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Wellness coach talks about poisonous pesticides

After all, we have a very sophisticated health system, and people are living longer and longer lives. That may not last. It has been said that the current crop of children may be the first to fail to live longer than their parents.

Cancers are rampant, raging at many times the incidence of 50 years ago.

Anita pondered these health issues and began researching. She figured that modern food might be part of the problem. It was well known that fatty fast foods are causing an obesity epidemic. But why the cancers?

The answer, Anita now believes, is the proliferation of pesticide usage, including the use of highly carcinogenic chemicals on our most basic commercially grown foods.

Commercial growers literally drench many of their crops with poisonous pesticides, many of which have been banned in Europe and other parts of the world.

Take the humble lettuce. New Zealand growers can use as many as 10 different chemicals on lettuce. They may not use all 10, but even one of the highly toxic group allowed, is one too many. Four of the 10 on the list are banned completely in Europe, and several others are under review. Let me outline several of these chemicals.

Acephate - Insecticide, banned in Europe since 2003 - can cause cancer - suspected endocrine disruptor - potential ground water contaminant.

Carbendazim - Fungicide - banned in Europe since 2011 - causes malformation in the foetus - can cause infertility - can cause cancer - Dupont, the producer, mislead regulators to get approval in the EU.

Sulfoxaflor - Insecticide - harmful to bees - affects nervous system and liver - a product of Dow Chemical Co.

Anita Hollerer-Squire asks this question: if these chemicals kill bugs and weeds, what effect do they have on us?

She agrees with everything we have written about glyphosate in recent Ponsonby News articles, and like me she is angry officialdom has done nothing to ban this (to quote scientists of the World Health Organisation) “probable human carcinogen.”

The next problem chemical Anita has her hooks into is methyl bromide. This chemical is banned in Europe, and is destroying the ozone layer. It is toxic to the central and peripheral nervous system. Exposure to methyl bromide is also known to cause skin, kidney, respiratory, liver and neurological damage resulting in severe and permanent health effects.

Under the Montreal Protocol, New Zealand should have phased out use of methyl bromide by 1 January 2005, yet we still use about 355 tonnes a year. This poison is used to fumigate containers arriving and departing New Zealand. It is used on fruit, vegetables, nuts, even rice and spices. Shockingly high quantities are allowed.

Anita discovered New Zealand’s dirty dozen fruit and vegetables by quantity of pesticides used on them. The latest available figures (2013) from the Safe Food Campaign analysed 600 samples for pesticide residues.

The worst offenders in New Zealand were - grapes, celery, bok choy, nectarines, oranges, strawberries, spring onions, lemons, wheat, cucumber, pears and broccoli.

You will note wheat on that list. Farmers can spray wheat with the carcinogenic glyphosate with impunity. There goes much of our bread.

Anita Hollerer-Squires gave me a sobering page on gluten intolerance. Guess what? This intolerance is definitely linked to glyphosate use. A study on gluten intolerance published in the National Center for Biotechnology Information links this disease to glyphosate use.

She asks,“How much longer are we going to allow the use of this poison to be used on our food? And where does this leave New Zealand consumers?”

A couple of extra glasses of wine may be the answer to dull the pain and ease the conscience. Well sorry, no. A recent test of Californian wines showed 100% contamination with glyphosate. Organic wine then - so expensive! Breast milk was contaminated too.

We should be very grateful to Anita for the pesticide contamination she has exposed, but what do we do about it?

We must persuade our politicians, local and national, to act.

We cannot rely on the Environmental Protection Authority - they are more concerned to protect the agri-chemical industry, and to listen to their American counterpart the US EPA, which has been proven to be in the pocket of big business, big pharma, including the makers of glyphosate, Monsanto, who continue to use the same tactics used for years by tobacco lobbyists until their lies were finally exposed.

Thank you Anita - we’ll support you and take the fight to the sources of the poisonous scourge - until we win. (JOHN ELLIOTT)

www.bodymindforlife.com

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