Gamechanger: A San Francisco jury just found Monsanto liable for causing a school groundskeeper’s cancer + why you need to read this

Fellow steemian @alexdory and @clausewitz @Chron and others have written about glyphosate. @ruanyer writes about stephanie Seneff and autism.

The chemical giant must pay $289 million in damages to a former grounds keeper who claims the active ingredient, glyphosate, found in the popular weed killer Roundup is the cause of his cancer. This is the first of over 300 lawsuits against Monsanto for the same reason. Over 13 countries have banned the use of Roundup. https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/germany-13-other-countries-say-no-glyphosate-what-about-us

An article in the NY Times in July of 2015 nailed it, in my opinion, when authors Mark Spitznagel and Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote "Another ‘Too Big to Fail’ System in G.M.O.s" saying that the US has a looming CRISIS bigger than the financial crisis of 2007.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/14/business/dealbook/another-too-big-to-fail-system-in-gmos.html

Toxic Effects of Glyphosate

As a scientist and functional medicine (root cause medicine) provider, I am especially happy to see this result. @chron wrote an unbiased article about glyphosate research, outlining the discrepancy between the research for and against glyphosate. What I want you to realize is that there is a cumulative toxic effect that is grossly overlooked in the studies used to support Monsanto claims that glyphosate does not cause cancer. People don’t just suddenly wake up one day feeling unwell and think “Oh, I’m going to see my doctor today, I feel sick”, after having felt completely fine for years, months, days before. It doesn’t happen like that.

Disease doesn't happen over night.

Disease happens on a continuum. It is the slow progression, where over the course of years, even decades, you feel like you’re starting to slow down, gain weight, your memory starts to deteriorate, you can't think as clearly, you suffer from pain and inflammation in your body, digestive issues, or chronic fatigue and then eventually disease appears. The body systems are slowing breaking down over time, leading to chronic conditions which can significantly affect the quality of your life. In the US, we take these conditions to be part of getting old. This scenario is so common, we take it to be normal. The short duration of these experiments and ignorance of the way the body falls apart is the reason why many well meaning scientist will argue that there is no evidence that glyphosate causes cancer. It isn't just these scientists, many conventionally trained medical doctors do not understand how the body falls apart either.

The variability in symptoms, from person to person, is due to our bio-individuality. It is a combination our genes and our lifestyle that will determine if, when, and how we break. For some, genetic reasons may make them more vulnerable to disease, and in this case, the high frequency of exposure, accelerates disease progression. For some it will be cancer, for others it may manifest as Alzheimer's.

Further, Monsanto's research was done on glyphosate alone as opposed to the final product called Roundup. In isolation, glyphosate isn’t as toxic as it is when it is combined with the other compounds find in the final product. Dr Robin Mesnage of the Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics at Kings College in London, is the author of multiple papers on Roundup. At a scientific briefing in July 2015, Dr. Mesnage presented data showing Roundup is 1,000 times more toxic than glyphosate alone.

https://www.gmwatch.org/en/news/latest-news/16302-glyphosate-damages-dna-says-world-health-organisation-expert

Why You Need To Know More

If you live in the US and you’re are concerned about the welfare of you and the ones you love keep reading…

US makes up 5% of the world’s population but consumes more than 50% of the world’s pharmaceutical drugs.

The US spends more on healthcare than France, Brazil, UK, Italy, Japan, Spain, Australia, Canada, and China, combined.

US ranks last or near last among developed nations on infant mortality and life expectancy

The US suffers from the most chronic disease

The US consume 25% of the worlds supply of glyphosate.

For more information on this topic so that you are better informed, watch this talk by Senior Research Scientist at MIT, Stephanie Seneff . I saw her speak in San Francisco on this very subject in 2017.

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Dr. Seneff's interest in glyphosate began when she started to investigate the shocking rise in autism in the United States. Knowing that our genes do not evolve that fast, Dr. Seneff theorized that the dramatic increase in autism had to have a environmental component.

The US has seen an exponential rise in autism going back to the 1975 when glyphosate was first introduced into the food chain. Scientist expect that by the year 2032 half the children born will have autism. Mapping the usage rates of glyphosate onto the rates of autism show a correlation coefficient of .997, a correlation coefficient of 1.0 means a direct correlation. Similarly Dr. Seneff and other's have mapped out the rates of other diseases like cancer, alzheimer's, diabetes and more and found similar correlation coefficients.

It wasn’t until Dr. Seneff heard Don Huber, PhD, professor emeritus from Purdue University, give a talk on the mechanism by which glyphosate causes the deterioration of human health, that she made the connection between glyphosate and autism. Everything he spoke of was what she was observing in autistic children. It is thought that these children have genetic vulnerabilities in the pathways that glyphosate affects.

The main toxic effects of glyphosate:

Kills beneficial gut bacteria and allows pathogens (disease causing bacteria and parasites) to overgrow

Interferes with liver enzymes important for detoxification (Cytochrome P450 enzymes)

Binds to import minerals (iron, cobalt, manganese) important for biological reactions in our bodies

Interferes with of amino acids important for human health

Disrupts sulfate synthesis and transport (important for neurotransmitters production, detoxification , sulfate is found to be low in many diseases).

How to protect yourself

Because glyphosate is ubiquitous in our environment (water supply and soil) the only thing you can do to protect yourself is to limit your exposure to reduce the toxic burden on your body and to do what you can to enable the body systems that are designed to heal and protect you. Essentially, putting in the good stuff and eliminating the bad stuff.

Eat mostly plants, only organic, and wash your food

Reduce the amount of times you eat out (many restaurants do not use organic)

Avoid the most sprayed and genetically modified crops: sugar, dairy (cow's are fed Roundup treated feed), corn, soy, wheat

Avoid soda and alcohol

Do not use Roundup or let your gardner use it (it gets in the water supply and are your children playing in the grass?)

Do not buy genetically modified food (these are sprayed the most).

Manage stress (mental/emotional stress has significant impact on your body's ability to heal)

Glyphosate has a significant impact on the beneficial bacteria that reside in our gut. These bacteria are essential to our health and will determine whether we have health or disease. They feed on plants and fiber. By increasing your consumption of plants you will increase their growth and create health. And because the water supply is contaminated, even if you are eating organic food, you are still exposed. That doesn't mean to give up and not eat organic. Eating organic significantly lowers your exposure and organic food in general is more nutritious than pesticide/herbicide treated food. These nutrients will help fuel the body systems that will keep you healthy.

At least 70% of our food is genetically engineered, and the government does not require food manufactures to tell us so. The only way we can address this is to stop buying it. If there's no demand they will stop making it, I hope. Only buy foods that are non-GMO and/or labelled organic. We can't count on the government to protect us, we have to do this ourselves. Keep spreading the word.