover the sun with their hand.”

The documentarians interviewed Gilles-Eric Seralini in Caen, France.

“To human cells glyphosate is already toxic in a very low dose. A farmer uses a much higher dose on the field. Roundup is even more toxic than glysophate, for that is only one of the ingredients in Roundup.”
Roundup says none of this applies to humans and Roundup is safe. Seralini says:
“Transgenics are toxic for human health.”

This is the same Monsanto that made Fox rewrite 80 times about RBGH in Florida cows.

The same Monsanto that was convicted by the French Supreme Court of lying about leaving the soil clean.

The same Monsanto that was fined $2.5 million by the U.S. EPA for selling genetically modified cotton seeds without labeling them as such.

Who should you believe? A corporation repeatedly convicted of deception, or scientists who say that GM crops cause liver and kidney damage in animals, according to research using Monsanto’s own data.

The Roundup-spraying farmer said:

Roundup, mas algo! mas algo!

Roundup, more and more!

It’s time to say:
Ya basta!

Enough already!

-jsq

PS: Credits to the German TV consumer series ‘plus minus’:

Bericht
D. Flintz
M. Rauck
Kamera
J. Fenske
C. Kültür
J. Midú
Schnitt
H. Bischoff
E. Elsner
GM toxic soy in animal feed broadcast (© WDR) by Detlef Flintz and Mathias Rauck. Translation and highlighting provided by TraceConsult. Broadcast Tue, 08 Feb. 2011 | 9:50 PM.

“We couldn’t do agriculture in Argentina”

Jude Webber and Hal Weitzman reported in The Financial Times on Argentina pressed to ban crop chemical:
A group of environmental lawyers has petitioned the Supreme Court to impose a six-month ban on the sale and use of glyphosate, which is the basis for many herbicides, including the US agribusiness giant Monsanto’s Roundup product.

A ban, if approved, would mean “we couldn’t do agriculture in Argentina”, said Guillermo Cal, executive director of CASAFE, Argentina’s association of fertiliser companies.

My, that’s rather apocalyptic!

And financially even worse:

Any ban on the use of glyphosate could have dire fiscal consequences: the already cash-strapped Argentine government relies heavily on tariffs levied on agricultural exports. It is expected to rake in some $5bn this year, although that is about half the previous year’s level after a longrunning conflict with farmers, a bitter drought and lower prices have slashed production of the country’s main cash crop, soya.
Or is it?
Mr Carrasco acknowledged there were “too many economic interests at stake” to ban glyphosate outright. But, he said, officials could start ring-fencing the problem by enforcing effective controls where crops are sprayed.
That would be a start. Working on other methods of weed and insect control would be even better.

The Financial Times does mention that there are Argentine studies that support Dr. Carrasco’s as-yet-unpublished study:

Research by other Argentine scientists and evidence from local campaigners has indicated a high incidence of birth defects and cancers in people living near crop-spraying areas. One study conducted by a doctor, Rodolfo Páramo, in the northern farming province of Santa Fé reported 12 malformations per 250 births, well above the normal rate.
Yet the Financial Times did not mention the numerous scientific studies in other countries that show similar results.

Monsanto is worldwide, after all.

Glysophate Effects on Humans: International Studies

Dr. Carrasco of Argentina isn’t alone, not worldwide. As Negin P. Martin, PH.D noted in June in Environmental Health News, studies in other countries show direct effects on humans:
For example, French scientists, Drs. Seralini and Benacour, have published a number of scientific papers about the harmful effects of Roundup and its ingredients on human embryonic and placental cells. A Swedish scientific team lead by Dr. Akerman published an epidemiological study disclosing that exposure to glyphosate is a risk factor for developing Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Dr. Busbee – an American scientist – demonstrated alterations in estrogen-regulated genes after exposure to dilute concentrations of glyphosate.
Nora Benachour and Gilles-Eric Sralini report in Chem. Res. Toxicol., 2009, 22 (1), pp 97–105 about Glyphosate Formulations Induce Apoptosis and Necrosis in Human Umbilical, Embryonic, and Placental Cells:
We have evaluated the toxicity of four glyphosate (G)-based herbicides in Roundup (R) formulations, from 105 times dilutions, on three different human cell types. This dilution level is far below agricultural recommendations and corresponds to low levels of residues in food or feed. The formulations have been compared to G alone and with its main metabolite AMPA or with one known adjuvant of R formulations, POEA. HUVEC primary neonate umbilical cord vein cells have been tested with 293 embryonic kidney and JEG3 placental cell lines. All R formulations cause total cell death within 24 h, through an inhibition of the mitochondrial succinate dehydrogenase activity, and necrosis, by release of cytosolic adenylate kinase measuring membrane damage.
And it gets even better:
The deleterious effects are not proportional to G concentrations but rather depend on the nature of the adjuvants. AMPA and POEA separately and synergistically damage cell membranes like R but at different concentrations. Their mixtures are generally even more harmful with G. In conclusion, the R adjuvants like POEA change human cell permeability and amplify toxicity induced already by G, through apoptosis and necrosis. The real threshold of G toxicity must take into account the presence of adjuvants but also G metabolism and time-amplified effects or bioaccumulation.
Glysophate makes other chemicals even more toxic, and remember Glysophate doesn’t break down rapidly and tends to accumulate in organisms. Organisms such as you and your children.

Glysophate (Monsanto’s RoundUp) Causes Birth Defects: Argentine Scientist

carrasco.jpg According to Americas Program Report:
A study released by an Argentine scientist earlier this year reports that glyphosate, patented by Monsanto under the name “Round Up,” causes birth defects when applied in doses much lower than what is commonly used in soy fields.

The study was directed by a leading embryologist, Dr. Andres Carrasco, a professor and researcher at the University of Buenos Aires. In his office in the nation’s top medical school, Dr. Carrasco shows me the results of the study, pulling out photos of birth defects in the embryos of frog amphibians exposed to glyphosate. The frog embryos grown in petri dishes in the photos looked like something from a futuristic horror film, creatures with visible defects—one eye the size of the head, spinal cord deformations, and kidneys that are not fully developed.

“We injected the amphibian embryo cells with glyphosate diluted to a concentration 1,500 times [less] than what is used commercially and we allowed the amphibians to grow in strictly controlled conditions.” Dr. Carrasco reports that the embryos survived from a fertilized egg state until the tadpole stage, but developed obvious defects which would compromise their ability to live in their normal habitats.

Why should Argentina care? Continue reading