I am an organic gardener, small-time producer of vegetables, fruit and herbs in the mountains of western North Carolina. Have about an acre of truck and culinary herbs in terraced beds, grapes enough for jam, wine and vinegars every year, plus apples, pears, peaches, cherries and blueberries. In the forest I manage extensive crops of ginseng, black cohosh, goldenseal and assorted other medicinal herbs, and I tap more than a dozen big maple and hickory trees for sap/syrups. Have an acre of black elder as well, the most valuable of my herb crops (after the 'sang, but it's valued in situ and only a few of the elder man-roots are used/sold every year), from which I make tinctures and syrups for a steady stream of clients who use them to help ward off and/or shorten the duration of colds and flu. An anti-viral use for elderberry preparations that has considerable scientific support, just so you know.
My ~26 acres is surrounded by the Norfolk-Southern/CSX grade over the eastern continental divide, and they have been spraying Roundup (Monsanto's glyphosate herbicide) two or three times a year to beat back the voracious kudzu they stupidly planted many decades ago to anchor their railbeds. Duke Energy also hired some shifty fly-by-night operators to spray beneath the electric lines for years, until one time they sprayed some sort of evil mixture so toxic the drainage alone killed trees across the roads and driveways and drainage alone that runs outside my south garden fence wiped out even the unkillable mints and forced me to scrap the entire summer's harvest. Didn't even compost it, just threw it off the mountain because I figured there had to be 2,4D and/or dioxin in the 'usual' Roundup mix. We called the EPA on that one, they tested and immediately shut down the water supply wells all the way to the nearest downstream town, for days. Now Duke comes around every couple of years with a Bond, James Bond helicopter with a 100-foot hanging bar equipped with big rotary sawblades - great fun to watch - and follows up with the Asplundh lumberjacks and their big ol' chipper-shredders - even more fun to watch (daughters and I agree!).
Anyway, all that is to establish that I am no fan of Monsanto, their various agrichemical concoctions, or their genetically engineered staple food crops designed to allow for increased use of their agrichemicals. Like Roundup, a.k.a. glyphosate. 2,4D is an even more toxic component of Monsanto's Agent Orange, now being used on food crops in increasing amounts as the glyphosate resistance engineered into food crops has spread to invasive weeds (transgenes are promiscuous, it turns out). As herbicide use has steadily increased in our known to be unsustainable Big Agribiz monocropping food supply system, a compliant EPA [somewhat hilariously mis-titled "Environmental Protection Agency"] has agreeably and steadily increased its allowances for residues of these chemicals in our food and water supplies. It helps, of course, that Monsanto regularly loans its crop scientists to the U.S. government to help determine for the EPA and FDA how much poison is perfectly fine for citizens (including infants and children) to consume on a daily basis. This is known as the government-industry "Revolving Door" some of us are familiar with.
Thus it was with some interest that I downloaded a research review [pdf, open access] from the journal Entropy, April 18, 2013, that was linked in an email I received. It is entitled Glyphosate's Suppression of Cytochrome P450 Enzymes and Amino Acid Biosynthesis by the Gut Microbiome: Pathways to Modern Diseases, by Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff. The authors note that Monsanto, et al. maintain that glyphosate is non-toxic to mammals, which do not have the shikimate pathway used by bacteria, fungi, algae, parasites and plants for the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids. Glyphosate's notable ability to kill non-resistant plants is a result of the chemical's ability to interfere with this process. From the Abstract:
Glyphosate's inhibition of cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes is an overlooked component of its toxicity to mammals. CYP enzymes play crucial roles in biology, one of which is to detoxify xenobiotics. 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. Here, we show how interference with CYP enzymes acts synergistically with disruption of the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids by gut bacteria, as well as impairment in serum sulfate transport. Consequences are most of the diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet, which iinclude gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer's disease. We explain the documented effects of glyphosate and its ability to induce disease, and we show that glyphosate is the "textbook example" of exogenous semiotic entropy: the disruption of homeostasis by environmental toxins.
[emphasis mine]
The review gained notoriety when one of its authors, MIT's Stephanie Seneff, claimed that following the dramatic rise in the incidence of autism over the past ~40 years - from 1:2000 in the 1970s to 1:68 today, we may expect that half of children born in 2025 will be affected with some degree of autism. Now, I do not know that autism or any of the notable diseases that come hand-in-hand with the "Western diet" are actually caused by diet-related changes in the gut microbiome we depend upon for so many of the micronutrients and amino acides our bodies don't directly produce, but there is certainly increased research interest in the field of late. As noted in the article in Environmental Health Perspectives...
The molecular mechanisms responsible for the gut microbiome's impact on metabolism and diseases throughout the body remain largely unknown. However, researchers are beginning to decipher how the microorganisms of the human intestinal tract influence biological functions beyond the gut and play a role in immunological, metabolic, and neurological diseases.
[emphasis mine]
...including autism and Alzheimer's. At any rate, it's good to see than the NIH has launched the Human Microbiome Project to fund further research (and lists those).
Alas, in the meantime Monsanto, et al. [Big Agrichem/GMO] still pretty much own the federal agencies that should be protecting the public health from harmful chemicals and foods. Including FDA, EPA and USDA. In fact, the EPA was convinced to raise the level of glyphosate residue allowed in food shortly after Senate passage of the notorious "Monsanto Protection Act" in 2013, up to 15 and 25 times previously allowed residue levels. Even as the Washington Post reported that Roundup is tied to infertility and cancer, and more recently a medical research scientist reported via CNN that we're in for a Coming food disaster directly related to the allowed levels of 2,4D, glyphosate and surfacants in our food supply. Here we have different departments of government working directly against each other, with the health and food safety of the entire public and future generation at risk.
CNN's David Shubert -
As a medical research scientist, I consider this EPA allowance a grave error and believe that it will ultimately lead to a public health disaster. This conclusion is based upon the following considerations:
1) 2,4D, glyphosate, and surfactants are inside the plant and cannot be washed off. Recently shipments of soybeans to Asia have contained 50-fold the amount of glyphosate allowed in Europe, and high levels are in U.S. GM soybeans while none is detected in conventional and organic beans.
2) 2,4D is toxic, and safety testing of glyphosate formulations has shown that they are endocrine disrupters and cause liver and kidney damage. Moreover, it appears that the specific formulation of 2,4D and glyphosate that will be applied to the new GM crops has not been tested for health safety. Because soy- and corn-based foods will contain these chemicals, they should be considered food additives and fall under the jurisdiction of the FDA, which would require extensive safety testing. Currently none are required.
3) Glyphosate and 2,4D accumulate in the environment, and the amounts will increase in our food and drinking water as their combined use becomes widespread and weeds become more resistant. Glyphosate is already found in the blood and urine of people, and in a soy rich nutrient mix given to infants.
4) While the producers of the new, doubly herbicide resistant crops and the U.S. regulatory agencies have some control over the production and use of herbicides in this country, they cannot control those made or used abroad. The relatively uncontrolled use of glyphoshate-based herbicides in South and Central America has lead to significant increases in birth defects, kidney toxicity, and cancer. It will be much worse if 2,4D is thrown into the mix.
The most we as consumers of food (aren't we all?) can do at this point if we don't wish to wait until 'they' find out too late that we've poisoned ourselves out of existence, is to avoid GMOs to the best of our ability. Because Monsanto, et al. have so far successfully fended off all attempts by the public to force GMO content labeling of foods, that means certified organic, or somewhat equivalent GMO-free classifications available in many areas. Because there are so many concerned people in my region, most of the large grocery outfits have been convinced to segregate their fresh food sections so that we can buy non-GMO produce, and even offer organic label canned, boxed and processed foods right there in the aisles next to the regulars. Familiarize yourself with what types of crops are GMO, because if you are buying something Monsanto, et al. haven't bothered to engineer yet, regular label won't be a problem. The worst products for GMO content and agrichemical residues are those with high sugar (beets), high fructose corn syrup (from GMO corn), anything soy (and most processed foods include soy), and oils - soybean, corn, flax, canola, cottonseed, etc. Look for certified organic on those.
Best of luck to us all, it's looking like we're going to need it.