In article , "Dave Gower"
wrote:
"David J Bockman" wrote in message
...
Appropos considering our recent discussions:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/...in528581.shtml
"Imagine a place so saturated with toxic, cancer-causing chemicals that
it's
in the dirt people walk on, the air they breathe - even the blood that
pumps
through their veins.
I presume you mean our recent discussions about Roundup. If so, then this
article is NOT "Appropos" (sic). I quote the key paragraph from this story:
"The problem is polychlorinated byphenyls - PCBs - one of the most pervasive
and profitable industrial chemicals of 20th Century America."
I have never heard of any PCB's in Roundup. Have you? If not, I expect an
apology to the newsgroup for a deliberate attempt to mislead.
Monsanto (& Monsanto alone, in case anyone thinks one poor company is
being picked on to the exclusion of many equally evil companies) has
greatly polluted the world with its PCBs. They're in the environment,
everywhere, thanks to Monsanto exclusively. Monsanto is presently
polluting the world with an admixture of glyphosate & surficant plus many
other chemicals in the formulation, some of them unrevealed. But the
surficant is responsible for picking up PCBs in watersheds & facilitating
their further entry into the food chain. So a direct link between RoundUp
usage & increased risk of PCBs is a given. In places like Monsanto's "most
contaminated" of all towns, the PCB levels in workers & citizens is thirty
to seventy times higher than the national average. The toxified residents
are not getting less contaminated year by year, but more contaminated.
RoundUp's surficant just keeps those poisons circulating.
So yes, the same company that formerly "proved" PCBs, Agent Orange, and
rBGH were perfectly safe, now not only claims their newest pollutant,
glyphosate, is safe even when eaten, but they are still to this day pump
out articles, "studies," &
PR pieces claiming that continuous low level
exposure to PCBs is also perfectly safe, the reason being that their
glyphosate products by means of the polluting surficant are helping
keeping PCBs in the foodchain, & they want the government to stay off
their backs about this issue.
Nearly all the discussion on RoundUp has failed to note that the actual
ingredients are not known to the public, Monsanto claiming this to be
proprietary information exempting them from honest labelling.
This is what Monsanto admits is in the product:
1.Isopropylamine salt of glyphosate (active ingredient)
2.Water
3.ethoxylated tallowamine surfactant
4.Multiple organic acids of glyphosate
5.Excess isopropylamine
This is what EPA notes is also in it:
6. Polyoxyethylene alkylamine
7. FD&C Blue No. 1
This is what else Toxicologist David H. Monroe found in Roundup:
8. polyoxyethylene alkylamine
9. 1,4-dioxane (350 ppm)
And that's NOT everything, as Monsanto fully admits to further
"PROPRIETARY INGREDIENTS" which gets them around the law that would
otherwise require they stipulate all ingredients. In 1996 Judge Robertson
by court order forced Monsanto to reveal other ingredients but the list
was sealed by court order, but it was during this process that Monsanto
began admitting to "multiple organic acids" not to be further specified.
They have NEVER given a percentage of ingredients that adds up to 100%, so
no one knows what percentage the proprietary & unrevealed ingredents may
add up to. In their ad-scams to farmers they call these unrevealed
ingredients "new and unique to Monsanto."
Additionally, glyphosate easily "nitrosates" & so when it interacts with
dog, cat, or human poo, it combines to form this ingredient:
10. N-nitrosoglyphosate
which is not a safe chemical by anyone's measure. Additiononal chemicals
appear during as Roundup begins far too slowly to decay. Tests NOT
financed by Monsanto done at the University of Minnesota found that
glyphosate degrades into:
11. Formeldehyde
12. Sarcosine
13. Methylamine
14. aminomethylphosphonic acid
All 14 of these chemicals would have to be studied & found to be safe,
then tested in all combinations, before Roundup could rationally be
considered safe. Several are already established to be unsafe, so even
though the worst is not studied or known of all these chemicals, enough is
already known to say categorically that any claim of Roundup as anything
less than extremely toxic & carcinogenic (at the very least from the decay
byproduct of formaldehyde & N-nitroglyphosate) would be predicated on
falsehoods, because it IS extremely toxic & carcinogenic.
All tests on which Monsanto bases their safety lies are NOT tests of
formulated Roundup, but only of glyphosate alone -- & even those studies
are falsified, rigged, or given highly specific focuses that preclude the
actual danger factors. Independent studies do not give even pure
glyphosate the clean bill of health Monsanto pretends, but of equally
grave interest is the fact that ACTUAL Roundup has NOT been tested for
safety by Monsanto or by Monsanto-funded labs. The few independent studies
that looked at the surficant in combination with glyphosate found that the
combination increases the toxicity of glyphosate, & facilitates glyphosate
in penetrating cell walls in humans & animals (something Monsanto pretends
does not much occur, but when the surficant is added, it occurs reliably).
Most of the other "combination" effects of the 14 known, let alone the
proprietary hence unrevealed ingredients, have never been tested at all,
not by anyone, & the full risks never assessed. It's already established
that tallowamine alone triples the toxicity of glyphosate, meaning a great
deal of additional toxicity is being generated by the surfactants if by no
other ingredient, but fact remains, the full formulation of Roundup (and
similar glyphosate-based products) have simply never been tested, the
efffects of each of these chemicals in combination & in their additional
break-down pollutants are intentionally overlooked.
UK Forestry Commission stated that glyphosate products were causing the
death of old hedgerows through drift. Use of glyphosate in the vicinity of
trees is implicated in loss of winter hardiness & reduced resistance to
fungal diseases. Maple trees in particular have increased susceptibility
to death in the second year after glyphosate use in the vicinitiy of
maples [Source: England's ENDS Report, February 1991]. Another study
showed that clover planted FOUR MONTHS after glyphosate use had reduced
nitrogen fixation & growth, the implication being that the percentage of
glyphosate known to bond with the soil remains active for MONTHS after
use. In usda Zones 3 through 5, due to coldness, as well as in more or
less sterile soils in desert environments, glyphosate will still be
stunting or killing plantlife a year after use. The EPA has stated that
many endangered native plant species are endangered by the widespread use
of glyphosate products.
Glyphosate should be spelled D.O.O.M.
-paghat the ratgirl
--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl:
http://www.paghat.com/