How Monsanto’s Glyphosate is Generating Deadly Antibiotic Resistance
And it's happening in more ways than one
More and more individuals are becoming aware of Monsanto’s evils, especially concerning it’s best-selling herbicide Round Up and its carcinogenic ingredient glyphosate. But we’re just learning about the registration of said chemicals in the form of GM crops as antibiotics. And we’re just learning how these chemicals are fueling the ever-expanding issue of antibiotic resistance.
Propaganda-spewing sites like GMO Answers try to tell us that the overuse of antibiotics in the only cause of super bugs, and that glyphosate has nothing to with this epic problem:
“The overuse of antibiotics in humans and the intensive use in hospital settings is a major problem, but use of antibiotics in agriculture can sometimes result in the selection of antibiotic-resistant organisms, and these organisms may then cause problems in the form of resistant human infections.
This matters only if a chemical (or a close relative with cross-resistance) is use in both clinical medicine and agriculture. Because glyphosate is not used in clinical medicine (and has no relatives used in medicine, either), the use of glyphosate in agriculture has nothing to do with resistance to antibiotics used in human medicine.”
Before I debunk this ridiculous statement, let’s start with the fact that more than 80 percent of the animals raised as livestock (that is, for food, be it milk, eggs, or meat) are subject to antibiotics, along with GMO soy and corn. Corporate industrial farming has definitely contributed to the super bug phenomenon, but it wasn’t without help from the biotech industry.
Researchers from New Zealand and Mexico have discovered that glyphosate (aka Monsanto’s Roundup), dicamba, and 2,4-D all play a key role in antibiotic resistance.
The paper published in American Society for Microbiology explains that:
“Increasingly common chemicals used in agriculture, domestic gardens, and public places can induce a multiple-antibiotic resistance phenotype in potential pathogens. The effect occurs upon simultaneous exposure to antibiotics and is faster than the lethal effect of antibiotics. The magnitude of the induced response may undermine antibiotic therapy and substantially increase the probability of spontaneous mutation to higher levels of resistance.
The combination of high use of both herbicides and antibiotics in proximity to farm animals and important insects, such as honeybees, might also compromise their therapeutic effects and drive greater use of antibiotics. To address the crisis of antibiotic resistance requires broadening our view of environmental contributors to the evolution of resistance.”
To whit, all three of Monsanto’s trademarked chemicals were tested on E. coli (which causes more bacterial infections than almost any other type), and Salmonella bacteria with one of five commonly prescribed antibiotics: Ciprofloxacin, chloramphenicol, ampicillin, kanamicin, and tetracycline.
Even very low levels of herbicides induced antibiotic resistance with these bacteria – and before the antibiotics even had enough time to kill the bacteria off.
In a few cases when two of the herbicides were combined, they made the bacteria more susceptible to the antibiotic, and sometimes there was no impact. But overwhelmingly, the study shows that Monsanto’s chemicals caused antibiotic resistance.
While the traces of these chemicals found in food were not enough to trigger antibiotic resistance, you have to understand that it starts on the farm, and ends up in your stomach.
According to the authors of the study:
“The effects found are relevant wherever people or animals are exposed to herbicides at the range of concentrations achieved where they are applied.
This may include, for example, farm animals and pollinators in rural areas and potentially children and pets in urban areas. The effects were detectable only at herbicide concentrations that were above currently allowed residue levels on food.”
The idea that we are supposed to believe that the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Round Up, which is patented as an antibiotic that completely alters gut flora, has no impact is laughable.
The next question you have to ask yourself is how this connects to the medical system, even though sites like GMO Answers will say there is no correlation.
I suggest the promotion of vaccines as an answer to superbugs is directly related.
I’ll leave it to you to connect the dots.
 | Christina Sarich is a humanitarian and freelance writer helping you to Wake up Your Sleepy Little Head, and See the Big Picture. Her blog is Yoga for the New World. Her latest book is Pharma Sutra: Healing the Body And Mind Through the Art of Yoga. |
Glyphosate inhibits bacteria growth and health by interrupting the shikimic acid pathway in most microbes, and it is a known fact that primary pathogenic bacteria like Pseudomonas are 50 to 100 times more resistant to glyphosate than many of the beneficial bacteria. This alone is a problem. The amounts that we see in food, around 1 mg / kg, is very likely having a cumulative effect over time on our gut bacteria. That is 1000 micrograms per kilogram of foods like soybeans, maize, and even wheat as many wheat crops are sprayed before planting or near the end as a pre-harvest application. So we are getting chronic exposure to this chemical which most likely changes the population balance of our gut microbiome.
Once again, well put, Sage thinker.
More lies by the biotech industry. Thought roundup was suppose to be safe enough to drink like water. Well I have yet to hear of water induced antibiotic resistance, which obviously would be an enormously ridiculous statement. But the biotech firms may try it as they do the things they do. Wonder when they are gonna get the FDA and USDA and other crony A’s they have in their pockets and committees and boards not to release anything in the form of what is even sprayed on food, what comprises our food, how our food is grown, stored, distributed, etc. and OH DEAR LORD the travesty that those bad ‘have a right to know’ GMO’ers want a transparent honest labeling. Oh the travesty, honest dealing with consumers. Oh my goodness, all hell will break loose if people will be informed what they consume and what their food comprises of, growing of the food, what is in and on the food, handling and storing the food, HONEST TRANSPARENT LABELING of the food. Oh the travesty!!!
IT WOULD BE MASS HYSTERIA with cats and dogs living together,Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes…it would be a disaster of biblical proportions.
Sorry I was having a flashback from Ghostbusters. But that movie has more believability than the biotech firms cronyism we currently are spoonfed.
Keep crying Mikey it isn’t going to do any good especially with people like you spreading lies hurting your cause. Keep up the good work.
Mr Monsanto Roberts, your master is doomed. The market is only beginning to respond. Your biotechs will fail as the organic movement will only become more popular. So why again does your masters tell you to tell us imbeciles on these kinds of websites that it isnt our right to know what is in our foods? What again were you claiming in other posts? So what are is your master hiding in its food that it wont honestly and transparently label the product it provides? The more your masters fight this, the faster the organic folks will break your masters as the market will decide and put your company out of business. It is a matter of time, Mr. Monsanto Roberts. This is only the beginning. OK now cue you Mr. Monsanto Roberts for the pathetic reply that your employer will stop paying you for soon because your replies are just bad. I keep waiting for your replacement with your same screen name to be better. Man you got them buffalo’d Mr. Monsanto Roberts.
Your side is losing mainly because you can’t engage in simple debate. Anyone that doesn’t agree with you must work for Monsanto. You must really be scared of them to think that billions of people all work for one company. What a sad life you lead, you have my pity.
I tried engaging in simple debate with you on such a simple debate as honestly and transparently labeling our food. You labeled me a ‘jerk’ (see it really is easy to label – you honestly believe I am a jerk and you labeled me as such. IT IS EASY TO LABEL so still wondering why your master is fighting it with so much vigor), you employed pathetic tactics, you call others names, you dont stick to facts, you dont give any credit to anyone here on this website, and claim I dont work which I do work (I at least claim you work for Monsanto), and many other things. And it would be silly to think that anyone who doesnt agree with me to think they work for monsanto. Why would you make such a silly remark? For example if I engage in a religious argument, I dont claim this or that faith is employed by monsanto. I would never think billions of people work for monsanto. That level of labor would cut way too deep into their profits. I mean they cant even honestly label their products to keep deceit in their profit margin. Save your Pity for yourself Mr. Monsanto Roberts. You will need all you can get once they deliver your pink slip for these nonsensical posts.
I’ve been talking with the GMO crowd, as well, and they are an odd bunch. As you said, they mostly do not hold real dialogue, but rather engage in bullying tactics to try to force their point. Perhaps this is because the science is unclear on the safety of many pesticides, especially the ones that accompany GM crops. Glyphosate, in particular, has an effect on the very same bacteria that are in our gut microbiome, and yet Monsanto wants us to believe that Roundup has no effect on human beings. Well,. if the gut microbiome is part of the human being, and last i checked, it is, then it is very likely that glyphosate has an effect on human beings. The science actually has not been done on this, apparently. There are research studies on related topics, like effects on dairy cows and their gut microbiome, and on the microbiome in plants, and yet i have found no study that looks at the effect of glyphosate on the mammalian gut microbiome.
Monsanto may have reincorporated, or shapeshifted, but they are still spiritually the same corporation that held back important information about PCBs in the 1960s and 1970s, to the detriment of many people in Anniston, Alabama, as well as the Hudson and Housatonic rivers near the place of my birth. I grew up rafting on the Housatonic and seeing signs to not eat the fish, as they had been poisoned. When i grew up and read the news story about PCBs which made it clear that Monsanto knew very well that the chemicals of their product “AroClor” for transformers was very dangerous, and they said nothing. They sold the product to make money. PCBs were in Snow Creek near the Monsanto factory, and a fish placed in the creek would die in 20 seconds and its skin would fall off within minutes. Snow Creek fed into other streams and into the river. They sold the product to General Electric, who disposed of some of it in dirt and put that dirt into the Housatonic and Hudson rivers. Those rivers are polluted now, and will be for a long time.
Well put, Sage thinker