From Judy_Kew@greenbuilder.com Wed Apr 7 23:59:36 1999 Date: Wed, 07 Apr 1999 16:03:04 GMT From: Judy Kew , mail@icsenglish.com To: sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu Subject: GLYPHOSATE DANGERS (as in Roundup herbicide) from New Scientist (UK) CANCER THREAT FROM GLYPHOSATE New Scientist says researchers in Sweden have linked pesticides to one of the most rapidly increasing cancers in the Western world, non-Hodgkins lymphoma - which has risen by 73% in the USA since 1973. This, says the journal, is probably caused by several commonly used crop sprays. The Lund University Hospital has found that Swedish sufferers of the disease were 2.7 times more likely to have been exposed to the herbicide MCPA than healthy people. "MCPA, which is used on grain crops, is sold as Target by the Swiss firm Novartis," says the journal. "The patients were also 2.3 times more likely to have had contact with glyphosate." "Use of [glyphosate] sold as Round-Up by the US firm Monsanto, is expected to rocket with the introduction of crops such as Roundup-Ready soya beans that are genetically modified to resist glyphosate. The researchers suggest that the chemicals have suppressed the patients' immunity, allowing viruses such as Epstein-Barr to trigger cancer." The report, on page 23 of New Scientist is by Fred Pearce and Debora Mackenzie PESTICIDE RAIN The rain over Europe contains illegal quantities of pesticide - FOL Today Rain falling over Europe contains such high levels of pesticide dissolved in it, that it would be illegal to supply it as drinking water, says this week's reporting Swiss work. Common cancers may well be caused by pesticides, says other research, from Sweden. These reports help to explain why politicians are so keen to impose tax on the use of pesticides - it would be a popular tax with a vast majority of the public. Studies in Switzerland, says New Scientist, have found toxic levels of atrazine, alachlor and other commonly used crop sprays in rain. A chemistfrom the Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science and Technology, Stephan Müller, says that drinking water standards for such chemicals are regularly exceeded in rain. The chemicals appear to have evaporated from fields and become part of the clouds. In the first minutes of a rain shower, the rain can contain far more than the limit of 100 nanograms/litre of any particular pesticide that's permitted in drinking water. One sample of rainfall contained 4,000 nanograms per litre of 2,4D; another contained around 900 nanograms of atrazine per litre. The highest concentrations appear in the first rainfall after a long dry period, especially when local fields have been sprayed. ---- For instructions on joining, leaving, or otherwise using the Ban-GEF list, send email to Ban-GEF@lists.txinfinet.com with HELP in the SUBJECT line. ---- Date: Wed, 07 Apr 1999 09:25:27 +0000 From: Jon r Subject: B-GE: GLYPHOSATE DANGERS -- http://www.greenbuilder.com modem: 512.288.3903 -- Green Building Professionals Directory at http://www.greenbuilder.com/directory/ To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command "unsubscribe sanet-mg". To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command "subscribe sanet-mg-digest". All messages to sanet-mg are archived at: http://www.sare.org/san/htdocs/hypermail