Glyphosate Awareness Newsletter: WYSIWYG

E-mail Salolianigodagewi to receive newsletters like this one every Thursday (or maybe Friday) directly in your e-mail. This one's just a write-up of what we chatted about on Twitter last Tuesday. It's being offered as a newsletter because, as all Real Twits have noticed by now, we can't depend on Twitter. The printed edition, with the size type you see below, would cost $1 plus printing costs for any linked articles you'd asked to receive; full text of linked documents would be mailed out with the reader's next newsletter. Note that the Newsletter will be plain text--no graphics, no affiliate links.

The Glyphosate Awareness Newsletter is published weekly by Priscilla King, c/o Boxholders, P.O. Box 322, Gate City, Virginia, 24251-0322. It’s available free, in plain text as an e-mail or attachment. Printed or audiocassette versions are available for the cost of production. (Audiofiles are free to anyone who can convince me that s/he is blind and can’t read a document aloud using widely available software.) Reprinting, recirculating, and sharing this information at the reader’s own expense is encouraged, provided that all sources of material are credited.

After last week’s Yellist flop, here is the first mailable Glyphosate Awareness Newsletter. Currently you sign up for this Newsletter by e-mailing salolianigodagewi@yahoo.com, which is a group e-mail address. A specific e-mail address for this Newsletter should go live next week.

WHAT WE LEARNED ON TUESDAY: 1. BAYER APPEALS

Playing the traditional courtroom game, Bayer appealed to reduce the amounts of damages the company was ordered to pay to cancer survivors. Reducing the amounts may have improved the chance of the cancer survivors actually receiving any of the damages due to them while they are alive.

In the Hardeman case, Judge Vincent Chhabria upheld the $5 million “compensatory” payment to Mr. Hardeman but reduce the $75 million “punitive” payment to $20 million. Judge Chhabria, who has been accused of being biased by loyalty to Monsanto, stated that “The evidence easily supported a conclusion that Monsanto was more concerned with tamping down safety inquiries and manipulating public opinion than it was with ensuring its product is safe.” More at https://www.thejournal.ie/roundup-weedkiller-cancer-4726164-Jul2019/ .

Bayer wants to appeal again—to continue stalling while Mr. Hardeman, Mr. Johnson, the Pilliods, and the thousands of other cancer survivors who have filed suits against this despicable corporation suffer financial stress, aggravating what may already be fatal and painful diseases, over their horrific medical expenses. They whine, just as the cigarette companies used to whine, that it’s hard to prove that their product is a primary carcinogen.

Cancer is a complex disease that appears to involve balances among all kinds of factors. One of these factors is the patient’s overall  health and immunity. Glyphosate is a weird chemical that affects individuals, in every tested group of every species, differently depending on individual heredity, health condition, and exposure, but the confirmed effects it has on significant minorities of every test group, across species, most definitely include damage to the individual’s overall health and immunity. Therefore, Bayer should have no realistic grounds for hope that an unbiased jury will ever rule that glyphosate has not contributed to an individual’s cancer...whether or not it turns out to be a primary carcinogen.

Earlier this spring, we saw that some studies even supported a claim that glyphosate might reduce the incidence of some slow-growing types of cancer that appear to require a human lifespan to develop...quite possibly because heavy exposure to glyphosate causes people to die in other ways first. However, glyphosate-exposed people appear to be developing slow-growing cancers at accelerated rates. Twelve-year-old Jake Bellah has already not only been diagnosed, but survived chemotherapy for, non-Hodgkins lymphoma—a rare and usually slow-growing cancer. Another child in California, a girl, is also suing with a similar claim. https://usrtk.org/monsanto-roundup-trial-tacker/sick-children-among-cancer-victims-suing-monsanto-over-roundup/

2. BAYER BOYCOTT

Private individuals are already boycotting all Bayer products. There is, to date, one official Bayer Boycott Song. There should be more. This is mine. It can be sung (and danced) to the tune of “Everybody Rejoice” from The Wiz. It is subject to the folk process; add, omit, or substitute verses as you like. This is the original version from my web site:

Well, Bayer's on the run! Do they remember 1945?
The day of profit's come and gone! They are just trying to get out alive!
Their glyphosate makes people sick a dozen different ways,
Yet they debate, to wear out cancer patients' dying days!

Join the Bayer Boycott now!
Join the Bayer Boycott now!

Headache trying to begin? Drink some water, take a good hot bath.
Throw out the aspirin! Make Bayer feel the loss and do the math!
Lose Dr. Scholl's--just buy some shoes that really fit your feet!
Bayer controls less of our lives than they thought, ain't that sweet?

Dog or cat has fleas? Then boil their blankets and flea-comb their coats.
No need to make them wheeze, no need to burn their noses and their throats.
Pets' allergies are mostly chemical reactions, just like ours.
Ban things like these, relief lasts more than twenty-four short hours!

Tampering with genes will feed more population growth, or so they claim?
Bosh! All that means is profit for themselves, their only aim!
No vitamin pill undoes the damage Bayer's poisons do!
They've made us ill! That's why the boycott's good for me and you!

On the serious side, here are the brands to stop buying, return and demand a refund, etc., to join the Bayer Boycott now:

Advantage

Advantix

Aleve

Alka-Seltzer

(Bayer) Aspirin, Bayerin, Bufferin

Cipro (which may cause muscle cramps severe enough to break bones! Do you need THAT much antibiotic power?)

Claritin

Coppertone

Dr. Scholl’s

Drought-Gard

Levitra

Miralax

RoundUp (obviously!)

Seresto

Xarelto (there were some major issues with this one too!)

That’s only a short list of popular products sold directly to the general public in the Eastern States; the full printable list is at https://www.bayer.com/en/products-from-a-to-z.aspx .

3. BAYER BEHAVES EQUALLY DESPICABLY IN EUROPE

Glyphosate Awareness recognizes the brave and helpful support of German (and German-expatriate) readers who realize that glyphosate harms them too. (While the celiac genetic type is Irish, pseudo-celiac reactions to glyphosate residues in wheat and other food are found across Europe, as far east as India and as far south as South Africa. Germany, too.)

Nevertheless, German-based Bayer resumes the role of the German characters in The Sound of Music as Glyphosate Awareness achieves a nationwide ban in Austria. Worldwide petition can be signed here: https://actions.sumofus.org/a/austria-glyphosate-ban .

4. “NATURAL,” “ORGANIC,” “HEALTHY” PRODUCTS: CONTAMINATION CONTINUES

A US-based consumer group recently sued Twinings Tea of London for “misleading advertising” that fails to acknowledge high levels of glyphosate residues found in their products: https://www.organicconsumers.org/press/organic-consumers-association-sues-twinings-tea-false-and-misleading-advertising .

But what else is new? Last year, you no doubt remember, General Mills tried to lure gluten-sensitive (mostly glyphosate-sensitive) shoppers back to their products by advertising cereals and granola bars as oat-based and rigorously gluten-free. Many celiacs had long avoided oat products because this naturally gluten-free grain, which should not trigger celiac symptoms, was triggering ours. “Cross-contamination, careless handling, wheat flour sifting down onto oat products in storage,” was the usual explanation. The truth came out as GM’s gluten-free cereals and granola bars continued to make celiacs sick and, no surprise to me, were shown to contain high levels of glyphosate. This week’s news was that GM has succeeded in producing relatively low-contaminated batches of Honey Nut Cheerios...even though their Honey Nut Cheerios Medley Crunch, which contain more different ingredients, tested outrageously high for glyphosate contamination. It is just remotely possible that some celiacs, in some parts of the US, may currently be able to eat small amounts of Honey Nut Cheerios without visible loss of blood affecting our ability to work in the next 48 hours. https://www.ewg.org/childrenshealth/monsanto-weedkiller-still-contaminates-foods-marketed-to-children/

True celiacs, of course (at least the ones of us who want to live), don’t wait for studies like these to tell us when food products contain enough glyphosate to make us sick. We know. We’ve learned that eating any part of any plant grown commercially in North America is currently a gamble with the odds against us...even if it’s completely gluten-free. Epa.gov displays a complete, though outdated, list of the most contaminated US produce (search the site to find where that list is currently “archived,” and please drop a comment on the current glyphosate docket page while you’re there). Basically all grain has to be considered poison, as are most nuts and beans. All parts of plants absorb glyphosate but generally, if we’re going to risk eating any commercial fruit or vegetable, the best chance of our bodies tolerating it is likely to involve fruits with thick outer peels; if we avoid swallowing any rinds or seeds, many celiacs can still digest citrus fruits and melons. Apples? Peaches? Tomatoes? Don’t even look at’em.

“Organically grown” sometimes means a few fruit and vegetables are safe for us to eat. Other times, it means that farmers have tried, but failed, to raise crops free from contamination by glyphosate-polluted air or water. Occasionally it means that some dishonest farmer has paid a lot of money to a certifying board, then sprayed poison on crops anyway. There’s no real guarantee.

5. SWEET KILLER

Have you ever heard of the University of Tübingen? There may be a reason why not.There is such a school, and what it has for a science department has breathlessly announced the discovery of a new form of sugar that also disrupts the shikimate pathway in plants, just as glyphosate does, and so is likely to seem harmless to humans, pets, and wildlife—except when it kills them—for years, until mass outrage arises. The Failing to Learn from History Award goes to https://www.marketsgermany.com/new-sugar-molecule/ .

There are other “natural” things you can spray on unwanted plants—concentrated forms of biochemicals found in living plants that inhibit the growth of competing plants—like this geranium-extract formula: https://www.mandycanudigit.com/2019/07/16/neudorff-weedfree-plus-weedkiller-review/ . The “natural” herbicide Glyphosate Awareness likes best is boiling water. Or you can carefully apply a mix of salt and vinegar to “weeds”—basically fat-free salad dressing—and watch them wilt like a dressed salad.

6. SWEET VICTORY

For a long time, neighborhoods have tried to go pesticide-free, and chemical companies have paid people to move in and squeal for the “right” to endanger everyone else’s health by poisoning their lawn. Two neighborhoods particularly dear to my heart, which have been battlefields for this kind of thing, are Takoma Park and Bethesda, Maryland. (Bethesda can be considered a city in its own right, and it ranks among Maryland’s biggest, but culturally it’s a sprawly suburban neighborhood outside Washington.) I was particularly glad to see that Maryland has recognized these neighborhoods’ right to enforce stricter pesticide regulations than the state as a whole has adopted. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/beyond-pesticides-montgomery-county-legal-victory-a-win-for-public-health-and-the-environment-loss-for-pesticide-industry-bullying-300884330.html

7. BEYOND BAYER

No other company has ever made more money off glyphosate than Monsanto had, before it merged into Bayer. However, one reason why glyphosate use exploded in 2009, and why so many of us feel so much more than ten years “older” than we were in 2009, is that in 2009 other companies started manufacturing—and competitively marketing—their own glyphosate products. Swiss reporters confront Swiss-based Syngenta, the second worst offender lined up for lawsuits after shameless Bayer collapses, about that multinational company’s transition away from glyphosate: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/health-and-environment_un-expert-urges-phase-out-of-hazardous-pesticides/45040316#.XS4lClwkjsU.twitter

8. BUT WHAT CAN THE POOR FARMERS DO, WOE, WOE

Laura Rance of Winnipeg reports how crop product councils are recommending that farmers reduce their dependence on glyphosate. These short-term strategies won’t protect farmers’ health, and really if they’re still spraying glyphosate they deserve to suffer. They won’t protect farmers’ innocent children, either. Nor will they protect family farms from becoming places where people feel unaccountably sick and tired after a few hours’ work, inclined to go in and watch TV and let the monster “farmers” machine-raise the toxic “crops” that are making us all so much sicker than we need to be. But they will reduce the level of glyphosate in produce—e.g. canola oil—such that people may not associate the smidgen of canola oil in their gluten-free cereal with the glyphosate reaction that makes them sick after eating the cereal. Who knows, some may not even notice the reaction. This is a short-term, rather cowardly strategy. We need a total ban on all use or production of glyphosate. But it may buy some more time for Bayer and the “farmers” colluding with Bayer to continue selling “foods” that will make a smaller number of people sick. https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/farmers-taking-the-hint-on-glyphosate-512673971.html

We need a zero tolerance policy for whines about numbers. If you or I got tired of waiting for an inheritance from a hateful old rich relative, so we minced an oleander blossom into his salad, then even though we only ever harmed or intended to harm one fellow human, and even if he spat out the poison and lived, we could look forward to a long hard time in prison. The same principle should be applied to chemical companies. Reducing the numbers of affected people allows them to argue, basically, “These people we’ve poisoned are only statistical freaks. Ignore them. They mattered less than other humans do.” This is the kind of argument with which Bayer’s first generation comforted themselves when they were making Zyklon B. The rule needs to be: Any fatalities is too many. If your product harms one person, you grovel, you pay that person a pension for life, and you stop making or selling that product...and if you even dispute this rule, the American public will boycott your company to death. No exceptions. No excuses.

What Glyphosate Awareness recommends farmers do is stop poisoning their land now. Sue the chemical companies for starting the Vicious Spray Cycles that produced the unnatural pest population explosions you’ll see right away. (All at once is the most efficient way.) Make them pay for the five or ten years it’ll take you to recover a natural balance and start raising real food crops again. When we’re all pesticide-free, nature thins pest populations and doing the work by hand feels like much less of an unthinkable burden—in fact, like a pleasant way to do your morning exercise. The year the pest populations rebound will be gruesome...but every year after it will be better. https://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2013/06/advance-phenology-bean-beetles.html

9. OVER TO YOU, GENTLE READERS

If Twitter was working properly, you saw most of this information on Twitter on Tuesday, or you would have seen it if you’d visited Twitter. (Glyphosate Awareness does not want anybody to give up any beach, garden, sports, family, or other quality time to join us on Twitter.) Next question: What did we not see on Twitter? What can you tell the Glyphosate Awareness community first, before we see it on Twitter? Please share your questions, links, and stories!