California allows 1,000 ppb of glyphosate in drinking water
In December of 1997, California released its Glyphosate in Drinking Water California Public Health Goal (PHG) document. You can view the document yourself at:http://oehha.ca.gov/water/phg/pdf/glypho_c.pdf
The document openly admits:
Glyphosate is a non-selective systemic herbicide used in agriculture, rights-of-way and aquatic systems. Exposure to glyphosate may occur from its normal use due to drift, residues in food crops and from runoff into potential drinking water sources.
It then goes on to state something borrowed straight from Monsanto's quack science team: "Glyphosate is not mutagenic or teratogenic and there is no evidence for reproductive toxicity in multigeneration studies in rats."
Based on this blatant lie, California set an upper limit of "1.0 mg/L (1,000 ppb) for glyphosate in drinking water."
Yes, that's 1,000 times higher than the amount now shown to cause a 500% to 1300% increase in cancer cell proliferation.
What's even more shocking is that California's allowable exposure level was nearly 50% HIGHER than the federal (EPA) level -- 700 ppb.
Yes, California -- the state where more people are concerned about GMOs than seemingly anywhere else -- actually used Monsanto-sounding language in its "official" report that set a higher water contamination level than the federal government!
Glyphosate carcinotoxicity was documented years earlier
Even though California released this document in 1997, the state was already willfully ignoring a growing body of scientific evidence documenting glyphosate toxicity. For example, a study published two years earlier -- in 1995 -- in the Journal of Pesticide Reform (Volume 15, Number 3, Fall 1995) written by Caroline Cox concluded:Glyphosate-containing products are acutely toxic to animals, including humans. ...In animal studies, feeding of glyphosate for three months caused reduced weight gain, diarrhea, and salivary gland lesions. Lifetime feeding of glyphosate caused excess growth and death of liver cells, cataracts and lens degeneration, and increases in the frequency of thyroid, pancreas, and liver tumors.
Glyphosate-containing products have caused genetic damage in human blood cells... reduced sperm counts in male rats... an increase in fetal loss...
In other words, California knew -- or should have known -- that glyphosate was harmful to humans. But the California government willfully ignored this evidence and seemingly went out of its way to incorporate deceptive Monsanto spin into its "Public Health Goal" documents, thereby allowing 1,000 times higher levels of glyphosate in drinking water than we now know to cause cancer cell proliferation.
Ten years later, California lowers its level by just 10%
Fast forward to 2007. After a public comment period which was no doubt dominated by disinfo-spewing Monsanto trolls, the state of California issued an updated Public Health Goal (PHG) document.You can view that document here:
http://oehha.ca.gov/water/phg/pdf/080406dglyphosate.pdf
It concludes that the allowable glyphosate exposure for all Californians should be lowered to 900 ppb -- still nine hundred times higher than the amount needed to accelerate cancer cell growth as we see in the study released last week.
This 2007 document from the California government also borrows language that sounds like it's right out of Monsanto's P.R. department: "Based on the genotoxicity and carcinogenicity study results, glyphosate is not likely to pose a cancer hazard to humans," it says.
Read more: http://www.naturalnews.com/040808_glyphosate_breast_cancer_drinking_water.html
