Death By Monsanto

Monsanto’s Roundup formulation is the biggest selling herbicide in the world, and its use has dramatically increased since the company introduced glyphosate-tolerant genetically modified (GM) crops such as RR (Roundup Ready) soybean. Today, almost 80 percent of the world’s soy production takes place in the US, Brazil and Argentina, and in 2009, RR soybean accounted for 91 percent, 99 percent and 71 percent respectively of total soybean acreage in those countries. Since 1997, RR soy production has increased from 5 to 30 million hectares of land in the US alone [1]. Soybeans have been found to contain glyphosate residues up to 10 times as high as the doses that caused foetal malformations in chick and frog embryos.

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide and over a hundred other commercial formulations. It is the cause of great concern as evidence of its harmful effects keep piling up from independent scientific studies in recent years, including endocrine disruption, DNA damage, reproductive and developmental toxicities, neurotoxicity, cancer, and birth defects (see [2] Glyphosate Toxic and Roundup Worse, SiS 26; [3] Death by Multiple Poisoning, Glyphosate and Roundup, SiS 42; [4] Ban Glyphosate Herbicide Now. SiS 43; [5] Lab Study Establishes Glyphosate Link to Birth Defects, SiS 48).