Compiled by Rosemary Mason MB ChB FRCA on behalf of a global network of independent scientists, beekeepers and environmentalists
Farm Wars
What are pesticides and medical drugs doing to human health?
Have you wondered why pollinators, birds, amphibians, bats etc. have
dramatically decreased in numbers in the last 20-30years? Or perhaps you
weren’t even aware of the fact – because the British Media has been
silent on the matter.
But you will be aware of the increasing number of diseases that are
affecting us all: obesity, type 2 diabetes, autism, Dementia,
Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s, various neurological disorders,
cancers, inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn’s Disease and
Ulcerative Colitis, infertility, birth defects, depression, heart
disease, strokes, hypertension etc.
Why has no-one in medicine, public health or medical epidemiology
managed to work it out? “It’s difficult to get a man to understand
something if his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”1
The answer is simple; but the cure is not. We are slowly, silently
being poisoned. Our genes, and those of our children, are being damaged
by toxic chemicals.2 Of course it is something of a ‘post-code’ (or
water-shed ‘post code’ lottery3) and depends on where you are living. If
you live in London and eat organic food, you may not have noticed. But
there are pesticide residues (particularly glyphosate) in staple foods
that are made from cereal crops, because many are desiccated (dried off)
with glyphosate before harvest. Since 2007, most brewers and distillers
have permitted pre-harvest desiccation to be done, so it will now be in
beer and whiskey. Most of the imports from the US have ingredients
contaminated with GM and herbicides (such as glyphosate, 2,4-D,
glufosinate, dicamba) in the production process.
In South Wales we have found that glyphosate is present in our tap
water.4 This is because large amounts of glyphosate are used on noxious
weeds such as Japanese knotweed that are invading previously
industrialised areas. Contractors on quad bikes with knapsacks have been
spraying Roundup® along kerbs, verges, highways, even in areas of
schools, libraries and doctors surgeries. In 2012 the Chemicals
Regulation Directorate (CRD) instructed the workers not to spray on hard
surfaces,5 because there is a lot of run-off into water courses, but I
doubt whether a technical instruction posted on a website ever gets
passed on to a worker.
Our Assembly Member wrote to the Local Council, but they said that
Roundup® was perfectly safe. (This is a Monsanto myth: since 1996 the
Corporation has been convicted in courts for fraudulent and false
advertising6). Our Council refused to stop spraying until they were
instructed to do so by the CRD or Defra. We have spent 3 years writing
to these two Government Departments. Both maintain that glyphosateand
the neonicotinoid insecticides are perfectly safe if applied in the
correct dosages! We remain at an impasse and continue to be poisoned by
Government policies.
Unfortunately some members of the British Government, such as the
Defra Minister, Environment Minister, Science Minister and their Chief
Scientists and a few MPs are ‘in bed’ with the pesticides companies.
They, together with NFU Chairman, Peter Kendall, and many scientists
from the John Innes Centre have held secret meetings with industry to
devise a strategy to try to get GM crops into the UK.7 Paradoxically, at
the same time, a significant number of countries are banning them.
Here is a 2012 Report: Combatting Monsanto: Grassroots resistance to
the corporate power of agribusiness in the era of the ‘green economy’
and a changing climate.8 It is compiled by La Via Campesina,9 Friends of
the Earth International and Combat Monsanto. Many countries have banned
GMO crops. This Report also documents many crimes (including murder)
committed by the Corporate Industries in their quest for seed and
pesticide dominance. Is it significant that the UK has volunteered to
take the first stockpile of chemicals from Syria (for the deadline:
31/12/2013) into an unknown British Port for destruction? These
precursors are capable of being used by the pharmaceutical industry.10
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