GM Soy Herbicide Linked to Birth Defects

Natural News
David Gutierrez
Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The active ingredient of the popular herbicide Roundup, widely used on lawns and genetically modified (GM) crops worldwide, causes birth defects of the brain, heart and intestines even in minuscule doses, Argentinean researchers have found.

“The observed deformations are consistent and systematic,” said lead researcher Andres Carrasco, director of the Laboratory of Molecular Embryology at the University of Buenos Aires.

Argentina is the world’s third largest exporter of soy, planting nearly 17 million hectares (42 million acres), or half of the country’s cropland. Much of this soy has been genetically modified by the Monsanto Corporation to be resistant to the company’s trademark herbicide, Roundup. As a consequence, massive quantities of Roundup are sprayed over soy fields across the country. In many cases, the herbicide is sprayed from the air and may drift over nearby communities or enter their water supplies.

Approximately 200 million liters (53 million gallons) of Roundup are used in Argentina each year.

The new study, conducted by the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET), was ordered by the Argentinean Health Ministry in response to complaints filed before federal courts over the health effects of widespread herbicide spraying. For the past five years, a wide coalition of environmental and rights groups have pointed to significantly higher rates of birth defects, cancer, lupus, and diseases of the kidney, skin and respiratory systems in communities located near field of GM soy. Most recently, the nonprofit Rural Reflection Group (GRR) published a paper containing reports of health effects from rural doctors, residents and experts.

The group has called for a ban on the use of Roundup in accordance with the precautionary principle.

In the first phase of the CONICET study, researchers diluted Roundup’s active ingredient, glyphosate, to a strength 1,500 times less than that used on GM soy crops. Other than water, no ingredients were added. The researchers then submerged amphibian embryos into this glyphosate solution, finding that the embryos consistently developed into animals with deformed heads.

In the second phase, researchers injected embryos directly with the diluted glyphosate solution. In addition to head deformity, the researchers observed reduced head size, increased death of skull-forming cells, deformed cartilage and genetic changes to the animals’ central nervous system, on a much larger scale than in the first part of the study.

“One should be able to suppose, with certainty, that the same thing that happens to amphibian embryos can happen to humans,” Carrasco said, noting that the observed results were “completely comparable to what would happen in the development of a human embryo.”

“Pure glyphosate, in doses lower than those used in fumigation, causes defects … (and) could be interfering in some normal embryonic development mechanism having to do with the way in which cells divide and die,” he said. Because the researchers deliberately excluded any of the additives that are also found in Roundup, they concluded that the herbicide’s active ingredient was definitely to blame for the effects.

Because the levels of glyphosate used “were much lower than the levels used in the fumigations,” the risk in real life “is much more serious” than that seen in the lab, Carrasco said.

“The companies say that drinking a glass of glyphosate is healthier than drinking a glass of milk, but the fact is that they’ve used us as guinea pigs,” Carrasco said.

“It is clear that glyphosate is not innocuous and that it does not degrade or break down, but accumulates in cells.”

Carrasco called for immediate government action, pointing to the fate of communities such as Ituzaingo, where approximately 300 cases of pesticide-related cancer have been reported in the last eight years.

“In communities like Ituzaingo it’s already too late,” he said, “but we have to have a preventive system, to demand that the companies give us security frameworks and, above all, to have very strict regulations for fumigation, which nobody is adhering to out of ignorance or greed.”

Agricultural Aromatherapy: Lavender Oil As Natural Herbicide

Science Daily

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Could essential oils extracted from lavender be used as a natural herbicide to prevent weed growth among crops? Research carried out in Italy and reported in the current issue of the International Journal of Environment and Health suggests the answer may be yes.

Elena Sturchio of the National Institute of Health and Safety at Work in Rome and colleagues there and at the Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, and the Department Crop Production, at Tuscia University, in Viterbo, have investigated the inhibitory effects on weed growth of aromatic oils, or mixtures of phytochemicals, from plants such as lavender, Lavandula officinalis.

Essential oils, are as the name suggests, often the plant’s “essence” in terms of odour. Essential oils are complex chemical mixtures of natural products made by the plant for its own purposes, including terpenes, alcohols, aldehydes and phenols. Indeed, several plant essential oils are present as natural inbuilt herbicides and pesticides.

Synthetic pesticides and herbicides have been in common use for decades and have protected crops from parasites, insects, bacteria, viruses, fungi, and eliminated weeds. However, by virtue of their design, these substances are toxic and in some cases thought to be carcinogenic. Their incorrect use or inadvertent exposure have been the focus of numerous studies on animal and human health, the results of which have led to serious initiatives to find alternative approaches to pest and weed control.

Other researchers have investigated the potential of essential oils from cinnamon plants, and peppermint to prevent seed germination of some weed species found in the Mediterranean region.

Sturchio and colleagues have investigated the effects of lavender oil on root growth in a plant, Vicia faba in trials. This weed has large chromosomes and so was also amenable to studies in the laboratory that investigated the genetic toxicity of the essential oil on the weed. Their analysis showed the oil to be effective at killing the weed even at low concentration. Moreover, the oil affects growth of soil microbes and fungi involved in crop growth.

The team concludes that, “Essential oils could be useful as potential bioherbicides as an alternative strategy to the chemical remedy.” They add that, “The use of phytochemicals permits the development for more sustainable agriculture at low environmental impact. Further studies are now needed to evaluate use of such oils “in the field”.

The team points out that the oils would most likely be used either before planting or prior to transplantation of seedlings, so the essential oil would not have toxicity effects on the crop itself. Sturchio adds that, “essential oils are not accumulated in the environment, because of their low persistence due to the easy degradation by microbial and enzyme activity. This aspect could represent an advantage compared to the bioaccumulation of chemicals on soil.”