Update On Importation Of Glyphosate Products
The Ministry of Health Seniors and Environment said they will “permit the importation of Ready To Use glyphosate products” and the “ban on concentrated forms of glyphosate will continue.”
A Ministry spokesperson said, “At the request of the International Agency for Research on Cancer [IARC], the specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization [WHO], a group of experts from around the world spent a year examining the data from peer-reviewed studies on Glyphosate, the active ingredient in the popular herbicide Roundup. In March 2015, the experts concluded that glyphosate is ‘probably carcinogenic to humans’.
“In an abundance of caution the Ministry of Health, Seniors and Environment placed a temporary six month ban on the importation of glyphosate formulations pending a local review of all pertinent information.
“To illustrate the complexity of this issue, a subsequent study conducted by the European Food Safety Authority [EFSA] in November 2015, reported that ‘glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans’ and proposed a new safety measure that will tighten the control of glyphosate residues in food.
“The Ministry is committed to ensuring the health of Bermudians and our visitors, and as such work continues on the development of a study to better understand the level of risk to the public from various potential exposure pathways.
“The study will determine the concentrations of glyphosate, its degradation products and associated surfactants used in the herbicides Rodeo® and Roundup®, in a range of samples including groundwater, air and food samples. These concentrations will then be compared to recognized international standards to determine whether there is any risk to the people in Bermuda or ecotoxicity to the environment.
“The Department of Environmental Protection has been working to source analytical laboratories overseas that can conduct the analyses to appropriate detection limits [i.e. 0.01 μg/l in water, 160μg/100 l in air, 0.01 mg/kg in foods].
“It has taken the Department considerable effort to date to identify analytical laboratories that can determine all analytes [glyphosate, derivatives and surfactants] at the required detection limits in all the matrices listed above. It is estimated that the sampling will start in April 2016 and will be completed by July 2016.
“Further, the Department has been working to identify effective and environmentally sensitive alternatives to Roundup. Trials will be undertaken in the coming months on alternative products to test for effectiveness.
“Once the study has been completed the Ministry will review the findings with the relevant Government bodies. This information, in conjunction with the above mentioned studies and a review of the stakeholder concerns will be used to determine the Government’s position on the future of glyphosate in Bermuda.
“Considering there is still a pressing need for the effective control weeds and Roundup products are an industry standard, in the interim the Ministry of Health Seniors and Environment will permit the importation of Ready To Use glyphosate products, until the such time as the final recommendation can be made. The ban on concentrated forms of glyphosate will continue.
“Ministry technical officers will be giving an update on the work and will be available for questions at a lunchtime meeting Friday, February 5 at 12.30 p.m. at the Bermuda Aquarium Museum and Zoo.”
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Category: All, Environment, News
Just ban it straight out, this is a joke, people made a run on stores and bought up all this garbage which were allowed to remain on shelves, we are poisoning our aquifer and cancer is only one concern. Use a machete and a hoe.
I agree ban these defoliants out right.
Look what was found out when these defoliants were used extensively during the Vietnam war by the Americans to kill off the jungle to reveal enemy positions.Generations of cancers and deformities in people and creatures.
In addition these poisons are being washed into our oceans with the rain run off, contaminating sea life and the food chain.
Agreed! Should be banned outright.
While the jury is out deliberating and debating JUST HOW toxic glyphosate may be to people… our island meanwhile continues to be drenched and bathed in this stuff. Logic and health concern for people aside, there is the more tangible issue of toxicity to our ecosystem.
Consider our crab population. More specifically, the decimation of our crab population over the past few decades. While we are led to believe the introduction of the predator heron is single-handedly responsible for wiping out our crabs, consider also the amount of RoundUp W&E have been spraying on our roadsides for decades.
In 2014 a group of scientists studied the effects of RoundUp on a species of crab that similarly lives in brackish-water habitat to ours — the findings proved the effect of population damage due to significant reduction in viability and survival of egg larvae hatchings: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24831879
If I’m not mistaken, RoundUp is still inexcusably permissible under the current limbo legislation, because it is not a concentrated form of glyphosate.(!!!) What are the chances W&E are using less of it nowadays when it’s still PERFECTLY LEGAL to do so??
so why are other carcinogenic hazards banned?
“Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them” – Laurence J. Peter, Canadian Writer.
This saying is very applicable to this issue of chemical formulations. Let’s keep this issue in our sights. There really can be no doubt that chemicals are harmful and so this is of critical importance to us individually and collectively.
Just tax it like cigarettes – they are a carcinogenic too…
TOTALLY outrageous that the Bermuda Government would allow this product to be used in ANY FORM in Bermuda.
BERMUDA is on the banned list:
http://www.sott.net/article/297251-Down-with-Monsanto-Increasing-number-of-countries-banning-cancer-causing-glyphosate-and-GMO-s
“Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them” – Laurence J. Peter, Canadian Writer.
This saying is very applicable to this issue of chemical formulations. Let’s keep this issue in our sights. There really can be no doubt that chemicals are harmful and so this is of critical importance to us individually and collectively.
You have got to be an idiot if you are spraying this toxic sludge.
I don’t believe that Monsanto is one of the most evil companies on the planet for nothing. Even if it doesn’t do immediate danger – ANY MONSANTO products should be banned from Bermuda like they are elsewhere in the world….come on BERMUDA!
Have a read here….
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/06/09/monsanto-roundup-herbicide.aspx
Now bann GMOs!!
Probably carcinogenic to humans ?
senior research scientist from MIT has warned that of all children, a disquieting 50% will be autistic by 2025. What’s the culprit? Monsanto’s best selling Round-Up containing glyphosate is top on the list.
The overuse of glyphosate in our food supply is causing diseases like Alzheimer’s, autism, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and nutrition al deficiencies, among others. Stephanie Seneff, PhD, a research biologist who has published over 170 scholarly peer-reviewed articles, and has studied these diseases for more than three decades, points to GMOs as a major contributor to neurological diseases in children.
Currently, one in every 68 children in the US is born with autism. It is currently the fastest growing developmental disability, with rates having increased by almost 120% since the year 2000. In ten years, the cost of treating those affected by autism will cost us $400 billion annually, in addition to the untold emotional costs which families pay daily to live with and support a child with autism.
Dr. Seneff noted that the symptoms of glyphosate toxicity closely resemble those of autism. She also presented data at the conference which shows an oddly consistent correlation between the use of Roundup on crops (and the creation of Roundup-ready GMO crop seeds) with rising rates of autism.
The correlation between the two include biomarkers such as zinc and iron deficiency, low serum sulfate, seizures, and mitochondrial disorders.
GMO-glyphosate-autism. #wakeupworld
Absolutely NOT!
Maintain the Ban on ALL forms of glyphosphate fertilizers. Way to sneak in a terrible idea in silence!