Latest GMO Propaganda: Roundup is Less Toxic Than Table Salt

Glyphosate, the key ingredient of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, is less toxic than caffeine and table salt according to an infographic ‘signed’ with the Twitter name of Monsanto social sciences lead Cami Ryan, GM Watch reported.

Swedish ecotoxicologist Doctor Thomas Backhaus has written a pair of blog articles that show the stupidity and dishonesty of the insane comparisons. He writes that in order to understand how toxic something is, you need to look at not just acute but also chronic toxicity.

Backhaus makes the following points:

1. Glyphosate is never used in its pure form – it’s always diluted and mixed with additives that are poisonous themselves into a product like Roundup. So comparisons based on the pure chemical are senseless. Because of this he goes on to note – every glyphosate-containing product has a unique toxicity.

2. The toxicity scale is based on the LD50 value of each substance – the concentration that kills half the organisms after short-term exposure to the compound in question. But the LD50 is about acute lethality not short term exposure causing instantaneous lethal effects. The concern with glyphosate herbicides is skin irritation, developmental effects, and carcinogenic long term effects from short term exposure with gylphosate related products.

The LD50 argument is often used by Monsanto supporters as a way of to discredit the WHO’s cancer agency IARC’s assessment that glyphosate is “probably cancerous.” The baseless argument was also recently used by former Monsanto scientist Dr Alison Van Eenennaam in a blog post in which she rants against the pseudoscience used in some parts of the GMO discussion.

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Commenting on her post, Backhaus wrote:

You cannot conclude that a compound has a ‘very low’ long-term toxicity by looking at the concentration that kills exposed animals after acute, short-term exposure. That’s basically like saying ‘Ok, you survived heavy smoking for a day. Great. Should you continue to smoke, I can therefore assure you, that you’re not getting cancer or any other chronic diseases even in 20 years time. And of course, your kids will also be fine.

Biology and toxicology simply don’t work that way. And it’s particularly painful to find such a gross mistake in a post that almost joyfully bashes pseudoscience (and rightfully so).

In 2014, it was revealed that “chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology” or CKDu that has affected thousands of farmers across the world might be linked to glyphosate according to the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Monsanto was sued by the NY Attorney General for falsely claiming, “Glyphosate is less toxic to rats than table salt following acute oral ingestion.”

The herbicide giant also recently pulled a new product from its production Nemastrike after complaints of strange rashes from farmers using the chemical.

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Another report published in the scientific journal Entropy suggested a link between the herbicide and a broad range of health problems, from Parkinson’s disease to infertility. Traces of glyphosate residue are even found in food and were recently found in five major orange juice brands including Tropicana.

It’s a known fact that world-famous British scientist, Sir Richard Doll, was paid by Monsanto $1,500 a day for more than 20 years while investigating cancer risks in the industry including the company’s Agent Orange chemical, The Guardian reported.

So that begs the question how many more scientists were or are currently on Monsanto’s payroll? Emails released earlier this year may have the answers as Huffington Post reported the email chain allegedly shows Monsanto executives fraudulently manufacturing further studies to influence the EPA. This is RICO territory and one has to wonder what the implication is both long term and short term to ourselves and our environment from these paid scientific studies.

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Aaron Kesel goes by AK writes for Natural Blaze & Activist Post, and is the Director of content for Coinivore. He is an independent journalist and researcher you can check out more of his work on Steemit. Find Aaron on Twitter.