Gluten Intolerance, Wheat Allergies, and Celiac Disease – It’s More Complicated Than You Think

Is “gluten free” a fad? No, it’s going to be a thing for as long as we are producing wheat and bread the way we’re doing it. A lot has changed in the bread industry – it’s not just one thing.

People often comment about how bread didn’t cause problems with our health before GMOs and Roundup were prevalent in our food supply. Our farming practices have changed, and fairly recently, wheat has started being sprayed with Roundup. The newest speculation is that wheat is not the problem – that the problem is glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. People also often suspect that wheat has been genetically modified. And, of course, there are those who believe the whole gluten-elimination thing is ridiculous and that most people are jumping on the gluten-free bandwagon because it’s trendy.

Related: How to Eliminate IBS, IBD, Leaky Gut

In my experience, if one suffers from a chronic illness of any kind, they must remove gluten from their diet in order to get well. I have yet to see an exception. So what’s the problem? Is it the glyphosate or the wheat or something else? The truth is it’s not just one thing. Everyone would already know this if most humans weren’t so bad at thinking in terms of systems. We tend to think linearly and look for singular cause and effects, but rarely if ever are complex problems solved by such simplistic thinking. There are multiple reasons one gets sick, with a cold or a chronic disease, just like there are multiple reasons why our planet’s ecosystem is changing. This is why you can’t blame the rise of autism on just glyphosate, or GMOs, or increased vaccinations, or diminishing food quality, or environmental degradation – they all correlate, it’s all of the above.

Related: Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections

There is a very complex system that is causing the decline of American health, and it’s not just the bread. And yes, our health is in decline. If you doubt that…here, google it and take your pick. Our lifespan is actually decreasing.

What’s the difference between Gluten Intolerance, Wheat Allergies, and Celiac Disease

Conventional medicine states that celiac disease and non-celiac gluten sensitivity have a lot of symptoms in common but identifies a key difference. Non-celiac gluten sensitivity is not a genetic disease and does not cause an autoimmune reaction, and celiac disease is a genetic autoimmune disease. A wheat allergy is an allergic reaction to any of the hundreds of proteins in wheat. Gluten intolerance used to be a catch-all phrase for any problem with eating gluten, but now it’s being relegated to mean Non-celiac gluten sensitivity.

Non-celiac Gluten Sensitivity

Non-celiac gluten sensitivity is believed to be the most prevalent of the gluten-related disorders, but it’s not as well defined as the other two. It’s not an autoimmune reaction nor is it an allergic reaction. There are no tests or biomarkers to identify this disorder. Other components of gluten-grains may be causing symptoms. In order for non-celiac gluten sensitivity to be diagnosed, a doctor will rule out celiac disease and wheat allergies or other possible causes of the symptoms first.

Common Symptoms for Non-celiac Gluten Sensitivity

  • Fatigue
  • Mental fatigue, aka “brain fog”
  • Headaches
  • Migraines
  • Bone or joint pain
  • Gastrointestinal distress
    • Gas
    • Bloating
    • Cramping
    • Indigestion
    • Abdominal pain
    • Diarrhea
    • Constipation

It’s said that individuals with gluten sensitivity do not experience damage to the small intestine or develop tissue transglutaminase antibodies like they do with celiac disease. Non-celiac gluten sensitivity has been linked to a variety of health problems including, diabetes, allergies, autism spectrum disorders, and much more.

Related: How to Avoid GMOs in 2018 – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering

Gastroenterologists looking for celiac disease typically test for a few specific antibodies, and if found, they do an intestinal biopsy to determine if tissue damage is present. Chris Kresser addresses the issue with this kind of testing in 3 Reasons Gluten Intolerance May Be More Serious Than Celiac Disease, which I highly recommend reading. He states:

According to some estimates, for every diagnosed case of celiac disease (CD), there are 6.4 undiagnosed cases that remain undiagnosed—the majority of which are atypical or “silent” forms with no damage to the gut. (1) This silent form of CD is far from harmless; it is associated with a nearly fourfold increase in the risk of death. (2)

I believe that patients with NCGS are even more likely than patients with CD to go undiagnosed. Most gastroenterologists today know how to screen for celiac disease. They will typically test for antibodies to antibodies to alpha gliadin, transglutaminase-2, deamidated gliadin, and endomysium, and if positive do a biopsy to determine if tissue damage is present.

However, we now know that people can (and do) react to several other components of wheat above and beyond alpha gliadin, the component that is implicated in CD. These include other epitopes of gliadin (beta, gamma, omega), glutenin, wheat germ agglutinin (WGA), gluteomorphin, and deamidated gliadin. What’s more, people can react to other types of tissue transglutaminase, including type 3—primarily found in the skin—and type 6—primarily found in the brain. (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

Celiac Disease

Celiac disease is considered a genetic, autoimmune disorder. Ninety-eight percent of people with celiac disease carry one or both of two very specific genes, HLA DQ2 and DQ8. On the other hand, so does up to 25-30% of the general population. Carrying one or both of these genes does not mean you have celiac disease nor does it mean you will develop it. Doctors often use gene testing to rule out celiac disease, but there are some cases where people who do not have either of the genes still tested out to have celiac disease.

Though celiac disease is said to be genetic, genes cause predispositions and our diet and environment adjust our genes. Environment can alter gene activity without changing the DNA sequence. This is called gene expression. I also believe that the environment and diet can actually alter the DNA sequence, but from what I’m seeing, current science doesn’t agree with me on this. Regardless, how your genes affect you is altered by our diet and our environment, and those traits can be passed down to our offspring as well. In other words, a predisposition to celiac disease may be hereditary, but whether or not we have celiac disease could depend on our genetic health, which depends on our overall health, which depends on our lifestyle. And this can all be traced to gut health – you cannot have a healthy gut without a healthy lifestyle, and our gut health is something most of us have complete control over.

Related: Gluten, Candida, Leaky Gut Syndrome, and Autoimmune Diseases

Common Symptoms of Celiac Disease

  • Fatigue
  • Mental fatigue, aka “brain fog”
  • Headaches
  • Migraines
  • Bone or joint pain
  • Gastrointestinal distress
    • Gas
    • Bloating
    • Cramping
    • Indigestion
    • Abdominal pain
    • Diarrhea
    • Constipation
  • Arthritis
  • Dermatitis
  • Eczema
  • Osteoporosis
  • Liver disorders
  • Depression or anxiety
  • Peripheral neuropathy
  • Seizures
  • Migraines
  • Irregular menstruation
  • Miscarriages
  • Canker sores

Doctors believe that in order to develop the disease, a person needs to have the genetic predisposition while they are consuming gluten and to subsequently have the disease activated. Activation triggers are said to potentially be stress, trauma, and viral infections. I contend that vaccines and antibiotics are the two most common triggers for the disease. Damaging the gut is what leads to problems with wheat, but we’ll get more into that below.

Wheat Allergies

Celiac disease and non-celiac gluten sensitivity have many symptoms in common, but wheat allergies are often much more distinctive. Symptoms include itching, hives, or anaphylaxis which is a life-threatening reaction. A wheat allergy is an immune reaction to any of the hundreds of proteins in wheat. It is possible for a person to be allergic to wheat and to have non-celiac gluten sensitivity or celiac disease at the same time.

What About Roundup?

Monsanto introduced glyphosate under the trade name Roundup in 1974 shortly after DDT was banned. It wasn’t used very much until the late 1990s when Monsanto genetically engineered seeds to withstand high doses of Roundup, and the product took off. Eager to sell more of its flagship herbicide, Monsanto has encouraged farmers to use their glyphosate as a desiccant. Wheat can be harvested quicker and easier if you dry it all out ahead of time with Roundup. It’s also used in this way on wheat, barley, oats, canola, flax, peas, lentils, soybeans, dry beans, and sugar cane.

Studies have concluded that chronically ill people have higher levels of glyphosate in their bodies. Glyphosate has been attributed to an increased prevalence of most of our common chronic conditions including, but not limited to ADHD, Alzheimer’s, birth defects, autism, cancer, kidney disorder, irritable bowel syndrome, Parkinson’s disease, depression, diabetes, heart disease, thyroid disorders, liver disorders, multiple sclerosis, reproductive issues, adrenal failure, obesity, asthma, and of course, celiac disease.

It’s not hard to understand why. Glyphosate is poison and so are the other ingredients in Roundup. People have to wear protective gear to apply the product. It is designed to kill. It kills plants by preventing them from making certain proteins. Just imagine what that does to one’s gut ecology.

How Wheat Has Changed

The wheat we have now is very different from what our ancestors consumed. Modern dwarf wheat is hybridized. That isn’t a GMO, but the genes of our wheat plant have certainly been modified to grow faster, and to be more resilient. We used to eat wheat called einkorn, which was actually one of the very first grains we humans cultivated more than 10,000 years ago. When you read in the Bible about how we should eat bread, this is the wheat it refers to.

There is a lot more gluten in modern wheat than there is in einkorn, and the gluten that einkorn wheat does contain is different. Einkorn also has 15 percent less starch and 30 percent more protein. Modern wheat has a lower nutrient content and a different protein structure. In fact, many with celiac and gluten intolerance report being able to eat einkorn without issue.

Also, that blood sugar spike experienced after eating bread does not happen with einkorn.

So I conducted a simple experiment on myself. On an empty stomach, I ate 4 oz of einkorn bread. On another occasion I ate 4 oz of bread that dietitian, Margaret Pfeiffer, made with whole wheat flour bought at the grocery store. Both flours were finely ground and nothing was added beyond water, yeast, olive oil, and a touch of salt.” – Einkorn and blood sugar

“Ancient wheat diets caused a downregulation of key regulatory genes involved in glucose and fat metabolism, equivalent to a prevention or delay of diabetes development. Spelt and rye induced a low acute glycemic response compared to wheat.” – NCBI

How Bread Making Has Changed

Most commercial bread contains bromides, added starches, refined sugars, added gluten (vital wheat gluten), preservatives, artificial flavorings, leveling agents, and stabilizers. Potassium bromate is an additive used in commercial bread and baked goods that make the products lighter and fluffier. Bromines are part of the halide family, a group of elements that includes fluorine, chlorine, and iodine, which are all endocrine disruptors that cause digestive issues and a host of other health problems.

Related: Sugar Leads to Depression – World’s First Trial Proves Gut and Brain are Linked (Protocol Included)

Baking Soda, baking powder, and cream of tartar are often used in place of yeast or in addition to rapid rise yeast to make the bread rise quickly and more uniformly. Modern bread rises for a couple of hours or less, whereas homemade bread traditionally takes at least 12 hours to rise. I got curious about the difference between baking soda and baking powder, and I thought you might be as well, hence the video below.

Traditional bread recipes typically utilized a few common ingredients including flour, yeast, salt, water, a sweetener, and some spices or herbs.

Related: Holistic Guide to Healing the Endocrine System and Balancing Our Hormones

Refined flours started to be widely used around 1880 which caused worldwide epidemics of pellagra and beriberi. Refining the flours removes bran and germ which increases shelf life. It also removed the B vitamins. Previous iterations of bread did use bolted or sifted flour which did refine the wheat somewhat, but it didn’t remove all of the bran, germ, and endosperm, and that flour was never bleached.

Bread with Whole Grains that are gently stone ground just before mixing the dough and then allowed to ferment slowly and naturally, in other words — authentic sourdough. That’s how the Egyptians made it 6,000 years ago.”

Bread was fundamentally redesigned. Refined flours, large quantities of commercial yeast, and a combination of additives and intense energy created the modern industrial bread. Fast mixing, fast rise, fast baking. Industrial bread is made far too fast.” –  Mario Repetto

How Our Gut Biology Has Changed

We keep eating more and more sugar. In the early 1700s, the average sugar consumption was about 4 pounds a year. By 1800 we were at 18 pounds a year. By 1900 we were up to 60 pounds of sugar a year. Today the average American consumes between 130 and 150 pounds of sugar every year.

Sugar feeds pathogens. Our healthiest gut bacteria like the healthiest foods: vegetables and herbs. Nature wouldn’t work any other way; how could it? You’re probably thinking, “What about fruit?” We don’t eat the fruit we used to eat. Like wheat, our fruit has been radically altered through hybridization. But that’s another article (I’m working on it). For now, just Google “wild banana” or “what watermelon used to look like“.

We get way more sugar than our ancestors got even if we cut out refined foods. This causes an abundance of Candida. I believe Candida is prevalent in every single person with chronic illness. Everyone has yeast but when yeast is left unchecked they turn into pathogenic fungi. Tests for Candida aren’t accurate. Candida, when in it’s in the virulent fungal form, will make the gut more permeable. When this happens food proteins are absorbed into the body before they are digested. This causes allergies. This is one of the main causes of allergies, but there are others at play as well. In my experience, every single person who has cut refined sugar out of their lives and decreased their body’s Candida was able to rid themselves of seasonal, environmental, and food allergies. Every single time!

In addition to that, a study published in The Lancet showed that the candida protein HWP-1 is similar in structure to gluten.

A candida infection in the gut can cause an immune system reaction to HWP-1, which then stimulates an allergic reaction to the gluten in wheat and other grains and may trigger celiac disease in genetically susceptible people.” – Leyla Muedin, RD

Wheat proteins can also cause an immune response against the thyroid.

An obvious explanation is that the initial attack on the thyroid by anti-tTG autoantibodies of celiac leads to thyroid inflammation and presentation of TPO, with a second round of autoantibodies produced to TPO resulting in Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.” – Dr. Art Ayers

Celiac disease and hypothyroidism beget more chronic autoimmune issues. Allergies lead to autoimmune disease. Allergies lead to chronic health issues. Medical science has established this. Medical science is just starting to understand the fact that a permeable gut causes allergies. Science also has established that an abundance of Candida causes a permeable gut. What they haven’t figured out yet is just how prevalent the permeable gut issue really is. But the bottom line is that our poor diet leads to allergies and almost all that commonly ails us.

Suggestions

If you have a healthy gut, make your own sourdough bread using heirloom wheat and the old-school practices. If you have any chronic illness, then you do not have a healthy gut. Here’s how you fix it. If you’re not well, wait until you get well before consuming any kind of bread. And don’t think of old-fashioned bread as healthy. Vegetables are healthy. Bread is at its best a neutral food with some health benefits and easy calories that can help sustain life like brown rice and millet. Vegetables and herbs heal the body.

Obviously, stay the heck away from poisons! Glyphosate is a cocktail of poisons. Science has firmly established this. And avoid GMOs as well. They weren’t designed with our health in mind, they were designed for profit, and in most cases, to sell more Roundup.

The hard truth is that letting companies cook your food for you leads to poor health. People often ask me, “If you can cure cancer why aren’t you rich?” If I could cure cancer and figure out how to do it while still eating refined, prepackaged, and processed foods that we humans have grown accustomed to, I would be rich. But people would rather die for convenience food than give it up. Obviously. We see this everywhere.

Being well long-term means preparing all your own food yourself the right way, or being rich and hiring someone else to do it. There is no shortcut. Certainly not with bread.

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New Study Shows RoundUp Is Not Safe At Any Level

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in RoundUp. It’s been deemed a “probable carcinogen” by the World Health Organization (WHO), but the EPA decided the product can be used on our food at “safe levels.” The EPA banned glyphosate 30 years ago but then reversed its decision based on studies conducted by the chemical industry. Scientists wanted to determine if these “safe” levels of glyphosate are, in fact, actually safe. The Global Glyphosate Study found that glyphosate poses health risks even at very low levels.

Conducted by Italy’s Ramazzini Institute in partnership with the University of Bologna, the Genoa Hospital San Martino, the Italian National Institue of Health, Mount Sinai in New York, and George Washington University, the study is scheduled for publication in the scientific journal Environmental Health.

Related: Monsanto’s Name To Be Retired – Bayer Aims To Erase Sordid History

The study shows that children are at significantly greater risk of damage by these pesticides, which are heavily sprayed at school playgrounds, public parks, people’s laws, and other places where children often play.

Researchers have concluded that the supposedly “safe” levels of glyphosate cause microbiome imbalances and damage DNA (genotoxicity). Every animal on the planet has a unique microbiome. A healthy and diverse microbiome is essential for good health. Damage to this ecosystem occurred very quickly with pesticide consumption.

Related: How to Avoid GMOs in 2018 – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering

Related: Sugar Leads to Depression – World’s First Trial Proves Gut and Brain are Linked (Protocol Included)

The Ramazzini Institute in Italy announced they’re launching a crowdfunding campaign for the first-ever comprehensive global study on glyphosate-based herbicides.

This is our chance to take scientific control away from the chemical industry – we can, at last, make a real difference – Please Donate to the Study Here.” – Sustainable Pulse

How prevalent is glyphosate in food? The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) tested 3188 foods and determine that glyphosate was found in nearly one-third of all foods tested. Some foods contain alarmingly high levels of the chemical.



EPA Relies on Industry Studies to Give Glyphosate New Green Light

Glyphosate is tthe most widely used pesticide in the world, and is the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup. On the 18th of December the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a controversial analysis that relies heavily on industry studies to conclude that glyphosate poses no real risks to humans. The EPA  ignored the agency’s own guidelines for assessing cancer risks. The report also contradicts the 2015 World Health Organization analysis showing glyphosate as a probable carcinogen.

Related: Glyphosate Drenched Crops

The only way the EPA could conclude that glyphosate poses no significant risks to human health was to analyze industry studies and ignore its own guidelines when estimating cancer risk. The EPA’s biased assessment falls short of the most basic standards of independent research and fails to give Americans an accurate picture of the risks posed by glyphosate use.” – Nathan Donley, senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity.

Related: Monsanto’s Glyphosate, Fatty Liver Disease Link Proven – Published, Peer-reviewed, Scrutinized Study

A federal advisory panel of independent scientists unanimously found earlier this year that in assessing glyphosate the pesticides office at the EPA failed to follow its own guidelines for determining whether a chemical can cause cancer. In the final draft released today, the EPA stated that the guidelines “… are intended as a guidance only …” and do not necessarily have to be followed.

Related: Dicamba – The Herbicide Monsanto is Promoting to Replace Roundup’s Glyphosate

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Dicamba – The Herbicide Monsanto is Promoting to Replace Roundup’s Glyphosate

Dicamba is the active ingredient, or is one of a few active ingredients, in herbicidal products the same way glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup. It’s been commonly used for over seventy years in professional landscaping as well as home gardening, and its recent popularity is on the rise thanks to the public gaining knowledge regarding the harmful effects of Monsanto’s Roundup. Monsanto has reintroduced Dicamba as the herbicide for the “next-generation.”

The product is causing damage when it drifts onto other fields, and many state agriculture authorities have either banned the substance or are considering such bans. Dicamba lawsuits from commercial farmers are becoming more frequent as well.

Recommended: White Pigment In Processed Food Worsens Inflammatory Bowel

What is Dicamba?

First developed in England during the Second World War, dicamba is a broad-spectrum herbicide found in several brands of commercial weed killer, including Ortho Weed B Gon, Ace Lawn Weed Killer and Roundup Max. Chemically, it’s part of a group known as the chlorophenoxy family. More specifically, it is an organochloride, a carbon-based compound, the molecules of which contain atoms of the element chlorine. It is derived from benzoic acid, a substance occurring naturally in several plant species and commonly used as a food preservative.” – Dicamba Drift Lawsuit Lawyer – Crop Damage Compensation

Recommended: Too Much Sugar Can Lead to a Higher Risk of Cancer – Study Confirms

For a toxin, Dicamba may be safer to humans than glyphosate. It seems we pass it through our urine, and studies indicate that residues do not bioaccumulate in biological systems. To say a product is “safer,” compared to glyphosate, certainly does not indicate that the product is safe, and no long term studies have been done on the health effects of Dicamba. It’s clearly not good for the environment, and it doesn’t belong in our food supply.

Almost exactly a year ago, on Oct. 27, 2016, farm worker Allan Curtis Jones allegedly shot and killed soybean farmer Mike Wallace on a county road in Arkansas. The sheriff later told reporters that the two men had been arguing. Their dispute, the sheriff said, apparently revolved around a phenomenon known in the region as ‘dicamba drift.’ – NBC News

Related: PCBs, Roundup, and Dicamba – Monsanto’s Current Problems

In the heartland states, NBC reports that farmers are pitted against each other. Farmers not using the product report the chemical has wafted onto their fields and damaged their crops which are not genetically modified to withstand Dicamba.

Jones has pleaded not guilty to a first-degree murder charge. He is slated to go to trial in December.

According to the state’s farm bureau website, Arkansas ranks third in domestic cotton production, accounting for approximately 7 percent of the national crop. The state comes in at 10 in soybean production, and about half of that is exported.

Must Read:
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PCBs, Roundup, and Dicamba – Monsanto’s Current Problems

They say bad news comes in threes, and biotech giant Monsanto can certainly attest to the truth of that statement right now. Their newest product line, XtendiMax (better known as dicamba), made it to market without proper volatility testing. This refers to the product’s tendency to vaporize and travel. Subsequently, dicamba is drifting, causing major damage to neighboring crops, and currently banned in one U.S. state. There have also been two separate instances of newly released documents confirming that Monsanto knew two of their products, PCBs (from 1935 and 1977) and glyphosate, are harmful and continued to defend and sell them in spite of that.

For years, Monsanto has presented unsafe products as safe with little to no repercussion. Yet it is still on track to further dominate the food supply due to the company’s merger with Bayer. So why are the agencies charged with regulating food and environmental safety ok with Monsanto’s market control in the face of their shady practices?

Recommended: Lyme Disease – Holistic Protocol to Completely Rebuild the Immune System

Past Indiscretions with PCBs

PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, were banned pretty much everywhere in 1979 after being linked to cancer and environmental degradation. PCBs began manufacture in 1935, and the first evidence of their toxicity appeared in 1937, after three workers who handled the chemicals died from acute liver damage. Serious health and environmental concerns continue to be reported to this day, even though the largest manufacturer of these, Monsanto, halted their production in 1977.

Monsanto is currently being sued by the state of Washington and eight cities for PCB contamination. Recently released documents have confirmed that Monsanto was aware of the effect of PCBs as early as 1969, eight years before they stopped selling them. A 1969 pollution abatement plan from the company acknowledged the product’s risks, stating “…“The evidence proving the persistence of these compounds and their universal presence in the environment is beyond questioning.” In another letter from a Monsanto manager in 1975, the company knew that “There is a potential real effect to humans – including death…”

In Monsanto’s own words, PCBs are dangerous in more ways than one. Yet they made money and Monsanto is first and foremost a business. But this wouldn’t be the only instance of company records showing corporate profits trump health, safety, and environmental concerns.

Related: Gluten, Candida, Leaky Gut Syndrome, and Autoimmune Diseases

Present Problems with Roundup

More court documents exposing Monsanto’s behind the scenes manipulations were released by attorneys pursuing claims against the company in regards to the link between Roundup and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Attorneys from the law firm Baum Hedlund Aristei Goldman released more than 700 pages of internal documents, detailing Monsanto’s behind the scenes activities. Numerous emails, texts, and other documents confirm that employees at Monsanto ghostwrote and manipulated scientific studies and expert panel discussions, failed to disclose conflicts of interest, discredited multiple negative glyphosate studies, and colluded with the Environmental Protection Agency. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) labeled glyphosate as probably carcinogenic to humans in 2015, but it’s clear from the recently released documents that Monsanto has known this since before 2008.

These documents also make Monsanto’s strategy for avoiding regulation clear: government collusion. Many of the documents released are communications with high ranking individuals at the Environmental Protection Agency, imploring them to delay scientific reviews of glyphosate multiple times. Monsanto’s has a clear modus operandi once they learn their products cause human harm – muddy the scientific waters, defend it furiously, and make as much money as possible. Their experience with PCBs was a learning experience. The lesson? Get the agencies regulating you to do the dirty work.

Related: Understanding and Detoxifying Genetically Modified Foods

Future Uncertainty with Dicamba

The Environmental Protection Agency approved Monsanto’s newest version of dicamba, XtendiMax, in November of 2016. Poised to replace glyphosate now that many weeds are developing resistance to that product, many farmers instead experienced serious crop loss after illegal versions of it used prior to that release drifted onto their fields from neighboring farms. With the product officially released, Monsanto is now facing a class actions lawsuits from farmers reporting severe losses for the second year in a row.

Testimony from researchers, regulators, and a company employee indicate that Monsanto used its influence to bring the product to market without all of the proper tests, including a proper volatility test. In fact, testing contracts for the product explicitly forbade it. Yet the EPA approved the product without it.

Arkansas was the only state to ask for additional testing. Monsanto denied that request. Arkansas has now banned dicamba, and other states are now assessing damage from the herbicide for the second year in a row. This damage occurs when dicamba drifted to other, non-modified crops, the exact scenario further testing could have predicted. A class action lawsuit is pending.

Is It Too Late?

Monsanto wields incredible influence with government agencies, scientists, and researchers. This allows the company to continually deny and create confusion around health and environmental damages that their products are actually causing. And it’s scary. What chance do we have when those charged with upholding regulations created to protect the public are on the Monsanto Christmas card list?

It took nearly a decade from when Monsanto privately acknowledged the damage PCBs were causing for regulatory agencies to do something about it. The new formulation of dicamba, XtendiMax, has been on the market for less than a year and has been banned in both Arkansas and Missouri. The times are changing.

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Roundup Resistance is a Growing Problem and Syngenta Offers a Problematic Solution

Tolerance to things is built up over time, although some tolerances develop more quickly than others. The development of Roundup resistance in weeds is a quick one, in large part due to the popularity and frequent usage of the chemical. From the release of Roundup in 1974, it took 15 years for the first documented case of Roundup-resistant weeds to appear. The response to that resistance didn’t actually address the problem. The introduction of genetically modified, Roundup resistant crops allowed farmers to increase the amount of the herbicide sprayed, therefore increasing the opportunities for naturally resistant weeds to thrive and pass on their wayward genes. The growth of Roundup-resistant weeds is upon us, and Big Agriculture needs an answer.

Paraquat – A Potential Answer

Paraquat is a controversial product. While one of the most popular herbicides in the world, it has been banned in the European Union due to its toxicity. Paraquat is so toxic to mammals that it’s often said, “just one sip will kill you.” It has been used to commit suicide in many third world countries due to its easy availability and low price. Despite the fact that it has been banned in the European Union, the herbicide is still manufactured there. The E.U. is not the only country that has reservations regarding paraquat, as China is also in the process of phasing out paraquat for agricultural use. Countries like the U.S. and Australia are still using the herbicide, as it’s a fast-acting product that kills a wide range of weeds.

The Herbicide Always Knocks Twice

If one is good, two must be better…or something like that. One of the suggested uses of paraquat is to use it as a clean up herbicide after glyphosate. This is known as the “double knock” system, and it’s commonly used in Australia. Many scientists and insiders have predicted that this system has the potential to double the amount of time before herbicide resistant weeds appear again. While this system might be ideal from the manufacturer’s standpoint (twice as many products bought), the health and environmental concerns are more worrying.

Everyone Agrees That Paraquat is Toxic

The E.P.A. has classified paraquat as category I, the highest level of toxicity. So we know it’s toxic. That itself is not up for debate. What is in debate is whether or not paraquat causes Parkinson’s. And by debate, that is to say Syngenta is not willing to publicly accept the role of paraquat in increasing the rates of Parkinson’s and the company has subsequently funded studies refuting that link.

But Seriously, Everyone Knows

Syngenta continues to defend paraquat in the face of 20 years of studies presenting increasing links between the herbicide and Parkinson’s. As the number of glyphosate-resistant weeds continues to increase, the agricultural market is looking for the next option in herbicides. With nature as it is, who knows how long before that herbicide will cease to work and the next chemical in line will step up?

One of the advantages of paraquat is the fact that it is partially inactivated once it hits the ground. But what about the part that isn’t? Imagine the rings of a mature oak tree. At what point will we be able to tell the age of our soil by the layers of herbicides and pesticides built up throughout?

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The FDA Announces They Will Now Test For Glyphosates

Glyphosate, the extra secret ingredient in the majority of our food supply, will now have a harder time going incognito. After the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a criticism of the FDA and the USDA’s current herbicide monitoring practices, the FDA, the highest food safety administration in the land, announced they have finally developed a “streamlined method” designed for testing foods like corn and soy for glyphosate, the active ingredient in the world’s most popular herbicide, Roundup.

Roundup use has been on the rise since its introduction in 1974, and the amount of glyphosate residue considered “safe” has ballooned by a factor of 17. The EPA allows fifty times more glyphosate to be sprayed on corn now than they allowed in 1995. Continued claims that Roundup is safe, though it was recently labeled a possible human carcinogen by the World Health Organization, and claims that residue levels are of no concern, though the FDA wasn’t even testing glyphosate residue levels on crops, has further tarnished the reputations of the EPA, the USDA, and the FDA. 

Reasons or Excuses?

It’s kind of crazy that the FDA, the organization tasked with monitoring herbicides, has not been testing for the world’s most used herbicide. It’s like getting an STD test at a clinic and not testing for syphilis. The FDA cites the cost of testing as the reason for excluding glyphosate from their testing. Adding glyphosate testing to six of the FDA’s facilities has an estimated cost of 5 million. Monsanto makes 5 billion dollars a year in revenue from glyphosate while also supplying the FDA with some of the highest ranking individuals working there. Is it too far of a stretch to wonder if neglecting to test for Roundup residue was really an issue of cost?  Or was it an excuse to allow one of the largest corporations to keep selling massive amounts of a substance increasingly recognized as detrimental to human health?

Living in the Now

The study by the WHO that identified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic” has been a game changer. It’s possible we wouldn’t know about the lack of reliable glyphosate testing without that study, as the GAO report criticizing the FDA’s lax practices was actually released in 2014. While that timeline definitely fits, there are also other factors prompting this announcement from the FDA.

Independent testing companies like Abraxis and MIcrobe have seen an uptick in requests for glyphosate testing after the WHO study was published. Small companies, advocate groups, and doctors are among the customers asking for this information more than ever before. Test requests at some labs have increased from a few a year to a few a week, indicating that food transparency is a rising interest. Test results showed glyphosate residues in a variety of products from honey to soy sauce to infant formula.

Keep the Ball Rolling

Here’s the good news: public pressure can produce results. We still don’t know the extent to which herbicides like glyphosate can affect our health,  but we’ll never know without proper study of all available information. The push for food transparency is on its way to making a big difference in our health and our quality of life.

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