Toxic
Monsanto Herbicides Found in 75% of Mississippi Air and Rain Samples
February 25, 2015
February 25, 2015
A new report from the US
Geological Survey suggests Mississipians may want to stick with bottled water
and take short breaths, and a popular weed killer is largely to blame.
Herbicides and pesticides, and their still-toxic breakdown
byproducts, are found in an alarmingly large portion of rain and air
samples in Mississippi, according to a new government report.
The USGS study found that Monsanto’s weed killer Roundup,
the most widely used product of its kind, and other pesticides were
present in more than 75% of air and rain samples it tested
over the past few years during the growing seasons in the
Mississippi Delta, a large swath of agricultural land in the western
part of the state.
Researchers looked at weekly composite air and rain
samples collected in the 1995 and 2007, and found pesticide levels
to be too high for comfort.
Nearly 40 compounds were detected in samples,
with the main herbicide glyphosate (found in Roundup) detected
in eight out of ten cases.
Researchers also found three other pesticides in more
than half of the samples, and that these were present during the
entire growing season.
Scientists are concerned that daily exposure to even
tiny amounts of these pesticides is unhealthy.
“Even small daily environmental exposures may be causing significant
harm through their cumulative and synergistic effects with other
toxicants,” the report said, adding that researchers noted a dramatic increase
– twelve fold – in the use of herbicides and pesticides in the
last few years.
Glyphosate has been the target
of environmentalists and other activists who want the world’s leading
pesticide to be taken off the market as too toxic. A group
of moms who say their children have been sickened after exposure
to RoundUp have been lobbying the Environmental Protection Agency
with a nationwide Recall RoundUp campaign.
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