Thursday, April 16, 2015

Yep, Roundup Causes Cancer. Monsanto is Literally Killing Your Children

Thinking about getting rid of those spring weeds in your yard before they get well-established? Go with plain white vinegar.

Think Progress:

The most popular weed-killer in the United States — and possibly the world — “probably” causes cancer, according to a new report from the World Health Organization (WHO).
Published Thursday in the journal The Lancet Oncology, the report focuses on a chemical called glyphosate, invented by Monsanto back in 1974 as a broad-spectrum herbicide. It’s the active ingredient in Roundup, a popular product used mostly in commercial agriculture production. Roundup is particularly good for genetically modified crops, which can be bred to resist damage from the product while it kills the weeds surrounding it.

In the U.S., glyphosate is not considered carcinogenic. The Environmental Protection Agency’s current position is that “there is inadequate evidence to state whether or not glyphosate has the potential to cause cancer from a lifetime exposure in drinking water.” In the wake of Thursday’s report, however, the EPA said it “would consider” the U.N. agency’s findings.

The new report, crafted by the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), puts glyphosate at the second-highest level of the agency’s classifications for cancer. There are four classifications for things that could cause cancer: known carcinogens, probable or possible carcinogens, not classifiable, and probably not carcinogenic. It noted that glyphosate has been detected in the blood and urine of agricultural workers, indicating that it is absorbed by the human body.
The next week,  EPA announced it would regulate glyphosphate.  That doesn't mean Roundup is safe; it means the EPA will spend the next 20 years writing rules that will reduce the amount of glyphosphate in Roundup to the exact amount that is still lethal to children and other living things, but is cut enough to give Monsanto justification to piss and moan and bitch about Big Gubmint killing free enterprise and JERBS.

And the week after that:
An employee of Monsanto admitted there is a department to discredit any scientist opposed to them.
 The Roundup Hit Squad.

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