Roundup

Studies show that glyphosate in Roundup negatively affects friendly gut bacteria and favors the growth of harmful bacteria. This raises the question as to whether Roundup’s negative impacts on gut bacteria could contribute to findings of other toxic effects seen in animal and human epidemiological studies on these substances.

Monsanto alters plant genetics so that crops, generally grain crops such as wheat, corn and rice, withstand their Roundup pesticide. They claim that Roundup cannot harm humans, but it does disrupt life cycles in bacteria. Without healthy bacteria, humans and many other animals such as our livestock, cannot digest food properly.

Samsel and Seneff, (2013) hypothesized that glyphosate’s known ability to disrupt gut bacteria and to suppress a family of enzymes that play an important role in detoxifying harmful chemicals could be contributing to a rise in modern human diseases worldwide. The authors focused especially on celiac disease and gluten intolerance, but also drew potential links between glyphosate toxicity and a broader range of diseases, such as ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), autism, Alzheimer’s disease, infertility, birth defects, and cancer. There has been a rise in gluten intolerance in America, but not in other countries where Monsanto products are not allowed.

If this potential pathway to modern diseases is confirmed by further research, it highlights the industry’s failure to consider any mechanism of glyphosate toxicity other than the shikimate pathway, which plants and bacteria have but humans and animals do not. 

In a second review, Samsel and Seneff pointed out that gut bacteria have this pathway and are susceptible to glyphosate toxicity, with the resulting disruptions in gut bacteria potentially impacting human and animal health. In addition, the authors noted glyphosate’s ability to chelate essential nutrient metals making them unavailable to human and animal consumers. Thus glyphosate could potentially affect health by causing deficiencies of these nutrients.

https://detoxproject.org/glyphosate/glyphosate-and-roundup-negatively-affect-gut-bacteria/

Contrary to what you may hear in media reports, GMOs aren’t about solving nutrition problems or feeding the world. They are about profits, and ultimately, corporate control of our food system.  Food and Water Watch

 Vandana Shiva, philosopher and anti-GMO activist, calls it “seed slavery”:   Seed slavery is ethically important to address because it transforms the Earth family into corporate property. It is ecologically important because with seeds in the hands of five corporations, biodiversity disappears, and is replaced by monocultures of GMOs. … In our times some corporations think it is alright to own life on earth through patents and intellectual property rights (IPR). Patents are granted for inventions, and life is not an invention. These IPR monopolies on seeds are also creating a new bondage and dependency for farmers who are getting trapped in debt to pay royalties.