England: Cancer-linked pesticide glyphosate found in eight out of thirteen children’s playgrounds
A new study has found residues of the weedkiller glyphosate and its toxic breakdown product – AMPA – in English playgrounds. Pesticide Action Network UK tested samples of soil and plant material and swabbed children’s play equipment in thirteen playgrounds across three English counties and two London boroughs. None of the playgrounds were particularly close to agricultural fields, suggesting that the contamination is likely to originate from the widespread use of glyphosate by UK councils to remove unwanted plants in public spaces. Prof Michael Antoniou, a specialist in molecular genetics and toxicology at Kings College London and UK contributor to the Global Glyphosate Study, said, “Our studies have shown that exposure to glyphosate herbicides is a significant risk factor for the development of a range of serious health conditions, including fatty liver and kidney disease and, most worryingly, a wide range of cancers including leukaemias. The assertion by government regulators that glyphosate is ‘safe’ does not stand up to latest scientific scrutiny, which shows that a ‘safe’ dose of glyphosate is, at present, unknown. Thus, all efforts should be made to reduce glyphosate herbicide use in both agricultural and urban settings, and to eliminate unnecessary routes of exposure, especially for children.” |
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Paediatrician Lee Evslin writes: “For months leading up to the 2024 election, the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ (MAHA) movement captivated a nation overwhelmed by chronic diseases... I found hope in a powerful promise regarding our food supply: we would finally stop poisoning our own people. We were told that the new administration would take a sledgehammer to the corrupt alliance between federal regulators and the chemical industry.” But, he says, the MAHA movement “has been hijacked. The final MAHA policy drafts barely mention pesticides. The administration is asking the Supreme Court to shield Bayer using fraudulent science” and is claiming that “because the EPA approved a pesticide label, no state court or jury can blame a company for not adding warnings beyond what the EPA required. This is a stunning betrayal. The MAHA movement was built on the premise that the EPA is captured by industry. Yet now, the administration is arguing that this same captured agency should be the supreme authority, overruling every state judge and jury in America.” He says Bayer “are trying to change the rules of the game so that they can never be held accountable for the harm their products cause. They are leveraging Republican-driven efforts to decrease EPA oversight, creating a regulatory vacuum where the federal government doesn’t protect us, and the state governments aren’t allowed to.” He says the MAHA slogan has revealed itself to be a ‘Trojan horse’: “The very voters who turned out to demand safer food and water have been handed a policy agenda that protects the poisoners.”