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effects and were not designed to detect them. have a huge stake in the outcome of this debate. Over 90 percent of U.S.
The risk assessment gave little consideration to corn, soy and sugar beet crops are grown with glyphosate, and these
potential health effects in infants and children, GMO crops and their products constitute over 80 percent of processed
thus contravening federal pesticide law,” Land- food items. Glyphosate is also used as a desiccant in the production of
rigan and Benbrook say. wheat and other grains.
The exponential increase in the agricultural Kellogg's, a Fortune 500 food manufacturer, acknowledges that
use of glyphosate over the past two decades and grains purchased on the open market containing herbicides including
its correlation with human health issues involv- glyphosate are consumed by customers in their processed products.
ing neurological, intestinal and cancer disorders, “Nearly all crops in the U.S. are treated with herbicides and pesticides,
is hotly contested by both sides of the glyphosate and may leave behind very low residue levels on some foods,” says a
safety debate. Kellogg Company customer service spokesman.
“I personally believe that glyphosate is “In the U.S., the acceptable level of pesticide and herbicide use in
the main reason why we have an epidemic in crops is set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) based on a
autism. I think it's also responsible for the rise standard of reasonable certainty that the use would cause no harm to hu-
in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, pancreatic cancer, man health or the environment,” says the company spokesman. However,
thyroid cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, U.S. federal agencies in charge of protecting the public's health with a
ADHD, COPD, Alzheimer's, diabetes, obesity “standard of reasonable certainty”—namely EPA, USDA and FDA—state
and probably several other chronic conditions that they have never looked at glyphosate residues in federal aggregate
that we face today,” says Stephanie Seneff, a food crop tests (outside of one USDA test on soy in 2011), while citing
senior research scientist at the Massachusetts manufacturer and EPA laboratory tests claiming there is no human
Institute of Technology (MIT). health risk. They also insist that glyphosate herbicides are safe if used
“I don't agree with the WHO's designation under direction. These same federal agencies also authorized the safety
as probably carcinogenic,” she says. “I think it of “Roundup Ready” transgenic GMO crops as “substantially equivalent
is definitely carcinogenic.” to nature,” and give GMO glyphosate-ready crops a pass from federal
food testing requirements.
HIGH STAKES Meanwhile, California OEHHA intends to list glyphosate as a car-
The stakes are huge in this political- cinogen under the mandates of state law Proposition 65 (The Safe Drink-
scientific schism. The future of the global, ing Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986). “The law requires that
proprietary, agro-industrial, glyphosate-ready, certain substances identified by the International Agency for Research on
genetically modified organism (GMO) crops Cancer (IARC) be listed as known to cause cancer under Proposition 65.
lies in the resolution of the split between the Labor Code section 6382(b)(1) refers to substances identified as human
World Health Organization's IARC (claiming or animal carcinogens by IARC.”
glyphosate causes cancer) and the U.S. EPA and
EFSA (claiming glyphosate is safe). AGGREGATE TESTING
Food manufacturers using GMO crops also It's a complicated byzantine federal process claiming to prove that

WHAT ARE AROMATIC AMINO ACIDS?

Aromatic amino acids (AAA) are amino acids that include an aromatic ring, such as
six-carbon benzene (C6H6) or some other similar ring structure. Examples include the
essential amino acids phenylalanine (which the body makes into norepinephrine and
thyroxine), tryptophan (which the body makes into serotonin) and histidine.
Animals and humans get aromatic amino acids from their diet, but all plants and
micro-organisms must synthesize their aromatic amino acids through the metabolically
costly shikimate pathway in order to make proteins. Herbicides like Roundup and anti-
biotics work by inhibiting enzymes involved in aromatic acid synthesis, thereby render-
ing them toxic to plants and micro-organisms but—according to claims by pesticide
manufacturers—not to animals.
These claims do not take into account the role of gut flora in human and animal
health. Herbicides like Roundup are toxic to all microorganisms, including those Phenylalanine
that inhabit our intestines—with unknown but certainly harmful consequences.
Wise Traditions SUMMER 2016 Wise Traditions 71