CDC study an “alarm call for state and the EU on chemicals use,” says People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith
Reacting to the recent US study from the CDC (Centre for Disease Control) which found that Glyphosate was present in the urine of over 80% of samples tested and that children were particularly exposed, People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith has urged the government to move swiftly to ban the herbicides use immediately by public bodies such as local authorities and the OPW.
She also urged the government to commence its own study on the prevalence of the herbicide here in human bodies.
She said: “This is the latest in a long line of worrying studies that are warning us about the use of this chemical in agriculture and wider society. I have never been reassured by the industries defence of it, nor its refutation of those and other studies.
Glyphosate is a systemic weed-killer, the active ingredient in Roundup, the world’s most-used herbicide.
The TD pointed to other studies, such as the 2015 WHO International Agency for Cancer Research study which listed glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans” saying that attempts to refute such studies usually came from industry sources with vested interests in maintaining the current status quo.
She was also critical of the Department of Agriculture stance here.
She added: “The very least this latest study demands is a ban by all public bodies using Roundup, but we also need to look at its use in agriculture given that its clear its making its way into human bodies chiefly via diets, and this is especially disturbing when we look at the elevated levels of the chemical found in young people in this study.”