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.
1.THE EPA FALLS SHORT
This week’s big news, though no big surprise, was that the United
States’ Environmental Protection Administration failed to ban glyphosate. Environmental
organizations are already churning out form letters for US citizens to send to
our Members of Congress, urging the EPA to do its job.
Glyphosate Awareness once tweeted to the EPA that just restoring levels
of glyphosate contamination in food to pre-2009 levels would probably make a
lot of people suddenly feel more than ten years younger. We received a reply, “Thanks,”
from an unknown Twit. We can’t take credit for it, but after all our comments
the EPA went ahead and re-licensed glyphosate use at something similar to
pre-2009 levels, allowing farmers and gardeners to continue spraying this
poison on fields, but supposedly not “approving” it for use as a desiccant
(i.e. spraying it directly on food).
This should bring some people
relief...temporarily, anyway. If farmers comply with the current EPA rule, which
we’re told many are not, then it should become safe to eat fruit and vegetables
again. For how long? Who knows?
We will, of course, continue to need to document every symptom everyone
reports during the days after fields, roadsides, etc., are poisoned with glyphosate.
We will, of course, need to complain bitterly and begin filing lawsuits against
those who recklessly endanger our health.
Glyphosate Awareness does not officially recommend violent retaliation.It
would be such a pity if random persons, call them John Stiles and Richard Miles, suffering from allergies recognized
the stupid farming practices of another person, call him Bill Giles, as a cause
of such allergies, tackled Giles, and poured a 32-ounce spray bottle of “Roundup”
down his throat, after which Giles was paralyzed and unable to roll away from
the puddles of blood-flecked froth that continually formed in the bed where he
lay for the next forty days. It would be a pity because in some states, although
a jury trial would probably ensure no real loss, Giles or his heirs would have
a right to sue Stiles and Miles. State legislatures need to correct this.
Spraying poison is a violent crime against anyone downwind or downstream of the
site.
2.UNPAID FOOD ADS
Glyphosate Awareness positively celebrates food producers that at least
try to deliver glyphosate-free food. We note that some of them, like Ben &
Jerry’s, have failed to meet this goal. Others, like the whole Riviana rice
empire (which now packs Zatarain’s, Success, and Mahatma brand rice products), have
succeeded with some products not others: while Success Brown rice and some
Zatarain’s flavors are at least low enough in toxicity that I can eat them
without immediately becoming sick, others, especially rice mixes containing
beans or soy products, lag behind. Some, like General Mills and Bob’s Red Mill,
may be trying to “work to rule” and advertise products that may be lower in
glyphosate content but are not really 3-G-Free.
Glyphosate Awareness does not currently have any test results for
Orville Redenbacher’s popcorn.
We have found good results for Barbara’s brand cereals, Arrowhead Mills
grain products, Xego fruit bars, and Joolies dates. All of these are available
online (for outrageously high prices, of course) if not in stores near you.
3. CALIFORNIA ORDERED TO STOP LABELLING GLYPHOSATE A CARCINOGEN
In California, the legislature ordered that labels on glyphosate
product warn people that it may cause cancer. The EPA ordered that California
withdraw this order, on the grounds that glyphosate has not been confirmed to
be a primary carcinogen. (The primary cause of many kinds of cancer is believed
to be a virus.)
It would be helpful to consumers if Californians blanketed product
labels, and entire stores, with the full text of the EPA’s very own early study
of the effects of glyphosate exposure on human emergency hospital patients,
including the photos of skin lesions if possible.
4.GLYPHOSATE AND PARAQUAT BLAMED FOR DEATHS OF SUGAR CANE WORKERS
While the report mentions Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Cuba, it doesn’t
specify how many countries in South and Central America have lost over twenty
thousand sugar cane workers, altogether, to kidney failure linked to exposure
to glyphosate and paraquat. It is written in German.
5. BOILERS AND STEAMERS, THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE?
People need to move away from the whole idea of spraying poison over an
entire field, to the idea of carefully removing unwanted plants. Build a better
boiler, and you’ll make glyphosate, paraquat, dicamba, chlorpyrifos, and all
the other abominations in this class obsolete.
I’ve posted one idea at Quirky.com: https://invent.quirky.com/invent/331141
. Real inventors need to improve this idea. This one is for Jane Doe to remove
stubborn crabgrass from the edge between her lawn and curb—a hand-held
mini-steamer/boiler that would screw onto the garden hose, heating only the
water she needs for the task. Because steam tends to distill into hot water
that would be likely to drip onto Jane’s hand, this product would need to be
used carefully.
Real inventors need to work on bigger and better ideas. We’re already
seeing boilers fitted onto railroad cars, where a simple machine can spew out
enough heat to keep railroads vegetation-free. We could start building
in-between-size boiler robots to run through cornfields, too.
6. ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, STILL NEEDS GLYPHOSATE AWARENESS
We have six weeks to help this city understand that the company that
offers many city residents steady jobs needs to realign its entire company
policy.Please be both gentle and thorough before the trial scheduled for mid-October.
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