Well, where to begin, everything seems like a haze right now.
On October the 6th 2013 our long time companion and best friend Sappho died. LITERALLY the reason that FutureFarming.org exists was to provide a safe farm environment for our dog, all of the rest was born from that single idea.
Sappho was only 9 years old and perfectly healthy last summer. Early in the fall of 2012 a nearby farmer made a HUGE “mistake” and sprayed many acres of our land. Sappho then was exposed to the Monsanto product Roundup.
It was nearly a week before we found out that she had been exposed, we had caught the farmer in the act and stopped him immediately, but not soon enough. The symptoms began to manifest as the Roundup caused our dogs body to attack itself.
The larger battle was yet to come. Three different veterinarians could not explain her illness, but also refused to concede that Roundup could do this. In fact on our last visit to the vet in August, there was a landscaping crew using Roundup right outside of the vets windows and doors.
The vets would say that the American studies here at Cornell and other places have shown how safe glyophosate is. We would point them at other studies in Europe and other places that would show her exact symptoms with Roundup exposure in both the real world and the laboratory.
William Meggs, M.D., Ph.D., School of Medicine, East Carolina University has done extensive research on Roundup and similar chemicals.
In patients who have been chemically injured by Roundup, Meggs has noted significant lymphatic hyperplasia, lymphatic tissue that is swollen and engorged. He has also found significant cobblestoning in upper airway passages. This represents chronic inflammation caused by lymphocytes migrating out of the blood stream and seeping into the tissues. Meggs has also noted thickening of the structure called the basement membrane, the structure on which the lining of cells that lines the interior of the nose sits. Meggs’ study also found a defect in the tight junctions (the joining of cells together) and a proliferation of nerve fibers.
“Chemicals bind to receptors on nerve fibers and produce something called neurogenic inflammation. These chemicals bind to these receptors and cause the release of potent substances that produce inflammation in tissue.
When chemicals bind to nerve fibers, they can produce inflammation. Inflammation, in turn, produces other changes in the tissue, and it brings in these lymphocytes. We believe that inflammation causes these barrier cells to open up and sometimes even come off the basement membrane. Below the basement membrane is the nerve fibers, so we have a process whereby a chemical exposure will damage the lining of the nose.
What happens is people have a large chemical exposure, they breathe in noxious chemicals, and this damages the epithelium. This huge exposure is able to penetrate this barrier we have between the chemicals we breathe in and these nerve cells beneath the lining layer that react to chemicals by producing inflammation. The inflammation, in turn, produces substances that cause further damage to the lining cell, and actually produce the substances which cause the tight junctions between these cells to open up. In some cases the cells actually come off and just leave these bare nerves exposed. Once you have the bare nerves exposed, low levels of chemicals that we all experience every day are enough to produce inflammation which in turn keeps the epithelium damaged.”
These were the exact symptoms Sappho was experiencing, but NO ONE would listen and treat the problem, even though they had no viable explanation and we were giving them one.
Instead the gave us pills and no answers, but that is a whole other issue.
The bigger problem was the denial of the danger in Roundup, it is much more dangerous than just glyphosate. We need to change these ideas!
Although its active ingredient is glyphosate, an organic phosphate, this is combined with other ingredients including a surfactant called polyethoxylated tallowamine that helps the product penetrate plant surfaces. Glyphosate has been used as an herbicide since the 1970s and is hailed as non-toxic and environmentally safe. But recent studies show glyphosate herbicides and Roundup in particular are more dangerous for people, animals, and the environment than previously believed, especially the combination of glyphosate and polyethoxylated tallowamin.
Critics have argued for decades that glyphosate, Roundup and other herbicides used around the globe, pose a serious threat to public health. Industry regulators, however, appear to have consistently overlooked their concerns with the help of lobbyists.
The government of El Salvador in Central America has banned the use of Glyphosate (Roundup) and 52 other dangerous chemicals. The Dutch city Rotterdam, the second largest city in the Netherlands, has also banned it. Someday Roundup will be seen as out generations DDt.
On Saturday October the 12th all over America there will be March Against Monsanto events. I strongly suggest you go if you care about food security, animals, kids or the environment. You never know when your neighbor may go crazy and spray this all over a driveway, you can get it in an department store.
There are studies over 30 years old that show how dangerous this is, the effects on the environment, people, animals and the entire planet. If we dont stop this now, there wont be a planet. Please dont let another dog, another person or even another frog die because of Monsanto Roundup and their lobbyists.
RESOURCES and STUDIES on ROUNDUP
(and other herbicides).
Glyphosate (Roundup) is one of the most toxic herbicides, and is the third most commonly reported cause of pesticide related illness among agricultural workers. Products containing glyphosate also contain other compounds, which can be toxic. Glyphosate is technically extremely difficult to measure in environmental samples, which means that data is often lacking on residue levels in food and the environment, and existent data may not be reliable.
(“Greenpeace Report – Not ready for Roundup: Glyphosate Fact Sheet,” greenpeace.org – April 1997)
Glyphosate is found in weed killers and may cause cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, nerve, and respiratory damage.
(“Special Report: what you need to know about pest control,” Natural Health Magazine, May/June 2001)
“RoundUp was found to cause significant DNA damage to erythrocytes (red blood cells) in a study done in 1997 by Clements, Ralph and Petras. RoundUp’s surfactant, POEA, is known to cause haemolysis.”
(In haemolysis, hemoglobin leaks from the red blood cells, leaving them unable to transport sufficient supplies of oxygen to the body’s tissues.)
(Clements C, Ralph S, Pertas M, 1997. Genotoxicity of select herbicides in Rana catesbeiana tadpoles using the alkaline single-cell gel DNA electrophoresis (comet) assay. Environ Mol Mutagen 1997; 29(3):277-288.)
One of the older studies I mentioned.
(Sawada Y, Nagai Y, Ueyama M, Yamamoto I, 1988. Probable toxicity of surface-active agent in commercial herbicide containing glyphosate. Lancet. 1988 Feb 6;1(8580):299.)
These are just a sample of HUNDREDS I have, if you need more feel free to write us on our contact page.
Sappho 2004 – 2013
In the future these could be used on a larger scale to help family farmers with many fields check them all at a glance.