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12/03/19
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06:53 ,
Evidence from 13 randomized trials of the treatment of migraine in 4,222 patients and tens of thousands of patients in prevention of recurrent attacks supports the use of high dose aspirin from 900 to 1,300 milligrams to treat acute migraine as well as low dose daily aspirin from 81 to 325 milligrams to prevent recurrent attacks. Aspirin is available without a prescription, is inexpensive, and has a relatively favorable side-effect profile compared to alternative more expensive medications.

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05:53 ,
Young cancer survivors face unique medical and psychosocial challenges that can hinder their ability to move on mentally and socially, even years after their final treatment. Lingering feelings of isolation and loss can contribute to a lack of confidence and self-efficacy, or the sense that they will be able to handle whatever arises in the future. But new research suggests survivors who retell their story through photography can significantly increase their self-esteem and self-efficacy.

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00:21 , ,

Life is about choice. Every day we make choices that determine how we want to live — what we eat, what we read, whom we elect and so on. But as lobby groups and Big Business wield their influence, your daily choices become increasingly limited. And when your options are deliberately cherry picked and certain alternatives are vilified and suppressed, how much choice do you really have?

Milk is a perfect example of how your choices are being restricted for no other reason than to benefit big business. Raw milk is banned in many states on the basis of claims that it may make you sick.

Yet, toxic herbicides and pesticides are dumped on our crops by the tankful, and this is touted as perfectly safe. If this reasoning seems nonsensical, then your reality testing is intact.

Government and industry are marked by massive corruption that has permeated most of the regulatory bodies in the U.S. The fight for food freedom isn't just for those who love raw milk — it's for anyone who wants to be able to obtain the food of their choice from the source of their choice.

In sharp contrast to the U.S., where raw milk is demonized, many European countries sell raw milk in vending machines, as illustrated in the featured video by The Healthy Home Economist.1 How can raw milk be safe all over Europe — safe enough to be dispensed from a vending machine, no less — yet be too hazardous to be sold in the U.S.?

The answer to that is that it isn't dangerous at all. In fact, the U.S. standards for raw milk are in many instances higher than those for pasteurized milk. As noted by Healthy Home Economist founder Sarah Pope in the video,2 the reason Americans don't have free access to raw milk has nothing to do with consumer safety; it's about maintaining the profits of the Big Dairy monopoly.

Two Dairy Monopolies May Merge Into One

As reported by Washington Monthly,3 Dean Foods, the largest dairy processor in the U.S., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2019.4 Aside from processors like Dean Foods, farmers have the option of selling their milk to dairy cooperatives, which negotiate sales of the milk to processors and retailers on behalf of its members.

Dairy co-ops have been rapidly consolidating, however, leaving farmers with fewer options for sales. Now, their options may dwindle even further, as Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) — the largest dairy co-op in the U.S. — may end up buying Dean Foods.

The merger would pose a serious conflict of interest for dairy farmers, as DFA is supposed to advocate for farmers but would end up being a processor. As such, they'd have an interest in keeping milk prices low, at the detriment of the more than 14,000 dairy farmers they represent.5,6

While combining these two monopolies would violate antitrust rules under normal circumstances, such mergers are legal when one firm is about to go out of business. Together under one umbrella, Dean Foods and DFA would form a monopoly that threatens the livelihood of farmers to a greater degree than any retaliatory tariffs from China ever could.

DFA already controls about 30% of the raw milk supply while Dean controls 12% of the fluid milk market. Both of these monopolies have settled antitrust claims in the past, and their merger is hardly going to make it any less anticompetitive. As reported by Washington Monthly:7

"… antitrust laws permit collusion once it occurs within a single corporation. 'The more DFA expands downstream into fluid milk processing the greater the leverage it's going to have in a variety of ways,' Peter Carstensen, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin Law School and former Department of Justice antitrust attorney, told me.

So-called ''tacit' coordination becomes much more possible because … that will be an internal corporate [decision].' The merger means that dairy farmers have even fewer processors competing to buy their milk.

'As a producer, I'm concerned about DFA making this large a purchase,' said Charles Untz, a farmer and former DFA board member. 'It puts a lot of the control of the fluid market in the hands of one co-op. That sends a little fear as far as the milk price goes, because they can literally dictate what they pay for milk' …

If DFA operated the way co-ops are supposed to, its farmer owners would be able to decide if a major deal like acquiring Dean Foods was worth the risk. But because of its vast size and entrenched management, farmers have little control …"

Milk Industry Doesn't Understand Modern Consumers

Again and again, farmers are told to "go big or go broke." But this isn't necessarily true. At least this trend isn't the result of free market forces. In recent years, an increasing number of Americans have embraced organics and everything that goes with it, including minimal processing, higher nutrient density, fewer chemical contaminants and animal welfare.

People are becoming more educated about the environmental impact of monocrop agriculture and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), as well as their ramifications for food quality and food safety.

What a growing number of consumers want is more raw, organic and grass fed milk, yet the dairy industry is pushing forward with plans for ever-larger CAFOs and increased centralization and monopolization.

This is why Dean is going bankrupt. It's not because it's not big enough already. It seems Big Dairy simply doesn't understand modern consumers, seeing how it's doing the complete opposite of what so many are calling for.

Big Dairy ignores all of the concerns that have brought organics from a tiny little specialty niche into mainstream prominence. Among them is the growing public understanding of the health concerns associated with CAFO products.

Just like ground beef mixtures, any given gallon of CAFO milk can contain milk from as many as thousands of cows. It takes just one sick cow to contaminate many thousands of hamburger patties or gallons of milk — even when processors assure you that their products have been inspected, tested and sanitized.

On the other hand, the risk of widespread illness affecting hundreds of people all over the country is barely possible with ground beef and milk from small organic farms and dairies, as the ground beef you buy there typically comes from a single cow, and the milk is mixed with a limited number of cows on the farm.

Another growing concern is the environmental pollution associated with CAFOs. Consumers are starting to recognize that CAFOs are among the biggest polluters destroying our air, soil and water, and are using their purchasing dollars to support operations that understand the role the farm plays in maintaining ecological balance, and are actually improving the environment rather than destroying it.

Fear-Mongering Used to Control Raw Milk Sales

Just where did America's fear of raw milk come from? Raw milk did go through a "dark age" in the mid-1800s, which is still used to seed fear in present day. At that time, the cows' diets, combined with unsanitary conditions, water supplies contaminated with raw sewage and lack of refrigeration led to the spread of diseases like tuberculosis and typhoid. Many died from raw milk that came from unsanitary dairies raising malnourished cows.

The "swill milk" scandal also occurred around the 1850s.8 Dairy cows fed the remnants from grain distillation and raised in poor conditions produced diseased milk, which was then mixed with chalk and sold as fresh. A reported 8,000 children died as a result, which increased consumer support and industry acceptance of pasteurization.9

Today, this fear is still used as a tool to restrict your right to raw milk, even though the conditions that made raw milk unfit for consumption have long since been amended.

Tennessee Bill Seeks to Eliminate Herdshare Programs

A perfect example of government overreach based on these outdated fears is Senate Bill 15 (SB15), introduced in Tennessee by Sen. Richard Briggs, R-Knoxville, which would make it illegal for a partial owner of a hoofed animal to drink the milk from that animal.10

Only a sole owner of a hoofed animal would be allowed to drink its milk. In essence, the bill is an attempt to snuff out herdshare programs. Herdshares are private agreements formed between farmers and individuals, which entitle you to the benefits of owning a "share" of a cow, such as a certain amount of milk each week.

However, SB15 not only would make it illegal for herdshare owners to obtain raw milk but also would make it against the law for the farmer running a herdshare to drink milk from their own cow, as they would not be considered a "sole owner."

SB15 is poised as a bill to protect the public welfare from the "risks" of drinking raw milk, but raw milk is a nutritious and safe food when it comes from cows raised on pasture.

Briggs reportedly introduced SB15 to close the herdsharing "loophole" after 10 children in the state were sickened by E. coli that was blamed on raw milk obtained from a Knoxville shareholder dairy. But according to Weston A. Price, "no E. coli was found in any of the dairy's milk that public health officials tested."11

Raw Butter Producers Sue the FDA

The unfounded fears of raw dairy even extend to raw butter, and producers of raw butter are now suing12 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which prohibits sale of raw butter across state lines.

The lawsuit was filed by the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF), a nonprofit membership organization, and seeks to overturn the decades-old ban on interstate sale of unpasteurized milk products, which includes butter. This is rather nonsensical, because even if you're concerned about raw milk contamination, pathogens have a hard time growing in butter. As reported by Reason:13

"A European study14 published earlier this year found that 'the chance of growth of Listeria monocytogenes in raw milk homestead butter is small.' (Unpasteurized butter is common in many countries, including those in Europe.)

The FTCLDF suit cites numerous studies — including research by the FDA itself — that supports the contention raw butter is not a good medium for pathogenic growth.

It also cites the federal government's own data, which suggests 'at most–one' reported case of foodborne illness has occurred in recent decades as a result of consuming unpasteurized butter. That illness, in Utah in 2007, was caused by consuming homemade (rather than commercially sold) butter.

Not surprisingly, foodborne illnesses caused by raw butter are virtually unknown. For example, the suit notes there have been no cases of foodborne illness traced to raw butter from McAfee's dairy, Organic Pastures, which has sold more than 2 million pounds of raw butter in California since 2001."

Raw Milk Cheese Also Wrongly Targeted

Unfounded fears of raw milk and government overreach also threaten the artisan cheese industry, as detailed in the book, "Ending the War on Artisan Cheese," written by food scientist Catherine Donnelly.15 In an interview with Eater, Donnelly states:16

"There are careful standards that cheesemakers pay attention to because if they don't start out with the best quality raw materials, they're not going to end up with a good cheese.

Paying attention to the microbiological quality of the raw milk is really, really critical. The raw milk, the starting material, has to be of good quality or you're not going to have a sellable product."

What's more, Donnelly notes that more foodborne illness outbreaks are associated with processed and pasteurized products than raw milk and raw cheese. Despite that, the FDA continues to favor Big Dairy at the expense of smaller artisan producers:17

"Who has the ear of the FDA when regulations are being promulgated? It isn't the small, rural farm people who have a seat at the table, influencing policy. It's the large, multinational corporations who are looking at their bottom line and profit.

If those voices are having input on regulations, there isn't a holistic approach for the FDA to look at something other than a one-size-fits-all approach to regulations. Cheese makers have no market for their product if it's contaminated and they're making their customers sick.

But I would argue that a small-scale producer has much more control over the safety of that process than some of these large-scale industrial plants, where there are lots of post-pasteurization processes like shredding, and cutting, and repackaging, and lots of opportunities for exposure to contamination. That's why we see more outbreaks associated with industrially processed products, as opposed to artisan."

While in the U.S. cheese must either be made from pasteurized milk or held for 60 days before it can be sold, Europe considers raw milk essential to such delicacies as traditional French cheese. Pennsylvania cheesemaker Sue Miller explained to Mother Nature Network:18

"There are all these great enzymes living in the milk when it's raw that create flavor profiles. When milk is pasteurized, they get extinguished so you have to add cultures to accentuate the flavors of the milk … I'd love for people to really try raw milk cheese. In Europe people don't want pasteurized cheese. They know how good raw milk cheese is."

Support Raw Milk and Your Right to Food Freedom

Ultimately, whether you drink milk or not, and whether you prefer raw or pasteurized milk, is a personal choice and should remain that way. You have the right to choose what to eat, regardless of the government's opinion on what's healthy and what's not.

As mentioned, strict regulations are already in place for raw milk — in some cases far stricter than those for pasteurized milk. So there's really no reason — aside from bolstering CAFO profits — to prohibit the sale of raw milk, cheese or butter.

As long as farmers are prohibited from selling to consumers directly, processors can and do price fix the market, ultimately leading to corporate monopolies, consolidation of CAFO dairy farms, a degradation of food safety and quality, and the intentional destruction of small, family dairy farms.

The answer to the dying dairy industry is to make raw milk legally accessible everywhere. At present, 43 of 50 states19 have made it possible to buy raw milk in one way or another (even though some states still force farmers to label the milk as being restricted to pet consumption only, which is yet another fear tactic designed to keep the squeamish at bay).

You can help push the remaining seven states to legalize raw milk by making a donation to the Weston A. Price Foundation's Real Milk Campaign. If you're still unsure of where to find raw milk, check out Raw-Milk-Facts.com and RealMilk.com.

They can tell you what the status is for legality in your state, and provide a listing of raw dairy farms in your area. The Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund20 also provides a state-by-state review of raw milk laws.21 California residents can also find raw milk retailers using the store locator available at www.OrganicPastures.com.



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00:21 , ,

Opioid overdoses kill more than 130 people in the U.S. daily1 in an unprecedented crisis that continues to spiral out of control. The pharmaceutical companies behind these drugs are now facing mounting lawsuits, as it's become clear that they're the ones with blood on their proverbial hands, having pushed drugs on unsuspecting pain patients while knowing they were unsafe.

From 1999 to 2017, more than 702,000 people died from a drug overdose and, in 2017, this was a leading cause of injury-related deaths in the U.S. Of the 70,000 drug-overdose deaths that occurred that year, 68% involved opioids.2

Purdue Pharma, which manufactures OxyContin, was instrumental in driving up sales of the drug to close to $2 billion a year by 2004,3 and as it became clear that people were dying as a result, they engaged in every damage-control tactic they could think of, even suggesting that the only people dying from opioids were already drug addicts.

In a major exposé by ProPublica, the lengths Purdue Pharma went to downplay OxyContin's risks are revealed. In short, ProPublica senior reporter David Armstrong wrote, "OxyContin's makers delayed the reckoning for their role in the opioid crisis by funding think tanks, placing friendly experts on leading outlets, and deterring or challenging negative coverage."4

Doctor Behind Opioid Story Had Ties to Purdue Pharma

Today, the pharmaceutical industry's contribution to the opioid epidemic is well established, with even the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services stating:5

"In the late 1990s, pharmaceutical companies reassured the medical community that patients would not become addicted to opioid pain relievers and healthcare providers began to prescribe them at greater rates.

Increased prescription of opioid medications led to widespread misuse of both prescription and non-prescription opioids before it became clear that these medications could indeed be highly addictive."

But in 2004, doctors were being singled out for overprescribing the drugs, with criminal charges pending against major prescribers. That year, psychiatrist Sally Satel wrote an essay titled "Doctors Behind Bars: Treating Pain is Now Risky Business," which was featured in The New York Times.6

While painting people who became addicted to painkillers as typically "a seasoned drug abuser with a previous habit involving pills, alcohol, heroin or cocaine," Satel cited a study suggesting OxyContin was rarely the only drug involved in opioid-related deaths and described an unnamed colleague who needed to prescribe large amounts of oxycodone to help patients get out of bed.

Satel was described as a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, but her many ties to Purdue Pharma were noticeably absent. "Among the connections revealed by emails and documents obtained by ProPublica," Armstrong wrote:7

" … Purdue donated $50,000 annually to the institute, which is commonly known as AEI, from 2003 through this year, plus contributions for special events, for a total of more than $800,000. The unnamed doctor in Satel's article was an employee of Purdue, according to an unpublished draft of the story.

The study Satel cited was funded by Purdue and written by Purdue employees and consultants. And, a month before the piece was published, Satel sent a draft to Burt Rosen, Purdue's Washington lobbyist and vice president of federal policy and legislative affairs, asking him if it 'seems imbalanced.'"

The Opioid 'Anti-Story' Begins

Satel's media portrayal of opioids as saviors to pain patients is only the tip of the iceberg of Purdue Pharma's aggressive responses to counter criticism. Not only did Satel's favorable writings continue, but Purdue Pharma hired notorious PR firm Dezenhall Resources, which has defended such clients as Exxon Mobil, to court Satel and further their damage control. Armstrong continued:8

"ProPublica reviewed emails to Purdue officials in which Dezenhall and his employees took credit for dissuading a national television news program from pursuing a story about OxyContin; helping to quash a documentary project on OxyContin abuse at a major cable network; forcing multiple outlets to issue corrections related to OxyContin coverage; and gaining coverage of sympathetic pain patients on a television news program and in newspaper columns."

It was 2001 when the New York Post published an article painting pain patients who may lose access to opioids as the true victims of the opioid controversy, and Eric Dezenhall, the PR firm's founder, emailed Purdue Pharma executives in response, writing, "The anti-story begins."9

That same year, Richard Sackler, who was Purdue Pharma's acting president, wrote in an email, "We have to hammer on the abusers in every way possible … They are the culprits and the problem. They are reckless criminals."10 The Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma, made it onto Forbes' Top 20 billionaires list in 201511 — in large part due to the burgeoning sales of OxyContin.

"After Purdue and Dezenhall launched their 'anti-story,'" Armstrong wrote, "media reports of OxyContin addiction and abuse declined for several years. In 2001, there were 1,204 stories that included the words 'OxyContin,' 'abuse' and 'Purdue' published in media outlets archived on the Nexis database. The number plummeted to 361 in 2002 and to 150 in 2006."12

Purdue Pharma Fined Millions — A Mere Slap on the Wrist

Purdue Pharma claimed they were unaware that Oxycontin was being abused until the 2000s, but a Justice Department report showed they knew the drug was popular with drug addicts in the late 1990s, and that they'd concealed the information.13

Despite knowing that the drugs were being crushed, snorted and stolen from pharmacies, they continued to market the drug as less addictive and less prone to abuse. DOJ prosecutors recommended that three Purdue Pharma executives be indicted on felony charges, which could have sent them to prison, but instead the case was settled.14

Further, in 2007 Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to charges of misbranding "with intent to defraud and mislead the public" and paid $634.5 million in fines, but the fines did little to dissuade them from continuing to profit off the deadly drugs.15

More recently, a number of states and municipalities have sued Purdue Pharma over the role it played in the opioid crisis. In March 2018, the company reached a $270 million settlement with Oklahoma, about $122.5 million of which are earmarked for the funding of a drug addiction treatment center at Oklahoma State University16 that will study opioid addiction and its treatment.

As part of the deal, Purdue has also agreed to stricter limitations on how they market and sell opioids in Oklahoma.17 When you consider Purdue has made an estimated $35 billion from sales of OxyContin since its release in 1996, settlements of a few hundred million dollars are still akin to a slap on the wrist. Originally, Oklahoma had sought damages in excess of $20 billion.18

Purdue Pharma Files Bankruptcy Amidst Thousands of Lawsuits

In September 2019, Purdue Pharma filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy as part of a deal to settle the more than 2,000 lawsuits it's currently facing, alleging the company fueled the opioid epidemic by misleading doctors and patients about their drugs.19 Bankruptcy is a common tactic aimed at stemming the flow of lawsuits.

While for decades the Sacklers have been successful in largely separating their name from the deadly product that made them rich, some of the lawsuits have named individual Sacklers as defendants, but some opposed to the bankruptcy deal suggest it could still let the family off the hook. According to STAT News:20

"States that have opposed the bankruptcy deal have said that it would not extract enough from members of the Sackler family. They've argued that Purdue's assets are limited because the family has absorbed the bulk of the company's profits, and so should be on the hook for more than the deal outlines

… the New York attorney general's office said it had uncovered $1 billion in wire transfers by the Sacklers, alleging the family was trying to hide its assets … Plaintiffs' attorneys have likened the ongoing case to the one against the tobacco industry that culminated in a $246 billion settlement two decades ago."

Recycling the Problem Into China

Purdue Pharma is only one pharmaceutical giant owned by the Sackler family. They also own Mundipharma, a Chinese company that's selling OxyContin abroad, using many of the same marketing tactics Purdue Pharma is now being accused of.

In 1995, when Purdue Pharma received U.S. FDA approval for extended-release oxycodone (OxyContin) for the management of moderate to severe pain, it was promoted as being nonaddictive and safe for long-term use, unlike other opioids on the market.

Unfortunately, the idea that extended-release Oxycontin, which didn't lead to the immediate high drug abusers were presumably looking for, was less addictive was not based on real evidence. Meanwhile, in China, present-day sales reps for Mundipharma are repeating the same deadly story.

"In conversations with the AP more than a decade later, three current and former sales reps in China made the same misleading pitch, which was repeated in training and marketing materials used by Mundipharma staff," STAT News reported, adding:21

"'Immediate-release morphine and Dolantin are more addictive,' a current employee recently told AP on condition of anonymity for fear of losing her job. OxyContin, which enters the blood slowly, she explained, 'doesn't resemble immediate-release morphine, rising and falling with these frequent peaks and troughs that cause a euphoric feeling.'

'I'm shocked,' she said, after AP showed her documents from the U.S. legal case and 2016 guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control that say there is no evidence long-acting opioids reduce risks of abuse. 'Why after more than ten years would they still do the same thing and go against the laws and regulations of society?' she said."

Mundipharma's sales reps have also violated Chinese law by copying patients' private medical records to better target sales and have even worn white doctors' coats to make visits with hospital patients, as well as offered doctors paid speaking jobs and gifts.

Mundipharma is also actively working to combat "opiophobia" in doctors, which is reportedly the "mistaken" belief that opioid painkillers are highly addictive and should be used sparingly.22 While in the U.S. Purdue Pharma has stopped marketing OxyContin to doctors, in China Mundipharma is hoping OxyContin sales "surpass those in the U.S. by 2025."23

Anyone Can Become Addicted to Opioids

Purdue Pharma's attempts to blame the opioid crisis on addicts have ultimately failed, and it's now widely known that even when taken as directed, prescription opioids can lead to addiction as well as tolerance, which means you need an increasingly stronger dose to get the pain-relieving effects.

Physical dependence, in which you suffer withdrawal symptoms if you stop taking the drugs, can also result along with other issues like increased sensitivity to pain, depression, low levels of testosterone and more.24

"Anyone who takes prescription opioids can become addicted to them. In fact, as many as 1 in 4 patients receiving long-term opioid therapy in a primary care setting struggles with opioid addiction. Once addicted, it can be hard to stop," the CDC notes.25

Money is still being made by opioid makers even as people are dying as a result. The motivation to sell more of these drugs is not one of altruism but greed. If you're in need of pain relief, consider natural options first and be aware that opioids are not always necessary to treat even moderate to severe pain, as ibuprofen and acetaminophen (which do have their own set of risks) may work just as well.26



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Canadian law firm Diamond & Diamond has filed a class-action lawsuit against various makers of Roundup, including Bayer.1 Bayer acquired Monsanto, Roundup's original maker, in 2018 for $63 billion and has been grappling with related lawsuits ever since.

The Canadian class-action suit names more than 60 individuals as plaintiffs, but thousands more may have been affected. The suit alleges that Roundup, which contains glyphosate as an active ingredient, caused serious health problems in the users, including Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, brain cancer and lung cancer.

"These are not minor injuries," Darryl Singer, the head of commercial and civil litigation at Diamond & Diamond, told CBC News. "Of the [plaintiffs] that are living, some of them are not likely to see the end of this lawsuit because they will pass away before that."

In the U.S., approximately 42,700 U.S. lawsuits from individuals alleging that glyphosate caused them to develop cancer have already been filed2 and analysts at JP Morgan suggested the number of glyphosate lawsuits may soon surpass 45,000.3

Bayer Continues to Claim Glyphosate Is Safe

Bayer isn't surprised by the rising lawsuits and even stated in October 2019, "With the substantial increase in plaintiff advertising this year, we expect to see a significant surge in the number of plaintiff filings over the third quarter."4

They're blaming the increase on lawyers trying to get the word out about these class-action suits, though, instead of acknowledging the truth about Roundup. In a statement to CBC News, Bayer even continued to support the toxic products and label them as safe:5

"While we have great sympathy for the plaintiffs, glyphosate-based herbicides are not the cause of their illnesses … Glyphosate has been extensively studied globally by scientists and regulators, and results from this research confirm it is not carcinogenic.

We firmly stand behind the safety of glyphosate-based products and as a company devoted to life sciences, assure Canadians that their health and the environment are our top priority."

The statement echoes those made by Monsanto, which has long stated that Roundup was safe for people and the environment. However, internal Monsanto emails released during the glyphosate trials paint a much more sordid picture, one in which Monsanto-affiliated scientists question the chemical's safety. As reported by Medtruth:6

"In a 2014 email exchange, Monsanto toxicologist Donna Farmer warned a company spokesperson to not call glyphosate safe. 'We cannot say it [glyphosate] is 'safe' ... we can say history of safe use, used safely etc,' Farmer wrote.

She encouraged the spokesperson to instead call the chemical 'one of the most thoroughly tested herbicides,' and one that 'poses no unreasonable risks to people' when used according to directions."

Further, Monsanto consultants and epidemiologists specifically warned against stating there's "no evidence" that glyphosate causes cancer, while company emails suggest Roundup had never been tested to see if it causes cancer in people, despite company claims that it was safe.7

Glyphosate's Unprecedented Usage

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) identified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen in 2015.8 This is alarming, in part, because of the sheer volume of glyphosate that's been sprayed into the environment.

In the U.S. alone, over 1.6 billion kilograms (3.5 billion pounds) have been applied since 1974. This represents 19% of the glyphosate used globally during that time, and the majority (two-thirds of glyphosate applied from 1974 to 2014) has been applied in the last 10 years.9 Writing in Environmental Sciences Europe, researchers explained:10

"In 2014, farmers sprayed enough glyphosate to apply ~1.0 kg/ha (0.8 pound/acre) on every hectare of U.S.-cultivated cropland and nearly 0.53 kg/ha (0.47 pounds/acre) on all cropland worldwide … In the U.S., no pesticide has come remotely close to such intensive and widespread use.

This is likely the case globally, but published global pesticide use data are sparse. Glyphosate will likely remain the most widely applied pesticide worldwide for years to come, and interest will grow in quantifying ecological and human health impacts."

What Are the Risks of Roundup?

Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has been studying glyphosate for years and has become hooked on determining what makes this ubiquitous chemical so toxic.

You can watch our interview above, but, according to Seneff, the increase in glyphosate usage in the U.S., as well as in Canada, is extremely well correlated with the concurrent increase in the incidence of multiple diseases, including breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, kidney cancer, thyroid cancer, liver cancer, bladder cancer and myeloid leukemia.11

"[B]oth of those countries have a lot of heart health issues, high Autism rates, lots of autoimmune diseases, food allergies, Alzheimer's is going up dramatically. Of course diabetes, obesity, all these things are going up dramatically in our population," Seneff says.

"We don't know why. We see that glyphosate is perfectly correlated with many of these diseases. It's also going up exactly in step with these diseases, and there's many, many plots that I've put together in collaboration with other people."

Research scientist Anthony Samsel is one of Seneff's co-authors, and together they've suggested that one of the ways glyphosate is harmful is via disruption of glycine homeostasis. Glyphosate has a glycine molecule as part of its structure (hence the "gly" in glyphosate). Glycine is a very common amino acid your body uses to make proteins.

Samsel and Seneff believe your body can substitute glyphosate and its metabolite aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) into peptides and proteins, which results in damaged peptides and proteins being produced. Glyphosate causing glycine disruption is still theoretical in nature, not proven, but it makes a lot of sense.

Glyphosate also causes sulfate deficiency "in so many ways," Seneff says, "it's almost like it's a perfect storm," and impairs the heme pathway and the shikimate pathway, which is involved in the synthesis of the essential aromatic amino acids phenylalanine, tyrosine and tryptophan.12

"Super, super important," Seneff says. "[These amino acids are] … not only part of the building blocks of proteins which would already be pretty drastic, but they're also precursors to all the neurotransmitters. Dopamine, serotonin, melatonin, melanin. Skin tanning agent. They're also precursors to certain B vitamins like folate and I think niacin."

Glyphosate Trials Support the Chemical's Toxicity

In August 2018, jurors ruled Monsanto must pay $289 million in damages to DeWayne "Lee" Johnson, a former school groundskeeper who claimed the company's herbicide Roundup caused his terminal cancer.13 The award was later slashed to $78 million,14 but it signaled the beginning of Roundup cancer lawsuits siding with victims.

After Johnson's case, a judge ruled in favor of plaintiff Edwin Hardeman, who alleged his repeated exposures to Roundup, which he used to kill weeds on his 56-acre property, caused him to develop cancer.

Bayer was ordered to pay more than $80 million in the case,15 which was later reduced to $25.2 million.16 In a similar trend, the third Monsanto Roundup case involved a married couple, Alva and Alberta Pilliod, who both developed Non-Hodgkin lymphoma after regular use of Roundup.

The jury ordered Bayer to pay $2 billion in punitive and compensatory damages,17 but a judge later said the punitive damages, which make up the majority of the award, should be reduced. Additional trials continue to be postponed until 2020, including the first set in the area of Monsanto's former hometown, St. Louis, Missouri, and one scheduled in San Francisco.

The San Francisco case is notable, as it originally involved only Elaine Stevick, who is battling aggressive Non-Hodgkin lymphoma she believes is the result of repeated use of Roundup.

In October 2019, however, Stevick's husband, Chris, who often mixed Roundup for his wife, was also diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and lawyers are battling out whether this pertinent diagnosis can be added to the case, or if the trial will be delayed further. U.S. Right to Know reported:18

"Monsanto's attorneys oppose the joining of the claims and say that Elaine Stevick's trial should only proceed in February if there is no mention made of her husband's cancer. Alternatively, Monsanto requests that the February trial be delayed and the company be given time to do discovery into Chris Stevick's diagnosis."

Research published in Frontiers in Genetics also supports glyphosate's cancer link, finding that exposure in low concentrations (in parts per trillion) may induce cancer in cells when combined with microRNA-182-5p (miR182-5p).19

MicroRNA-182-5p is a gene regulatory molecule found in everyone, and overexpression of the molecule has been linked to cancer. Michael Antoniou of King's College London, who peer reviewed the study, stated, "These observations highlight for the first time a possible biomarker of glyphosate activity at the level of gene expression that could be linked with breast cancer formation."20

Glyphosate a Danger to All Life

In December 2019, the EU will begin its three-year reevaluation of glyphosate, with the debate expected to focus less on the specific cancer threats to humans and more on its overriding threat to the environment, including to biodiversity and aquatic life. Speaking to Politico, Jeroen van der Sluijs, a professor of science and ethics at Norway's Bergen University, explained:21

"It [glyphosate] kills a lot of non-target plants and it leads to an agricultural practice where you have monoculture with no wild plants left in the fields … If you remove all the wild plants from the fields then you only have the crop that flowers and that's only a very short period in the year. The rest of the year there's nothing to forage on.

… We find [glyphosate] everywhere in surface waters, it is indeed toxic for all kinds of aquatic organisms, so of special concern are amphibians like frogs and salamanders."

Bayer, meanwhile, has been spinning a similar rhetoric relating to environmental harms as they have been for cancer, basically downplaying the links and claiming the chemical is safe and "does not pose a risk to nontarget organisms."22

Here again, evidence suggests otherwise. As usage of the glyphosate has skyrocketed, milkweed, which is the only plant on which the adult monarch butterfly will lay its eggs, has plummeted.

In 2013, it was estimated that just 1% of the common milkweed present in 1999 remained in corn and soybean fields and, tragically, while milkweed is not harmed by many herbicides, it is easily killed by glyphosate.23 A 2017 study published in the journal Ecography further noted a strong connection between large-scale Monarch deaths and glyphosate application.24,25

Germany, for one, isn't waiting any longer for glyphosate to continue decimating the environment. When the EU's approval period for glyphosate ends in 2023, Germany announced it would be banning the chemical, with the phase-out starting even sooner.26 Germany's decision to ban the chemical is based on its effects on insect populations, including pollinators that support the food supply.

Worldwide, more than 40% of insect species are threatened with extinction in the next few decades.27 Researchers cited compelling evidence that agricultural intensification is the main driver of population declines in birds, small mammals and insects, and the next most significant contributor named is pollution, primarily that from synthetic pesticides and fertilizers.

How to Curb and Detoxify Your Glyphosate Exposure

The lawsuits that continue to be filed against glyphosate's maker are signs of just how widespread the damage from this ubiquitous chemical has become. For now, investing in a good water filtration system for your home and eating as much organic or biodynamically grown foods as possible are among your best methods for reducing exposure, as is eliminating its use around your home garden.

In the interview above, Seneff also shares some tips for detoxing glyphosate, which include consuming organic, unpasteurized apple cider vinegar, as it contains acetobacter, one of the few substances known to break down glyphosate.



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