Roundup is toxic - Stop spraying today!

Posted by admin on October 15th, 2007 at 05:43pm

“As safe as table salt!” said Monsanto, makers of the world’s most widely used herbicide - Roundup. Unfortunately, people bought this pitch, and continue to buy it today, despite the 1990’s ruling of a New York court forbidding Monsanto to describe their product as safe, non-toxic and as harmless as salt.

We are posting this as part of the Internet’s very first International Blog Action Day. If Tangergreen.com could give people one quick planet-saving, species-saving tip, it would be to stop using the herbicide, Roundup, created by Monsanto.

What is Monsanto?
Monsanto is considered by many to be Environmental Enemy Number 1. During the course of this corporation’s history, they have engineered and inflicted the following on the world and its people:

• Agent Orange
• Bovine Growth Hormones
• Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)
• Carcinogenic Herbicides
• PCBs
• DDT

Monsanto’s documented history of lying to the public, suing small farmers and unleashing Frankenstein-like monster chemicals and organisms into our food chain, water supply and air is what has caused them to be considered the least ethical and most environmentally unconscious corporation in the world. Visit the Millions Against Monsanto website for further documentation of this corporation’s activities in our world.

What is Roundup?
Roundup has been aggressively marketed to homeowners, gardeners, landscapers and farmers since its unfortunate invention in 1976. It is a highly toxic herbicide, detrimental to the environment, plant life, animal life and the human species. Non-Monsanto-conducted studies have shown us that Roundup causes the following serious harms:

• Liver damage
• 50% increase of miscarriage in pregnant women exposed to Roundup
• 90% decrease in production of the male sexual hormones in men exposed to Roundup
• Poisoning of our vital groundwater
• 70% decrease in amphibian biodiversity and 90% decrease in the numbers of tadpoles

If survival of our species is important to us, we need to take it very seriously that exposure to Roundup drastically destroys male hormone production at the same time as causing miscarriages in women. This assault on the human reproductive system is clearly a deadly combination in terms of our ability to regenerate the human species. The man at the local nursery may eagerly be recommending Roundup to you as the answer to the dandelions in your lawn, but is it worth it if the young couple next door to you discovers they cannot conceive or bare children because of your need for a weed-free yard? Certainly not.

Global warming and fungus are currently decimating our planet’s frog population. By pouring Roundup into the groundwater which then forms the pond and stream environments that are the homes of amphibians, we are literally dooming frogs and toads to extinction. The conclusive studies that have been conducted regarding Roundup’s lethal effect on frogs have been public knowledge for some years now, but the world power of Monsanto and the lack of concern of the American government are keeping it on the shelves. Roundup has been banned by the Danish government because of its documented harms to the environment, animals and humans.

Roundup effects everyone and everything that comes into contact with it, from bugs, to songbirds, to your children. Monsanto’s marketing efforts mean that one of your neighbors, someone next door, down the street, downtown, is likely spraying Roundup while you read this. This year, you and your children and pets will walk through Roundup-infected areas at school, the store, outside the mall, on public trails. New mothers will be pushing baby strollers through the invisible poison. The elderly and auto-immune deficient citizens will walk through Round-up while they are attempting to get exercise and fresh air. Roundup is the #1 cause of annual pesticide/herbicide-induced illnesses and injuries, according to the California Pesticide Illness Surveillance Programme. It needs to be pulled from shelves, out of our homes, out of our environment.

A Roundup-free World

In the 1940’s Monsanto began marketing their infamous product, DDT, to the world. Marketed as a wonder cure for all manners of things, and of course, perfectly safe, it was soon being sprayed on crops and humans all over the globe. It became the world’s most commonly applied chemical, as Roundup is today. Monsanto, typically, attempted to deny all reports of this deadly chemical
causing toxic residue buildup in the fatty tissues and milk of human beings, and damage to the liver, kidneys and central nervous system. They attempted to deny that DDT caused a songbird holocaust from which many bird populations have yet to recover. Public outrage, happily, won the day and DDT was banned in the 1970’s. Every time I see a Western Bluebird in my yard, I thank my stars that some few of them were left alive from the DDT genocide and that populations are only now beginning to become stable again.

DDT was marketed as a blessing to homeowners, gardeners and farmers. Roundup has been marketed to your community in the same way, and the same lies and denials are being used to keep it legal and profitable for the manufacturer. Roundup, ’safe as table salt’, is destroying our health and the vital biodiversity of our planet. Just like DDT, it needs to be banned.

Before DDT, before Roundup, before the onslaught of products created by the makers of chemical warfare were invented, farmers and homeowners maintained their lands and properties with manual labor. Crop rotation, the small farm, and the seasonal growing calendar enabled humans to grow enough food to feed everyone with no lasting damage to humans, genetics or the environment. Agribusiness, solely reliant on chemicals to produce chemical-laden ‘foods’, has changed the world in so many negative ways, has disenfranchised the small farmer, brought us dozens of new illnesses and created trillions of dollars of profits for unethical corporations like Monsanto. The price our planet is paying to keep Monsanto wealthy is simply too high.

Hand labor, the tool of our forefathers, is the answer to growing food or keeping your garden tidy. Keep your neighborhood safe for your neighbors, your planet safe for life - please, don’t use Roundup.

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