Groundbreaking study shows Roundup link to birth defects

Groundbreaking study shows Roundup link to birth defects

International scientists confirm dangers of Roundup at GMO-Free Regions Conference in Brussels

Brussels 16 September 2010

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in the world's best-selling weedkiller Roundup, causes malformations in frog and chicken embryos at doses far lower than those used in agricultural spraying and well below maximum residue levels in products presently approved in the European Union. This is reported in research published by a group around Professor Andrés Carrasco, director of the Laboratory of Molecular Embryology at the University of Buenos Aires Medical School and member of Argentina's National Council of Scientific and Technical Research.


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Four-fold increase in human birth defects prompted lab study

It started in 2002, two years after the large scale introduction of Roundup
Ready soybeans to Argentina [1]. People were reporting birth defects from
exposure to glyphosate sprays during pregnancy; and the problem got worse.

In regions where glyphosate-based herbicides are used, specific neural defects
and craniofacial malformations were reported. This prompted Prof. Andrés
Carrasco, director of the Laboratory of Molecular Embryology at the University
of Buenos Aires Medical School into action. He and his colleagues carried out a
laboratory study on the effects of glyphosate on the development of frog
embryos. They found the same kinds of abnormalities in frog embryos incubated
with a 5 000 fold diluted solution of the Roundup herbicide [2]. The findings
were so serious that Carrasco decided to release the results before publication
[3] (Glyphosate Herbicide Could Cause Birth Defects Glyphosate Herbicide Could
Cause Birth Defects, SiS 43), and in May 2009, the Environmental Lawyers
Association of Argentina initiated a lawsuit to ban the herbicide.

In April 2010, the first official report commissioned by the State Government of
Chaco documented a four-fold increase in both cancer and birth defects in the
ten years of 2000 - 2009 [4].

These findings are the latest addition to a long chain of evidence linking
glyphosate (and others herbicides) to serious health impacts at concentrations
well below the level of recommended agricultural use. In the case of glyphosate
herbicides, links to cancers, miscarriages and other reproductive toxicities,
liver and cell toxicities, DNA damages, lethality to amphibians and endocrine
disrupting action previously made, would more than justify a worldwide ban ([5]
(Ban Glyphosate Herbicides Now, SiS 43); quite apart from simultaneous evidence
of ecological/agronomic disasters caused by the herbicide ([6] Scientists Reveal
Glyphosate Poisons Crops and Soil, SiS 47), while the spread of glyphosate
resistant weeds and superweeds has rendered the GM crop and the herbicide
practically useless ([7] GM Crops Facing Meltdown in the USA, SiS 46).


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