(by Ethan Huff | Natural News) – George Washington University (GWU) has just published the findings of a new study showing that about 33 percent of the US population is contaminated with 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid), one of the most used weeds. killers in modern American agriculture.
An analysis of 14,395 participants that began in 2001 revealed that nearly one in three people now have detectable levels of 2,4-D in their urine, up from 17% at the start of the study.
Today, nearly 40 percent of people, we’re told, have 2,4-D lurking in their systems, the long-term health effects not fully understood. In particular, children between the ages of 6 and 11 have more than twice the risk of exposure to the chemical, as do women of childbearing age.
2,4-D was first developed by The Dow Chemical Company (now known as Dow) in the 1940s to treat lawns, gardens and commercial agriculture. (Related: In more recent years, Monsanto and Dow touted 2,4-D as the “solution” to superweeds.)
Since the 1940s, much more has been revealed about the toxicity of 2,4-D, which is linked to birth defects, immunosuppression, certain types of cancer, and various other health conditions.
2,4-D was also a key ingredient in the infamous Agent Orange defoliant that was sprayed during the Vietnam War, killing many and leaving many others with lifelong chronic illnesses.
EPA says 2,4-D is perfectly “safe and effective,” just like vaccines and every other chemical drug promoted by big industry
The world has come a long way since the days of Agent Orange, but not in the right way.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which governs the use of chemicals in the United States at the federal level, has declared that 2,4-D is perfectly safe and that the dioxins that often accompany it in herbicide formulas “are no longer at a detectable level”. levels”.
The claim, in other words, is that in current formulations, 2,4-D is “safe and effective,” and that the general public should not be concerned about exposure to it.
Meanwhile, independent researchers continue to warn that 2,4-D exposure is linked to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and soft tissue sarcoma. The International Agency for Research on Cancer also declared in 2015 that 2,4-D is a “possible human carcinogen” based on evidence that it damages human cells.
There is also laboratory evidence from animal testing showing that 2,4-D does, in fact, cause cancer in mammals.
“We’ve all heard how toxic pesticides are,” says horticulturist and gardening expert Zach Morgan. “After all, they are meant to kill living things.”
Although pesticides and herbicides can help protect plants from being destroyed by insects and other pests, they leave behind harmful residues both on the plants themselves and on the soil and the wider environment.
“Some people are more vulnerable than others to the impacts of pesticides,” Morgan added in a statement to The Epoch Times, which researched and reported on the new GWU study.
Because many pesticides and herbicides are persistent, they tend to accumulate in variable and often unknown amounts. Someone who lives next to a farm that uses 2,4-D where the wind often blows in their direction, for example, is more at risk than someone who lives far from chemical agriculture.
Since 2012, the use of 2,4-D on American farms has increased by more than 67 percent. Since 1991, the use of 2,4-D has increased by 240 percent.
“Many commercial herbicides are toxic, so we may see an increase in chronic disease as a result of their use,” says Illuminate Health registered dietitian and medical reviewer DJ Mazzoni.
“However, it is very difficult to determine causality when it comes to population-level environmental problems such as pesticide use.”
The latest news on highly toxic crop chemicals like 2,4-D can be found at Chemicals.news.
Sources for this article include:
TheEpochTimes.com
NaturalNews.com
