'The Doctors' pits Monsanto shill against food safety activist Jeffrey Smith to debate glyphosate risk
by Jonathan Benson, staff writer
(NaturalNews) The CBS daytime television series The Doctors recently devoted a segment to the groundbreaking International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) report pegging Monsanto's Roundup (glyphosate) herbicide as a probable human carcinogen. Featured on the show was Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT) founder Jeffrey Smith who, without skipping a beat, put a Monsanto "scientist" called on the show to defend the crop chemical in her rightful place.
Donna Farmer, a toxicologist with Monsanto's Product Safety Center, told viewers that the IARC report is basically bunk, in her supposedly "unbiased" opinion. Playing the "I'm a mother" card to persuade viewers that glyphosate is perfectly safe, Farmer suggested that the IARC report represents a major deviation from what scientists and regulatory agencies around the world have previously confirmed about glyphosate: That it doesn't pose a cancer risk to humans.
It might help to know that Farmer has also been working as a "scientist" at Monsanto for some 20 years, her primary task, as she admitted on the show, being to actively study glyphosate to establish its "safety." So of course she's head over heels in love with glyphosate and willing to shamelessly endorse it on national television without question -- her job is on the line, after all!
In response to Farmer's Monsanto-approved speech defending glyphosate, IRT's Smith offered his own insights into glyphosate, reiterating actual science rather than industry talking points. He explained how Monsanto has been convicted in two separate countries for lying about glyphosate's safety, as well as conducting "tobacco science," a.k.a. junk science, specifically designed to make glyphosate appear safe when it's actually not.
"Glyphosate was originally created to clean industrial boilers and pipes because it grabbed metals and minerals and pulled them out," stated Smith about the nature of glyphosate and how it came to be an agricultural herbicide. "When it was spilled on the ground and they showed that it killed plants, Monsanto came along and patented it as an herbicide."
Commercial crops are doused in glyphosate, and the effect on humans is devastating
Today, glyphosate is indiscriminately sprayed on upwards of 90% of commercial crops in the U.S., poisoning groundwater, rivers, lakes and air. A government study published in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry back in 2014, in fact, found that 75% of the air and rain in many areas of the country are now contaminated with glyphosate.
And despite what Monsanto continually claims about glyphosate biodegrading in soil, the science clearly suggests otherwise. The chemical has been shown to persist throughout the environment and food supply, accumulating in people's bodies and causing immeasurable damage to the neurological system, the gut and human DNA.
"It was released this week that the levels of Roundup that are considered safe in drinking water cause endocrine disruption in human cells, as well as toxicity," added Smith. "Also this week, another published study showed that [glyphosate] can invoke antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria. It also blocks the ability of gut bacteria to produce aromatic amino acids, and as you know, that can produce serotonin and melatonin and dopamine."
"It could also block production of what's called CYP enzymes, and they're used in the liver to detox. So if they're not functioning correctly, all of the other toxins in the environment can be more dangerous."
The full 10-minute segment from The Doctors containing Smith's statements is available here:
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