to be a bit worried by this

[Chen23]

at the very least this smells a bit fishy to me

a bit long but worth a read imo (the full article can be found here......:


Roundup: Birth Defects Caused By World's Top-Selling Weedkiller, Scientists Say

WASHINGTON The chemical at the heart of the planet?s most widely used herbicide Roundup weedkiller, used in farms and gardens across the U.S. -- is coming under more intense scrutiny following the release of a new report calling for a heightened regulatory response around its use.

Critics have argued for decades that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and other herbicides used around the globe, poses a serious threat to public health. Industry regulators, however, appear to have consistently overlooked their concerns.

A comprehensive review of existing data released this month by Earth Open Source, an organization that uses open-source collaboration to advance sustainable food production, suggests that industry regulators in Europe have known for years that glyphosate, originally introduced by American agricultural biotechnology giant Monsanto in 1976, causes birth defects in the embryos of laboratory animals.

Founded in 2009, Earth Open Source is a non-profit organisation incorporated in the U.K. but international in scope. Its three directors, specializing in business, technology and genetic engineering, work pro-bono along with a handful of young volunteers. Partnering with half a dozen international scientists and researchers, the group drew its conclusions in part from studies conducted in a number of locations, including Argentina, Brazil, France and the United States.

Earth Open Source?s study is only the latest report to question the safety of glyphosate, which is the top-ranked herbicide used in the United States. Exact figures are hard to come by because the U.S. Department of Agriculture stopped updating its pesticide use database in 2008. The EPA estimates that the agricultural market used 180 to 185 million pounds of glyphosate between 2006 and 2007, while the non-agricultural market used 8 to 11 million pounds between 2005 and 2007, according to its Pesticide Industry Sales & Usage Report for 2006-2007 published in February, 2011.

The Earth Open Source study also reports that by 1993 the herbicide industry, including Monsanto, knew that visceral anomalies such as dilation of the heart could occur in rabbits at low and medium-sized doses. The report further suggests that since 2002, regulators with the European Commission have known that glyphosate causes developmental malformations in lab animals.

Even so, the commission?s health and consumer division published a final review report of glyphosate in 2002 that approved its use in Europe for the next 10 years.

As recently as last year, the German Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BLV), a government agency conducting a review of glyphosate, told the European Commission that there was no evidence the compound causes birth defects, according to the report.

The agency reached that conclusion despite almost half a dozen industry studies that found glyphosate produced fetal malformations in lab animals, as well as an independent study from 2007 that found that Roundup induces adverse reproductive effects in the male offspring of a certain kind of rats.

German regulators declined to respond in detail for this story because they say they only learned of the Earth Open Source report last week. The regulators emphasized that their findings were based on public research and literature.

Although the European Commission originally planned to review glyphosate in 2012, it decided late last year not to do so until 2015. And it won?t review the chemical under more stringent, up-to-date standards until 2030, according to the report.

[WhatsMyNameAgain]

The report says that human studies are few and inconclusive but there's certainly mountains of data to support the fact that lab animals had birth defects caused by Roundup at low and medium doses. I'd be worried.

That said, I fear nothing we eat is perfectly safe nowadays unless it's home-grown. Meat is hormone-grown, veg sprayed with pesticides, herbicides and again, hormones. Then it's all treated with anti-rot agents (if sold fresh), or the whole of the Table of Elements, if cooked. I don't trust so-called organic produce either since passing, daily, several herds of "organic" cows grazing by the side of a motorway on my way to Uni.

[somethingwitty82]

This is so scary:(

[MeconiumHappens]

An excellent reason to give my nosey neighbour for the crap state of my wilderness of a front garden!
Seriously though, i wouldnt be dabbling with chemicals if i was up the duff either way, just seems logical that stuff that kills other living things=prob worth avoiding.

[WhatsMyNameAgain]

Oh absolutely meconium.

[LineRunner]

US agri-business has known about this since Agent Orange.

[OhBuggerandArse]

I had a friend whose niece and nephew had rather far reaching birth defects caused by pesticides their grandfather had been using before conceiving their mum. She was fine, but something happened to the chromosomes and her kids were pretty badly affected. The family was kind of in denial about it - I guess there must be a lot of contradictory feelings involved.

[LineRunner]

Exactly, it can get into the male gametes, just like the US servicemen in Vietnam who sprayed the jungle with Agent Orange.

[WhatsMyNameAgain]

Big business and govenments know about many such thing. And do nothing until it goes public BIG TIME. Because at the end of the day all the establishment is concerned with is their profits and power (which generates more profit).

I'm not surprised by anything these days. I think there may be a strong likelihood that 9/11 was an inside job. Michael Moor did a good film on this, although IMO it doesn't go deep enough. That said, if it did he'd likely be dead.

I'm also almost convinced that the Russian government (or rather, the FSB/former KGB) was behind the explosions of apartment blocks in Moscow and Volgodonsk in late '90s. They needed an excuse to start the 2nd war in Chechnya. The newly appointed prime minister Putin was then effectively crowned because of his crusade against the "evil Chechens".

Governments regard us about as highly as earthworms.

[Mumswang]

Arse. I'm pregnant and have just dosed my big garden all over for the third time this month (new house, jungle of a garden)

[WhatsMyNameAgain]

Well. If it can affect you doesn't mean it will. Also depends whether you inhaled any/got it on your skin much.
I'd personally be wary of using any chemicals (including bleach really) while pg anyway. Unless there's a dire need!

[DogsBestFriend]

Remember that Thalidomide was found to have been safe when used upon lab animals yet we all know what it did to humans. There's a lot to be said in favour of the argument about species differences and a hell of a lot more to be said against animal experimentation imho.

Whats, if it's any comfort I, like millions of other women, have used household chemicals as usual during pregnancy with no ill effect. Don't over-stress yourself. :)