{"id":73544,"date":"2016-05-16T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2016-05-16T11:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=73544"},"modified":"2016-05-13T09:38:45","modified_gmt":"2016-05-13T08:38:45","slug":"eu-results-of-glyphosate-pee-test-are-in-and-its-not-good-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/05\/eu-results-of-glyphosate-pee-test-are-in-and-its-not-good-news\/","title":{"rendered":"EU: Results of Glyphosate Pee Test Are In ‘and It’s Not Good News’"},"content":{"rendered":"

12 May 2016 – <\/em>Last month, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) volunteered to take a urine test<\/a> to see if glyphosate\u2014the cancer-linked weedkiller\u2014is in their system. Forty-eight MEPs from 13 different European Union countries participated in the test, and now the results are in.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/aw_bell\/status\/723463280333864960\/photo\/1?ref_src=twsrc^tfw<\/p>\n

According to ELISA test results<\/a> from the accredited Biocheck Laboratory in Germany: \u201cAll participants excreted glyphosate by urine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The experiment\u00a0was spearheaded by the Green Party in the European Parliament, which wants a ban on the controversial herbicide in the European Union.<\/p>\n

The group noted in a press release<\/a>\u00a0of their\u00a0so-called \u201c#MEPee\u201d test:<\/p>\n

On average, the MEPs had 1.7 micrograms\/liter of glyphosate in their urine, 17 times higher than the European drinking water norm (0.1 microgram\/litre). This means that everyone we tested was way above the limit for residues of pesticides in drinking water.<\/em><\/p>\n

Of the 48 participants, EU-parliament members from Belgium, France and Germany made up more than 80 percent of the whole investigated participants. The test showed that EU-parliament members from Lithuania, Spain and Croatia had the highest concentrations of glyphosate. The lowest concentrations were in the urines of participants of from Italy, Finland and Ireland.<\/p>\n

\u201cNevertheless all investigated EU-parliament members were glyphosate contaminated. This will show glyphosate is also in the food chain of members of the EU-parliament,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n

Glyphosate, which the World Health Organization\u2019s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) declared<\/a> a possible carcinogen last March, is the main ingredient in Monsanto\u2019s widely used weedkiller, Roundup. It is also found in herbicides manufactured by Syngenta and Dow.<\/p>\n

The Greens conducted the test ahead of European Parliament\u2019s April 13\u00a0resolution<\/a> that opposed the European Union\u2019s relicensing of\u00a0glyphosate.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/GreensEP\/status\/730710450728513537\/photo\/1?ref_src=twsrc^tfw<\/p>\n

Despite fierce\u00a0opposition from European Parliament, countries such as France, Sweden, Italy and the Netherlands<\/a>, and the\u00a01.4 million people<\/a> who have signed a petition calling on an EU ban, the European Commission\u2014the\u00a0executive body of the European Union\u2014reportedly\u00a0plans to\u00a0relicense glyphosate for nine years.<\/p>\n

According to the Green Party, the European Commission\u2019s latest proposal, which will be voted on May 19, will \u201cplough ahead with a full-fledged approval of glyphosate\u2019s license for nine years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt considers only symbolically if at all the European Parliament\u2019s resolution calling for a very limited scope of approval. Responsibility for the protection of operators and for multiple risks is discharged onto Member States in a non-legally binding manner,\u201d the party said. \u201cWe are pissed off that our governments want to allow this poison for another nine years! No politician should have this in his or her body, and not a single citizen either!\u201d<\/p>\n

Glyphosate approval in the EU expires at the end of June. The chemical\u00a0has been the subject of incredible controversy in Europe especially after the European Food Safety Authority\u00a0famously\u00a0rejected<\/a> the IARC\u2019s\u00a0classification of\u00a0glyphosate\u00a0as a possible carcinogen in November.<\/p>\n

Agri-business giant Monsanto<\/a> has also vehemently denied\u00a0glyphosate\u2019s health and cancer risks and demanded a retraction of the IARC report.<\/p>\n

\"EN-Glyphosate<\/a><\/p>\n

The Green Party\u2019s MEPee test was inspired by a German study \u201cUrinale 2015,\u201d which sampled glyphosate concentrations in urine from more than 2,000 participants.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe study found that the scale of the glyphosate problem is enormous, with detected concentrations in urine between five and 42 times over the maximum value of residues for drinking water in Europe,\u201d the Green Party pointed out. \u201cNo less than 99.6 percent of all citizens who took part in this survey had higher residue levels. This means that virtually all citizens are contaminated with glyphosate.\u201d<\/p>\n

A number of other studies<\/a> have detected glyphosate\u2014the \u201cmost widely applied pesticide worldwide\u201d\u2014in feminine hygiene products, everyday food items and, yes, human bodies. A 2013 Friends of the Earth Europe study<\/a> reported people in 18 European countries have traces of glyphosate in their urine.<\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Does Glyphosate Cause Cancer?<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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How Widespread Is the Use of Glyphosate in Our Food Supply?<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 ecowatch.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

12 May 2016 – Last month, Members of the European Parliament volunteered to take a urine test to see if glyphosate\u2014the cancer-linked weedkiller\u2014is in their system. Forty-eight MEPs from 13 different EU countries participated. Test results from the accredited Biocheck Laboratory in Germany: \u201cAll participants excreted glyphosate by urine.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73544\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}