Illegal Roundup Ready Flex Bt Cotton and Carcinogen Round-up should be banned: Dr Vandana Shiva
New Delhi, November 30, 2017: After addressing a meeting of the GEAC and DBT on strategies to curb the illegal contamination of Monsanto’s herbicide tolerant Round-up Ready Flex Bt cotton, scientist and renowned environmentalist Dr Vandana Shiva sent a letter to the Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change demanding a criminal investigation against Monsanto for genetic contamination. The Environmental Protection Act, under the Rules of 1989, prohibits any such act and in fact makes its offender criminally liable.
Dr Shiva stated, “Over the two decades since Monsanto entered India, it has violated laws, deceived Indian farmers by making unscientific and fraudulent claims, extracted super profits through illegal royalty collection by violating India’s Patent and Intellectual Property laws, pushed farmers into debt, and, as a consequence of the debt trap, to suicide.”
“In 2017, Monsanto was caught illegally spreading Roundup Ready Bt Cotton in Vidarbha without commercial approval, adding the disaster of Roundup to the Bt cotton disaster. Roundup is a probable carcinogen according to World Health Organisation. In the US thousands of cancer victims are suing Monsanto. In Europe there is a strong movement to get Roundup banned. The Monsanto papers have revealed how Monsanto has manipulated science and laws to sell its toxic products harming humans and nature. It is now adding Roundup to the arsenal of its toxic products that has brought devastation to Indian farmers. The government of India, and GEAC should follow the procedure under the Rules 1989, under the EPA Act and stop this to save the destruction of biodiversity and the Indian constitution,” she added.
Not only is the illegal Roundup Ready Bt cotton violating our Biosafety laws, it is extending the failed Bt cotton, and spreading a biohazard as defined in the EPA Act. Round Up is a known Carcinogen. As per the Rules of 1989, a criminal investigation should be started against Monsanto. As per the government’s own admission, Round Up is banned in India.
It was also suggested that all cottonseed from the contaminated areas should be banned, and the present refined oil/hydrogenated oils manufactures should go for mandatory testing for Roundup Ready Gene and Roundup Pesticide.
Dr Shiva also said, “Bt Cotton should be banned given its large scale failure in Maharashtra, AP, Telangana, etc. The failure is costing farmers lives and the Maharashtra CM should order CBI probe into the matter. The agencies at the centre responsible for biosafety should not block the action initiated at state level, but should instead safeguard India’s laws and regulations designed to protect the environment and people’s lives.”
Round up is Dangerous:
Cancer
As per the Lancet journal, Exposure to Glyphosate has been shown to cause tumors of the mammary glands in rats.The International Agency for Research on Cancer has linked Glyphosate exposure to cancer. RoundUp is many many times more toxic thanGlyphosate alone. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(15)70134-8/abstract
KIDNEY FAILURE
On the island of Sri Lanka, 20,000 people have died due to kidney failure attributed to Glyphosate exposure. http://www.lankabusinessonline.com/news/sri-lanka,-kidney-disease-linked-to-glysophate,-phosphate-
BIRTH DEFECTS
Argentina has seen a rise in birth defects, cancers, kidney failures, infertility and various other diseases in an otherwise healthy people due to unchecked use of RoundUp. http://overgrowthesystem.com/argentina-the-country-that-monsanto-poisoned-photo-essay/
RoundUp DAMAGES DNA
Minimal exposure by inhalation of Glyphosate – even at 450 times less concentration than that used for spraying- damages DNA in the cells. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22331240 – http://seedfreedom.info/make-monsanto-pay/
Please find the letter to the minister attached, along with reports from the CICR-Nagpur confirming the presence of the illegal Round-up Ready HT Bt Cotton in India and a detailed document by Dr Shiva on Bt Cotton including the illegal Roundup Ready Bt Cotton and Monsanto’s criminality.
For any further Information please contact
Indra Shekhar Singh, 9910589556 indra@navdanya.net
Also read:
Environmentalist seeks criminal action against Monsanto
Business Standard, 30 November 2017
Jan Juffermans NL says:
December 10, 2017 at 11:05 am -
I hope Environment Minister Harsh Vardha will follow up this request of Vandana Shiva. We have to stop more multinationals like Monsanto to damage our planet Earth and killing direct and indirect millions of people. A simular drama is happening with fossil fuel companies; see the ‘Climate Vulnerability Monitor’ from DARA in Madrid. Every year 4,9 million people are killed in the whole chain of fossil fuels, and they counted now already 400.000 ‘Climate deaths’ per year.