Appeal to your representative Senators!

Toxic chemicals surround us. We envelope ourselves and our children in toxic perfumed laundry detergents; we smear our bodies and hair with untested creams, gels and shampoos. We further damage our health with pesticides used in lawn and garden care, and in agriculture. It is time for legislation to replace the never adequate and very outdated Toxics Substances Control Act. To view each entry, just click on the title or link(s) within each entry.

Friday, June 14, 2013

Rounding Up Those Weeds with Glyphosate? Er, do you know the Health Risks?

If you have never used synthetic herbicides, don't start now! If you do use the product Roundup which contains glyphosate along with unknown other chemicals (trade secrets, concoctions that can be more toxic than the listed active ingredients!), you are exposing yourself and others to serious health issues such as liver damageParkinson's Disease, cancers and neurological disorders, endocrine disruption, infertility... And, you may want to rethink how to deal with the weeds. Roundup, just as with other pesticides/herbicides, drifts by way of air (slight breezes even) and water-- it easily gets into your drinking water. Yes, even when you spray it on your lawn weeds, away from water sources, these pesticides get into ground water which eventually enters our water treatment plants or wells. Roundup is even carried to our precious natural water resources-- rivers, ponds and lakes that we like to think are not tainted with unsafe chemicals.  

I have personally taken care of crab grass by pulling it out by hand which is easily accomplished when the ground is wet. For other "weeds", I have found a simple mix of water and white vinegar to do the trick-- just with a couple of applications sprayed on during sunny days, for perhaps 2-3 days in a row. Apply in the morning to allow this natural formula to do its thing all day long.

Other ways to get rid of "weeds": Douse them with boiling hot water. Some lawn services have been torching them. And of course, mowing them, before they flower, keeps them from spreading. I generally leave some dandelions for soil health but clip off the flowers. Please see below for some of the most current information about Roundup and its connection with major health concerns.


Heavy use of the world's most popular herbicide, Roundup, could be linked to a range of health problems and diseases, including Parkinson's, infertility and cancers, according to a new study.

The peer-reviewed report, published last week in the scientific journal Entropy, said evidence indicates that residues of "glyphosate," the chief ingredient in Roundup weed killer, which is sprayed over millions of acres of crops, has been found in food.
Those residues enhance the damaging effects of other food-borne chemical residues and toxins in the environment to disrupt normal body functions and induce disease, according to the report, authored by Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Anthony Samsel, a retired science consultant from Arthur D. Little, Inc. Samsel is a former private environmental government contractor as well as a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body," the study says.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/25/roundup-health-study-idUSL2N0DC22F20130425

For information regarding the complex aspects of Roundup's toxic makeup:

Very low doses of some types of the herbicide Roundup can disrupt human liver cell function; the formulations' toxicity may be tied to their "inactive" ingredients rather than the active weed-killing ingredient glyphosate.                      

http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/newscience/roundup-mix-more-toxic-to-liver-cells-than-glyphosate/

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