{"id":3959,"date":"2015-03-24T11:09:08","date_gmt":"2015-03-24T17:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/?p=3959"},"modified":"2015-03-24T11:09:08","modified_gmt":"2015-03-24T17:09:08","slug":"gmo-weed-killers-cancer-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/?p=3959","title":{"rendered":"GMO Weed Killer\u2019s Cancer Risk"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 20. 2015, – by Mary Ellen Kustin, Senior Policy Analyst, Environmental Working Group<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Earns<\/a>Glyphosate \u2013 the active herbicide in the widely used Monsanto\u2019s Roundup and Dow Agrosciences Enlist Duo weedkillers \u2013 is \u201cprobably carcinogenic to humans,\u201d a\u00a0working group of scientists at the World Health Organization<\/a>\u00a0announced today.<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0explosion<\/a>\u00a0of glyphosate use in recent years has been driven primarily by the widespread adoption of GMO corn and soybeans. These GMO plants have been genetically engineered to withstand blasts of this powerful herbicide and kill the weeds around them. \u00a0The use of glyphosate in the U.S. has increased by more 500 million pounds between 1996 and 2011.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to an article in the\u00a0Lancet<\/a>, \u201c[Glyphosate] use has increased sharply with the development of genetically modified glyphosate-resistant crop varieties. Glyphosate has been detected in air during spraying, in water, and in food.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Scientists from 11 nations met at the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a branch of the World Health Organization, earlier this month to assess the likelihood that certain pesticides used in industrial agriculture would cause cancer.<\/span><\/p>\n

They decided to classify glyphosate as a \u201cprobable carcinogen,\u201d a conclusion that built on IARC\u2019s \u00a0conclusion last year that some evidence linked glyphosate to an increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of blood cancer.<\/span><\/p>\n

(Read more about last year\u2019s study here:\u00a0www.ewg.org\/agmag\/2014\/05\/study-glyphosate-doubles-risk-lymphoma<\/a>.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Because farmers have relied so heavily on glyphosate, many of them are now dealing with \u201csuperweeds<\/a>\u201d \u2013 varieties of weeds that no longer die when sprayed \u00a0\u2013 and are turning to more toxic weed killers like\u00a02,4-D<\/a>. \u00a0Dow\u2019s Enlist Duo is a mixture of glyphosate and 2,4-D.<\/span><\/p>\n

Given the\u00a0increased use of herbicides<\/a>\u00a0associated with the production of GMOs, it\u2019s no wonder\u00a0more than 90 percent<\/a>\u00a0of consumers want to exercise their right to know if there are GMOs in their food.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some members of Congress are fighting to deny you that right. They\u2019ve introduced legislation, dubbed the Deny Americans the Right Know (DARK<\/a>) Act by opponents, that would block state GMO labeling laws and restrict FDA\u2019s ability to require national GMO labeling <\/span><\/p>\n

Download PDF of Lancet Report :\u00a0Lancet herbicide<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

March 20. 2015, – by Mary Ellen Kustin, Senior Policy Analyst, Environmental Working Group Glyphosate \u2013 the active herbicide in the widely used Monsanto\u2019s Roundup and Dow Agrosciences Enlist Duo weedkillers \u2013 is \u201cprobably carcinogenic to humans,\u201d a\u00a0working group of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[261,372,369,371,370],"class_list":["post-3959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cancer","tag-carcinogens","tag-glyphosphate","tag-pesticides","tag-roundup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3959"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3962,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3959\/revisions\/3962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}