Monthly Archives: May 2018

Mass poisoning of India through glyphosate

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Today’s rant is only partially about the inconvenient truth regarding glyphosate. Mainly, it focuses on my departure from the common activities expected out of an environmentally conscious, anti-GMO activists.

Umm.. what do I mean ?

Well, to start with, I wish to declare that I, after years of going with the flow, screaming against Monsanto in North America, signing petitions and going on talking tours across the length and breadth of Canada, and being a part of many organizations, I have quit them all.

No, I have not given up on activism, but I decided I was wasting my time, and my time was too precious to be wasted. I became thoroughly disenchanted by anti-GMO talking heads like Jeffrey Smith of the US, Vanadana Shiva of India, author Steve Druker of the US etc, not so much because of what they did, but rather, because what they did to do, or tap danced around, and failed to alert the people about.

I also decided that almost all NGOs and resistance groups I had been involved in, were worse than a waste of time for me. They were definitely counter productive in the sense that they were using my time, my efforts and my money, to useless pursuits that were designed, in my mind, to fail to tackle the root of the problem. They continued to misguide the people.

In some ways, these groups and talking heads appeared to be flips sides of the same coin, and were both milking the system from opposite ends. Neither wanted the problem to be eradicated.

That was the impression I got after years of wasting my personal time and money, and I decided to cut my links to them all – hook, line, and sinker, and venture out all by myself. I was not going to ask for money from anybody. I was not going to try and speak with people as a means to try and solve the problems of poison in our food and environment. I had decided the most people that listen are essentially groupies that clap hands and hang out with notables but otherwise do nothing meaningful, and that the talking heads ensure that the population stays thus mesmerized and engaged in uselessness.

So then, what was I going to do? Well, I did not know clearly, but decided to focus on what appeared to me to be part of the root evil – our political system that allows unproven and potentially dangerous products to be allowed in through corruption in high places.

I had no money – no political clout, no people support – nothing. But, I had me. And I decided to go after the Canadian Government single handed within my capacity and try to address at least one or two of the root issues. Succeed or fail, I would at least have the satisfaction of trying and giving my best shot at what I considered to be a root problem.

All considered, I have had a measure of success, and have become a kind of an example, that going it all alone, without any support, for a single average citizen, is perhaps better than all other options out there. Perhaps some folks, just a handful, will take queue and chalk their own path in their own region, to tackle root issues, singlehanded if need be. Perhaps citizen activism at the grassroots level, without talking heads and professional leaders, was our only shot left to safe this planet, if it at all can be saved at this late stage.

Going it alone and without support has great advantages. I cannot be purchased, influenced, corrupted or sidetracked by money or bullshit. And money or bullshit can come from both sides of the coin, as I have found out.

And now, back to India. Glyphosate is likely mass poisoning India already. A nation of over a billion people, this is already the diabetes capital of the world. It is, in my casual observation and without statistics, is at the cusp of a major epidemic of auto immune disease. Glyphosate has penetrated India in unprecedented level and in unexpected areas. It is my suspicion that glyphosate plays a significant, if not the primary role in slow poisoning India. The so called resistance movement appears to be fixed and fixated on GMO alone, and allowed glyphosate to permeate the land from coast to the mountains. This fixation is one more reason how the poison peddling industry wins out, by keeping the public focussed away from the greatest danger, glyphosate, already affecting the whole of the nation.

Since I cut my links and burned my bridges, I do not need to be politically correct and be afraid of offending anybody. I do not believe the resistance movement is going to save India. If India is to be saved, the job will have to be done by the common man, performing the most important role in a functioning democracy – being a responsible citizen and wrenching the control of a failing democratic system away from the clutches of either big money or useless organizations that make a career out of talking against Monsanto. Monsanto has almost nothing to do with it. It is the politician that is betraying your interest, and that is happening because you have been sleeping, or listening to the wrong guys.

So, While I do not look to be speaking to the people, at times I do accept an invitation. Thus I may be speaking at a small study circle discussion soon by invitation in South Kolkata by a group of scientists and mathematicians. Details will be furnished here if and when official invitation is received.

The topic of my talk will be:

  • Glyphosate, the molecule that is mass poisoning India, and the world
  • how it remains invisible and under media radar,
  • how expecting solutions from Governments, political parties, and resistance groups are a waste of time,
  • and finally, how it is for the citizens to address this global and national crisis, directly, individually, each within his or her capacity.

Glyphosate, Tea, and Media

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Glyphosate in Tea, and the effect on the tea drinking population.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I had seen the evidence, from CFIA tests in Canada, that North America produced the most toxic of all seed based foods on the planet, from wheat to rye, barley, oats, to beans, chickpea and lentils.

http://www.ijehe.org/temp/IntJEnvHealthEng712-362183_100338.pdf

I also knew that people were getting poisoned far faster and with a far greater dose of glyphosate from non-GMO crops than GMO, which in general contained far less amount of glyphosate, with rice and quinoa being the only known exceptions.

I had seen further evidence that processed foods were on average lot more toxic with glyphosate than the same food in raw stage before processing. Such as carrots from the field (much cleaner), compared to carrots coming from famous branded tinned variety (dirtier with glyphosate contamination). Besides, most of the popular food processors including baby food and morning cereal makers somehow appeared to add a lot of glyphosate into their products, such as Kelloggs. I even wrote a letter to them about it, but only got a sort of holding message without follow up.

I had not paid too much to beverages, since not much of that was tested, and because it was so hard to guess what ingredients were included in popular health drinks etc.

However, coming to India, a major tea growing and tea drinking nation with high population, I became increasingly conscious of the issue of glyphosate in tea production. Tea garden owners have told me they have been using glyphosate in tea gardens for a long time, perhaps stretching a generation.

I have found that in rubber plantations, even in remote Himalayan foothills, glyphosate has reached.

Then Sri Lanka imposed a nationwide ban of glyphosate due to suspicion that it was killing farm workers from Kidney failure. Recently commercial pressure has pushed Sri Lanka to selectively open up Glyphosate in tea and rubber production.

So, when I heard about research papers from the US that seemed to find higher concentration of glyphosate tea compared to lots of processed foods and beverages, I found the authors of the study, but could not lay my hands on the published paper.

So I asked around and am thankful for agro-scientist André Comeau of Quebec, Canada, for sending me the link to the paper, which I have now downloaded and given it a cursory look, saving it for thorough reading in a few days. Apparently, a lot more glyphosate is noted in people’s urine that have drunk tea in the last 24 hours. I know glyphosate does bioaccumulates, so what is seen in the Urine is only a fraction of the stuff that one drinks. The rest goes into the person’s biology – one way or another, and ends up in all kinds of places it should not be – thus starting a long process of diseases or ill-health.

This chart is from that paper.

I used to think a billion plus people of India are getting mass scale poisoned primarily from imported daal (pulses) from countries such as Canada, Australia etc.

But now that I know how glyphosate has penetrated every aspect of modern farmlands growing virtually anything, from potato to cauliflower to rice, and how it is so visible in processed tea bags, I am beginning to suspect the billion strong population might be poisoned both from imported pulses, as as well most anything homegrown, from food to tea.

I feel increasingly sure the the tea-glyphosate link is not unique to India but across the entire tea producing world, from China to Africa, but we shall not know till someone starts broad based testing all these tea leaves, tea dust and tea bags.

It appears that the people in India, while being focussed on resisting GMO, might have allowed a thousand fold bigger tide of poison through reckless, and unchecked use of glyphosate everywhere on one side, and absolute absence of either any testing to see if any of that is safe, and same time without any test of how much of it is in the average diet of people here.

It looks like an unimaginable tsunami of ill-health is bearing down on India and all tea drinking regions, and I can already see the tell tale signs of it, with a cursory look at my friends and relatives and noticing the inexplicable rise of auto-immune diseases that were virtually unheard of a decade ago.

To make matters worse, the paper itself does not specifically say if the test also included presence of AMPA, the first metabolite of glyphosate. It is possible that the test excludes AMPA, in which case the actual toxicity from glyphosate/AMPA might be much higher than the figures shown. In absence of a clear mention, I am inclined to believe the data only contains glyphosate.

This should go into my blog – its too important and worrisome to ignore.

MEDIA MISINFORMATION

Then there is the issue of fake news, wrong news, yellow journalism, and news that are designed to give one sided information on safety of glyphosate, in this case in tea.

http://www.sundaytimes.lk/180513/columns/killing-the-goose-that-lays-the-golden-eggs-neglecting-the-countrys-highest-export-earner-293827.html

 The above news article, from The Sunday Times from Sri Lanka is a good example of bad reporting, and misleads the reader. On the surface of it, it essentially states what might be correct and obvious – that export of tea is a golden goose of Sri Lankan exports.

It further, take great pains to state that banning glyphosate on assumption of physical harm (death from kidney failure) is scientifically baseless. The actual sentence is “The latest blunder was the banning of glyphosate imports that is an essential weedicide in 2015 without a scientific basis“.

What the article fails to indicate, that proof that glyphosate in any food or drink is actually safe, has not been released by any government, and that non-release of such safety data makes approval of glyphosate to be illegal, and any claims that it is safe – little better than baloney.

The industry, that appears to have influenced every government on earth starting from USA, and prevented all of them from disclosing safety test report and raw data to the public, is careful is providing a plethora of scientific reports, all carefully picked, that indicate glyphosate was found not to cause any harm to animals. All these tests are, in fact, third party opinions and little else.

What actually constitutes proof of safety, is a comparison in health parameters of one group of test animals fed food with a measured dose of glyphosate, and health parameters of an identical batch of animals living an identical lifestyle and eating identical foods, without without any glyphosate. This comparison either proves glyphosate does not cause any harm to the animals or shows evidence of harm. This and this alone constitutes proof of safety. And this document, usually going into tens of thousands of pages of data on tests conducted usually on more than one group of animals, usually mammals, has been submitted to most governments in order to have them approve glyphosate for use in agriculture. And this is the document that has been kept out of public eye, which makes the approval illegal in my understanding of the law.

If a government cannot disclose safety test report and data of a toxin or non-food item to be used in agriculture, then the government may not approve nor release that item for use in agriculture either. That is how I understand constitutional law in most countries that are democratic and supported by a constitution.

The report should mention that Sri Lankan people have seen no proof whatsoever that presence of glyphosate in their food or beverage does not hurt the consumer. Also, Sri Lanka has not conducted any test of directly exposing glyphosate to test animals, like their sugarcane workers and tea garden workers have been exposed to glyphosate, to see if there is any adverse health impact on the animals.

The report also failed to disclose that sugarcane workers were dying of kidney failure only after the practice of spraying glyphosate on sugarcane was started, and some tea garden workers started developing throat cancer, suspected from exposure to glyphosate.

It is not very difficult to conduct tests on lab animals to see if comparative exposure to glyphosate duplicates these maladies on animals or not.

The paper has been harping on the golden goose of export dollars, but by failing to mention the health risks and the total absence of proof of any safety, implies that earning export dollars is worth more than deaths and illnesses of Sri Lankan Farm Workers.

That, to me is worse than yellow journalism. An honest journalist would not pen such a blatantly one sided article, but a poison peddler might.

What’s in the Anglo-Saxon drinking water?

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Whats in the Anglo-Saxon drinking water? And how might it concern India?

Is it just a coincidence that the three Anglo Saxon nations that stole continents from local inhabitants and acquired vast stretches of land for pillage, are the very ones that have the highest acceptable limits for glyphosate in drinking water – namely USA, Canada and Australia?

And now that I am visiting India, and some folks are asking about it, could there be a link between glyphosate in the Anglo-Saxon world and mass poisoning in India through imported lentils and chickpea?

Well, let’s start with this Anglo-Saxon drinking water first. The difference in the maximum allowable limit between these countries and Europe is not marginal, but an order of dimension higher.

Anyhow, how did I come across this data, and why do I consider this to be relevant from my point of view, now that I am visiting India ?

Well, the data was apparently compiled by the Government of Bermuda. I got it from the US scientist Dr. Don Huber, who passed me his powerpoint presentation with a few slides, to do with glyphosate. He did it in case I wish to use any of it in my talks in India.

Well, India is not in the above chart. However, I suspect that a billion and more folks here are getting mass poisoned in slow motion, through imported pulses grown in two of the countries in this chart – namely Canada and Australia. I have been involved in getting the Canadian government to test large samples of food, locally grown and imported, for glyphosate, and then to give me copies of the results. Canada became the first, and so far the only country on earth to have conducted such wide ranging tests of thousands and thousands of food samples from over sixty countries, for presence of glyphosate, and I had much to do with getting the Canadian Govt to start testing these food samples. Subsequently I became the only person, outside of the Canadian government, to have legal access to all these test results. That is how I came to know that Canada and USA produce the most toxic of all foods when it comes to glyphosate contamination, and in seed based foods. And that is how the reference book – POISON FOODS OF NORTH AMERICA, got to be written, and used by scientists and research scholars that suspected but did not have the proof, that North Americans were getting mass poisoned from glyphosate through local foods. But what is the relevance for India, apart from a dangerous hankering to copy and emulate the American lifestyle, including eating industry processed junk food that are so laced with glyphosate?

The link, I suspect, has to do with pulses – specifically lentils and chickpea that India is unable to produce enough to meet internal demand, and consequently importing huge quantities, from countries that specialize in producing toxic foods, such as those in the above table.

North America and Australia does not have lentils in their diet and no past history of growing them. But now, these countries, with access to seemingly endless stretches of agricultural land, have gotten to plant huge fields for growing these crops, for the specific purpose of exporting to India. The impression given to the importers, I suppose, is that these crops are grown in more scientific and modern ways than what India herself grows in house, and therefore should be considered as superior to Indian counterparts. I would not be surprised if educated Indians, especially those that are culturally addicted by the western mirage, to take this as gospel. If it comes from the west, it must be superior.

If it is processed food from North America, if it contains industrially grown seed based foods, especially lentils and chickpea or mainstream cereals, expect to have glyphosate in it. This is from the test results by Canadian Food Inspection Agency, where Tony Mitra was involved in getting the Canadian Govt. to test these foods, and then to give him the  all the  results of multiple thousands of tests..

But back to glyphosate in drinking water, for USA, Canada and Australia. Whats the story here? Why are the limits so high compared to Europe?

I believe the maximum allowable limit of glyphosate in drinking water is so high in these countries because the existing levels have already gone high. Therefore, the governments I believe have continued to raise the bar, making these higher levels “acceptable”. This is what happens. When levels of toxic substances go up, these governments do not declare the food, or the water, to be unsafe. Instead, they raise the bar so from that point, higher levels of toxins are still considered safe.

Drinking water is not the only item where MRL (maximum residue limit) has been raised and raised again for glyphosate over the years, without providing any proof whatsoever, that these heightened levels, or even the original lower levels of glyphosate contamination, was safe for humans or animals.

My biggest gripe is that the government never provides direct proof with raw data, that such high levels of glyphosate are absolutely safe for animals eating or drinking them on a regular basis. And this makes approval of glyphosate illegal, in all countries. It is a fundamental right of the people to be able to verify safety of toxins and biocides (e.g. weed killers that are approved by the government). And yet, the governments of the entire world has kept this data hidden, while allowing glyphosate to become far and away the most used herbicide on earth. Talk about failure of democracy.

The relevance and link between toxicity in drinking water, and crops grown comes indirectly. What is happening to their drinking water, is not by accident, nor by act of God. High levels of glyphosate is being used in agriculture. That is how lentils and chickpea get so much glyphosate in them. Then, what does not get into the crops, gets into the agricultural runoff, into streams, lakes, and ground water. Eventually it gets into the drinking water.

Another country that is not in the above chart, but plays an increasing role in sending possibly toxic pulses to India, is Myanmar. I have not seen any test result on glyphosate in pulses grown there, which are imported by India. However I am told that the method used to grow the pulses are industrial models borrowed from the west, and that Myanmar has started buying a lot of glyphosate, for the purpose of growing pulses for India. I am told that the Indian government may be encouraging Indian agro-industries to buy land in Myanmar, to grow pulses for India. People need to have these pulses tested for glyphosate too, and compare the readings with those of USA/Canada and Australia. Indians are likely getting poisoned through their lentils and chickpea and they deserve to know the details.

India, the largest consumer and producer of pulses, sadly cannot meet local demand any more. India’s agricultural lands are getting less productive as years go by, thanks to wrong agriculture polilcies.

This is the business end of the decades old and faulty decisions taken towards a much hyped “green revolution” where hybrid seeds and heavy chemical use in agriculture was introduced in the name of progress, based on fraudulent science. This started the steady and relentless degradation of the soil, loss of indigenous varieties and knowledge, and disappearing water table. There used to be a popular saying about computer systems and software – garbage in, garbage out. I believe this also applies in India’s blind adoption of western industrial scale agriculture models that are designed to sell more chemicals, instead of fine tuning locally developed, sustainable and time proven organic methods.

Although I have not seen the statistics, I have seen evidence of a rising tide of auto-immune diseases coupled with problems with the digestive system in India, from people eating these foods as well as those growing them. I suspect the mass poisoning has started, and would love to see detailed testing and data on this.

People of India absolutely needs to force their governments at all levels to start testign their seed based foods, especially those that are imported from Canada and Australia, and let the people know. They should also demand that the proof of safety of glyphosate in these foods be made available to the citizens and people be allowed to scrutinize them as well as conduct independent verification.

Below two tables show comparative contamination in lentils grown in Canada and in India, as tested by the Canadian food inspection agency and analyzed by me. Let us take just one item, red lentil, or masoor daal. Both Indian and Canadian samples indicate 100 percent of samples to be contaminated with glyphosate. This raises various questions such as are all masoor dal grown in India toxic, or is only the toxic variety being exported back to Canada where Indian restaurants might be importing desi masoor dal ?

Either way, the average contamination level is 160 ppb for Indian red lentils. For the Canadian counterpart, also 100 percent are contaminated. This is understandable, since Canada does not know how to grow organic lentils except for a handful of small farmers that do not produce much and did not get sampled and tested by CFIA. But the average level of contamination of the industrially grown masoor daal, which is the type that is exported to India in large quantity, has almost a thousand ppb of glyphosate, or six times as toxic as the Indian variety.

And India is buying this stuff in millions of tons, for the local population, without any disclosure or testing, and keeping the consumers in the dark.

Whose fault is it?

POISON FOODS OF NORTH AMERICA – Tony Mitra

POISON FOODS OF NORTH AMERICA – Tony Mitra

Without disclosure of any proof of safety, approving this substance and feeding thus contaminated foods to the people may amount to eco-terrorism. The fault however lies at the feet of the people. In a functioning democracy, we cannot blame the government and its politicians. People deserve the government it gets. The buck stops at our feet. Want to know whose fault it is? Look no further than the nearest mirror.