What is in this stuff? Pesticides and glyphosate? Why yes! It's all great for growers but gets worse and worse for those who eat food.
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I’ve been following a couple things in the news for the past while simply because these things interest me as they both have implications for all of us.
I’m paying pretty close attention to the consequences of Monsanto’s Round-Up (glyphosate) being used since the 1970’s. Some countries have made it illegal to use because of concerns it causes cancer. Monsanto, which is now part of Bayer, has been fighting this in courts. Currently, there is a lawsuit in California pertaining to this.
400 lawsuits in San Francisco by plaintiffs who claim the chemical causes non-Hodgkin lymphoma and that the company covered up the risks, according to nonprofit watchdog group US Right to Know.
Round-up is not harmless to humans. It causes cancer, according to the World Health Organization. It’s implicated in causing non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. It’s also known that Round-up in extremely minute amounts harms our biome in our guts. This is bad for a whole host of reasons.
Studies show that glyphosate and Roundup negatively affect friendly gut bacteria and favour the growth of harmful bacteria. This raises the question as to whether glyphosate and Roundup’s negative impacts on gut bacteria could contribute to findings of other toxic effects seen in animal and human epidemiological studies on these substances. In humans, disturbed gut bacteria is found in people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), diarrhea, and malnutrition, as well as in a subset of autistic people. It may play a role in multisystem organ failure and colon cancer.
detoxproject.org/...
Monsanto and their allies say this is rubbish. They base their conclusion on the fact that no direct physiological pathway as to how Round-up does this has been established...therefore it couldn’t possibly be true. I’ll post a link to a person who says he’s “a skeptical blogger.” He goes into how Round-up works in plants. He says mammals don’t have the same biological pathways as plants do therefore glyphosate can’t harm our gut biome. Umm...that is exactly the wrong way to draw conclusions. www.crediblehulk.org/…
Round-up is found in practically all our foods now and in amounts that are higher than allowed. No one knows if there is even a safe amount to consume, yet limits to the amount allowed in foods have been established. Our foods have more Round-up in them than those “allowable” amounts. It’s found in grains, fruits and vegetables and has turned up in nearly every common food in the USA, according to a new report.
“There’s a fair amount in all of them,” FDA chemist Richard Thompson wrote to colleagues in a January 2017 email that was among the records.
Linda Birnbaum, a toxicologist and director of the US National Institute of Environmental Health Services, said even a small exposure to pesticides can be dangerous. “Even with low levels of pesticides, we’re exposed to so many, and we don’t count the fact that we have cumulative exposures,” Birnbaum told the Guardian.
Thompson, who works out of an FDA laboratory in Arkansas, wrote that broccoli was the only food that he had “on hand” that didn’t show any traces of the herbicide. Another FDA chemist, Narong Chamkasem, found “over-the-tolerance” levels of glyphosate at 6.5 parts per million in corn, the Guardian reported. The legal limit is 5.0 parts per million.
nypost.com/…
There is something funny going on however with this information. The people who are in charge of the FDA and EPA now in the Trump administration won’t allow this information to be published. An FDA supervisor wrote to an Environmental Protection Agency official in an email that the corn was not considered an “official sample” – meaning that the shocking example wouldn’t be reported to the EPA.
So there you have it. Unless the FDA tests something they deem to be an “official sample” the science can’t be reported by the EPA. And Trump’s EPA made this conclusion just four months ago: In December 2017, the EPA concluded that glyphosate “is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.”
The World Health Organization feels exactly the opposite and said so just two months ago as a response.
Under fire by U.S. politicians, World Health Organization defends its claim that an herbicide causes cancer
The World Health Organization's (WHO) cancer agency is firmly defending its finding that a widely used herbicide is "probably carcinogenic" despite reports cited by key House lawmakers.
EPA's internal watchdog is currently investigating allegations that former agency official Jess Rowland colluded with Monsanto during the review process to counter suggestions it endangers human health (E&E News PM, 7 June, 2017).
www.sciencemag.org/...
Gosh, do you think there is a problem when those in charge of protecting us from potential bad stuff are in collusion with corporations that make the potential bad stuff? Naw...I’m certain that’s not a problem at all. Trump’s FDA and EPA are Monsanto’s our friends.
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This is the lobby of the bank my family had used for generations in downtown Denver. It’s called Colorado National Bank. Now it’s a hotel.
Another thing I follow is the ever-changing situation regarding cannabis. I do so because I want to normalize cannabis as we’re in the grip of another “Reefer Madness” episode brought to us by the Trump administration. Recently, Senator Gardner of Colorado and Senator Warren of Massachusetts introduced a bill to protect cannabis in states that have legalized it. Donald Trump himself just last week said he was supportive of this even though his Attorney General is not.
Currently, banks don’t do any business with cannabis companies as cannabis is a Schedule I drug at the Federal level. There has been some movement in Congress to change that, but the shifty Trump administration has just leap-frogged Congress on this score.
The Trump administration has found a new way to crack down on legal weed
- New rules from the SBA will make it hard for companies that do business with the marijuana industry to gain access to loans.
- Far from just weed companies, the new rule could extend to web designers, gardening suppliers and others who may derive just a small portion of their revenues from marijuana firms.
- The change was quietly published in a Policy Notice, which went into effect April 3, and is an interesting new approach to policing an industry that is now legal in the majority of U.S. states. www.cnbc.com/…
That’s right! Just one month ago to the day, new rules went into effect to really screw with any and all companies that have anything to do with cannabis even if it’s totally indirectly. If you own a store that sells shovels and it’s discovered you sold some to pot farmers, you are now potentially in trouble. If you are a web designer who makes websites for all sorts of businesses and it’s discovered you made one for a cannabis company, you are now potentially in trouble.
Up until April 2, 2018, SBA rules precluded lending to any business dir ectly involved in the industry — "a business that grows, produces, processes, distributes, or sells marijuana or marijuana products, edibles, or derivatives, regardless of the amount of such activity.
As of April 3, 2018: The new SBA rule goes much further, however. SBA now also precludes lending to any firm that is even indirectly doing business with a marijuana-related operation, significantly expanding the number of businesses no longer eligible for SBA-backed loans. The rule defines such a business as one that "derived any of its gross revenue for the previous year (or, if a start-up, projects to derive any of its gross revenue for the next year) from sales to Direct Marijuana Businesses of products or services that could reasonably be determined to support the use, growth, enhancement or other development of marijuana."
A garden supply company that sells bagged dirt, hydroponic equipment, potting supplies, fertilizer, or grow lights primarily to garden and home centers, but received even one purchase order from a local marijuana business is now ineligible [for buisness loans or banking services] since its products could be used to help grow the product?
Similarly, consider companies like contractors, architects, or engineers that help build a grow facility, or online marketing and website development services that help market a retail marijuana business.
The stricter rules come as the Trump administration's Justice Department seeks to make life hard for the marijuana trade even as public support for it grows — a recent Gallup poll finds 64 percent of Americans favor federal legalization, including a majority of Republicans.
www.cnbc.com/...
As the worm turns in the Trump administration. Crooks, liars, thieves and just plain out of touch and mean-spirited is who they are. They are doing exactly the opposite of what their jobs are supposed to be about. Of course, that’s exactly why the Koch Bros. and Mercers Trump chose them in the first place.
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