Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #204: Glyphosate: The Label That Rules Your Health, Your Food, and Your Right to Fight Back—Plus 11 Ways Out

Transcript

Episode #204: Glyphosate: The Label That Rules Your Health, Your Food, and Your Right to Fight Back—Plus 11 Ways Out · Beyond Labels Premium

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hello, everyone.
0:00
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another Beyond Labels podcast with the farmer Joel Salatin.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: That would be me and our favorite researcher, Dr.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: Cena McCullough.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to focus on something that's both personally interesting.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: We've heard gotten a lot of questions and interest from this, from our listeners, and it's a timely news topic, in as much as there is a huge effort going on right now, right now in DC to give liability protection to chemical companies for uh for any um unforeseen problems that their chemicals cause, as long as the chemical is okay by EPA standards.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: And of course, we've watched uh the Monsanto and Bayer Corporation uh glyphosate legal battles uh you know uh go out.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: I don't think there's ever been, Cena, you could correct me, I don't think there's ever been a substance uh that has that has suffered uh billions and billions of dollars of liability payouts that is still on the market, like glyphosate.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: And so we want to focus today on glyphosate.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: Cena's been doing some uh deep diving into this, and um so we're gonna turn it over to her and let her lead us.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: I'll jump in with some uh questions and different things, but uh glyphosate is a big, big issue uh on many levels in our country right now, and we want to we want to uh bring you up to date on what we know.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: Great.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Joel.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so this is my big takeaway.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: If any one of our listeners is ever still questioning why Joel and I hammer the mantra, you must go beyond the label.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: This is the episode that drives this home.
1:58
SPEAKER_01: One tiny line of print is about to grant pesticide giants immunity.
2:04
SPEAKER_01: This is proof that a single label can rule your health, it can rule your food, and it can rule your right to even fight back.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: Today we're gonna tackle the world's most widely used and most hotly debated herbicide, which is, or pesticide, as the EPA will call it, is glyphosate.
2:23
SPEAKER_01: And as Joel mentioned, the timing couldn't be better.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: Congress is flirting with this pesticide immunity shield that will hand these chemical companies kind of a get out of lawsuit free card as long as they stick with whatever the EPA tells them on that teeny tiny label.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna get more into that toward the end of this program.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm gonna walk you through how glyphosate became kind of the Beyoncé of herbicides, um, why it shows up in everything from oatmeal to your urine, some science linking it.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: Um this is this is current science that links it to a numerous amount of diseases, um, the courtroom drama, and then we're gonna end with some practical steps.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna talk about 11 practical steps you can take to reduce your exposure.
3:10
SPEAKER_01: And one of them is a call to action.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: So let's go.
3:15
SPEAKER_01: Uh, glyphosate, as a lot of you know, is sprayed on food crops, uh, playgrounds, parks, school grounds, and um, even some home lawns.
3:24
SPEAKER_01: Um, residue has been detected in plants, soil, rainwater, drinking water, um, including well water, air, dust, even in homes that are in the city.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: So, not even homes by farmland.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: It showed up in the dust of homes and cities.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: It's also been detected on food, in breast milk, and in urine.
3:47
SPEAKER_01: So, there's been this great concern amongst even the scientific community about the potential impact on soil plants, livestock, and human health.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: So, should you be concerned?
3:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna ruin the surprise.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: Just so just so we don't run away from anybody on this, I want to make sure that everybody understands uh glyphosate in the vernacular, it's called a weed killer.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: Um that's the vernacular.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: So so you have insecticides that are that are supposed to, you know, uh uh deal with with insects.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh you have pesticides that have a little broader, you know, that deal with with non-insects, you know, worms and and things like that.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: And then you have herbicides, which deal with um, you know, with with plants.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: If you want to kill a kill a wheat, a bramble, a bush, or something like that.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: To the EPA, all of this is under a broad umbrella called pesticide.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: But for the sake of our discussion today, we're gonna deal with uh glyphosate, which in the which in the practical industry is known as an herbicide because it kills herbs, it kills plants.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: So it is it in the in the um you know, in the hillbilly vernacular, it's it's known as a weed killer.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: And uh so I just I just want to make sure we don't lose anybody here in the discussion.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's used on playgrounds, that's why it's used in lawns, that's why it's used so ubiquitously in our culture.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: It is not a it is not a pesticide against the corn earworm, it is not against the bull weevil, it it is a broad-spectrum weed killer uh that's used in hospital grounds, industrial playgrounds, airports, all over the place.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: And and one of the reasons why it is so ubiquitous within the urine and the breast milk and all these things that Cena just told us is because it is used up and around our houses, our residences, our playgrounds, these kind of things as a weed killer.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I love that.
5:54
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for the clarification.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: And that's so that's why you'll hear me interchange it because I read the government documents, and so because it's classified as a pesticide, I will tend to call it a pesticide, even though it kills the weeds.
6:05
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
6:06
SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, I know it's just one more little confusing thing that the government throws at us, you know?
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:13
SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, so glyphosate was actually first patented back in 1964, but not as an herbicide.
6:20
SPEAKER_01: It was actually patented as a metal chelator for removing unwanted mineral deposits from metal pipes.
6:27
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't until a few years later that glyphosate was discovered to have those weed-killing properties.
6:33
SPEAKER_01: This led to Monsanto um patenting glyphosate as an herbicide in 1971 and selling it on the market in 1974 under the trade name Roundup.
6:45
SPEAKER_01: I know Roundup is something we've probably all seen at the hardware store.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: You can pick it up.
6:49
SPEAKER_01: Um, and we'll get into the formulation of that in in just a little bit.
6:53
SPEAKER_01: So when when um when Monsanto's uh first patent expired in 1991, we saw sales of generic glyphosate-based herbicide expand.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: Today, there's two dozen Chinese firms that supply roughly 40% of the glyphosate used worldwide.
7:11
SPEAKER_01: And there's uh roughly over 750 herbicide products that contain glyphosate, and they're often under different brand names, and they're across more than 100 countries.
7:23
SPEAKER_01: So you can already start seeing why glyphosate is just so ubiquitous now in our environment.
7:29
SPEAKER_01: So glyphosate actually works, and it's really important for people to understand how it works because this will explain a lot about the regulatory status and and how it's actually causing sickness in humans.
7:43
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
7:44
SPEAKER_01: So glyphosate primarily kills weeds by targeting what's called the chicken mate pathway.
7:49
SPEAKER_01: This is a pathway that plants use to make certain aromatic essential amino acids.
7:54
SPEAKER_01: It specifically inhibits an enzyme called EPSPS.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: Now, it does when it does that, when it inhibits that enzyme, it prevents the production of uh tyrosine, tryptophan, and phenylalanine.
8:08
SPEAKER_01: These three amino acids are essential for the growth and survival of the plant.
8:13
SPEAKER_01: So without those amino acids being produced in the plant, the plant will wither and die.
8:19
SPEAKER_01: So that's how that's a primary mechanism for how glyphosate is actually killing these weeds.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: It also impairs the production of other important compounds in the plant, like lignin, which helps to maintain the structural integrity of the plant.
8:33
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so keep that in mind.
8:36
SPEAKER_01: Now let's talk about how much is actually sprayed.
8:39
SPEAKER_01: So originally glyphosate was used by farmers and ranchers to clear weeds before planting and to control unwanted vegetation in in areas like the pasture or other non-crop areas.
8:52
SPEAKER_01: Um, and because if you sprayed it on plants, it would kill it, right?
8:56
SPEAKER_01: So it wasn't until 1996 when genetically engineered crops um that were tolerant to glyphosate were commercially available in the United States.
9:09
SPEAKER_01: So 1996, that was the first time they were available, and they were called Roundup Ready.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: They revolutionized, huh?
9:17
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, Chris.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: I don't want anybody to get um lost in the in the trajectory here.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: The reason that Roundup had to be used, what's called pre-emergent, pre-emergent was because if they sprayed it on any plant, it's it's called a broad spectrum.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: So there are herbicides that are very narrow spectrum that only affect, for example, brambles or thistles.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: And and um and glyphosate is broad spectrum in that that virtually any plant that it touches is dead.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: It's very broad spectrum, which means it's really useful if you want to get if you want to get rid of plants.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, it it gets rid of broad broad-leafed plants, which is things like corn and soybeans.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: And so um, and so it could not be sprayed on farmers' crop fields when the crop was growing to control weeds, because it would destroy the crop.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: And so it was only used in what's called pre-emergent.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you can only spray it prior to seeding the seeds.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: It had it had to be gone before the plant came up, or it would kill the plant, which is why there was a search then for how can we how can we spray after the soybeans sprout, after the corn's growing, how can we spray this and not kill the crop?
10:49
SPEAKER_00: All right, there we go.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: There's your there's your uh segue, Zena.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
10:54
SPEAKER_01: What a great explanation.
10:55
SPEAKER_01: And then that's why that's why the invention of these roundup ready crops was very innovative, right?
11:02
SPEAKER_01: This was the first time that you could actually spray a plant and not kill like you splay it, you could spray it, you could kill the weeds around it, and you could not kill the plant.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: And they the reason that they're able to not kill those plants is because they genetically modified it to resist glyphosate.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that's why they're called Roundup Ready crops.
11:21
SPEAKER_01: And it did revolutionize the industry, it unleashed an unprecedented rise in the use of glyphosate.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: So, in for example, in 1996, just before this um was just before GMOs were unleashed, uh, the total amount of agricultural herbicide that was used, the total volume that was used was uh 3.8 percent.
11:47
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that was 1996, 3.8 percent.
11:51
SPEAKER_01: By um 1998, that had jumped from 3.8 percent to 53.5 percent, and by 2010, it rose to 90 percent.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: That's huge.
12:06
SPEAKER_01: This has never been been seen in history before.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: The annual use increased from about 7 million pounds in 1987 to 36 million pounds in 1992, and then it skyrocketed to 276 million pounds in 2014.
12:23
SPEAKER_01: And this is largely because of um glyphosate-resistant crops.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: Um, today, more than 90% of corn and soybeans grown in America are genetically engineered, and they're largely engineered to be glyphosate tolerant.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: The the reason, one of the reasons why you should care is because the ingredients derived from those genetically engineered and glyphosate-sprayed crops end up in the food supply.
12:52
SPEAKER_01: They end up in, for example, processed foods that are sold in your grocery store.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: So it's estimated that these genetically engineered crops appear in about 80% of all the processed foods that are in the grocery store.
13:04
SPEAKER_01: It can be in under the name of high fructose corn syrup or vegetable oils or soy lethosin or other chemicals like that that were derived from this setup of um a genetically engineered crop being sprayed by uh glyphosate because it's resistant to it.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: Now, millions of pounds of glyphosate over the years have also been sprayed, as Joel mentioned, by homeowners, uh municipalities, forest managers.
13:29
SPEAKER_01: It's been sprayed on lawns, roadsides, parks, and timberlands.
13:33
SPEAKER_01: And this widespread exposure to glyphosate um has has led to tolerant and resistant weeds.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: And that has created the need for more frequent applications of glyphosate at higher concentrations.
13:47
SPEAKER_01: So you can see as the technology began to fail, you we had more exposure to glyphosate, not only on the land, but in the air, and um, as we'll get to in a minute, in our bodies.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: So let's start with the impact on soil and plants, and then we're gonna go into the impact on the human body.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: Okay, how and and by the way, the the currently the EPA and Bayer and those other companies are are all saying that glyphosate is safe, safe for humans.
14:20
SPEAKER_01: So start let's start with the soil.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: Healthy soil depends on a rich diversity of bacteria and fungi and other microorganisms.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: They're used to cycle nutrients and suppress plant disease.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: But glyphosate is actually a patented antibiotic, so it can alter the microbiome of the soil.
14:39
SPEAKER_01: There was a six-month field trial where heavy glyphosate was used and they and it was shown to decrease soil microbial biomass by 45%.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: And it would it reduced the cultured bacteria.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: Get this, Joel, 84%.
14:57
SPEAKER_01: And it reduced the fungi by 63% compared to the untreated soil.
15:02
SPEAKER_01: A second field trial reported a drop again in fungal species, changes in the soil fungal DNA profiles, um, and it indicated that there was a lasting impact on the soil, even after they stopped spraying.
15:18
SPEAKER_01: Also, because glyphosate is a chelator.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: Again, remember I mentioned it was originally patented as a chelator, which means it can bind bind to essential metals like iron, copper, zinc, manganese, it can bind to them in the soil and it can reduce the availability uh for that plant to be able to take up those minerals.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: That will weaken the plant's immune defenses.
15:43
SPEAKER_01: And when those nutrient-depleted plants enter the food chain, they can then contribute to micronutrient deficiencies in us and in the other animals that eat them.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: And but it gets worse because now we know that you know they used to say the glyphosate would just um degrade readily, right?
16:03
SPEAKER_01: It just quickly gets degraded once they it's sprayed.
16:07
SPEAKER_01: Now we know that the glyphos the glyphosate can actually persist in the soil for several months.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: And the glyphosate metal ion complexes that I just talked about, because it can chelate these metals, they can persist in the soil for up to seven years.
16:23
SPEAKER_01: Oh, sorry, um, seven years in water and 22 years in soil.
16:30
SPEAKER_01: So glyphosate is able to accumulate over time in the soil and actually in the crops, which then raises concern about contamination of the food supply.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: So, how much glyphosate is actually in our food?
16:45
SPEAKER_01: Glyphosate and/or its breakdown product, which is called AMPA, is routinely detected in our food supply.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: It's the residues have been detected in crops that are genetically engineered to resist glyphosate, like Roundup Rady soybeans.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: So that's no surprise.
17:02
SPEAKER_01: But it's also detected in crops that undergo pre-harvest um desiccation, which is a process in which glyphosate is sprayed before harvest.
17:11
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's sprayed just a week or two prior.
17:13
SPEAKER_01: Um, it accelerates the drying of crops like cereals and legumes, like wheat, oats, barley, and edible beans.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: And because it's sprayed so close to harvest, higher level residue levels of glyphosate have been detected.
17:30
SPEAKER_01: So what happened was as higher residue levels started to appear on the foods, results because of the expanded use of glyphosate, having to use more of it, um, using just using more and more cropland in general, um, using it as a desiccant, Monsanto and other glyphosate registrants began to petition the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, to raise the glyphosate residue tolerance levels.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: So, for example, the EPA um, well, and in general, the EPA has complied with those requests.
18:07
SPEAKER_01: So the EPA, for example, increased the allowable glyphosate residue level in soybeans from 20 parts per million to 40 parts per million.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: And that would, in essence, allow those crops to legally remain on the market.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: Um, another example in 1993, EPA established a tolerance for oats.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: It was actually 0.1 parts per million.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: But in 1996, Monsanto asked EPA, oh, can you just raise it to 20 parts per million?
18:37
SPEAKER_01: And the EPA did.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: And then in 2008, Monsanto, at Monsanto's suggestion, the EPA again raised the tolerance for glyphosate in oats, and this time to 30 parts per million.
18:51
SPEAKER_01: So just that one example of oats alone shows you how much they thought was safe at the beginning.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: And then as the technology failed and we and the use usage began to become more ubiquitous, they had to raise these tolerance levels.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, these foods would not be legally allowed on the market.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: Now, oh, go ahead.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've heard that forever, right?
19:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that that's a very industry standard.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: It breaks down in the soil.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: Here's what they don't tell you.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: It breaks down in high organic matter soil.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: High, and you just gave us the breakdown in biomass, bacteria, fungi, all these those, those are the living parts of the soil that are part of that organic matter in the soil that give the soil life, sponginess, tilth, uh, that you can smell when you when you pick it up, it smells like like leaf mold, like humus.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: And and uh so so what happens is under conventional, you know, uh um chemical use, chemical fertilizer use, and conventional plowing, our soils have dropped in organic matter.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: Originally, pre-European North America averaged somewhere around 10% organic matter soils.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: We are now down into the 1% range.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: When we came to our farm in 1961 and took our first soil samples, our soils here averaged 1% organic matter.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: Today, half a century later, a little more, we're at a little over 8% organic matter.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: So we're moving to a more um you know uh uh historically uh uh accurate level.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: The point is that that it it's it's uh seeing, you know, it's clever it's clever speak.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: What breaks down in the soil?
21:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it breaks down in a compost pile because the compost pile is full of all this, you know, uh protozoa and natural life that eats stuff.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: So, yes, does it break down in the soil?
21:19
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it does.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: But in our normal cropland soils, which have now are now devoid of biological life, it doesn't break down very well.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: So it's a it it's a it's a bait and switch.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: It's a you know, from an argument standpoint, it's a complete uh bait and switch thing.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: And I now I got now I got a really quick story to share.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: So I was in Australia.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: I'm getting my baggage off the uh you know uh baggage thing, and um and and I I uh my all my luggage, I have a cow, a cow ear tag on my luggage, so you know, to identify it.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: I figured not very many people are gonna have a cow ear tag on their luggage, okay?
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh so I don't have to worry about a pink ribbon or a purple ribbon or whatever.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: All right.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: So I grabbed my baggage.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: Two women are standing there next to me, and uh they see me grab it and they said, Oh, they knew what it was.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: They said, Are you a farmer?
22:12
SPEAKER_00: I said, Yeah.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: Um and and uh I said, you know, are you guys?
22:18
SPEAKER_00: They said, Well, no.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, what do you what are you doing here in Australia?
22:22
SPEAKER_00: And they said, We're on our way to Perth for a for a global consortium on how to deal with superweeds created by glyphosate.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: And they were from they were from Arkansas, where they they said that um that farmers were having to hire um people with machetes to go in ahead of their million-dollar combines to hand machete the massive ragweeds.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: These things are like 12 and 15 feet tall, but they but they destroy these million-dollar combines, harvesters that are going into the corn soybeans, uh, um, you know, cotton, different things.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: And uh, and so now they have to go in and hand and and so they were having this international consortium on how to deal how to deal with these superweeds from um from glyphosate adaptation.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, nature has a tremendous capacity to adapt when we start messing it around.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: And of course, that's a that's a theme on this program all the time.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to share that story.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: That's real, you know.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: That that's that's uh that's real, real life, real happening, really going on right now.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I love that.
23:36
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it and I think of it as you know, nature has a great capacity to forgive, right?
23:42
SPEAKER_01: We can keep abusing and abusing and abusing nature, and nature just forgives, you know?
23:46
SPEAKER_00: Right.
23:47
SPEAKER_01: So um, yes, so all of this, you know, increased spray because of these resistant weeds and whatnot, and now the practice of desiccation.
23:57
SPEAKER_01: All of this is showing through test results that our food supply is largely contaminated by glyphosate.
24:06
SPEAKER_01: So I'll give you a couple examples.
24:08
SPEAKER_01: In 2016, it was the first independent food testing that was conducted by an FDA-registered lab.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: And it did reveal alarming levels of glyphosate in some of America's favorite processed foods, like Trix or Raisin Bran, Special K, the Kashi cereal, Ritzcrackers, Triskets, Goldfish, and Oreos.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: Two years later, there's an independent testing done by the environmental working group, and they reported um glyphosate or AMPA in all of the 28 conventionally grown oat-based cereals and snack bars that they tested.
24:44
SPEAKER_01: These were bars, these were um products like Quaker oatmeal squares, uh, Quaker instant oatmeal, honey nut Cheerios, and Quaker breakfast squares, uh, you know, soft baked bars.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: So these are, you know, products that are consumed by a lot of Americans, and um all of them, um all of them had some level.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: And the tests were within the EPA's maximal residue limit, like which I can't even say that with a straight face, because as you already know, they just keep increasing the limit.
25:18
SPEAKER_01: So it means nothing.
25:19
SPEAKER_01: It means nothing to us.
25:21
SPEAKER_01: But um, 26 out of the 28 products surpassed the environmental working group's own safety benchmark of 160 parts per billion.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: Now they set that lower threshold because it does consider the the EPA's limits too high in order to protect public health, especially children.
25:40
SPEAKER_01: So 26 out of the 28 products surpassed their benchmark.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: Um, another test that they did detected glyphosate in 43 out of 45 oat products.
25:51
SPEAKER_01: Um, and get this one-third of so there were 16 products that were tested that were organic, and one-third of them contained glyphosate.
26:02
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so there is contamination.
26:04
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and we've talked about this in our book and how we protect ourselves from that.
26:09
SPEAKER_01: Um, a Canadian survey in 2019, they reported that it's not just on these oat-based, wheat-based products that we're seeing these glyphosate residues.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: They sampled over 3,000 foods.
26:20
SPEAKER_01: Uh, 42% of them contain some glyphosate residue, including fruits, vegetables, uh, fruit juice, and grains.
26:28
SPEAKER_01: Glyphosate, I thought of you, Joel, when I found this statistic.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: Glyphosate has also been detected in chicken feed, as well as chickens, the the liver, the muscle, the kidneys, the heart, lungs, spleen, and the intestine of those chickens.
26:45
SPEAKER_01: So these findings confirm that dietary glyphosate is absorbed and it it can be distributed systematically through the body, which does raise question about long-term exposure risk for consumers.
26:59
SPEAKER_01: And I would like to say that this is another thing that we were told doesn't happen, right?
27:03
SPEAKER_01: It's water-soluble, you just pee it out.
27:06
SPEAKER_01: But we're we're finding it in um all of these different organ systems, okay?
27:12
SPEAKER_01: So now, is there glyphosate in the human body?
27:16
SPEAKER_01: As I mentioned, the introduction of glyphosate resistant crops in the mid-1900s occurred and glyphosate use um expanded dramatically.
27:28
SPEAKER_01: Along with that, there is a dramatic rise in our human exposure.
27:32
SPEAKER_01: Now, studies have confirmed there is widespread detection of glyphosate or AMPA in both adults and children, with a higher proportion being detected over time.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: For example, uh, there was a 2017 study which tracked urinary glyphosate levels in 112 people living in Southern California.
27:57
SPEAKER_01: They tracked it from um around 1993 to 1996, and then again in 2014 to 2016.
28:05
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so these two time periods, they reported a 500% increase in prevalence.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: The detectable levels rose from 12% containing glyphosate residues in their urine to 70%.
28:20
SPEAKER_01: So from 12 to 70 AMP levels climbed from 5% in the 1990s to 71% by 2014-2016.
28:33
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so it's tracking directly.
28:35
SPEAKER_01: Um, and Haynes data from 2013-2014 showed that out of two over 2,000 Americans, 80% of them had glyphosate in their urine.
28:45
SPEAKER_01: A UC San Francisco study detected 93% of urine samples had glyphosate.
28:52
SPEAKER_01: This is also in pregnant and lactating women.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: Uh, a 2016 study out of Idaho and Washington showed 92% of women tested had detectable levels.
29:02
SPEAKER_01: And get this there's no difference in glyphosate levels in their urine between people who consume the organic food and people who are consuming the conventionally grown food.
29:11
SPEAKER_01: So that's a little disappointing.
29:13
SPEAKER_01: Um, again, in Indiana, another study of pregnant women, 93% of them had urine and uh not had urine.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: I hope they had urine.
29:21
SPEAKER_01: 93% of them have uh have glyphosate in their urine, and it was correlated with higher concentrations of the glyphosate in the urine, it was correlated with a shorter length of pregnancy.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
29:35
SPEAKER_01: Now let's get into the human health concerns.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: So we know it's in the body, we know humans are getting sicker.
29:41
SPEAKER_01: Let's see if there's any correlation here.
29:44
SPEAKER_01: So the UPAs I mentioned can continue to claim the glyphosate is safe for humans.
29:49
SPEAKER_01: Before I mention some studies, I want to say that their decision of how glyphosate is actually safe was based on largely industry-provided studies that were in some in some instances um ghostwritten, right?
30:08
SPEAKER_01: And we've talked about this before on the program.
30:11
SPEAKER_01: Also, the approval process only examined the active ingredient, glyphosate, in isolation.
30:20
SPEAKER_01: Surfactants and other additives are considered inert coformulants, which means they're exempt from the toxicity testing.
30:28
SPEAKER_01: Yet multiple studies have now revealed that the commercial glyphosate formulations can be up to a thousand times more toxic than glyphosate alone.
30:38
SPEAKER_01: And this is largely because of these coformulants.
30:41
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
30:42
SPEAKER_01: Some of them, like um polyethyl oxalated thaloamine, exacerbates oxidative stress, it can disrupt mitochondrial function and increase cell membrane permeability.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh see, let me let me let me um let me bring it bring it down, make sure we all we're all with you here.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh, when you say that these studies were done in isolation, uh, we've talked about this, but I just want to, man, I want to hammer this point home.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: None of these government studies for um for safety studies the product the way it's actually used on the farm.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: The way it's used on the farm, look, if I'm gonna go out and spray something in my fields, I wanna I want to put on an insecticide, a pesticide, an herbicide, a surfactant.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: A surfactant is like soap to to open up the stomata of the leaf, so it'll accept the it'll accept the material better.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: And uh surfactant makes the water wetter.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so it doesn't beat up, you know, it actually it actually penetrates.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: And and so so there is not a farmer in the world that sprays anything without a surfactant.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: And yet when the when the agencies look at at safety, they don't even they don't even use it with a surfactant.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: Even at its most elemental level, the study is not looking at the way it's actually used on the farm in practical use.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: Realize that a surfactant by breaking the the uh the tension of water, tension is what makes water bead up.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: You put you know, you spill a little bit of water on the table, you know, it beads up on your on your table.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: That's that's water tension.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: You take a little uh you take a little bit of soap and you prick that and it'll immediately dissipate and spread across the table.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, if you put a surfactant with a toxic material, penetration is going to be more.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they they use it to get to get it to penetrate better, to get it to be used better.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so so here we are.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: Here we are with these agencies that are that are giving green lights to products that are not even studied anywhere in the in the um whatever you know, approval, in anywhere in the approval process.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: They're never studied, used, or tested based on actual use, based on the way they're going to be used in the field by the farmer.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: Because the farmer is always gonna use things with it.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: Nobody sprays straight glyphosate, they put a surfactant with it at least, and normally they'll put other cocktails with it.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: They'll mix some nitrogen fertilizer with it, they'll mix something else with it to get more bang for the buck of, you know, going across the field.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: This is called a cocktail in in the vernacular in farming.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: This is called a spray or a foliar cocktail.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you're mixing numerous things, but none of these products is ever studied singularly in its EPA testing.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: So the whole process is absurdly disconnected from actual field use.
34:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's bad science.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: Like it's not applicable at all to real life.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: No, of course it is, of course it is.
34:11
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
34:12
SPEAKER_01: Well, so what I something interesting that I found was I mentioned that the that we now know that this glyphosate can bioaccumulate in the chickens, but now we also have evidence, scientific evidence, that it can also bioaccumulate in rodents, cows, and humans.
34:32
SPEAKER_01: This is published in the scientific literature.
34:35
SPEAKER_01: And that chronic exposure has been associated with numerous health events, uh uh health events in both humans and animal studies.
34:44
SPEAKER_01: I want to spend the most time on cancer because I I want to get through to the end the actual items, but I want to spend the most time on cancer because it explains some of the regulation.
34:54
SPEAKER_01: And then we're gonna skim over the other ones.
34:56
SPEAKER_01: And um, I wrote an article about this.
34:58
SPEAKER_01: So if some if people want to look in detail at these different health conditions, I have links in this article to studies that they can look at.
35:07
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
35:08
SPEAKER_01: So cancer.
35:10
SPEAKER_01: Did you know, Joel, that in 1985, the EPA originally classified glyphosate as a possible carcinogen, group C?
35:21
SPEAKER_00: Huh.
35:22
SPEAKER_01: That shocked me.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: I did not know that.
35:26
SPEAKER_01: They classified it as a possible carcinogen, meaning there was uh limp, there was evidence, it was limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans, but it was, you know, there was it still existed, even though it was limited.
35:37
SPEAKER_01: This decision was based on a long-term feeding study that was submitted to them by the company, where male mice developed kidney tumors after being fed glyphosate.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: The um so what happened was so they originally classified it as glyphosate, then um oh, and the committee also said that the dose levels that were used in this rat feeding study were not adequate for the assessment of the potential cancer-causing effects of glyphosate, and they wanted more data.
36:14
SPEAKER_01: All right.
36:14
SPEAKER_01: So so um, you know, they probably used the wrong dose, and but still they saw um tumors even at that dose.
36:24
SPEAKER_01: So what happened was the kidney slides that were that were created in that study, right, by industry, these kidney slides were later re-examined.
36:36
SPEAKER_01: And I I kid you not, Joel.
36:38
SPEAKER_01: I I can't even make this stuff up.
36:40
SPEAKER_01: One pathologist looked at the slides and diagnosed one additional kidney tumor in the control male mice.
36:50
SPEAKER_01: One of them.
36:52
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that label of oh, this slide has one more tumor on it, I can see it.
36:58
SPEAKER_01: That label changed the course of glyphosate's history.
37:02
SPEAKER_01: The scientific advisory panel said, Oh, well, this changes everything because now that a other control mouse has a tumor on the slide showing there's no significant difference between the treated group and the control group.
37:17
SPEAKER_01: So the panel said that this cancer-causing potential could not be determined.
37:21
SPEAKER_01: Um, and they actually said that they they thought that the study should be repeated.
37:25
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that is to my knowledge, that did not happen.
37:28
SPEAKER_01: But this mouse study was described as the linchpin in the conclusion that glyphosate is not a human carcinogen.
37:36
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and that was detailed in EPA's fall uh of 2016 paper called glyphosate issue paper.
37:43
SPEAKER_01: So literally they said it was a possible carcinogen.
37:49
SPEAKER_01: Literally, one pathologist said, Oh, here, I see another tumor in a control mouse, and then that statistically changed the study.
37:59
SPEAKER_01: It also tells you the what must be a small sample size, right?
38:05
SPEAKER_01: Uh of these studies, which is also bad science.
38:08
SPEAKER_01: So initially, and I'm gonna I want to read it to you from the uh from the um EPA's own document because this seems unbelievable, right?
38:16
SPEAKER_01: So I I have this PDF up of the EPA's own document, and it says the kidney slides from the long-term mouse feeding study were subsequently re-examined, and one pathologist diagnosed an additional kidney tumor in the control mails.
38:31
SPEAKER_01: Literally, one person, one thing.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: Like, so I don't know who that is, so I can't follow the money on that person, you know.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: So initially the EPA defended their position, and then years of Monsanto scientists and lobbyists going back with the EPA happened, and Monsanto submitted two more RAT studies that it produced.
38:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, and EPA changed their tune.
38:56
SPEAKER_01: So by 1991, EPA has a new memorandum where they reclassified glyphosate um to um it to quote evidence of non-carcinogenicity in humans because there was a lack of carcinogicity found in mice and rats.
39:16
SPEAKER_01: So that was it.
39:18
SPEAKER_01: It's now not cancer-causing.
39:20
SPEAKER_01: In 2015, EPA had to conduct another review.
39:23
SPEAKER_01: You know, this is by law, they have to routinely review them.
39:26
SPEAKER_01: And again, they declare glyphosate to not cause any harm in humans.
39:30
SPEAKER_01: I will remind everybody that that's the same year that the International Agency for Research on Cancer did classify glyphosate as a probable carcinogen to humans.
39:40
SPEAKER_01: Their research, their conclusion was based on liver and kidney tumors in chronic animal feeding studies, epidemiological studies reporting non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and strong evidence in the literature of genotoxicity and the ability to trigger oxidative stress.
39:55
SPEAKER_01: They use primarily independent studies.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: So here you can see again the difference when you have, you know, of funding coming from industry.
40:03
SPEAKER_01: California added glyphosate to the Prop 65 list in 2017.
40:09
SPEAKER_01: And right now the EPA is supposed to be reviewing again, and they're saying that their final decision will now be in 2016, which allows glyphosate to still be on the market.
40:21
SPEAKER_01: Um there's studies I have listed here.
40:24
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to run out of time.
40:25
SPEAKER_01: So there's lots of studies I have listened, listed listed here from 2025, 2023 associating now glyphosate with cancer.
40:32
SPEAKER_01: I have a whole section in here about gut barrier breach and all the different ways in which glyphosate can actually cause what we um what we call leaky gut um and changes to the gut microbiome.
40:47
SPEAKER_01: The effect of glyphosate on the human gastrointestinal tract was not considered when the government when the government made its safety recommendations, but there are species of microbes in the human gut that contain that EPSP4 um species.
41:08
SPEAKER_01: So let me let me back up and say this real fast.
41:12
SPEAKER_01: Regulators and scientists initially assumed that glyphosate would not pose much harm to humans because we don't have the chicken mate pathway.
41:21
SPEAKER_01: So they're like, oh, it doesn't even affect you because you don't have that metabolic pathway.
41:24
SPEAKER_01: But the microbes in our gut have that pathway and they rely on that pathway to thrive.
41:32
SPEAKER_01: So what we now know is over half of the core species that are in the human gastrointestinal tract, they contain a variant of that EPSPS um enzyme that is potentially sensitive to glyphosate.
41:51
SPEAKER_01: Okay, this is published in a study.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: Sensitive to glyphosate, meaning glyphosate is a patented antibiotic, so it already can kill microbes in your gastrointestinal tract and it targets this specific enzyme, and over half of the core species in our guts are sensitive to it.
42:06
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
42:06
SPEAKER_01: Recipe for a disaster.
42:08
SPEAKER_01: We have lots of studies now showing that it can lead to microbial imbalance and create dysbiosis and increase intestinal permeability.
42:17
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
42:18
SPEAKER_01: Um liver disease is well documented, reproductive issues, kidney disease, um, mood disorders, sleep problems, and these are all through working through the chick and mate pathway.
42:31
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
42:31
SPEAKER_01: Neurodegenerative diseases.
42:33
SPEAKER_01: It's now associated, glyphosate exposure is now associated with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other neurological conditions like ALS, Huntington's disease, MS, you name it.
42:45
SPEAKER_01: And again, these are in part through the chick and mate pathway, but also because it can degrade the blood brain barrier.
42:52
SPEAKER_01: It's water-soluble, so it can circulate through the body, it can cross into the blood-brain barrier and pose both direct and indirect um harm to the brain.
43:02
SPEAKER_01: Um, it actually can kill nerves.
43:05
SPEAKER_01: It can um cause loss of myelin sheath, which is wrapped around the nerves and is responsible for maintaining and regenerating neurons.
43:14
SPEAKER_01: These are all, these are all critical aspects of um neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's.
43:22
SPEAKER_01: The loss of the myelin sheath, the loss of the neurons, right?
43:25
SPEAKER_01: Glyphosate is now linked to all of these.
43:27
SPEAKER_01: So let's jump in to the legal landscape.
43:32
SPEAKER_01: State and federal courts have witnessed a flood of litigations.
43:36
SPEAKER_01: Since 2018, there's been approximately 170,000 plaintiffs that have filed claims against Monsanto and its success, its successor Bayer.
43:44
SPEAKER_01: Most of them are alleging a failure to warn.
43:48
SPEAKER_01: Okay, this is really important to remember because this ties to what's happening now in Congress.
43:53
SPEAKER_01: So a failure to warn, meaning they're alleging that the company knew or should have known.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: Of glyphosate's cancer risk, but they failed to update the label to warn the people.
44:07
SPEAKER_01: And that means the product was unreasonably dangerous.
44:11
SPEAKER_01: Bayer has settled nearly 100,000 of those cases for$11 billion.
44:16
SPEAKER_01: There's an estimated 54,000 lawsuits that are still pending in the state courts.
44:22
SPEAKER_01: In the federal court, there's 4,425 cases pending in the multidistrict litigation in California as of July.
44:33
SPEAKER_01: Plaintiffs have won at least 18 jury verdicts, totaling over$8 billion.
44:37
SPEAKER_01: There was a$2.1 billion verdict in Georgia in March, a$2.25 billion verdict in Pennsylvania in January.
44:45
SPEAKER_01: They continue to defend tens of thousands of trials, and they're pursuing appeals.
44:51
SPEAKER_01: They're most recently petitioning the U.S.
44:54
SPEAKER_01: Supreme Court.
44:55
SPEAKER_01: That was in April of this year.
44:56
SPEAKER_01: I go through that detail to let you to set the stage for um Bayer, you know, who, as I said, is the successor of Monsanto.
45:07
SPEAKER_01: They're in a very bad spot, right?
45:10
SPEAKER_01: Losing billions of dollars, and the cases just keep piling on.
45:15
SPEAKER_01: So what has Bayer done?
45:17
SPEAKER_01: They've been actively lobbying states and the federal level.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: So they've they've lobbied state legislators to enact this um laws that would shield the pesticide makers from future failure to warn claims as long as their product labels comply with the with the current EPA requirements.
45:38
SPEAKER_01: They did successfully secure immunity status in North Dakota, and I'm very sad to say in Georgia, where I live.
45:47
SPEAKER_01: At the federal level, Bayer has been pushing for um liability protection.
45:53
SPEAKER_01: They did this previously through the Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act and through provisions in the House Farm Bill, and these were under um President Biden.
46:02
SPEAKER_01: Those both failed.
46:03
SPEAKER_01: But Bayer is undeterred, undeterred.
46:06
SPEAKER_01: They are they have successfully inserted what's called Section 453 into the 2026 House Appropriations bill, right?
46:14
SPEAKER_01: This is at the federal level.
46:16
SPEAKER_01: This is this bill is the regular spending bill, um, and chemical companies are using this to sneak in this liability shield.
46:23
SPEAKER_01: So it would actually um block the FDA from updating warning labels by freezing their spending.
46:33
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and it would also, in essence, preempt state failure to warn to warn claims.
46:39
SPEAKER_01: Um it in July was cleared, it made it through the appropriations committee.
46:45
SPEAKER_01: It was a party line vote, Republicans voting in favor and Democrats opposing it.
46:50
SPEAKER_01: And now awaits a full House vote, presumably after the July recess.
46:55
SPEAKER_01: Now, um, Kelly Ryerson, who's the glyphostate girl, she's uh a friend of the program.
47:00
SPEAKER_01: And Joel, you know her very well.
47:02
SPEAKER_01: I I love Kelly.
47:04
SPEAKER_01: She's keeping everybody updated on the glyphostate status.
47:08
SPEAKER_01: Um, an email went out a couple days ago, and she said that the Senate is now currently considering whether or not they will include similar language in their appropriations bill.
47:18
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so she has a if you want to stay up to date on this, and if you want to contact your senators and contact your house people and your state legislatures, um, she has a website called stoppoison.org.
47:32
SPEAKER_01: You can simply sign up for that.
47:35
SPEAKER_01: And she said that she's divided people out by state and she will notify you if something's coming up in your state and basically how to take action.
47:42
SPEAKER_01: So, but this is I wanted to talk about this um this bill for a minute because this tells you about um labeling, right?
47:54
SPEAKER_01: How like we how powerful a label is.
47:58
SPEAKER_01: So basically this new section is gonna say, well, you we there's no funding to change the label.
48:04
SPEAKER_01: So that means that um it blocks the government from taking any action um if it differs in any way from the agency's most recent health or cancer assessments.
48:16
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
48:17
SPEAKER_01: So Kelly's done a good job of breaking this down.
48:19
SPEAKER_01: She said, so unless the government, unless there's a new assessment done, the assessment takes no less than four years, and sometimes it takes over 12 years to make an assessment, according to the EPA.
48:31
SPEAKER_01: So unless it does an assessment, the agency um cannot update the safety warnings.
48:38
SPEAKER_01: They can't change food safety tolerances or guidelines, even if there's new science showing harm, and even if a company asks for updates, right?
48:46
SPEAKER_01: And even if the original assessment was fraudulent, right?
48:50
SPEAKER_01: So this section basically blocks them from being able to um make any changes to the label, um, you know, unless they do an assessment.
49:02
SPEAKER_01: So basically, this buys a bunch of time and it you know stops them from really being able to do it.
49:07
SPEAKER_01: Now, the problem is the pesticide companies need approval from the FDA in order to update the label warning.
49:16
SPEAKER_01: And as I said, the EPA can only act after they perform a new health assessment, you know, because and they don't do their own scientific studies.
49:24
SPEAKER_01: So um so so basically, people are gonna people are still gonna get cancer, like you know, all these different health ailments.
49:34
SPEAKER_01: Um, and the companies are gonna say, well, you can't blame us because EPA hasn't told us to warn anything.
49:41
SPEAKER_01: We're not allowed to change this label.
49:43
SPEAKER_01: And the EPA will be like, Well, um, we can't change the label.
49:48
SPEAKER_01: Congress passed this law, we can't do anything.
49:50
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna take us 12 years to do this new assessment, you know, on the cutoff all the way.
49:55
SPEAKER_00: He he done it, he done it.
49:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's what it's that and it's all based on a label.
50:03
SPEAKER_01: Like, literally, this is the loophole that the chemical companies have found that this is how immersed in regulation these labels are, and how much power is attached to these labels.
50:16
SPEAKER_01: They're using this label as their get out of jail free card, you know.
50:20
SPEAKER_01: And and so, what's gonna happen with all these current cases?
50:23
SPEAKER_01: They're gonna be like, well, you know, if these laws pass, it's possible that they could be like, Well, our hands are tied.
50:29
SPEAKER_01: How could we do anything at this point to make this better for anybody?
50:32
SPEAKER_01: Like the you know, the EPA, the government won't let us.
50:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, and federal law overrides state law um when it's impossible to comply with both.
50:41
SPEAKER_01: So people who are seriously injured by these pesticides company, now they're not going to be able to hold the county, the the companies accountable, right?
50:49
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's uh and and wait, I almost forgot something really important.
50:54
SPEAKER_01: It's not just glyphosate that's on the table here in these bills, it's all pesticides, it's all of them.
51:01
SPEAKER_01: So if you look at um at the oh, I lost the website, but I can put put it in the show notes.
51:11
SPEAKER_01: So there's a label, uh sorry, there's a website, an EPA website, and um, oh, it's the EPA's active pesticide product registration information listing.
51:21
SPEAKER_01: So on there, they've listed that chemicals, uh pesticides that are actively approved, right?
51:27
SPEAKER_01: If you go in there and just say how many pesticides are actively approved by the EPA, there's 57,000.
51:34
SPEAKER_01: 57,000.
51:35
SPEAKER_01: So if this passes through, it's potential that updates for those 57,000 plus active products um could be delayed, even if they have outdated and inadequate warning labels.
51:49
SPEAKER_01: Right.
51:49
SPEAKER_01: And again, families are gonna lose their right to even hold those companies accountable.
51:54
SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, we're we're we're looking at the same thing that the vaccine, the vaccine companies got um back with uh Reagan and um and um was it uh Teddy Kennedy, I think.
52:06
SPEAKER_00: That those two got together and and and indemnified the vaccine companies.
52:11
SPEAKER_00: It's you know, it it's smacks of the same the same uh uh fight that underwent the Surgeon General warning on cigarettes.
52:20
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
52:21
SPEAKER_00: Think think man, um think about that fight and how how that uh eventually went down.
52:29
SPEAKER_00: But um it's just unbelievable that within this context of turmoil, Roundup is still down at the hoard, down at the store, and you can go buy it and well, let's actually let's get to that a bit.
52:44
SPEAKER_01: Well, well um and I know he does a couple minutes, so let me just breeze through that because there has been a change to the Roundup formulation, but I just want to emphasize here that now the pesticides can hide behind the EPA's label, right?
52:58
SPEAKER_01: The the label will be frozen in time, and so they can hide behind that even when they know their pesticide causes cancer or brain damage or birth defects or Alzheimer's.
53:08
SPEAKER_01: They can hide behind that now because we've frozen the label in time.
53:12
SPEAKER_01: So, okay, practical ways to reduce your exposure, and I know you have a hard cut in three minutes, so I'm gonna try to go as fast as I can.
53:19
SPEAKER_01: So, one thing is support local farmers.
53:22
SPEAKER_01: You can buy directly from local farmers who are not spraying the synthetic herbicides or planting genetically engineered seeds.
53:29
SPEAKER_01: Um, you can choose the organic uh certification.
53:32
SPEAKER_01: We've gone into a great deal.
53:34
SPEAKER_01: There are loopholes in this.
53:35
SPEAKER_01: We totally recognize that.
53:37
SPEAKER_01: However, there's even this 2014 study that showed that if somebody switched their diet for one week to organic, the growth the pesticide residue level lowered by 90%.
53:50
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
53:50
SPEAKER_01: So it does help lower your burden.
53:53
SPEAKER_01: You can look for the glyphosate residue-free certification label that's offered through the detox proje project, an independent organization that um verifies through the strictest standards if there's glyphosate residue on foods.
54:07
SPEAKER_01: That's detoxproject.org.
54:09
SPEAKER_01: You can wash your product your produce to get some residues off the outside.
54:15
SPEAKER_01: However, as Joel mentioned, glyphosate is uh gets inside the plant.
54:19
SPEAKER_01: So you can't actually get rid of that completely.
54:22
SPEAKER_01: Um, this is to your point.
54:24
SPEAKER_01: So I I wrote be leery of store-bought weed killer.
54:28
SPEAKER_01: So um the formulation of glyphosate for residential landscape use.
54:33
SPEAKER_01: So, like if I went down to the hardware store and I grabbed a bottle of Roundup, it won't say glyphosate in it anymore.
54:40
SPEAKER_01: Glyphosate replaced that with diquat.
54:43
SPEAKER_01: So the problem is diquat is 40 times more toxic than glyphosate.
54:48
SPEAKER_01: So, so skip those altogether.
54:51
SPEAKER_01: You can buy organic options and you can also make your own weed killer at home if you need to have one.
54:56
SPEAKER_01: Lots of people use like equal parts organic vinegar and water, and then a few drops of like organic dish soap and maybe some essential oils, depending on what they're trying to kill.
55:05
SPEAKER_01: Um, get a water filter for your house.
55:07
SPEAKER_01: Um, whole house water filtration system.
55:09
SPEAKER_01: If you can't afford that, get a kitchen counter one.
55:12
SPEAKER_01: Reverse osmosis or activated carbon systems tend to be designed for pesticide removal.
55:17
SPEAKER_01: Um, make sure that they have test results that show that it removes the glyphosate from the drinking water.
55:23
SPEAKER_01: Air filters are the same.
55:24
SPEAKER_01: As I mentioned, glyphosate can be attached to dust, to pollen, soil particles, but a high-quality air purifier with HEPA and activated carbon can capture some of those.
55:35
SPEAKER_01: Don't wear your shoes inside the house.
55:38
SPEAKER_01: Studies have actually shown you can track these pesticide residues into your home.
55:42
SPEAKER_01: The residuals settle on the floor, the carpet.
55:45
SPEAKER_01: They become airborne dust when you're cleaning.
55:48
SPEAKER_01: You can even absorb them through your bare feet.
55:50
SPEAKER_01: That's actually been shown in studies.
55:52
SPEAKER_01: The percentage is low, but you can absorb them across your skin.
55:56
SPEAKER_01: So take your shoes off.
55:58
SPEAKER_01: There are herbs and supplements you can use if you want to try to detox from them.
56:04
SPEAKER_01: Um, humic acid, fic acid, chlorella, um, chitosin, citrus uh pectin, these all combine glyphosate and help them move through your gastrointestinal tract.
56:14
SPEAKER_01: Cilantro can also help with the removal of it.
56:17
SPEAKER_01: It's best paired with a binder, though, like chlorella.
56:20
SPEAKER_01: Um, Joel, there was a study in 2014 with chickens, broiler chickens.
56:24
SPEAKER_01: They supplemented them with humic acid.
56:26
SPEAKER_01: It reduced their glyphosate levels by 53% in the serum, 50% in lungs, 56% in their GI tract, and 63% in their muscles.
56:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, other nutrients can play a supportive role, glycine.
56:39
SPEAKER_01: Glycine can actually prevent glyphosate from being mistakenly used in place of amino acids during protein synthesis.
56:46
SPEAKER_01: Um antioxidants like vitamin C, vitamin E, as well, and then ginkgo boloba and other herbs can protect against oxidative stress.
56:53
SPEAKER_01: Um and dandelion can support liver and bile function, which is key to eliminate these toxins.
56:59
SPEAKER_01: And pre and probiotics can actually help restore microbial balance, preferably from food.
57:04
SPEAKER_01: Um, eating in a nutrient-rich diet can help since glyphosate can chelate metals.
57:09
SPEAKER_01: Um, if you eat a nutrient-rich diet, it can help offset some of that chelation that may have occurred in the soil, in the plant, and also in your gastrointestinal tract.
57:18
SPEAKER_01: And the final tip, the number 11, is engage in if you want to in advocacy.
57:23
SPEAKER_01: Um use Kelly's organization, her website, stoppoison.org.
57:29
SPEAKER_01: Contact your congressman and your and your local legislatures and tell them that you want to oppose this immunity bill.
57:36
SPEAKER_01: Again, they're the Senate's looking at their language now.
57:39
SPEAKER_01: So now is the time to actually do that.
57:41
SPEAKER_01: Um, my big takeaway is you can't dodge every glyphosate droplet, right?
57:47
SPEAKER_01: It's drifting in the bleeze, in the breeze.
57:49
SPEAKER_01: But you can vote with your wallet, with your fork, and with your voice.
57:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's good.
57:55
SPEAKER_00: That was a that was a race to the finish, Cena.
57:58
SPEAKER_00: Um thank you for tuck thank you for tucking us in into that hour.
58:02
SPEAKER_00: But I think anyone who's listened to this now has a really good grasp of the background.
58:11
SPEAKER_00: The certainly the um the label the label game, which is an uh uh uh a criminal, it's it's a criminal game, really.
58:22
SPEAKER_00: And um and some um some hopefulness on what we can how to reduce this.
58:30
SPEAKER_00: I I I don't think anybody's gonna run out and you know drink glyphosate, even if the EPA says it's fine.
58:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we're not gonna run out and and drink glyphosate.
58:41
SPEAKER_01: Can I add one more quick thing though?
58:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
58:44
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so what I'm hoping is that I hear a lot of people will be like, oh, I can't afford the organic, or you know, so they eat the conventional.
58:52
SPEAKER_01: Like they may, you know, take out certain inflammatory foods, but still eating the conventional, and people kind of get get on me about how I won't eat the conventional food.
59:02
SPEAKER_01: But we now have research, lots of research, showing glyphosate is an endocrine disruptor.
59:08
SPEAKER_01: And it's it's not the part of the problem is that our regulatory agencies are living in the stone age.
59:15
SPEAKER_01: They're like, oh, uh the dose makes the poison.
59:18
SPEAKER_01: So the higher the dose, um, to determine a toxicity level, um, that's how we're gonna create this tolerance level.
59:24
SPEAKER_01: But that's not actually how it works.
59:26
SPEAKER_01: In these endocrine disruptors, low dose tends to cause more harm.
59:31
SPEAKER_01: So even if you're just eating a little bit, like, oh, I'm just gonna eat that, I'm just gonna go out and like eat out and have that, you know, conventional bucket of chicken or whatever, right?
59:42
SPEAKER_01: That could actually potentially cause more harm to you because it is a smaller dose.
59:47
SPEAKER_01: It's a it's this weird concept that we have figured out, or that we're trying to figure out is why does a smaller dose hurt you more?
59:55
SPEAKER_01: But it's but so after listening to this, that's I'm hoping this will maybe inspire people to you don't have to go look for the organic label, go to your local farmer who's just not spraying this stuff, who's not feeding their cows and their pigs, this you know, sprayed stuff.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_01: And this could potentially turn things around for so many people who are sick.
1:00:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
1:00:17
SPEAKER_00: The the combination of of um abstaining from the tainted food and then um and then eating and putting emphasis on the good stuff, and including, you know, if you if you're in a if you're in a prone place, you know, water filter, air filter, these kind of things.
1:00:36
SPEAKER_00: Um we we just we just have to appreciate that we're we're in a we're in a chemical bath in our country.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_00: And uh glyphosate is perhaps the the the biggest, baddest one right now.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_00: But again, the EPA isn't checking how glyphosate in our body reacts with atrazine or or or or bicep or any of these other you know uh uh things and uh you know pyrethrium.
1:01:06
SPEAKER_00: Uh it doesn't check again.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_00: We're not just exposed to only glyphosate, you know, and so a study that looks at only glyphosate uh is is automatically fraudulent because it's not used, it's not used that way, it's not um eaten that way, it's not absorbed that way, just you know, by itself.
1:01:28
SPEAKER_00: It's always in a it's always in a combination of other things.
1:01:31
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Sina, for uh running us running us through this.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_00: And uh I guess I guess um my question would be um or are you interested, my my question for our for our listeners, um, not for you, Cena, but our listeners, is um is have you or are you inter would you be interested in having a glyphosate urine sample?
1:02:00
SPEAKER_00: If if somebody does, Clean it, to find out, you know, where where are you?
1:02:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh is there any where do you know if you're on the scale of oh this is bad or oh I'm in good shape?
1:02:11
SPEAKER_00: You know, where do you where do you get that?
1:02:14
SPEAKER_00: And now I'm asking you, Cena.
1:02:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay, if they do want to do this, uh where would they get it?
1:02:20
SPEAKER_01: Yes, sorry.
1:02:21
SPEAKER_01: I already checked out.
1:02:22
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, what?
1:02:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:02:27
SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, I can um put some links in the show description.
1:02:32
SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
1:02:32
SPEAKER_01: So if they're interested, sure.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that would be great.
1:02:35
SPEAKER_00: That would be great.
1:02:35
SPEAKER_00: Okay, everybody.
1:02:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh really appreciate you staying with us here uh through the Beyond Labels podcast.
1:02:42
SPEAKER_00: We love visiting with you, and uh, we just uh really appreciate your hanging in there with us, and we hope this has been um informative and that you will be your um your families and your communities um truth truth coach uh as we bring you truth.
1:03:00
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us, and we look forward to visiting with you again next week.