Roundup Weed Killer Is Now Linked To Antibiotic Resistance

Recently, I told you how Monsanto’s monster Roundup – the most widely used weed killer in the world – has been linked to an increased risk of cancer in humans.

Earlier this year, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) – a committee of top cancer experts organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) – confirmed, without a doubt, a link between Roundup and a higher incidence of cancer.

Roundup: The tide is turning

Monsanto has made a fortune selling Roundup for use on genetically modified (GM) crops, which as you may have guessed Monsanto also engineers. This means that Monsanto’s GM crops – like corn, soy, and canola – have been injected with “DNA” that helps them grow while Roundup kills everything else around them.

Apart from the recent cancer link, Roundup have been shown to disrupt hormones and as Laura Vandenberg, a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Maryland said, it only takes the slightest change in our hormones to cause permanent damage.

Roundup’s main ingredient glyphosate has also been linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers have found that glyphosate inhibits an enzyme the body uses to get rid of toxins. Without this enzyme inflammation in your body increases, which in turn damages cellular systems in your brain. Glyphosate also binds minerals, which impedes the absorption of zinc. Zinc deficiency is one of the key markers for Alzheimer’s.

Disrupting hormones, increasing the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and cancer… that’s already a pretty terrifying list of health risks linked to Roundup.

Sadly for Monsanto, the bad news doesn’t end there.

Now there’s one more nasty side effect we can add to Roundup’s monstrous list of health risks…

A frightening new study has found that Roundup can help create more deadly antibiotic-resistant “superbugs.”

In this latest study, researchers from the New Zealand’s University of Canterbury found that bacteria are more immune to antibiotics, including tetracycline and cipro, after being exposed to pesticides containing glyphosate, like Roundup.

The researchers believe glyphosate activates certain genes in the bacteria that immunize them against antibiotics. Considering Roundup’s widespread use this is really unsettling… but then again, it makes sense since glyphosate is also patented as an antibiotic.

To make matters worse, the researchers say that the amounts sprayed on crops are all it takes to boost the immunity of disease-causing bacteria to protect themselves against antibiotics. That’s bad news, because when Roundup gets inside crops, it stays inside because it’s a “systemic” pesticide.

For our friends in the US, “Roundup Ready” genetically modified crops (the kind treated with Roundup pesticide) are becoming increasingly hard to avoid. This means that every time they eat products containing Monsanto’s GM crops, like soy and corn, they may very well be adding to their risk of getting a disease that antibiotics can’t treat.

But the risk is equally real for our readers who live in the UK and Europe, especially if you grow your own vegetables at home and have been using Roundup as a pesticide to protect your little veggie patch… If that is the case, I’m sorry to say, but you have contaminated your home-grown veggies permanently.

That’s exactly what my brother-in-law did. When I had a quick nose around his tiny greenhouse where he keeps all his seedlings before replanting them in his vegetable garden, I spotted a huge container of Roundup on one of the shelves. Needless to say, he was rather annoyed when I told him about the damage he had done unwittingly.

See, when you grow (or buy) “organic”, that’s exactly what it should be – no herbicides and no pesticides should come near it. And before you think organic food is some new “fad”, it’s not. In fact, it’s the kind of food that people ate in the good old days before chemical sprays and toxic additives. And before we all became lab rats in Monsanto’s giant experiment.

Luckily, in the UK and Europe food labelling laws are strictly in place to protect consumers from consuming GM foods without knowing it. In the case of pre-packaged GM food and animal feeding products, the list of ingredients must indicate “genetically modified” or “produced from genetically modified [name of the organism]”. And in the case of products without packaging these words must still be clearly displayed in close proximity to the product (e.g a note on the supermarket shelf).

---

Disclaimer: Bear in mind the material contained in this article is provided for information purposes only. We are not addressing anyone’s personal situation. Please consult with your own physician before acting on any recommendations contained herein.

---

Sources:

“Popular weedkiller tied to antibiotic resistance” Leah Zerbe, March 23, 2015, Rodale News, rodalenews.com