The report, titled Toxicol in Vitro, revealed that exposures of as low as one part per million of Roundup had the effect of reducing testosterone levels in male rats by more than a third. That exposure rate is well below the level a farmer or gardener would experience in a typical weed-killing session with a spray bottle or backpack sprayer.

Séralini, who has focused his research on Roundup for nearly two decades, has previously proven that Roundup kills placental cells and is also responsible for spontaneous abortion.

Lips quivered on ashen faces. Hair stood on forearms. Heads shook and, in some cases, tears formed.

The forum, at the Acres USA conference in Columbus, Ohio, last Friday, lasted two and a half hours. For 150 minutes, Dr. Don Huber dispassionately laid out fact after fact, more research than was possible to digest, with almost surgical precision that led to the same unavoidable conclusion: “Roundup is the most widely abused product in American history.”

Don Huber addresses the Acres USA conference on Friday.

The result, he said, is the death of agriculture, our livelihoods and the planet as we know it. A pesticide product which was supposed to just be killing weeds, he stated bluntly, is systematically killing us.

When he was done, I snapped a photo of his final slide with my iPhone (above) that talked about our children’s futures. I knew I would soon be heading home to enjoy a holiday weekend setting out decorations, cutting down a tree and sipping hot chocolate with two precious little girls — yet I also knew my life would never quite be the same.

“Future historians may well look back and write about our time, not about how many pounds of pesticide we did or did not apply; but by how willing we were to sacrifice our children and jeopardize future generations based on false promises and flawed science, just to benefit the “bottom line” of a commercial enterprise.”

You simply can’t hear what Don Huber had to say and then go blindly about your life. At least I can’t.

Last Christmas . . . my daughter kissed my grandmother for the last time.

So this weekend I shuddered when I looked at the base of the Christmas trees . . . where Roundup had been sprayed to make things look “clean” for holiday lumberjacks. I scowled at the shelves of the garden center where the poinsettias stood like bright sentries announcing the season at hand. At the end of the row canisters of Roundup awaited spring, when they would be as eagerly gobbled up by customers as the Christmas flowers were on this day.

We sang Christmas carols. We baked cookies and set our tree in its stand, yet as I draped lights and hung ornaments, Dr. Huber’s words echoed in my ears. I kept thinking about the fact this would be my first holiday season without my grandmother and my aunt, both of whom were claimed by Alzheimer’s Disease. Dr. Huber told the audience the incidence of Alzheimer’s is expected to skyrocket in the next 20 years — probably because Roundup robs so many essential micronutrients from our food.

Our friends Mary, left, and Michael.

As we talked of our holiday plans and the friends and family we’ll visit, our hearts ached for our lovely, amazing friend, Mary, who will spend Christmas week tethered to a chemotherapy drip. She’ll make it through, because she’s a ferocious fighter. But why should she have to fight so hard? Is it because when we inhale Roundup it then targets our livers, our kidneys, our hormones, our bones, our thyroids and our sex organs . . . and Roundup is literally everywhere in the air and water we breathe?

It’s impossible not to take this personally if you let yourself think about it. Do you know anyone with autism, ADHD, endometriosis, Crohn’s disease, dementia, Parkinson’s? If so, then you know someone who has been affected by the atrocities of Roundup. Do you know anyone who’s overweight, even obese? Of course you do, since one in three Americans now fall into that category. Well, it’s probably not because those people are lazy, or want to eat too much, or because their grandparents were fat and the gene was passed down. It’s more likely because people don’t get enough essential nutrition in their meals each day, so they eat more to compensate.

And why don’t the meals have enough nutrition? It’s because most of our food is grown while being sprayed with Roundup, which reaches into our bodies and soils and steals things like nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, boron, copper, and especially iron, manganese and zinc. Whether you understand bodily function, or not, all you need to know is that without these essential elements in their daily essential amounts, your body stops working properly. Disease becomes rampant.

And whether you understand soil science, or not, understand this: Mother Nature is pissed off . . . and Mother Nature always wins.

Dr. Huber told the audience last Friday that his life changed profoundly the day he allowed SafeLawns to “leak” his letter to the Secretary of Agriculture to the general public last February. In that letter he warned that a newly studied soil organism was capable of living among plants, and animals, and that it was causing spontaneous miscarriage in humans. He warned that the appearance of the organism was heightened when Roundup was sprayed, as if Mother Nature were fighting back.

He was vilified. Mercilessly. Often by academics who had been his colleagues for decades.

But on Friday the 75-year-old emeritus professor — who was widely regarded in all circles as one of the planet’s most respected scientists until he began pointing out a rather inconvenient truth about Roundup — showed us pictures. They were images of a sinister organism that appears to be wreaking havoc that is perhaps irreversible.

“I have practically begged our government to invest more resources into studying this organism before it’s too late,” he said. “To date, I’m not seeing any action being taken.”

Since the government won’t act against the manufacturer, Monsanto, or the sellers like Scotts Miracle Gro or your local garden center, that means it’s up to you to vote with your wallet by not buying the stuff. It’s up to you to understand that approximately 80 percent of our commercial food supply is grown in a “Roundup Ready” environment — and that to support organic food and farming is to support a planet without Roundup.

Maybe instead of Christmas cards this holiday season, you can send a strong message to your elected officials that foods genetically modified to resist Roundup ought to be banned as they are in many European communities — where they call our sustenance Frankenfood.

The world has a lot of problems these days and it can come off as hyperbolic ranting to suggest that so many problems are the result of a weed killer that comes in a ready-to-use spray bottle at your local hardware store. There’s lots of other bad stuff out there. The thing about Roundup, though, is that unlike many maladies it’s a problem we can control. We don’t have to use Roundup. We don’t have to eat the food produced with it.

And if we stop doing that, the problem could conceivably go away.

For our children’s sake we need to make this happen. Now.

In the meantime, don’t just take it from me. Here’s a great interview with Dr. Huber:
http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite/Safety/gmo/gut_flora_1210110827.html. It encapsulates many of the similar points he made last Friday before the audience, numbering in the hundreds, stood for a long, almost sobering, standing ovation. It wasn’t the kind of raucous applause we lavish on Broadway actors or athletes on a field, but rather a respectful, somber homage to a man who is daring to try to save us from ourselves.

Justice Michael A. Kelen, who has served on the federal bench since 2003, quoted the Hudson decision in ordering Health Canada to begin a special review of North America’s most widely used weed-killer, stating: “Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent adverse health impact or environmental degradation.”

In his 43-page decision reached yesterday, Kelen also cited a bevy of new evidence that implicates Roundup and its active ingredient glyphosate in everything from human birth defects to lymphoma. His order, however, specifically focused on the risks to amphibians detailed in a 2008 scientific literature review by the British Columbia Ministry of the Environment.

In that study, published in the BC Literature Review, scientists found that one of Roundup’s “inert” ingredients known as POEA — or polyoxyethylene tallow amines — has toxic effects on amphibians and that there are “knowledge gaps” hindering an “effective and realistic assessment” of the impacts of glyphosate on amphibians.” The report, however, did conclude that “recent studies have shown that amphibians are one of the most sensitive vertebrate groups to the toxicological effects of this herbicide.”

The West Coast Environmental Law Group, which filed a petition demanding the Roundup study on behalf of a French physician living in Canada, hailed yesterday’s decision.

“It’s absurd that (we) had to go to court to force Health Canada to consider the environmental risks of substances that BC government scientists have flagged as posing a major risk to frogs and other amphibians,” said Andrew Gage, staff lawyer. “This decision empowers the public to demand that pesticides be re-examined when science casts doubt on their safety and shows Health Canada that it must take such demands seriously.”

This review caps a year in which the toxicity of Roundup has been brought into question more than any other time in the product’s nearly 40-year history. As detailed in this report in September, the product is literally everywhere in our air in water due to its prevalent usage in horticulture and agriculture — and at homes where the mothers and fathers spray the product around their children without knowing any better.

Scientist Don Huber caused an international stir earlier this year when he allowed SafeLawns to post his letter to the Secretary of Agriculture warning of Roundup’s risks — including spontaneous miscarriage in humans.

“I can’t understand why the government is ignoring the crisis caused by Roundup,” he said at the time. “If the evidence were so clear on any other product, action would have been taken long, long ago. The problems are epidemic in scale. New pathogens are popping up. New species are showing up that science can’t even yet explain. But they all trace back to the massive abuse of glyphosate.”

Perhaps this judge’s order yesterday can begin to turn the tide.

.

In what’s being called “groundbreaking” research out of Mississippi and Iowa, the weed killer known as Roundup has been found to be virtually everywhere in air and water. This comes on the heels of the June report that shows Roundup, the world’s best-selling and most unregulated pesticide, causes birth defects.

The key aspect of the new report, circulated Wednesday afternoon worldwide by Reuters, is that it comes from a chief United States government scientist.

“(Roundup) is out there in significant levels. It is out there consistently,” said Paul Capel, environmental chemist and head of the agricultural chemicals team at the U.S. Geological Survey Office, part of the U.S. Department of Interior.

Capel found that glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup, was found in every stream sample examined in Mississippi in a two-year period and also in most air samples.

“So people are exposed to it through inhalation,” Capel told Reuters. “This study is one of the first to document the consistent occurrence of this chemical in streams, rain and air throughout the growing season. It is used so heavily and studied so little.”

Though the glyphosate in its original form is not listed by the U.S. EPA as highly toxic when inhaled, it may become a major problem once inside the body. In the presence of human saliva, glyphosate is known to metabolize by mixing with nitrites in the human stomach and forming a new compound known as N-nitrosoglyphosate — a highly toxic substance that can cause tumors.

Standard carcinogenic tests involving Roundup using rats would not detect this effect since rats do not secrete nitrite in their saliva.

In light of his findings, Capel said more tests were needed to determine how harmful the chemical, glyphosate, might be to people and animals — yet the evidence has been clear for years. And in Roundup, the glyphosate is blended with other chemicals such as the surfactant POEA (polyethoxylated tallow amine), which is known for its toxicity in wildlife and also for killing human cells in laboratory tests.

In June, Earth Open Source, an organization that uses open-source collaboration to advance sustainable food production, concluded that industry regulators in Europe have known for years that glyphosate, originally introduced by American agricultural biotechnology giant Monsanto in 1974, causes birth defects in the embryos of laboratory animals. The report also concluded that this information has been hidden from the public in the U.S. and Europe for many years — despite the fact that U.S. regulators now allow upwards of 90,000 tons of the stuff to be used annually.

These days the news about Roundup’s toxicity is literally everywhere. Now a U.S government researcher has concluded that the Roundup is also everywhere in the air we breathe and the water we drink.

Is there anything left to do other than call your elected officials and demand this product be removed from the marketplace?

The Environmental Protection Agency was supposed to have reviewed glyphosate in 2012, but kicked that process forward to 2015. A “full” review utilizing fully modern analytical techniques isn’t scheduled to 2030.

Monsanto, meanwhile, said it is reviewing this new study by Paul Capel and the EPA
had no immediate comment on the study.

The official line from Monsanto regarding its product’s safety is predictable: “Regulatory authorities and independent experts around the world agree that glyphosate does not cause adverse reproductive effects in adult animals or birth defects in offspring of these adults exposed to glyphosate, even at doses far higher than relevant environmental or occupational exposures.”

This is the same company that was fined in the U.S. and Europe for claiming for years that Roundup was “biodegradable.” My pesticide applicator manual back in the early 1990s claimed, as did the company, that Roundup “broke down in the soil within seven days.”

We shouldn’t have believed them then.

We certainly can’t believe them now.

And for its part, the Scotts Miracle Gro company — that holds the retail license for Roundup — continues to promote it vigorously, often in advertisements that show men and women applying Roundup without protective gear. The company continues to advance its goal of selling seeds that have been genetically engineered to resist Roundup — so that even more Roundup can be sprayed.

Will yesterday’s news begin to put an end to this tragedy? Only if we use it to our advantage and demand that our elected officials do something about it.

This photo from the Battle Creek Enquirer newspaper shows the devastation wrought by the mistaken application of Roundup.

This story might be funny if it weren’t inherently tragic.

Back in early spring, folks in Battle Creek, Michigan, were planning for a great season of baseball and other sports at their beloved Bailey Park Sports Complex. A new scoreboard and other improvements had been installed. A local lawn chemical contracting company was hired for the job of keeping the grass emerald green.

By the end of June, however, those fields of dreams had turned into a very real nightmare: massive swaths of dead, brown grass. Officials began looking for the usual suspects of drought or insects, but instead discovered maybe the biggest fielding error of all-time. The lawn chemical applicator thought he was applying fertilizer, but was instead applying Roundup — the wildly toxic plant killer that wipes out grass and weeds simultaneously. Here’s the local newspaper’s take on the story:
http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/article/20110807/SPORTS/108070317.

The ignorance of the applicator in the case is virtually inconceivable. Chemical fertilizer and Roundup generally don’t look — or smell — anything alike. That someone is even capable of such a high-profile faux pas makes one wonder how often less noticeable mistakes happen in the landscaping industry. Don’t think for one second, in other words, that this type of applicator error is an isolated incident.

And if you look closely at the photo, you’ll see smaller errors within the larger blunder. Stripes of green grass are visible throughout the mostly dead field, which means the applicator missed with the Roundup during his or her rush to get the job done on time. This type of thing happens, most assuredly, thousands of times each day across America as the “mow, blow and go” lawn crews hustle to meet their quota of fertilizer and weed-killing applications. Many are rewarded for their speed of application, either with a financial bonus or the opportunity to leave work early.

For those of us who rant against lawn chemical applications, these Michigan fields represent the proverbial poster children in our campaign. It’s catastrophic ignorance that will undoubtedly bring a laugh in the Power Point presentation.

Really, though, the photo is more sickening than funny. Imagine how many gallons of toxic poison were spread on this baseball field where children come to play or watch others. Imagine how many gallons of Roundup their parents still spread in the name of make their personal landscapes beautiful.

Maybe, just maybe, they’ll look at this photo and do more than laugh.

A letter by Purdue professor Dr. Don Huber, first posted here before getting wide circulation around the world, brought intense criticism to a respected researcher. Huber clarified his position about Roundup toxicity with this followup letter:

THIS COVER LETTER is provided to explain the reasoning and concerns that were conveyed in a letter which I sent to Secretary of Agriculture, Thomas Vilsack on January 17, 2011 (Attachment 1). The letter was not intended for public distribution; however, the letter was ‘leaked’ and subsequently posted on the internet from which it soon became public knowledge world-wide. Once it was widely distributed, I gave permission for subsequent postings in order to keep it consistent. My busy meeting and travel schedule has delayed getting further information on this matter out publicly to the many individuals who have requested it. The scientific data on this newly recognized organism is being prepared for formal publication.
I wrote the letter to Secretary Vilsack for a very simple reason: we are experiencing a large number of problems in production agriculture in the U.S. that appear to be intensified and sometimes directly related to genetically engineered (GMO) crops, and/or the products they were engineered to tolerate – especially those related to glyphosate (the active chemical in Roundup® herbicide and generic versions of this herbicide). We have witnessed a deterioration in the plant health of corn, soybean, wheat and other crops recently with unexplained epidemics of sudden death syndrome of soybean (SDS), Goss’ wilt of corn, and take-all of small grain crops the last two years. At the same time, there has been an increasing frequency of previously unexplained animal (cattle, pig, horse, poultry) infertility and spontaneous abortions. These situations are threatening the economic viability of both crop and animal producers.

Incidence of high infertility and spontaneous abortions in the various animal species is becoming more common. Often, all previously known causes of these conditions can be ruled out as factors for these particular farm operations (Attachment 2). Detailed examination for the newly recognized organism has shown its presence in all of the cases examined to date. Koch’s postulates have been completed for animals to verify the cause/effect relationship with this newly culturable organism. A search for the source of animal infections revealed a high population of this newly discovered electron microscopic sized organism in soybean meal and corn products. The organism appears compatible, and probably synergistic, with other microorganisms such as Fusarium solani fsp. glycines, the cause of SDS of soybeans and also with gram positive bacteria. The organism also is in a very high population in Goss’ wilt infected corn caused by the gram positive bacterium Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. nebraskensis.

Although most corn hybrids have been genetically resistant to Goss’ wilt, preliminary research in 2010 demonstrated that the application of glyphosate herbicide, or the surfactant from glyphosate formulations, nullified this resistance and rendered them fully susceptible to this pathogen (Fig. 1). This disease was commonly observed in many Midwestern U.S. fields planted to RR corn in 2009 and 2010, while adjacent non-GMO corn had very light to no infections in spite of the high inoculum present in no-till crop residues (Figure 2). The increased Goss’ wilt in 2010 was a major contributor to the estimated almost one billion bushels of corn ‘lost’ last year (based on USDA August estimated yields and actually harvested crop reported by USDA in January) in spite of generally good harvest conditions.

Increased severity of plant diseases after glyphosate is applied (Fig. 3) is well documented and, although rarely cited, the increased disease susceptibility is the herbicidal mode of action of glyphosate (Johal andRahe,1988, 1990; Johal and Huber, 2009; Schafer et al, 2009, 2010). The loss of disease resistance in Roundup Ready® sugar beets when glyphosate was applied prompted researchers at the USDA sugar beet laboratory to include a precautionary statement in their paper, e.g. “Precautions need to be taken when certain soil-borne diseases are present if weed management for sugar beet is to include post-emergence glyphosate treatments” (Larson et al, 2006).

The loss of genetic resistance in Roundup Ready® corn hybrids to Goss’ wilt (Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. nebraskensis) (Figs. 2, 3), synergistic relationship of the newly recognized electron microscopic organism causing infertility and abortions in animals with gram+ bacteria, and high populations of the new EM organism in RR corn leaves and silage creates a concern for the deregulation of Roundup Ready® alfalfa which is productive in many areas only because of its genetic resistance to bacterial wilt caused by Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. insidiosum. This disease could make alfalfa unprofitable for production and, if the EM organism is associated with it in alfalfa as it is in corn, also unsafe for animal feed and their products such as milk for human consumption. The loss of alfalfa, the United State’s most valuable forage crop and fourth most economically important crop, could strike a mortal blow to struggling dairy and beef operations.

Extensive research has shown that this potent tool for weed management, glyphosate, is also a strong immobilizer (chelator) of essential plant nutrients to impair nutrient uptake, translocation, and physiological efficiency at only a fraction of the labeled herbicidal rate (Ekers, Ozturk, Cakmak, Zobiole, Jolly et al., 2004). Glyphosate is a powerful biocide to harm beneficial soil organisms important for nutrient recycling, N-fixation, nutrient availability, and natural disease control (Kremer & Means, Zobiole et al, Dick et al) with a resultant increase in diseases of corn, soybeans (Fig. 3), wheat and other crops. The close relationship between mineral nutrition and disease severity is well documented (Datnoff et al, 2007). These activities can have deleterious effects on plant nutrition, disease susceptibility, and nutritional quality of the crop produced.

Deleterious effects of GM crops also are vividly demonstrated in reports from livestock producers in the U.S. Although some of these reports are anecdotal because of limited analytical techniques to verify the cause, some producers have been able to resume economical operations by changing feed sources to non-GMO crops. Replicated independent research is needed in this area, especially in light of the serious toxicological concerns raised recently that show potential human and animal toxicity from very low levels of residual glyphosate in food/feed that are many times lower than permitted in U.S. food and feed products (Seralini et al., 2011). The recent Indian Supreme Court’s independent analysis and Ruling that GMO egg plant posed a significant health risk to humans needs further evaluation in the U.S. (AgroNews, 2011).

I feel I would be totally irresponsible to ignore my own research and the vast amount of published research now available that support the concerns we are seeing in production agriculture, without bringing it to the attention of the Secretary of Agriculture with a request for him to initiate the much needed independent research. Many producers can’t wait an additional 3-10 years for someone to find the funds and neutral environment to conduct such critical research (Attachment 2. Entomologists letter to EPA).

Based on the scientific evidence currently accumulating, I do not believe it is in the best interests of the agricultural producer or consuming public for regulatory agencies to approve more GMO crops, particularly Roundup Ready® alfalfa and sugar beets, until independent research can establish their productivity when predisposed to potentially severe diseases, the irrelevance of the new EM organism, and their nutritional equivalency. In my letter, I asked the Secretary to allocate the necessary resources to do this, and requested that he exercise the utmost caution in deregulating these crops until such findings resolve the concerns expressed in the letter, if they do.

Don M. Huber

Professor Emeritus, Purdue University

References cited
AgroNews. 2011. India: Signs of food toxicity in GE eggplant. Scoop.co.nz 2011-1-18. Nib, 24 Jnuary 111.

Bellaloui, N., reddy, K.N., Zablotowicz, R.M., Abbas, H.K., and Abel, C.A. 2009. Effects of glyphosate application on seed iron and root ferric (III) reductase in soybean cultivars. J. Agric. Food Chem. 57:9569-9574.

Bott, S., Tesfamariam, T., Kania, A., Eman, B., Aslan, N., Roemheld, V., and Neumann, G. 2011, Phytotoxicity of glyphosate soil residues re-mobilised by phosphate fertilization. Plant Soil 315:2-11. DOI 10, 1007/s11104-010-06989-3.

Cakmak, I., Yazici, A., Tutus, Y., Ozturk, L. 2009. Glyphosate reduced seed and leaf concentrations of calcium, magnesium, manganese, and iron in non-glyphosate resistant soybean. European J. Agron. 31:114-119.

Datnoff, L.E., elmer, W.H., and Huber, D.M. 2007. Mineral Nutrition and Plant Disease. APS Press, St. Paul, Mn. 278. 278 pages.

Eker, S., Ozturk, L., Yazici, A., Erenoglu, B., Roemheld, V., and Cakmak, I. 2006. Foliar-applied glyphosate substantially reduced uptake and transport of iron and manganese in sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) plants. J. Agric. Food Chem. 54:100019-10025.

Fernandez, M.R., Zentner, R.P., Basnyat, P., Gehl, D., Selles, F., and Huber, D.M. 2009. Glyphosate associations with cereal diseases caused by Fusarium spp. in the Canadian Prairies. European J. Agon. 31:133-143.

Johal, G.R. and Rahe, J.E. 1984. Effect of soilborne plant-pathogenic fungi on the herbicidal action of glyphosate on bean seedlings. Phytopathology 74:950-955.

Johal, G.R. and Rahe, J.E. 1990. Role of phytoalexins in the suppression of resistance of Phaseolus vulgaris to Colletotrichum lindemuthianum by glyphosate. Canad. J. Plant Pathol. 12:225-235.

Johal, G.R. and Huber, D.M. 2009. Glyphosate effects on diseases of plants. European J. Agron. 31:144-152.

Kremer, R.J. and Means, N.E. 2009. Glyphosate and glyphosate-resistant crop interactions with rhizosphere microorganisms. European J. Agron. 31:153-161.

Larsen, R.L., Hill, A.L., Fenwick, A., Kniss, A.R., Hanson, L.E., and Miller, S.D. 2006. Influence of glyphosate on Rhizoctonia and Fusarium root rot in sugar beet. Pest Manag. Sci. 62:1182-1192.

Ozturk, L., Yazici, A., Eker, S., gokmen, O., roemheld, V., and Cakmak, I. 2008. Glyphosate inhibition of ferric reductase activity in iron deficient sunflower roots. New Phytol. 177:899-906.

Schafer, J.R., Westhoven, A.M., Kruger, G.R., Davis, V.M., Hallett, S.G., and Johnson, W.G. 2009. Effect of growth media on common lambsquarter and giant ragweed biotypes response to glyphosate. Proc. Northcentral Weed Sci. Soc. 64:102.

Schafer, J.R., Hallett, S.G., and Johnson, W.G. 2010. Role of soil-borne fungi in the response of giant ragweed (Ambrosia trifida) biotypes to glyphosate. Proc. Northcentral Weed Sci. Soc. 65:.

Seralini, G-E., Mesnage, R., Clair, E., Gress, S., de Vendomois, J.S., Cellier, D. 2011. Genetically modified crops safety assessments: present limits and possible improvements. Environ. Sci. Europe 23:10-20. http://www.enveurope.com/content/23/1/10

Tesfamariam, T., Bott, S., Cakmak, I., Roemheld, V., and Neumann, G. 2009. Glyphosate in the rhizosphere – role of waiting times and different glyphosate binding forms in soils for phytoxicity to non-target plants. European J. Agron. 31:126-132.

Yamada, T., Kremer, R.J., Camargo e Castro, P.R., and Wood, B.W. 2009. Glyphosate interactions with physiology, nutrition, and diseases of plants: Threat to agricultural sustainability? European J. Agron. 31:111-113.

Zobiole, L.H.S., Oliveira, R.S.Jr., Huber, D.M., Constantin, J., Castro, C., Oliveira, F.A., Oliveira, A. Jr. 2010. Glyphosate reduces shoot concentrations of mineral nutrients in glyphosate-resistant soybeans. Plant Soil 328:57-69.

Zobiole, L.H.S., Oliveira, R.S. Jr., Kremer, R.J., Constantin, J., Yamada, T., Castro, C., Oliveiro, F.A., and Oliveira, A. Jr. 2010. Effect of glyposate on symbiotic N2 fixation and nickel concentration in glyphosate-resistant soybeans. Applied Soil Ecol. 44:176-180.

Attachment 1: Letter to Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack

Attachment 2. Letter from a Veterinarian

I am working with a sow herd that has had elevated death loss for over two years and very poor reproductive performance for the last 6-8 months. I have done extensive diagnostics (primarily at Iowa State) and can find nothing infectious that is routinely found to explain the problem.

I suspect there is a toxin involved; I have done extensive testing on liver, feed, and water but can find no evidence of those compounds either. We have had a few individuals mention that the use of GMO crops could be contributing to these problems.

The producer recently saw your article to the secretary of agriculture and forwarded it to me. We are very intrigued by the organism you mention. Could you tell me if any laboratory is looking for this agent? How do we go about finding it? We are at the end of our rope and cannot figure this out. Any help you can give us would be greatly appreciated.

Attachment 3. Letter from 26 University Entomologists to EPA
Public Submission: EPA-HQ-OPP-2008-0836-0043. Docket EPA-HQ-OPP-2008-0836

Docket Title Evaluation of the Resistance Risks from Using a Seed Mix Refuge with Pioneer’s Optimum AcreMax 1 Corn Rootworm-Protected Corn

Document EPA-HQ-OPP-2008-0836-0001; Public Submission EPA-HQ-OPP-2008-0836-0043

Public Submission Title Anonymous public comment Receipt Date 02/09/2009

Doc. Legacy ID EPA-HQ-OPP-2008-0836-0032(0900006480849377) Track No. 8084de39

General Comment

Comment The following statement has been submitted by 26 leading corn insect scientists working at public research institutions located in 16 corn producing states. All of the scientists have been active participants of the Regional Research Project NCCC-46 “Development, Optimization, and Delivery of Management Strategies for Rootworms and Other Below-ground Insect Pests of Maize” and/or related projects with corn insect pests. The statement may be applicable to all EPA decisions on PIPs, not just for the current SAP. It should not be interpreted that the actions and opinions of these 26 scientists represent those of the entire group of scientists participating in NCCC-46. The names of the scientists have been withheld from the public docket because virtually all of us require cooperation from industry at some level to conduct our research.

Statement:

“Technology/stewardship agreements required for the purchase of genetically modified seed explicitly prohibit research. These agreements inhibit public scientists from pursuing their mandated role on behalf of the public good unless the research is approved by industry. As a result of restricted access, no truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions regarding the technology, its performance, its management implications, IRM, and its interactions with insect biology. Consequently, data flowing to an EPA Scientific Advisory Panel from the public sector is unduly limited.”

I know from observations in dairy herds in the east that Dr. Huber is not going off half-cocked. How about a herd of dairy cows — that under the best testing Cargill has to offer can find no significant mycotoxin or other molds present in any feeds — yet in order to achieve normal feed intake and anything approaching normal performance, the cows require three different mycotoxin binders to be fed in the ration?

This type of feeding difficulty NEVER took place before RR corn was planted and managed with glyphosate chemical the first time four years ago on this farm.

Please forward this article to you friends, neighbors, local news outlets and to your elected officials at all levels of government that amount to something if you can find some: http://www.safelawns.org/blog/index.php/2011/02/researcher-roundup-may-be-causing-miscarriages-in-cattle-humans/. Don’t spend time with the USDA. Go to your state officials in agriculture. They might listen and do something…. might. I have asked my State Senator to hold hearings on this issue and invite interested citizenry to help formulate legislation which safe guards our state from further abuses from the bio-engineers who have brought us Roundup Ready.

Pray a bunch.

Just as Col. Don Huber’s letter that we revealed here seven days ago is becoming widely circulated on the Internet in various sites, a key piece of information has become available this evening.

Huber, a former Emeritus Professor at Purdue University and coordinator at the American Phytopathological Society that studies plant diseases and pathogens, confirmed to me that he hand delivered his letter to the United States Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Jan. 17. This is significant because the USDA announced that it will now allow genetically modified “Roundup Ready” alfalfa on Jan. 27 — a full 10 days after seeing Huber’s warning that Roundup Ready crops may be causing spontaneous miscarriage in cattle and humans.

“If the USDA held this information prior to January 27, I would think their actions would be viewed as particularly reckless and irresponsible,” said Jim Gerritsen, President, Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association in Montrose, Colorado.

The essence of Huber’s letter centers around discovery of a new pathogen, which appears to be related to overuse of the weed killer known broadly as Roundup. With the USDA’s approval of Roundup Ready alfalfa for this spring, millions more acres will likely be sprayed with the catastrophically toxic product. More of the the product will enter the food chain through animals, that will then be consumed by humans. Huber’s warming that the pathogen has been found in the placentas of women who have miscarried in the fourth or fifth month of their pregnancies OUGHT to be leading the nightly news.

After holding onto the letter for nearly two weeks at Huber’s request, and then going public with it last week, we have received dozens of phone calls from media outlets that typically cover the food supply, as well as emails and phone calls from concerned citizens. Huber’s warning, however, has been relatively slow to get picked up by mainstream media. The Huffington Post went with it today, but we forwarded the letter to the New York Times, ABC News and the Wall Street Journal, which have not yet opted to move on the story.

It’s perplexing how motivated people can get about economic issues, or even the human rights issues that are making headlines these days.

We appear to be standing at the precipice of disaster with our food supply and need to do something about this. Now. It’s bigger than lawn care. Bigger than union busting in Wisconsin and bigger, even, then revolutions in the Middle East.

Please help get the word out any way you can.

WHILE INSISTING HE DOES NOT WANT to be an alarmist, one of the nation’s senior soil scientists is alerting the federal government to a newly discovered organism that may have the potential to cause infertility and spontaneous abortion in farm animals and, potentially, humans.

Dr. Don Huber, professor emeritus at Purdue University, believes the appearance and prevalence of the unnamed organism may be related to the nation’s over reliance on the weed killer known as Roundup. In a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, obtained by SafeLawns, the professor is calling on the federal government to immediately rescind the Jan. 27th decision to allow genetically modified alfalfa to be released to farmers this spring.

“A team of senior plant and animal scientists have recently brought to my attention the discovery of an electron microscopic pathogen that appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals and probably human beings,” wrote Huber in the letter, which is quoted here with his permission. “Based on a review of the data, it is widespread, very serious, and is in much higher concentrations in Roundup Ready (RR) soybeans and corn — suggesting a link with the RR gene, or more likely the presence of Roundup. This organism appears NEW to science!”

In a phone interview today, Huber said he was assured that the United States Department of Agriculture was taking his letter seriously — yet he remained deeply pessimistic that his warnings would ultimately lead to affirmative action.

“I believe we’ve reached the tipping point toward a potential disaster with the safety of our food supply,” he said. “The abuse, or call it over use if you will, of Roundup, is having profoundly bad consequences in the soil. We’ve seen that for years. The appearance of this new pathogen may be a signal that we’ve gone too far.”

Huber also admitted that he could be wrong about this pathogen’s link to Roundup, but said that much further study is needed for that final assessment. In the meantime, he said, it’s grossly irresponsible of the government to allow Roundup Ready alfalfa, which would bring the widespread spraying of Roundup to millions of more acres and introduce far more Roundup into the food supply.

“For the past 40 years, I have been a scientist in the professional and military agencies that evaluate and prepare for natural and manmade biological threats, including germ warfare and disease outbreaks,” wrote Huber in his letter to Vilsack. “Based on this experience, I believe the threat we are facing from this pathogen is unique and of high-risk status. In layman’s terms, it should be treated as an emergency.”

Huber explained that the search for the new pathogen was instigated by the increase of cattle infertility and unexplained cases of spontaneous abortion in several western states in the past several years. The common denominator, he said, appears to be the prevalence of the new pathogen that can only be viewed at 36,000 times magnification. Fears were increased when this pathogen was also found in mothers who had recently miscarried.

“That suggests the potential that the pathogen entered the mother in the food supply,” said Huber today. “Could it be from contaminated plants or animals? We don’t know that answer yet, but surely more resources from the government need to be put into answering that question.”

And, in the meantime, any new additional uses of Roundup should be made illegal, according to Huber and his collaborators.

“The organism is prolific in plants infected with two pervasive diseases that are driving down yields and farmer income — sudden death syndrome (SDS) in soy, and Goss’ wilt in corn,” he said. “The pathogen is also found in the fungal causative agent of SDS (Fusarium solani fsp glycines). Laboratory tests have confirmed the presence of this organism in a wide variety of livestock that have experienced spontaneous abortions and infertility. Preliminary results from ongoing research have also been able to reproduce abortions in a clinical setting.”

Huber, a retired military Colonel, closed his letter to Vilsack by imploring the government to commit the resources necessary to find definitive answers.

“It is urgent to examine whether the side effects of glyphosate use may have facilitated the growth of this pathogen, or allowed it to cause greater harm to weakened plant and animal hosts. It is well documented that glyphosate promotes soil pathogens and is already implicated with the increase of more than 40 plant diseases; it dismantles plant defenses by chelating vital nutrients; and it reduces the bioavailability of nutrients in feed, which in turn can cause animal disorders. . . (The pathogen) deserves immediate attention with significant resources to avoid a general collapse of our critical agricultural infrastructure.”

To receive an electronic copy of the letter, email Paul@safelawns.org