Chemical-based agriculture multiplies cancer cases and genetic defects in Argentina

Wednesday, March 16, 2016 by: L.J. Devon, Staff Writer
Tags: agricultural chemicals, birth defects, Argentina

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(NaturalNews) It's as if populations of people are being put into fishbowls, confined to an idea of glass walls that forces the people to be like helpless goldfish, looking up for their food, accepting whatever is tossed in. Corporate hands operating in a global economy feed the fish, the people, spraying them with chemicals in the process. The people swim around with no say, doing what they are told, consuming whatever is handed their way. Instead of being wild and free fish, feeding on what is natural, they have been confined to consume and produce within the glass walls.

Large-scale chemical-based agriculture takes over entire countries and their farming communities, exposing the people there to agrochemical toxins year after year. The people accept what is fed into their fishbowl, not seeing the cancer and genetic defect apocalypse occurring within the tank to which they are confined.

Argentina is no exception. Instead of producing the food that the country needs, the Argentine people are forced to farm GM soy for export. In the process, the people are being stripped of their food sovereignty and agricultural diversity, while being forced to withstand an onslaught of agrochemicals that researchers are now confirming to be causing the population's genetic defects.

Researchers link soy agrochemicals to rare genetic defects in Argentine farming villages

According to research in Chaco province, Argentina, by Professor Andres Carrasco and biochemist Raul Horacio Lucero, severe damage is being done to the human genome in areas most sprayed with agrochemicals. The late Carrasco spent his life fighting for the people of Argentina and the world, who are suffering from new birth defects and early-onset cancers all because of agrochemicals like glyphosate. In his research, he found a cancer cluster in the "pampa gringa" region, a place dense with genetically modified soy and careless agrochemical spraying. He found that the death rate from these cancers is double the national average in the "pampa gringa" region.

His colleague, Dr. Lucero, confirmed the findings, saying, "This was official confirmation of what we have denounced for years. Cancer cases multiply like never before in areas with massive use of pesticides." Dr. Lucero had tracked the damage more than two decades ago, when he investigated major malformations and birth defects in people in rural Chaco. Those working closest to the chemicals were most at risk.

The late Dr. Carrasco strengthened the research when he linked the agrochemical glyphosate to malformations in amphibian embryos -- the same kind of defects typically seen in the farmers working in Chaco. The passionate Dr. Carrasco went on to tour several universities with other scientists and spoke about the repercussions of chemical-based agriculture, how farmers were suffering from one generation to the next. Dr. Lucero met Carrasco on the speaking tour and added to his research. Dr. Lucero showed documentation from the Pediatric Hospital of Chaco's Genetic Studies Laboratory that revealed severe cases where patients suffered serious orthopedic and genital malformations. He witnessed various cases during his research in Chaco, documenting anomalies such as phocomelia, which is a defect of the arms. There are also cases of arm bone aplasia, shortened limbs, imperforate anus and hypertrophy of the clitoris.

Lucero, stating what he saw firsthand: "I never had any doubt that the defects were caused by exposure to agrochemicals during pregnancy at an early gestational age. Anyway, I could not publish these comments because they required substantiation from large scale epidemiological studies, as well as measurements of pesticides or their metabolites in blood and urine, and measurements of the level of DNA damage in these patients through genotoxicity studies."

Right now, the Institute of Regional Medicine, UNNE, is engaged in a research project to validate the work of Drs. Carrasco and Lucero. The project will look at the blood of exposed populations in the Chaco province of Argentina, investigating the biomarkers of genetic damage called chromosome aberrations and micronuclei.

"All patients came from areas of high agricultural production and the mothers of these children had been exposed to pesticides in a very direct way. Working in the field, they were exposed to agrochemicals sprayed from planes flying overhead," Dr. Lucero confirmed.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.gmwatch.org

https://www.aan.com

http://science.naturalnews.com