Bio Hazard Coloring Page

Before I get to the study that set off a 4 alarm fire in my mind, I'm going to present some background and or refresher information. I will try to keep it brief.

In the US, we and the environment we live in are primarily "protected" by two agencies, the EPA and the FDA. Sadly, neither does much of its own testing, but relies instead upon tests performed by those producing the chemicals and/or drugs and/or foods or food additives in question. Should there be sufficiently significant and large, sufficiently adverse findings sufficiently often, then the agencies may or may nt take some action depending upon unknown and undisclosed factors.

Such testing regimes as exist are primarily concerned with new products and such, so that there is a vast catalogue of untested chemicals from before such testing regimes came into being. In addition to that backlog, almost all testing is done on each chemical in isolation, such that the effects, if any, of chemicals in combination is still unknown unless discovered by accident.

Our lives are positively saturated with chemicals as are our persons, which makes a bit of sense since we consist of chemicals. However, the number and volume of artificially invented and created ones swamps the number and volume of those naturally occurring in the natural environment. In agriculture alone pesticides and chemical fertilizers aredeeply ingrained in our farming system. The seeds farmers buy often come pre-treated with chemicals -- and sometimes, farmers don't even know it and more often do not have any idea what they are. According to some studies, more than half of farmers surveyed didn't know that the seeds they were using had been pre-treated with pesticides or didn't know what kinds of chemicals were on them. Then there is all of the stuff sprayed on after planting plus the stuff already in the water and soil and all of the stuff that drifts after being applied elsewhere. Worse yet, if they did, they wouldn't. What? That's right. That's where the fun begins.

Our agencies, and at least some of those abroad are primarily concerned with a product's active ingredients. Some few just list everything run-on fashion on the label. others list active ingredients separate from inactive or inert ingredients. and still others list active ingredients and then say something like "inert ingredients 32%" or somesuch. What if that was all bullshit? There is actually at least one App for Android devices, CodeCheck: Food & Cosmetic Product Scanner that works to close that gap a bit by disclosing some of the inert ingredients or problem ingredients. Why might there be a market for such a thing? Maybe some folks are on to something.

Today's brain boggler: is a report located here:

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/yesmaam/pages/680/attachments/orig...

Title block is

Toxicity of formulants and heavy metals in glyphosate-based herbicides and other pesticides

N. Defarge (a) , J. Spiroux de Vendômois (b) , G.E. Séralini (a),?

(a) University of Caen Normandy, Department of Biology and Network on Risks, Quality and Sustainable Environment MRSH, Esplanade de la Paix, 14032 Caen Cedex, France

(b) CRIIGEN, 81 Rue Monceau, 75008 Paris, France

Further info is: Toxicology Reports 5 (2018) 156–163, a link to https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221475001730149X?via%...

That link enables you to get to this:

Elsevier has partnered with Copyright Clearance Center's RightsLink service to offer a variety of options for reusing this content.

Note: This article is available under the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND license and permits non-commercial use of the work as published, without adaptation or alteration provided the work is fully attributed.

So, it is ok to download and to republish, but seemingly not to abstract. The gist of it is scary in its implications for many things, for an industry wide problem of unknown but potentially huge magnitude. The specific case deals with Glyphosate, abbreviated G, and might go far to explain some of the disparate conclusions drawn from such testing. The scary thing is that it might generalize to not only boatloads of herbicides (and pesticides), but to cosmetics and many other things. You see, in their tests, they found glyphosate to be relatively non-toxic in and of itself. Yep. The "inert ingredients" or formulants with which it is mixed in numerous commercial herbicidal products, however are not remotely non-toxic in the admixtures used in those products. In essence, take the Glyphosate out of product x and product x is still toxic, it is the formulants that do the dirty work, not the G.

So, an example product report, all elements at recommended agricultural application concentrations would table out something like the following:

Go read the report. You needn't dwell on the data tables and breakdowns, just the overall methodology and overall results. It is not good news.

So just how widely used in other products are those formulants? Just how much toxicity lies hidden in the mountains of "trade secret" formulations and inert or inactive ingredients? Just how big of a problem is this with pesticide residues on or in food, and with inactive ingredients, singly or in combination in drugs, cosmetics, foods, and food supplements? Hmmmm.

be well and have a good one

Title Image is Bio Hazard Coloring Book

It's an open thread, so have at it. The floor is yours
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