Sri Lanka joins El Salvador in banning herbicide Roundup linked to a wide range of diseases including fatal chronic kidney disease
Both countries of Sri Lanka and El Salvador are now moving forward in banning Monsanto’s popular weedkiller Roundup, after a recent study linked Roundup to chronic kidney disease. Fatal Chronic Kidney Disease (CKDu) is the second leading cause of death among males in poor regions of Sri Lanka, and in El Salvador. According to a new study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, the active ingredient in Roundup known as glyphosate becomes highly toxic when mixed with ‘hard’ water or heavy metals like arsenic or cadmium that naturally exists within the soil or added as fertilizer: http://seattleorganicrestaurants.com/vegan-whole-food/monsantos-popular-weedkiller-roundup-glyphosate-is-linked-to-fatal-kidney-disease-ckdu.php
For more than a decade, researchers have been trying to find out what’s causing the mysterious kidney disease that has resulted in killing tens of thousands of farmers in poor regions of Central America, including Sri Lanka, El Salvador, and India:
However, it’s no longer a mystery why thousands of agricultural workers and farmers have died as a result of chronic kidney disease. According to researchers, since introduction of GE crops resistant to Monsanto’s best selling herbicide Roundup, Chronic Kidney Disease has spread out so quickly that it now affects 15% of working age people in the region (a total number of 400,000 patients) while killing more than 20,000 people. “Glyphosate acts as a carrier or a vector of these heavy metals to the kidney,” says Dr. Channa Jayasumana, the leading author of the study. Accumulation of toxic chemicals and heavy metals in different organs such as kidneys can lead to a wide range of problems including chronic kidney disease.
Roundup isn’t only linked to chronic kidney disease and countless number of independent studies have linked Monsanto’s popular weed killer to a wide range of diseases including infertility, allergies, genetic damage, organ failure, gluten diseases, cancer and thyroid problems.
Both Sri Lanka and El Salvador have approved ban on dozens of agrochemicals including Monsanto’s popular weedkiller Roundup, but the proposal is yet to be signed into a law:
“An investigation carried out by medical specialists and scientists have revealed that kidney disease was mainly caused by Glysophate. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has ordered the immediate removal of Glyphosate from the local market soon after he was told of the contents of the report,” says the Special Project Minister and Deputy Minister of Economic Development in Sri Lanka.
Disturbingly, in US and all around the world, toxicity of chemicals including Roundup are vastly undermined and in U.S. alone, homeowners and farmers use about 100 million pounds of Roundup herbicide every single year.
When it comes to owning the seed for collecting royalties, the GMO companies say. "It's mine." But when it comes to contamination, cross-pollination, health problems, the response is "we're not liable" says the environmental activist Vandana Shiva:
The giant chemical and Biotech Company Monsanto has been suing thousands of farmers whose their native crops have been contaminated with GE seeds, and have been forcing farmers to pay Mosnanto’s biotechnology fees.
In India, every 30 minutes, one farmer commits suicide as a result of Monsanto’s costly GM seeds. In fact, in the last decade, more than 250,000 Indian farmers have killed themselves by drinking Monsanto’s popular herbicide Roundup. Monsanto and their biotech buddies are bunch of corporate criminals who are in denial about the fact that the blood of Indian farmers and their families are on their hands.
As usual, the giant biotech Monsanto is attacking the findings of the independent studies and have bashed Sri Lanka’s ban on Roundup. “There are no epidemiologic studies suggesting that exposures to glyphosate-based products are associated with renal disorders either in Sri Lanka or elsewhere,” says Monsanto spokesman Thomas Helscher. “The paper presents a theory, the theory has not been tested, and there are a significant number of publications supported by data that make the Jayasumana hypothesis quite unlikely to be correct.”
If the US Supreme Court was anything but just, they would have kept Monsanto and their biotech buddies liable for hiding the truth about toxicity of GMOs and Roundup:
However, because of political corruption of Monsanto and the incompetence of the US Supreme Court, instead of labeling GMOs, the biotech companies have spent millions of dollars to keep the public in dark about what’s in our food.
According to Jayasumana (a researcher who has long insisted that pesticides and heavy metals like arsenic and cadmium are responsible for chronic kidney disease), Monsanto has failed in its obligation to fully warn the public about the health risks of glyphosate when mixed with heavy water.
“I think we can explain the geographical distribution as well as the time problem with our hypothesis,” says Jayasumana about the chronic kidney disease that has been affecting the Central America regions since 1990s. “I don’t see any warnings on the bottle or on the label,” he said. “I feel it’s a fault by Monsanto.”
Sources:
http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/2/2125
