Fluoride Information

Fluoride is a poison. Fluoride was poison yesterday. Fluoride is poison today. Fluoride will be poison tomorrow. When in doubt, get it out.


An American Affidavit

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Weed-Whacking Herbicide Proves Deadly to Human Cells by Crystal Gammon and Environmental Health News



Weed-Whacking Herbicide Proves Deadly to Human Cells

Used in gardens, farms, and parks around the world, the weed killer Roundup contains an ingredient that can suffocate human cells in a laboratory, researchers say



AVIXYZ/FLICKR
Used in yards, farms and parks throughout the world, Roundup has long been a top-selling weed killer. But now researchers have found that one of Roundup’s inert ingredients can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells.
The new findings intensify a debate about so-called “inerts” — the solvents, preservatives, surfactants and other substances that manufacturers add to pesticides. Nearly 4,000 inert ingredients are approved for use by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Glyphosate, Roundup’s active ingredient, is the most widely used herbicide in the United States.  About 100 million pounds are applied to U.S. farms and lawns every year, according to the EPA.
Until now, most health studies have focused on the safety of glyphosate, rather than the mixture of ingredients found in Roundup. But in the new study, scientists found that Roundup’s inert ingredients amplified the toxic effect on human cells—even at concentrations much more diluted than those used on farms and lawns.
One specific inert ingredient, polyethoxylated tallowamine, or POEA, was more deadly to human embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells than the herbicide itself – a finding the researchers call “astonishing.”
“This clearly confirms that the [inert ingredients] in Roundup formulations are not inert,” wrote the study authors from France’s University of Caen. “Moreover, the proprietary mixtures available on the market could cause cell damage and even death [at the] residual levels” found on Roundup-treated crops, such as soybeans, alfalfa and corn, or lawns and gardens.
The research team suspects that Roundup might cause pregnancy problems by interfering with hormone production, possibly leading to abnormal fetal development, low birth weights or miscarriages.

Monsanto, Roundup’s manufacturer, contends that the methods used in the study don’t reflect realistic conditions and that their product, which has been sold since the 1970s, is safe when used as directed. Hundreds of studies over the past 35 years have addressed the safety of glyphosate.
“Roundup has one of the most extensive human health safety and environmental data packages of any pesticide that's out there,” said Monsanto spokesman John Combest. “It's used in public parks, it's used to protect schools. There's been a great deal of study on Roundup, and we're very proud of its performance.”
The EPA considers glyphosate to have low toxicity when used at the recommended doses.
“Risk estimates for glyphosate were well below the level of concern,” said EPA spokesman Dale Kemery. The EPA classifies glyphosate as a Group E chemical, which means there is strong evidence that it does not cause cancer in humans.
In addition, the EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture both recognize POEA as an inert ingredient. Derived from animal fat, POEA is allowed in products certified organic by the USDA. The EPA has concluded that it is not dangerous to public health or the environment.
The French team, led by Gilles-Eric Seralini, a University of Caen molecular biologist, said its results highlight the need for health agencies to reconsider the safety of Roundup.
“The authorizations for using these Roundup herbicides must now clearly be revised since their toxic effects depend on, and are multiplied by, other compounds used in the mixtures,” Seralini’s team wrote.
Controversy about the safety of the weed killer recently erupted in Argentina, one of the world’s largest exporters of soy.
Last month, an environmental group petitioned Argentina’s Supreme Court, seeking a temporary ban on glyphosate use after an Argentine scientist and local activists reported a high incidence of birth defects and cancers in people living near crop-spraying areas. Scientists there also linked genetic malformations in amphibians to glysophate. In addition, last year in Sweden, a scientific team found that exposure is a risk factor for people developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Inert ingredients are often less scrutinized than active pest-killing ingredients. Since specific herbicide formulations are protected as trade secrets, manufacturers aren’t required to publicly disclose them. Although Monsanto is the largest manufacturer of glyphosate-based herbicides, several other manufacturers sell similar herbicides with different inert ingredients.
The term “inert ingredient” is often misleading, according to Caroline Cox, research director of the Center for Environmental Health, an Oakland-based environmental organization. Federal law classifies all pesticide ingredients that don’t harm pests as “inert,” she said. Inert compounds, therefore, aren’t necessarily biologically or toxicologically harmless – they simply don’t kill insects or weeds.
Kemery said the EPA takes into account the inert ingredients and how the product is used, whenever a pesticide is approved for use. The aim, he said, is to ensure that “if the product is used according to labeled directions, both people’s health and the environment will not be harmed.” One label requirement for Roundup is that it should not be used in or near freshwater to protect amphibians and other wildlife.
But some inert ingredients have been found to potentially affect human health. Many amplify the effects of active ingredients by helping them penetrate clothing, protective equipment and cell membranes, or by increasing their toxicity. For example, a Croatian team recently found that an herbicide formulation containing atrazine caused DNA damage, which can lead to cancer, while atrazine alone did not.
POEA was recognized as a common inert ingredient in herbicides in the 1980s, when researchers linked it to a group of poisonings in Japan. Doctors there examined patients who drank Roundup, either intentionally or accidentally, and determined that their sicknesses and deaths were due to POEA, not glyphosate.
POEA is a surfactant, or detergent, derived from animal fat. It is added to Roundup and other herbicides to help them penetrate plants' surfaces, making the weed killer more effective.
"POEA helps glyphosate interact with the surfaces of plant cells," explained Negin Martin, a scientist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in North Carolina, who was not involved in the study. POEA lowers water's surface tension--the property that makes water form droplets on most surfaces--which helps glyphosate disperse and penetrate the waxy surface of a plant.
In the French study, researchers tested four different Roundup formulations, all containing POEA and glyphosate at concentrations below the recommended lawn and agricultural dose. They also tested POEA and glyphosate separately to determine which caused more damage to embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells.
Glyphosate, POEA and all four Roundup formulations damaged all three cell types. Umbilical cord cells were especially sensitive to POEA. Glyphosate became more harmful when combined with POEA, and POEA alone was more deadly to cells than glyphosate. The research appears in the January issue of the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology.
By using embryonic and placental cell lines, which multiply and respond to chemicals rapidly, and fresh umbilical cord cells, Seralini’s team was able to determine how the chemicals combine to damage cells.
The two ingredients work together to “limit breathing of the cells, stress them and drive them towards a suicide,” Seralini said.
The research was funded in part by France’s Committee for Research and Independent Information on Genetic Engineering, a scientific committee that investigates risks associated with genetically modified organisms. One of Roundup’s primary uses is on crops that are genetically engineered to be resistant to glyphosate.
Monsanto scientists argue that cells in Seralini’s study were exposed to unnaturally high levels of the chemicals. “It's very unlike anything you'd see in real-world exposure. People's cells are not bathed in these things,” said Donna Farmer, another toxicologist at Monsanto.
Seralini’s team, however, did study multiple concentrations of Roundup. These ranged from the typical agricultural or lawn dose down to concentrations 100,000 times more dilute than the products sold on shelves. The researchers saw cell damage at all concentrations.
Monsanto scientists also question the French team’s use of laboratory cell lines.
“These are just not very good models of a whole organism, like a human being,” said Dan Goldstein, a toxicologist with Monsanto.
Goldstein said humans have protective mechanisms that resist substances in the environment, such as skin and the lining of the gastrointestinal tract, which constantly renew themselves. “Those phenomena just don't happen with isolated cells in a Petri dish.”
But Cox, who studies pesticides and their inert ingredients at the Oakland environmental group, says lab experiments like these are important in determining whether a chemical is safe.
“We would never consider it ethical to test these products on people, so we're obliged to look at their effects on other species and in other systems,” she said. “There's really no way around that.”
Seralini said the cells used in the study are widely accepted in toxicology as good models for studying the toxicity of chemicals.
“The fact is that 90 percent of labs studying mechanisms of toxicity or physiology use cell lines,” he said.
Most research has examined glyphosate alone, rather than combined with Roundup’s inert ingredients. Researchers who have studied Roundup formulations have drawn conclusions similar to the Seralini group’s. For example, in 2005, University of Pittsburg ecologists added Roundup at the manufacturer’s recommended dose to ponds filled with frog and toad tadpoles. When they returned two weeks later, they found that 50 to 100 percent of the populations of several species of tadpoles had been killed.
A group of over 250 environmental, health and labor organizations has petitioned the EPA to change requirements for identifying pesticides’ inert ingredients. The agency’s decision is due this fall.
“It would be a big step for the agency to take,” said Cox. “But it’s one they definitely should.”
The groups claim that the laws allowing manufacturers to keep inert ingredients secret from competitors are essentially unnecessary. Companies can determine a competitor’s inert ingredients through routine lab analyses, said Cox.
“The proprietary protection laws really only keep information from the public,” she said.
This article originally ran at Environmental Health News, a news source published by Environmental Health Sciences, a nonprofit media company.
Share this Article:

Comments

Cosmic June 23, 2009, 2:45 PM
Just see what it feels like to drive down a highway and have a crop duster fly over and spray near you and then tell me this stuff is perfectly safe. What kind of dorks would only test one ingredient and then claim safety? But I bet that the pro-life crowd will remain silent on this even though it probably kills more fetuses than any abortion clinic ever could.
Report as Abuse | 
Link to This

659california June 23, 2009, 2:58 PM
Everyone should read the book by Rachel Carson, "Silent Spring". It's scary we are still so dumb, naive, profit driven and careless of life.
Report as Abuse | 
Link to This

659california June 23, 2009, 3:01 PM
Decades ago I was told by a crop duster that all of the banned pesticides in the USA found a big client in Mexico and all countries south of the border. We need to regulate this industry like never before.
Report as Abuse | 
Link to This

j.quasimodo June 23, 2009, 3:50 PM
Crop dusters are for insecticides. Whole different issue. And pesticides banned in the US are not made in the US either. We don't control what other countries do, and shouldn't try.
Report as Abuse | 
Link to This

Jean June 23, 2009, 4:42 PM
We don't have to control what feed killers other country's use, but we don't have to allow their produce to the unsuspecting public either.
Report as Abuse | 
Link to This

stevengenille June 23, 2009, 4:49 PM
This is amazing. And though I don't know, I'd be willing to bet that this stuff doesn't break down in the environment too quickly either meaning it is probably making its way into our drinking water.
This is different from crop dusting in that it is an herbicide and not an insecticide, however, the testing procedures that were used on this chemical are probably similar to those used on chemicals used in crop dusting.
To say that we shouldn't try to control what other countries do is a little ridiculous (we do it all the time), especially in the environmental realm. Without an international effort the ozone hole would be growing and we'd still have a big problem with acid rain. If other countries are polluting our ground water, we need to do everything we can to stop that now. Same goes for the pollution of the oceans as it ends up polluting our food sources.
Report as Abuse | 
Link to This

Soccerdad June 23, 2009, 4:58 PM
Subtitle is interesting: "the weed killer Roundup contains an ingredient that can suffocate human cells in a laboratory". I would imagine most chemicals can suffocate human cells in a laboratory. I'll bet the same thing could be said of olive oil. This seems like a contrived issue.
By the way, Silent Spring (written in 1962) predicted the demise of the robin among many other bad things which never happened. If anything, since then the use of chemicals has become much more widespread and the robin still thrives. This book was nothing more than a bunch of baseless hysterics. It led to the banning of DDT which had tremendous consequences for poor people around the world. Millions of children in third world countries have died because DDT can no longer be used to control mosquitos in malaria plagued areas. Many informed individuals are calling for the resumption of DDT production. It is scary that anyone takes that book seriously anymore.
Report as Abuse | 
Link to This

trelanea stevengenille June 23, 2009, 5:21 PM
Stevengenille,
You're right about glyphosate not breaking down in the environment too quickly. I worked as an extractionist in an agricultural testing lab for several years, and my main task was testing grains for glyphosate. It was in MOST of the samples I tested, and these were food products being shipped internationally. That's one of the scariest qualities of this particular herbicide - it just hangs around in your driveway, and lawn (and fields) for years, not to mention your liver.
Its frustrating when Monsanto says things like "well, these tests are not at realistic concentrations..." Frustrating because there are whole organs in our bodies that act as filters, which end up accumulating the toxins that the body doesn't know what to do with. The concentration in ones lawn may not be dangerous, but what about the concentration in your liver or kidneys?
Anyway, don't want to start a flame war with any lawn-care enthusiasts, but I wont touch that stuff. Weed-pulling is a good excuse for me to get outside. :P
Report as Abuse | 
Link to This

dagtox June 23, 2009, 5:23 PM
Actually, while I consider myself more of a nerd than a dork, the people who register Roundup formulations have a variety of data packges on the "inert" ingredients as well.
The bottom line on Seralini is very simple- his two previous publications in the same area have been reviewed by the Europeans already, and have been found wanting. This is scientific junk at its politically motivated worst.
Roundup products contain an active ingredient (glyphosate) which has extremely low mammalian toxicity as well as a surfactant (detergent) to help penetrate the waxy plant cuticle. It thus comes as no surprise that other components are more toxic to animals than glyphosate- so are table salt, aspirin, and caffeine. All soaps and detergents dissolve fats- that is what makes them work. Naked cells in the bottom of a petri dish are protected only by the cell membrane- made of fats- and guess what- if you put detergent on them, they don't do so well. Monsanto has replicated Seralini's work with a bit more care and variety of materials. While Seralini measures a variety of outcomes (like hormone production) in cell lines chosesn more for political value than scientific merit, the bottow line is that detergents disrupt cellular energy production by destroying membrane integrity.
The reality check here is that we all use soaps and detergents all the time- hair shampoo, liquid soaps, laundry detergents, diswashing soaps, etc. Exposure estimates indicate that LESS THAN 1% OF SURFACTANT EXPOSURE COMES FROM PESTICIDE RESIDUES- all the rest of it you are pouring on your dishes, in your washing machine, and over the top of your babies.
Not a problem?? Not a surprise- last I looked you were probably NOT a collection of naked cells living at the bottom of a petri dish and waiting for Dr. Seralini to puor on the Roundup. All those soaps, detergents, and sanitizers are, among other uses, INTENDED to kill those nasty, unprotected lower organisms that thrive on household surfaces!!
Daniel A. Goldstein, M.D.
Director, Medical Sciences and Outreach
The Monsanto Company
Report as Abuse | 
Link to This

True Science_1 Cosmic June 23, 2009, 5:39 PM
Interesting that Cosmic uses this story to bash the "pro-life crowd". To equate killing 49 million babies in the last 36 years in the US alone to the use of this herbicide borders on lunacy. Let's stick to real science here. I use Roundup according to the directions for residental applications, so do the farmers all around me and we have no evidence of ill effects. We have no information on how the other countries are using it, possible incorrectly. Studies show Roundup's glyphosate breaks down into carbon dioxide with a half life of 32 days. If however it is well proven that it is dangerous to be used as directed it should be eliminated as have other products. The POEA derived from natural animal fat linked to killing cells is doing what almost any surfactant (read soap) will do in a dish with bare cells. It breaks down the surface of the cell, doing exactly what we want it to do when we wash our hands.
What most people do not understand is how many lives are saved each year because the US outputs more food than any other country in the world. We feed people who would otherwise starve to death. We do so through use of herbicides and pesticides that would otherwise devastate crops. Our farm output would drastically drop if all of the chemicals were eliminated causing worldwide starvation and wars over food. Those who think that will not happen may also believe their food simply comes from the grocery store and we don't need farms.
By the way, "Silent Spring" was debunked long ago as junk science containing dubious statistics and anecdotes. It's outcome caused the death of millions of third world people from malaria.
We should however be very concerned about food coming from other countries as the recent debacles from both China and Mexico have proven. Let's go after the right things.
Report as Abuse | 
Link to This

You must sign in or register as a ScientificAmerican.com member to submit a comment.


Scientific American Holiday Sale

Give a Gift &
Get a Gift - Free!

Give a 1 year subscription as low as $14.99
Subscribe Now! >
X

No comments:

Post a Comment