Monsanto's infamous biological speculation policies are not just force-feeding us artificial engenders, destroying the health and economy of farmers and killing a soil we very much need to live. They are also killing our gut bacteria... but only the good ones, the harmful gut bacteria proliferate instead.
From Natural Society:
Monsanto’s Roundup Devastating Gut Health, Contributing to Overgrowth of Deadly Bacteria
by Lisa Garber
December 17th, 2012 | Updated 12/17/2012 at 10:30 pmMuch of the public forgets the gut when it comes to warding off the flu and other more threatening diseases, but the gut—and its army of beneficial bacteria—are essential in protecting us from harm. That’s why eating genetically modified and/or conventionally farmed food could be a direct assault on your own health. Most recently, research has shown that Monsanto’s herbicide, known as Roundup, is destroying gut health, threatening overall health of animals, people, and the planet significantly.
The journal Current Microbiology recently published a study that caught Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide’s active ingredient, glyphosate, suppressing beneficial bacteria in poultry specimens. Given that gut health is directly linked to chronic illnesses and overall health, this isn’t exactly welcome news for people who can’t always afford or who lack access to organic, locally grown food.
But it gets worse. While good bacteria died, highly pathogenic bacteria were unaffected by glyphosate. (...)
... continue reading at Natural Society.
Thanks for this.
ReplyDeleteI do think there is a role for glyphosate. For instance, it can be used very judiciously to remove otherwise unremovable invasive plants from native habitats.
However, it's blanket use in almost all farming operations has all kinds of unintended side effects, the above mentioned, being only one.
Probably minor, punctual, "medically controlled", use of pesticides and herbicides may have some use (IDK against a locust plague or as you say against a herb invasion) but in general the uncontrolled uses are harmful, first and foremost for the farmers but also for the soil (destruction of the natural biodiversity, very worrisome pollution that can even kill the soil completely).
DeleteAnyhow, the plague of modern chemical and genetically modified farming has many many problems and very few advantages, if any at all. I can't say much because it's not my field of expertise but all I read and watch is terrible: extremely depleted soils, indebted farmers that kill themselves drinking pesticides, organic pollution that creates algae plagues.
I used to work as gardener years ago and what I hated the most was to use pesticides. However I did not know how to garden without them, nobody taught me and it would have been a long way to learn by myself. Proper farming really needs of an all-life education - you can learn later of course but the field is so vast that it is an all-life discipline and even more than one life would be needed.