NO LIMITS TO CORPORATE POWER & THE USE & ABUSE OF IT

Rueters News Agency: "Monsanto sues to keep herbicide off California list of carcinogens".

Glyphosate also known as Roundup has been a huge moneymaker for Monsanto for a very long time. Clearly they are prepared to defend their money making herbicide against all claims, allegations and downright serious, scientific determinations that it is probably carcinogenic. For me I have long seen Glyphosate listed in the Region of Waterloo Annual (Drinking Water) Reports as being present in our drinking water at a concentration of < 25 ppb. Do you know what that means? Well join the club as most people don't and that is exactly how the Region of Waterloo and Ontario Ministry of Environment want it. <25 ppb. means that Glyphosate is present in our drinking water anywhere from zero up to 24.9 parts per billion. The symbol < means "less than". Most of the chemicals in our drinking water have drinking standards between 2 and 20 parts per billion with some lower and some higher. Most of these chemicals can be measured as low as either .5 or .2 parts per billion hence their method detection limits (MDL) are .2 or .5 ppb.. Glyphosate prior to being listed as probably carcinogenic had an extremely high drinking water standard, possibly 300 ppb.. Hence even though it can likely be measured at very low detection limits, surprise, surprise, the Region had a MDL of 25 ppb.. For me this was an immediate red flag. Afterall Glyphosate or Roundup is used by both farmers and residents on fields as well as on lawns. For it to be ubiquitous in our groundwater is hardly a surprise. Apparently even with the very high drinking water standard (likely to be lowered) the Region don't want citizens to see a positive number such as five or six parts per billion in their drinking water.

Why did the state of California add Glyphosate to their list of cancer-causing chemicals in the first place? Well hardly for a frivolous reason. The World Health Organization's (WHO) well respected International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified it as a probable carcinogen last March. Monsanto are upset. Monsanto are also the recipients of numerous lawsuits accusing them of knowing the dangers of Glyphosate for decades. Science can never be ahead of all the chemicals that human kind have added to the world but they are doing their best. Law on the other hand will now treat the well off Monsanto with kid gloves. They will be given the benefit of the doubt and allowed to continue making millions or billions more dollars while these lawsuits drag on for decades. Money has friends in high places especially in our corporate dominated democracies.