Glyphosate is an herbicide and crop desiccant. It is the active ingredient
in Monsanto's Roundup. In addition to its use as an herbicide on GMO crops
engineered to be glyphosate-resistant, it is used on non-GMO wheat (and others)
just before harvest to kill the plant and dry it out before it is cut, speeding
the harvest and increasing the yield.
Some people believe that glyphosate residues in food are bad for human health.
Michael Arnoldi <michaelarnoldi@gmail.com> sent this url to bread-bakers:
<http://yournewswire.com/reason-wheat-toxic/>
The information at this site is based on work done by Dr. Stephanie Seneff
of MIT. Her home page and a representative sample of her work are:
<http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/>
<http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/2016/glyphosate_Oct2016.pptx>
Dr. Seneff has a B.S. degree in biophysics (1968) and M.S, E.E. (1980) and
PhD (1985) degrees in electrical engineering and computer science. Her primary
work was in computer modeling of the human auditory system and human language,
for which she was elected a Fellow of the International Speech and Communication
Association in 2012. Since 2011, Dr. Seneff has returned to biology, publishing
on chronic diseases, nutritional deficiencies and environmental toxins.
My opinions follow:
If you have any concern about possible harm to you or others from glyphosate use,
buy organic wheat.
I don't know if glyphosate is bad for you in the amounts we get in our food
, but I don't believe Dr. Seneff has shown that it is bad.
Consider the graphs on page 31 of the Oct 2016 presentation. These show the
incidence of thyroid cancer, diabetes, and urinary/bladder cancer and the
deaths from end stage renal disease tracking closely with the use of glyphosate
on corn and soy crops. The problem is that these conditions have long latencies.
Chronic renal failure takes a long time to progress to ESRD after which survival
is usually 5 to 10 years. Thyroid cancer doesn't progress from nothing to
detectable overnight. There should be a delay between the increase in glyphosate
use and the morbidity/mortality but there isn't any.
These conditions may have environmental causes, but I don't think we can blame glyphosate.
Jeff