{"id":2308,"date":"2008-04-21T13:12:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-21T20:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/2008\/04\/21\/maybe-evil-is-more-concentrated-than-i-thought\/"},"modified":"2008-04-21T13:12:00","modified_gmt":"2008-04-21T20:12:00","slug":"maybe-evil-is-more-concentrated-than-i-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/2008\/04\/21\/maybe-evil-is-more-concentrated-than-i-thought\/","title":{"rendered":"Maybe evil is more concentrated than I thought?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in October, laloca posted<\/a> about Donald Rumsfeld’s involvement in the FDA approval of the neurotoxin aspartame, a popular sweetener marketed as “Nutrasweet”. In 1981, Rumsfeld was CEO of Searle Laboratories and called in favors to get the drug approved by then newly appointed FDA Commissioner, Arthur Hull Hayes. In her post, laloca does some investigative research into the toxicity studies on aspartame and finds it difficult to find abstracts on the works which report harmful effects. She also finds that there is a significant difference in the results of toxicity studies funded by the companies which produce the chemical versus the results of toxicity studies in parties not financially connected with the chemical’s commercial success. At the time, I joked in her comments section about a possible link to the Monsanto company, makers of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Round-Up.<\/p>\n

Today, Oyster posted<\/a> about the Rumsfeld-aspartame connection with some other information… including the sale of the Nutrasweet brand from Searle to Monsanto. (He writes that Monsanto then sold it to a private equity firm.) Turns out there is a connection, if only by the sale of product whose safety had not been verified. How interesting that whenever lack of ethnics, paltry concern for human welfare, and corporate greed are playing out, members of the Bush Administration are never far behind? <\/p>\n

Although I know of no direction connection of Bush cronies to the Monsanto Corporation, outside of the sale of neurotoxins as described above, Monsanto is pretty damn dirty all by themselves. Here is some information about Monsanto and their cash-cow, glyphosate, taken from a research paper I wrote during my MPH training for a course on Reproductive Epidemiology & Toxicology, 6 years ago… (I’m adding some bold font now)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum, non-selective systemic herbicide used for control of annual and perennial plants including grasses, sedges, broad-leaved weeds, and woody plants. Glyphosate was first discovered by J.E. Franz of Monsanto Corp in 1971 and was released commercially in 1974. <\/span>In the early 1980\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s glyphosate (Roundup) became the first individual pesticide to have sales of over $1 billion world-wide (Cox, 2000). Glyphosate is sold under the trade names of Roundup, Accord, Vision, Rodeo, Gallup, Landmaster, Pondmaster, Ranger and Touchdown. <\/span>Glyphosate is the seventh most commonly used pesticide in U.S. agriculture, the third most commonly used pesticide on industrial and commercial land, and the second most commonly used home and garden pesticide. <\/span>Total estimated annual use according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is between 38 and 48 million pounds (Aspelin, 1997). <\/span> <\/span>Glyphosate use is currently (1998) growing at a rate of about 20 percent annually, primarily because of the recent introduction of crops which are genetically engineered to be tolerant of the herbicide (Bureau of National Affairs, 1998). <\/span><\/o:p><\/b><\/p>\n

Given that glyphosate herbicides are marketed as benign, it is striking that laboratory studies have found adverse effects in all standard categories of laboratory toxicology testing.<\/span> <\/span> <\/span>These include medium-term toxicity (salivary gland lesions), long-term toxicity (inflamed stomach linings), genetic damage (in human blood cells), effects on reproduction (reduced sperm counts in rats; increased frequency of abnormal sperm in rabbits), and carcinogenicity (increased frequency of liver tumors in male rats and thyroid cancer in female rats) (Cox, 2000). <\/span>People are exposed to glyphosate through workplace exposure (for people who use glyphosate products on the job), eating of contaminated food, exposure caused by off target movement following application (drift), contact with contaminated soil, and drinking or bathing in contaminated water.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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(snip)
<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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Tests done on glyphosate to meet registration requirements have been associated with fraudulent practices. <\/span> Laboratory fraud first made headlines in 1983 when EPA publicly announced that a 1976 audit had discovered \u00e2\u20ac\u0153serious deficiencies and improprieties\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in studies conducted by Industrial Biotest Laboratories. <\/span>Problems included \u00e2\u20ac\u0153countless deaths of rats and mice\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153routine falsification of data\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Cox, 2000).<\/p>\n

In 1991, the EPA alleged that Craven Laboratories, a company that performed studies for 262 pesticide companies including Monsanto, had falsified tests (Cox, 2000). <\/span>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Tricks\u00e2\u20ac\u009d employed by Craven Labs included \u00e2\u20ac\u0153falsifying laboratory notebook entries\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153manually manipulating scientific equipment to produce false reports\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Cox, 2000). Employees at Craven Labs were indicted on felony counts and suffered jail time and steep fines as a result. <\/span> <\/span><\/sup>Although the tests of glyphosate identified as fraudulent have been replaced, the situation casts doubt on the efficacy of the pesticide registration process and questions the motivations for the approval of glyphosate for public and private use. <\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to connection with laboratory fraud, glyphosate has been indicated in claims of false advertising. Monsanto, the company who manufactures glyphosate, has had a history of settling court agreements over false advertising regarding glyphosate.<\/span> <\/span> <\/span>Claims that glyphosate products are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153safer than table salt,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d safe for people, pets, and the environment, and degrade \u00e2\u20ac\u0153soon after application\u00e2\u20ac\u009d were challenged in both 1996 and 1998 because they were in violation of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), the national pesticide law (Cox, 2000). <\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/sup>
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It’s some bad stuff. Something to think about when we consider spraying herbicide in our yards this summer.
<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in October, laloca posted about Donald Rumsfeld’s involvement in the FDA approval of the neurotoxin aspartame, a popular sweetener marketed as “Nutrasweet”. In 1981, Rumsfeld was CEO of Searle Laboratories and called in favors to get the drug approved by then newly appointed FDA Commissioner, Arthur Hull Hayes. In her post, laloca does some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2308"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2308\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}