Chemical Industry - weed killer - a small amount of poison won't harm, say manufacturers : Lists of Cereals, Breakfast Snacks Where Weed Killer Was Allegedly Found - by Maria Perez

A controversial herbicide has been found in more than two dozen popular breakfast cereals, snack bars and oats, according to a report released by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) on Wednesday.

Glyphosate was found in 26 out of the 28 products EWG tested, with levels “higher than what EWG scientists consider protective of children’s health,” according to the report. Glyphosate is known as the most widely used herbicide in the world, according to the report. More than 250 million pounds of glyphosate is sprayed on American crops, according to EWG.

“How many bowls of cereal and oatmeal have American kids have eaten that came with a dose of weed killer? That’s a question only General Mills, PepsiCo and other food companies can answer,” said EWG President Ken Cook in the report. “But if those companies would just switch to oats that aren’t sprayed with glyphosate, parents wouldn’t have to wonder if their kids’ breakfasts contained a chemical linked to cancer."

Quaker and General Mills have said their products are safe for consumption. In a statement to CNN, General Mills said the levels of glyphosate in the products are “extremely low.”

"The extremely low levels of pesticide residue cited in recent news reports is a tiny fraction of the amount the government allows," the company said in a statement to CNN. "Consumers are regularly bombarded with alarming headlines, but rarely have the time to weigh the information for themselves. We feel this is an important context that consumers should be aware of when considering this topic." 

Note EU-Digest: When you read this statement it is if these companies are saying: "Don't worry a little poison can't be bad for you" ? 

Here is a list of products that were tested and reportedly have Glyphosate in them: 

Instant Oats:

• Quaker Simply Granola Oats, Honey & Almonds Instant Oats
• Quaker Instant Oatmeal Cinnamon & Spice Instant Oats
• Quaker Instant Oatmeal Apples & Cinnamon Instant Oats  

Overnight Oats:

• Quaker Real Medleys Super Grains Banana Walnut Overnight oats
• Quaker Overnight Oats Raisin Walnut & Honey Heaven
• Quaker Overnight Oats Unsweetened with Chia Seeds
   

Cereal:

• Quaker Oatmeal Squares Brown Sugar Oat 
• Quaker Oatmeal Squares Honey Nut Oat 
• Apple Cinnamon Cheerios
• Very Berry Cheerios
• Chocolate Cheerios
• Frosted Cheerios
• Fruity Cheerios
• Honey Nut Cheerios
• Cheerios Oat Crunch Cinnamon

Snack Bars:

• Quaker Chewy S’mores
• Quaker Chewy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip
• Quaker Breakfast Squares Soft Baked Bars Peanut Butter
• Quaker Breakfast Flats Crispy Snack Bars Cranberry Almond

Key manufacturers of this "herbicide" include Anhui Huaxing Chemical Industry Company, BASF, Bayer CropScience, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont, Jiangsu Good Harvest-Weien Agrochemical Company, Monsanto, Nantong Jiangshan Agrochemical & Chemicals Co., Nufarm Limited, SinoHarvest, Syngenta, and Zhejiang Xinan Chemical Industrial Group Company.

 
Read more: Lists of Cereals, Breakfast Snacks Where Weed Killer Was Allegedly Found

Ocean Pollution and Fishing Industry: Are seafood lovers really eating 11,000 bits of plastic per year?

Fishing Industry Under Pollution warning

The claim: Seafood lovers could be eating up to 11,000 microscopic pieces of plastic a year.

Reality Check verdict: There is evidence of plastic microparticles being found in the particular mussels and oysters examined, but the research suggests that in order to consume that much plastic you'd have to be eating an average of more than four oysters or between 17 and 18 mussels a day.

The figure of 11,000 bits of plastic a year, which has been reported by the Daily Mail and others recently, comes from a piece of Ghent University research dating back to June 2014.

The researchers were investigating how much plastic is consumed by humans via water molluscs such as mussels and oysters.

The researchers looked at mussels which lived on farms in the North Sea and were bought in Germany, and at oysters from Brittany in France which were farmed in the Atlantic Ocean.

Farming in this context means the mussels and oysters lived on "rope" that hangs in seawater while they were growing.

First they examined the combined tissue of three mussels and two oysters which was about 15-20 grams of meat and found that there was an average of 0.42 plastic particles per gram.

While reports of this figure featured photographs of plastic bottles and other waste washed up on beaches, these particular particles are very small - if you put 11,000 of them in a line it would cover about 4in (11cm).

To get an idea of how many particles people were likely to be eating, the authors accessed data from the European Food Safety Authority's food consumption database.

Read more: Are seafood lovers really eating 11,000 bits of plastic per year? - BBC News

The Netherlands - Security Services Fail: Bosnian Croat leader Slobodan Praljak dies after drinking poison in UN war crimes court in the Hague

Bosnian Croat ex-General Slobodan Praljak died Wednesday evening after drinking poison at a UN court hearing in The Hague.

"One of the six defendants ... passed away today in the HMC hospital in The Hague," said court spokesman Nenad Golcevski.

Earlier, judges part of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)  had rejected the 72-year-old's appeal against his 20-year prison sentence for war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war.

Upon hearing the verdict, Praljak yelled: "Judges, Slobodan Praljak is not a war criminal. I reject the verdict with contempt."

He then drank from a small glass bottle and told the courtroom: "What I drank was poison."

The presiding judge called for medical assistance and ordered the session to be closed to the public.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic has described the verdict as "unjust" and offered his condolences to Praljak's family.

Note EU-Digest: the death of Slobodan Pralja by his own hand (drinking a potent poison) inside the International Court of Justice during the hearings, puts a major blemish on the Dutch security services, not only for the fact that this poison was smuggled into the prison where Mr. Slobodan Pralja was incarcerated, but also for allowing the defendant to take this poison into the courtroom. 

It was reported the Dutch Ministry of Justice has launched an immediate investigation into this tragic matter.
  
Read more: Bosnian Croat leader Slobodan Praljak dies after drinking poison in UN war crimes court | News | DW | 29.11.2017

USA: Poison on your dinner table?: Strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, grapes, nuts and vine crops could be contaminated with methyl bromide

They look good, but are they poisoned with methyl bromide

The pesticide that sickened a Delaware family in the Virgin Islands is banned for indoor fumigation but U.S. growers will still legally use more than 375 metric tons of the chemical on fields this year through special waivers, federal regulators said.
 

Methyl bromide is blamed in the accidental poisonings of a mom, dad and their two teen sons at a Caribbean resort. The boys remained critically ill Monday at a Philadelphia hospital. Criminal investigators are examining how and why the bug killer got sprayed in a room beneath the family's rented villa two days before they arrived in mid-March.

U.S. law forbids exterminators from using methyl bromide but the Environmental Protection Agency grants a "critical use exemption" to certain farmers — primarily strawberry growers — letting them inject the chemical directly into their soil, the EPA said.

And some organic advocates are worried about the pesticide perhaps reaching grocery-store fruit.

"You have nurseries producing strawberry transplants — the nurseries are the main users of methyl bromide in the U.S. today. The plants in the fields are all started in nurseries.

That ground at the nursery is all fumigated," said Jonathan Winslow, field services manager at Farm Fuel, Inc., a farmer-started, organic distribution and research company on the central California coast.

"So that strawberry transplant can get pulled out of the ground at the nursery and moved to an organic field and be produced under an 'organic' certification," Winslow said. "The use of methyl bromide has diminished, yes. But I am concerned about it. That's why I work for an organic company."

The pesticide is so nasty that, in 1987, the United States and 26 other nations signed a treaty called the Montreal Protocol, vowing to phase out methyl bromide mainly because it depletes the ozone layer. Today, nearly 200 countries have signed that agreement.

But the use of the neurotoxin goes on in farming.

"In the United States, strawberries and tomatoes are the crops which use the most methyl bromide," the EPA says on its website. "Other crops which use this pesticide as a soil fumigant include peppers, grapes, and nut and vine crops."

Read more: Methyl Bromide Pesticide in Paradise Poisoning Case Still Used in U.S. Crops - MyArkLaMiss.com - KTVE NBC 10 - KARD FOX 14 - Your homepage for the latest News, Weather and Sports in the ArkLaMiss!