{"id":43606,"date":"2015-05-05T07:00:38","date_gmt":"2015-05-05T14:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=43606"},"modified":"2015-05-05T07:00:38","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T14:00:38","slug":"selvam-canagaratnams-3rd-may-island-feature-on-glyphosate-who-and-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/05\/05\/selvam-canagaratnams-3rd-may-island-feature-on-glyphosate-who-and-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"Selvam Canagaratnam’s 3rd May Island Feature on Glyphosate, WHO and Cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Chandre Dharmawardana, Ottawa, Canada<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n
\u00a0I have read Canagaratnam’s articles in the Island and elsewhere,\u00a0 and appreciated his insights, but I had also noted his remarks on GMO foods, nuclear energy, pesticides and fertilizers as being more an indicator of public fears rather than informed opinion.<\/div>\n
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\u00a0My professional \u00a0interests today are more in \u00a0topics not related \u00a0applied chemistry, nutrition or environmental issues. However, it was some forty years ago, when wearing a different hat as a Head of a Department of Chemistry that I spent many hours planning laboratory experiments, curricula and hiring young staff for setting up a food science and nutrition course at the Vidyodaya University, now known as the \u00a0Sri Jayawardana Pura University. It was my continuing \u00a0interest in those topics that led me to work on the problem of Kidney disease in Sri Lanka, and its alleged links with fertilizers and pesticides.<\/div>\n
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\u00a0The \u00a0systems of agriculture and \u00a0food distribution in Sri Lanka some 40 years ago were more regulated. The globalized free market had little to do in selling pesticides and fertilizers directly to small farmers. Agricultural technical services existed. The rural \u00a0environment had not yet become inundated with a human monoculture that suffocated the ecosystem, even though the Club of Rome had made its dire predictions. The book Silent Spring\u201d written by Rachel Carson had made a strong impact, making the Green movement of California a strong political force, and creating an eco- exremist fringe\u00a0 among the Greens.<\/div>\n
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Carson’s book demonized the misuse of DDT by American agriculture. \u00a0Let us examine DDT before we go to Glyphosate.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Richard Nixon took advantage of the politics of the Green movement in California \u00a0by banning DDT, well known in Sri Lanka for its eradication of Malaria when the mosquito was set to overwhelm the health services and \u00a0the country. Nixon’s ban was complete with punitive sanctions on countries that used DDT even for mosquito control. The reason was that DDT causes cancer \u201d. \u00a0A number of countries like India, Russia and China did not follow the USA \u00a0and adopted less restrictive controls on DDT. \u00a0Nations of the African continent, not having the strength to oppose the US position, still suffer enormously from mosquito diseases, and depend on US charities for mosquito nets! \u00a0This tragedy (which may have been Sri Lanka’s own if timely action had not been taken before the ban), has been chronicled in a National Geographic article a few years ago.<\/div>\n
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National Geographic Magazine – NGM.com<\/a><\/div>\n
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In fact it is indeed true that DDT causes cancer, as do \u00a0Cloves and Citronella oil. The whole point is, cancer is caused by agents that induce mis-folding of proteins, mutations in the DNA itself and via all sorts of subtle physico-chemical processes. Carcinogenicity is, in the end, \u00a0a generic\u201d name that can be easily misused. \u00a0Almost all natural products or synthetic chemicals, and \u00a0life-giving sunlight at suitably high concentrations cause cancer. The dosage and \u00a0exposure jointly determine toxicity, and \u00a0experts find it \u00a0hard to set thresholds, especially for chemicals without \u00a0short-term effects on large organisms. Then toxicologists turn to microbes which are more sensitive as they lack advanced immune systems, and \u00a0because microbes \u00a0spell out the effects of exposure to many generations in a few days.<\/div>\n
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In 2006, \u00a0the WHO reversed its ban on the domestic use of DDT \u00a0as it was \u00a0totally insane to declare it a carcinogen at the dosages required for domestic control of mosquitoes. A few drops of DDT emulsified into a billion times as much water and applied twice an year inside homes were deemed enough to \u00a0keep the mosquitoes away, with complete safety to humans and the ecosystem. I have advocated this for the control of Dengu, instead of the currently used ineffective fogging system.<\/div>\n
http:\/\/ The Island<\/a><\/div>\n
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But this reversal by the WHO is still not accepted by the public that is shielded from the truth by vocal eco\u201d- \u00a0extemists.<\/div>\n
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DDT was \u00a0too successful as an insecticide. \u00a0It eliminated insects indiscriminately, and \u00a0its general agricultural use remains banned, as it should be. This, and not carcinogenicity is the good reason for its control.<\/div>\n
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Glyphosate is \u00a0also a very successful herbicide. It has no action on animal organisms, but kills most plants with green leaves that use photosynthesis. Hence, instead of using hoards of labour for manual weeding, digging soils causing erosion etc., the farmer \u00a0simply sprays a bit of Glyphosate to \u00a0eliminate the weeds! After four decades of use and extensive testing, scientists could find no toxicity until more modern times, when sensitive analytical instruments that can even detect a needle in a haystack in the moon became common. Here again, cancer-like effects were found mainly in bacteria when subject to very high levels of glyphosate under controlled conditions.<\/div>\n
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Field experiments attempting to correlate parts per billion or trillion of glyphosate with cancer or any other \u00a0health condition of humans have no credence. A recent discussion on TV-Ontario featured Dr. McLaughlin who \u00a0studied \u00a0cancer caused by glyphosate since 2001. This TV program gave a balanced analysis that readers of Selvam Canagaratnam’s article should listen to :<\/div>\n
\u00a0The Last Roundup Debate<\/a><\/div>\n
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\u00a0Their conclusion is that \u00a0Glyphosate cannot cause cancer if used according to the instructions. The European Union has also dismissed any concerns for the public. In fact, the cancer risk\u201d of Glyphosate indicated by the WHO is in the same class as the cancer risk\u201d from the use of cell phones, Wi-Fi devices etc., that the WHO ascribed to them. But, with billions of Wi-Fi devices in use for decades, no definite cancer cases have been identified!<\/div>\n
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Dr. Jayasumana in Sri Lanka and his California anti-Monsanto colleagues have claimed that Glyphosate causes kidney disease in humans. \u00a0They recently presented \u00a0well-water data that they claim \u00a0support their conjecture. No other scientists have found any link between Kidney disease and Glyphosate. In fact, the Jayasumana \u00a0data better support our proposal that kidney disease in the Rajarata is caused by the use of drinking water containing high amounts of inorganic salts, some of which (e.g., fluorides) may be geochemical in origin, while \u00a0phosphates and ammonium salts etc., may be originating in the run-off from the excess \u00a0fertilizers used up-stream. Inorganic salts may act on protein layers in the kidney via the Hofmeister mechanism and initiate damage (Environmental Geochemistry and Health, volume 37, pages 221-231 , 2015).<\/div>\n
http:\/\/dh-web.org\/place.names\/posts\/ckdu-article.pdf<\/a><\/cite><\/div>\n
If there is a reason to restrict the use of Glyphosate, it is because \u00a0it, like DDT, is too effective. \u00a0A farmer must allow for weeds\u201d and insects that may be useful to bees, butterflies, beetles, spiders \u00a0and other insects and birds. The soil is not just a container for the inorganic nutrients, but also a home to a living \u00a0microflora that cannot be dispensed with. Thus a knowledgeable farmer should have sufficiently large regions in his farm where untreated reserves of soil and growth are left to the needs of nature\u201d, and properly understand the ecology of the farmed part of his soil.<\/div>\n
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Interestingly, the fight against Glyphosate has been launched not because glyphosate is carcinogenic, but for political reasons. Glyphosate \u00a0is \u00a0a main component in the use of Genetically modified (GMO) foods and these are opposed by many \u00a0 eco\u201d-activists. \u00a0The agricultural and health scientists generally favour GMO foods and ask for a case by case evaluation. The fight against glyphosate is seen by the eco\u201d-NGOs as a mere first step against GMO foods. This great divide between the public and the scientist regarding GMO foods cannot be discussed in this article.<\/div>\n
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Seeds can be genetically modified so that they are not affected by Round up\u201d while the weeds are. \u00a0Seed companies sell seeds \u00a0coated with insecticides, pesticides, starter fertilizer, growth regulators, humectants, surfactants, binders etc. The seed \u00a0is a high-tech machine designed to sprout on a planned time table and deliver a bumper harvest with little danger from pests, weeds and even a short drought. Unfortunately, the birds do not know about high-tech seeds, and when they eat them they die!<\/div>\n
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Such high-tech seeds should be used only in controlled environments, without birds or insects! But today, profit-motivated farmers demand such seeds from their all-too-willing agro- business giants. The prevailing neo- liberal political philosophy which supports business interests and globalization is also based on industry funding and hence there are \u00a0no adequate \u00a0corrective mechanisms in place as yet.<\/div>\n
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With increased urbanization and the \u00a0cost of land, future agriculture has to \u00a0move away from the farms, when the farm lands can revert back to nature. This will probably become a reality with the development of new high-tech high-yield farming methods that work directly from designer DNA and nutrient solutions reacting in large vats to produce meat, vegetables, cereals, diary etc. This cuts out expensive transport from farm to city, land use, \u00a0or \u00a0using animals to produce proteins. This technology will also solve the contentious political problems of Halal labeling, Kosher foods, vegetarian sensitivities etc.<\/div>\n
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But such industrial food\u201d will be quite \u00a0cheap, and the very wealthy will turn their noses and \u00a0want the personalized and expensive real meat\u201d, complete with \u00a0raw milk from the cow’s very udder.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Chandre Dharmawardana, Ottawa, Canada \u00a0I have read Canagaratnam’s articles in the Island and elsewhere,\u00a0 and appreciated his insights, but I had also noted his remarks on GMO foods, nuclear energy, pesticides and fertilizers as being more an indicator of public fears rather than informed opinion. \u00a0My professional \u00a0interests today are more in \u00a0topics not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chandre-dharmawardana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43606\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}