http://nsnbc.me/2013/10/13/mexico-hawaii-ban-gmo-people-worldwide-march-monsanto/
by Edward C. Corrigan / October 13th, 2013
October 16, 2013 is World Food Day. Fours days before this event thousands
took to streets across the world’s cities to protest the use of Genetically
Modified Organisms (GMOs) products and pesticides that are suspected of being
linked to diseases. The giant multi-national corporation Monsanto was one of the
main targets of the protests. Over 50 countries took part in the march for World
Food Day, and all across the United States and Canada.
Many of the demonstrators have been calling for the permanent boycott of GMOs
and “other harmful agro-chemicals,” according to March Against Monsanto’s
official web page. Protesters displayed large banners denouncing GMO products,
and many donned fancy dress to bring attention to this important issue. A group
dressed as bees to highlight the impact of insecticides on bee populations in
Washington DC.
Why have so many people taken to the street to protest the presence of
chemicals and pesticides in our food? Why are so many people concerned about
genetic modification of the crops that make up much of our diet?
The Precautionary Principle
The precautionary principle or precautionary approach states that if an
action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the
environment, in the absence of a scientific consensus that the action or policy
is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking an
action.
The principle is used, and should be used, by policy makers to justify
discretionary decisions in situations where there is the possibility of harm
from taking a particular course or making a certain decision when extensive
scientific knowledge on the matter is lacking.
The principle implies that there is a social responsibility to protect the
public from exposure to harm, when scientific investigation has found a
plausible risk. These protections can be relaxed only if further scientific
findings emerge that provide sound evidence that no harm will result.
Regarding international conduct, the first endorsement of the principle was
in 1982 when the World Charter for Nature was adopted by the United Nations
General Assembly, while its first international implementation was in 1987
through the Montreal Protocol. Soon after, the principle integrated with many
other legally binding international treaties such as the Rio Declaration and
Kyoto Protocol.
In some legal systems, as in the law of the European Union, the application
of the precautionary principle has been made a statutory requirement in some
areas of law.
The precautionary principle denotes a duty to prevent harm, when it is within
our power to do so, even when all the evidence is not in. This principle has
been codified in several international treaties to which Canada is a signatory.
Canadian domestic law makes reference to this principle but implementation
remains limited and needs to be strengthened.
In 2001 the Canadian Supreme Court adopted this principal in the Hudson
Decision [Date 2001-06-28, Neutral citation2001 SCC 40, Report[2001] 2 SCR 241]
which upheld the right of Municipalities to restrict the use of pesticides in
their jurisdictions.
I am not a scientist or expert on pesticides. I am a lawyer,
environmentalist, writer, activist and sometimes even a politician. This is an
edited version of my prepared talk given at a rally held in London, Ontario on
the risks of chemical contamination, genetic modification of plants and the
adverse health impacts on humans. In 2006 I gave a similar presentation to the
London City Council and have published a few articles on the risks pesticides
and other chemicals pose to humans.
Back in 2001 when I was on London, Ontario, City Council (2000-2003) Bill
Armstrong, still a member of City Council, former councillor David Winninger and
I were the only three elected City Councillors to support a bylaw restricting
the cosmetic use of pesticides.
In 2006 London City Council after a public campaign to support protecting the
environment and then later the province of Ontario, enacted laws restricting the
use of pesticides for cosmetic purposes.
Looking back on this issue it seems absurd how some City politicians and also
provincial and federal politicians, refused to consider the evidence that
pesticides and chemicals can cause real harm. Today that struggle to enlighten
our political decision makers continues.
Study Shows Build-up of Chemicals in Human Body
The largest study of chemical exposure ever conducted on human beings, was
released on July 21, 2005 by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC). The national exposure report examined how chemicals are being absorbed
into the human body. Dr. Julie Gerberding, the CDC Director indicated that most
American children and adults were carrying in their bodies’ dozens of toxic
compounds and pesticides used in consumer products, many of them linked to
possible health threats.
The CDC study documented bigger doses in children than in adults of many
chemicals, including some pyrethroids. These substances are found in virtually
every household pesticide. Also found were phthalates, which are in nail polish,
other beauty products and soft plastics.
The 475-page CDC study looked at 148 toxic compounds in the urine and blood
of about 2,400 people age six and older in 2000 and 2001. Gerberding said this
is the largest and most comprehensive report of its kind ever released anywhere
by anyone.” The findings were broken down by age group and race.
CDC officials also relayed good news. Steep declines were found in children’s
exposure to lead and secondhand cigarette smoke. About 1.6% of young children
tested from 1999 to 2002 had elevated levels of lead, which could lower their
intelligence and cause brain damage. This figure is compared with 88.2% in the
late 1970s and 4.4% in the early 1990s. Gerberding called this an “astonishing
public health achievement.” The reduction was attributed to the removal of lead
from paint and gasoline.
Deeply troubling environmental health experts, however, was finding more than
100 other chemical substances in the human body, and particularly in
children.
Dr. Jerome A. Paulson, an associate professor of pediatrics at the George
Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences who specializes in
children’s environmental health said “The report in general shows that people
‘kids and adults’ are exposed to things that aren’t intended to be in their
body,” The doctor added, “In and of itself, that is a concern. Whether it’s
harmful or not we can’t tell from this particular study.”
“We have fouled our own nest,” Dr. Paulson said. Adding, “We contaminated the
environment sufficiently that there are measurable amounts of potentially toxic
substances in people ‘kids and adults.”
The CDC study did not try to gauge the health threat the chemicals might
pose. A detectable amount of a compound in a person’s body does not mean it
causes disease or other damage, the Center noted.
For many compounds in the study, experts have little data on what amounts may
be harmful or what they may do in combination. According to Dr. Thomas Burke,
associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, “We
are really at the beginning of a very complicated journey to understand the
thousands of substances we are exposed to.”
The discovery of pyrethroids in most people is especially significant.
Previously no one had examined the human body for their presence. Pyrethroids
are synthetic versions of natural compounds found in flowers. They have been
considered safer than older pesticides, such as DDT and chlordane, that build up
in the environment, and have been banned in the United States.
According to the experts pyrethroids in high doses, are toxic to the nervous
system. Pyrethroids are the second most common class of pesticides that result
in poisoning. At low doses, it is believed that these synthetic chemicals might
alter hormones. The pyrethroids are used in large volumes in household
pesticides, on farms and are often used to kill mosquitoes.
In animal tests, and in one recent study of human babies, some of the
compounds have been shown to alter male reproductive organs or to feminize
hormones. Eleven of 12 phthalates tested were found in higher concentrations in
children than adults. Phthalates are used in fragrances.
Representatives of the chemical and pesticide industry praised the report.
They stated that human biomonitoring is the best available tool to measure
exposure. Chemical industry officials echoed the CDC in saying that finding
chemicals in the human body did not necessarily mean they posed a threat.
American Chemistry Council spokesman Chris Van den Heuvel said the CDC study
demonstrates “that exposure to these man-made and natural substances is
extremely low.” Director Gerberding said that “for the vast majority” of the 148
chemicals examined in the report, “we have no evidence of health effects.”
Many toxicologists and environmental scientists, however, disagree. Some of
these compounds are some bad actors,” Dr. Burke said. Studies of the effect of
these compounds on animals, and people, suggest that most of these substances
can affect the brain, hormones, reproductive system or the immune system, or
that they are linked to cancer.
Many of the compounds have not been studied sufficiently to know what happens
with chronic exposure to low doses. “No evidence of health effects does not
imply that they are not harmful,” Paulson said. “It just means we don’t know one
way or another.”
Accessing the impact of chemicals after humans have been exposed to them
should not be the preferred approach. Chemicals, and in particular toxic
substances, should be proven safe before exposing human populations to their
effects.
In the US environmental groups have called for comprehensive tests to be done
by chemical companies on the effects of industrial compounds before they are
used. The European Parliament has already adopted the “precautionary principle”
into many of its laws.
The evidence suggests that many contaminants accumulate more in children than
in adults. This means that children are exposed to larger amounts of chemicals
perhaps from crawling, breathing more rapidly or from putting items in their
mouths. Alternatively that their smaller bodies are less able metabolize or cope
with the chemical substances.
Children undergo extraordinary cell growth, in the womb and in the first two
years after birth, from brain neurons to immune cells. There are more
opportunities for toxic compounds to disrupt the growing cells, Paulson said.
Tests done on animals show that fetuses and newborns are more susceptible to
harm from chemicals.
According to the CDC study, one of every 18 women of childbearing age, or
5.7%, had mercury levels that exceeded what the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency deemed safe to a developing fetus. Medical studies on school children
show exposure to mercury in the womb can lower IQs, with memory and vocabulary
also being impaired.
With more chemicals in the environment humans, especially fetuses and
children, are vulnerable. Many of the chemicals are known to have adverse
effects. However, the presence of these chemicals is not natural and the long
term effect of these substances individually and in combination is not
known.
Many medical experts suggest that there is a link to increased exposure to
chemical compounds, to rising cancer rates, allergies, breathing problems and
lower human fertility.
Evidence Linking Chemicals and the Obesity Epidemic
It is widely accepted that Americans and Canadians, Westerners in general,
are getting fatter, and everyone thinks they know why: more eating and less
moving.
It has been suggested by some scientists that the presence of Antibiotics
might increase obesity by killing off beneficial bacteria. “Some bacteria in our
intestines are associated with weight gain,” Kemnitz said. “Others might provide
a protective effect.”
Paula Baille-Hamilton who studies toxicology and human metabolism, started
perusing scientific literature for chemicals that might promote obesity. She
turned up so many papers containing evidence of chemical-induced obesity in
animals (often, she says, passed off by study authors as a fluke in their work).
After studying the subject for three years she published in 2002 an aptly titled
review paper: “Chemical
Toxins: A Hypothesis to Explain the Global Obesity Epidemic.”
Baille-Hamilton “found evidence of chemicals that affects every aspect of our
metabolism.” Carbamates, which are used in insecticides and fungicides, can
suppress the level of physical activity in mice. Phthalates are used to give
flexibility to plastics and are found in a wide array of scented products, from
perfume to shampoo. In people, they alter metabolism and have been found in
higher concentrations in heavier men and women.
In men, phthalates interfere with the normal action of testosterone, an
important hormone for maintaining healthy body composition. Phthalate exposure
in males has been associated with a suite of traits symptomatic of low
testosterone, from lower sperm count and infertility.
Baille-Hamilton’s work highlights evidence that weight gain can be influenced
by endocrine disruptors, chemicals that mimic and can interfere with the natural
hormone system.
What Is the Monsanto Connection?
Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup?, is the most popular herbicide
used worldwide. The industry asserts it is minimally toxic to humans, but many
Scientists argue otherwise. Glyphosate supposedly only affects plants and
insects and not mammals including humans.
Eighty percent of genetically modified crops, particularly corn, soy, canola,
cotton, sugar beets and most recently alfalfa, are specifically targeted towards
the introduction of genes resistant to glyphosate, the so-called “Roundup Ready?
feature” In humans, only small amounts (~2%) of ingested glyphosate are
metabolized to aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA), and the rest enters the blood
stream and is eventually eliminated through the urine.
Residues of Glyphosate are, however, found in the main foods of the Western
diet, comprised primarily of sugar, corn, soy and wheat. Also of concern is the
fact “Biotech giant Monsanto has recently been awarded yet another victory by
the United States government thanks to a recent Environmental Protection Agency
decision to allow larger traces of the herbicide glyphosate in farm-grown foods.
This increase was granted despite a number of studies linking glyphosate to
various diseases in humans.
Glyphosate’s inhibition of cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes many scientists
argue is an overlooked component of its toxicity to mammals. CYP enzymes play
crucial roles in biology, one of which is to detoxify xenobiotics. [foreign
biological substances]
Thus, glyphosate enhances the damaging effects of other food borne chemical
residues and environmental toxins. Negative impact on the body is insidious and
manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout
the body. Interference with CYP enzymes acts synergistically with disruption of
the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids by gut bacteria, as well as other
impairments in human body functions.
Studies have shown sharp increases in glyphosate contamination in streams in
the Midwestern United States following the mid 1990s, pointing to its increasing
role as the herbicide of choice in agriculture. A now common practice of crop
desiccation through herbicide administration shortly before the harvest assures
an increased glyphosate presence in food sources as well.
The industry asserts that glyphosate is nearly nontoxic to mammals, and
therefore it is not a problem if glyphosate is ingested in food sources.
Acutely, it is claimed to be less toxic than aspirin. As a consequence,
measurement of its presence in food is practically nonexistent. A vocal minority
of experts believes that glyphosate may instead be much more toxic than is
claimed, although the effects are only apparent after a considerable time
lapse.
Thus, while short-term studies in rodents have shown no apparent toxicity,
studies involving life-long exposure in rodents have demonstrated liver and
kidney dysfunction and a greatly increased risk of cancer, with shortened
lifespan.
Glyphosate’s claimed mechanism of action in plants is the disruption of the
shikimate pathway, which is involved with the synthesis of the essential
aromatic amino acids, phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan. The currently
accepted dogma is that glyphosate is not harmful to humans or to any mammals
because the shikimate pathway is absent in all mammals.
This argument is not correct. This pathway is present in gut bacteria, found
in mammals, including humans, which play an important and heretofore largely
overlooked role in human physiology. In addition to aiding digestion, the gut
microbiota synthesize vitamins, detoxify xenobiotics, and participate in immune
system homeostasis and gastrointestinal tract permeability. Furthermore, dietary
factors modulate the microbial composition of the gut.
The incidence of inflammatory bowel diseases such as juvenile onset Crohn’s
disease has increased substantially in the last decade in Western Europe. It is
reasonable to suspect that glyphosate’s impact on gut bacteria may be
contributing to these diseases and conditions.
There are reasons for concern. The fact that female rats are highly
susceptible to mammary tumors following chronic exposure to glyphosate suggests
that there may be something else going on. A systematic search of the literature
has led researchers to the realization that many of the health problems that
appear to be associated with a Western diet could be explained by biological
disruptions that have already been attributed to glyphosate.
While many other environmental toxins obviously also contribute to these
diseases and conditions, some researchers believe that glyphosate may be the
most significant environmental toxin, mainly because it is pervasive and it is
often handled carelessly due to its “alleged” nontoxicity.
We should be very concerned about the increased exposure to glyphosate and
other chemicals in our food, water supply, and the air we breathe. The fact that
these chemicals, many of them toxic and suspected cancer causing agents and have
a suspected connection to a wide variety of diseases and conditions that over
time create a great deal of harm to our own human bodies.
In my opinion, a clear parallel can be drawn to the use of pesticides in our
own neighbourhoods, our water supply, the air we breathe and also perhaps most
importantly the food we eat. As we learn more about the linkages between
pesticides, and other chemicals, including glyphosate, and rising rates of
cancers, respiratory aliments, allergies, birth defects, and infertility the
stronger the imperative to take action.
The Supreme Court of Canada endorsed the “precautionary principle” in the
Hudson decision that upheld a pesticide bylaw. The “precautionary principle”
suggests that we avoid potential and suspected health hazzards. This is a good
rule to govern how we live. If we suspect that something is harmful we should
take measures to protect ourselves and reduce the risk of harm. It is this rule
that should be applied with pesticides and other chemical as mounting evidence
shows that pesticides and chemicals foreign to our bodies are linked to various
health problems.
The “Precautionary Principle” is the rule that should be governing our lives
and the lives of our children. Not using chemicals that the scientific evidence
shows are increasingly building up in our bodies and where there is evidence to
suggest that these chemicals, many of which are toxic are linked to “most of the
diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet, which include
gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression,
autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.”
We should be following the “precautionary principle” and not experimenting on
the effects of these chemicals to see what happens to us, our children and
future generations. Humans also should not be used as lab rats.
Edward C. Corrigan is a lawyer certified as a Specialist in
Citizenship and Immigration Law and Immigration and Refugee Protection by the
Law Society of Upper Canada in London, Ontario, Canada. He can be reached at: corriganlaw@edcorrigan.ca. Read other articles by
Edward, or visit Edward's
website.
This article was posted on Sunday, October 13th, 2013 at
7:36am and is filed under Environment, GMO, Health/Medical, Pesticides.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/10/worldwide-protests-against-monsanto-gmos-and-the-use-of-pesticides/