Society of Environmental and Occupational Health
Society of Environment and Occupational Health
Society of Environment and Occupational Health
The Insidious Catastrophe of Pesticide use on Humans, Ecology, Plants, Insects, Earth, Water & the Rest
Ecology suffers, Environment suffers & consequently the Health & wellbeing of all suffers
In addition to the devastating impacts on human health, the excessive use of pesticides contaminates soil and water sources, causing loss of biodiversity, the destruction of the natural enemies of pests and the reduction in the nutritional value of food. Besides adverse effect on human health, the pesticide use is responsible for declines in insects and wildlife.
There are agro-ecological approaches, which replace harmful chemicals, are capable of delivering sufficient yields to feed and nourish the entire world population, without undermining the rights of future generations to adequate food and health.
THE chemical-dependent, industrial agriculture is a major cause of an ongoing public health crisis and is largely responsible for an unfolding, catastrophic ecological collapse worldwide. The worst culprits are the agrochemical globally ubiquitous glyphosate-based herbicides, the use of which have spiraled over the last few decades. Studies with sufficient evidence suggest glyphosate causes epigenetic changes in humans and animals (diseases skip a generation before appearing) and that it is a major cause of severe obesity in children and its negative impact on the gut microbiome. The result, we are facing a global metabolic health crisis that places glyphosate at the heart of the matter.
The vast majority of studies leading to the approval of a pesticide are carried out by the pesticide industry itself, either directly or via contract laboratories which can provide fraudulent results.
As per one study, in 2035, there will be around 16 million cases of dementia, arthritis, type 2 diabetes and cancers in people aged 65 and over in the UK – twice as many as in 2015. In 10 years, there will be 5.5 million people with type 2diabetes while 70% of people aged 55+ will have at least one obesity-related disease.The report found that the number of major illnesses suffered by older people will increase by 85% between 2015 and 2035.
There is an insect apocalypse due to pesticides – numerous studies have indicated catastrophic declines in Europe in two decades. The research adds to growing evidence ofan “insect apocalypse”, which is threatening a collapse in the natural world that sustains humans and all life on Earth.Another study shows plummeting numbers of aquatic insects in streams and a survey in rural Denmark found an 80% decline in abundance of insects. It also found a parallel decline in the number of swallows and martins, birds that live on insects.
Conning the public
It is being stated that Cancer Research UK (CRUK) has been hijacked by the agrochemical industry which invented causes of cancer and put the blame on the people for lifestyle choices, also claiming that obesity caused 13 different cancers and that obesity was due to ‘lifestyle choice’and the public is being conned, by contributing to ‘cancer research’ with the fraudulent promise of ‘cures’ based on highly profitable drugs manufactured by pharmaceutical companies whose links to the agrochemical sector are clear, also, it is stated that recent research involving the Crick Institute that has claimed ‘breakthroughs’ in discoveries about the genome and cancer genetics are misleading and the genetic damage is caused by mutations secondary to a lifetimes’ exposure to thousands of synthetic chemicals that contaminate the blood and urine of nearly every person tested – a global mass poisoning.
Another study claims that thousands of chemicals have entered the food system, but their long-term, chronic effects have been woefully understudied and their health risks inadequately assessed. The human and environmental costs of pesticides in Argentina have been well documented and in India Punjab has become a ‘cancer capital’ due to pesticide contamination.>/p>
In the meantime, fraudulent science, regulatory delinquency and institutional corruption allows toxic food to enter the marketplace and the agrochemical industry to rake in massive profits.The falsified results by independent commercial laboratories have major implications for public and environmental health.
(report by Colin Todhunter)