Renewable Farming

Argentine doctors call for sharp restrictions on crop pesticides — especially glyphosate

A “Congress of Physicians” in Argentina, representing regions heavily sprayed with ag pesticides, today released a new declaration demanding immediate curbs on ag pesticides which they see as responsible for worsening health in their population.

To fully understand the facts and their determination, here’s the link to the Declaration of the third national congress of physicians in the crop-sprayed towns.

Argentine officials, university specialists and physicians worked together to construct one of the few epidemiology maps which shows a direct geographic overlay of disease rates in localities where glyphosate resistant crops dominate.  We’ve published that map at the close of this report, and it’s also presented in the declaration linked above. Note: The map of disease rates is an enlarged view of the central, most heavily GMO regions amid the central provinces of the map at left. The area related to the cancer incidence map is outlined in yellow on the map at left. The data in the map at right shows annual deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.

The declaration includes this observation:

“Research presented at the congress show studies at different scales, which highlight a consistent pattern of toxicity.

“From small towns to larger populations at the provincial level (as in Chaco and Córdoba) or national level, different levels of exposure to glyphosate or agricultural poisons in general are compared, showing that reproductive health is affected by increases in spontaneous abortions and birth defects,also increased endocrine disorders such as hypothyroidism, neurological disorders or cognitive development problems and soaring of cancer rates to a tripling of incidence, prevalence and mortality which are directly related to pesticide exposure.”

What makes this Argentine physicians’ crusade relevant to the United States is that crop spraying with herbicides, especially glyphosate, is equally intense in much of the American Midwest as in the most impacted area of Argentina.  Yet as far as we know, no public health officials have assembled a geographic study overlaying cancer rates and reproductive problems with the actual geographical distribution of field-applied toxins. We’re left only to trust EPA’s decisions on “safe” residue rates and safety in handling these toxins.

In Argentina, GMO crops and disease rates clearly overlap