Why Avoid Roundup®’s Glyphosate

In case you missed it, there was a huge legal victory last week in the health and wellness arena that I want to share with you. It has personal meaning for me and my cancer diagnoses so I’m super stoked about it.

A man who worked as a groundskeeper in California has won his lawsuit against Monsanto. The jury found that glyphosate, the chemical in their herbicide Roundup® caused his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Monsanto was found guilty on all counts and ordered to pay $289 million dollars to the defendant who sadly has terminal cancer.

Why am I sharing this particular case with you all? It’s personal. As you may know, the first of my two cancers was a rare and aggressive form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I have wondered endlessly over the last five years how I could have gotten cancer when I had such a healthy lifestyle. I learned about glyphosate’s link to non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma while researching my book WTF?! I Have Cancer? and couldn’t believe it is still being used in the U.S. when it has been banned in 14 countries including France, Belgium, Germany, among others and has been listed as a “probable carcinogen to humans” by the World Health Organization.

It seems entirely possible that I ate food contaminated with glyphosate and that it may have caused one of my cells to cross chromosomes to give me lymphoma. Because even though I had been eating mostly organic in my food choices ever since having my kids, I wasn’t 100% organic. I still went to restaurants that sourced conventional foods. I ate at other people’s homes that served conventional foods. It’s practically impossible to prevent glyphosate exposure these days because it is everywhere.

It’s not just on fruits and vegetables. Environmental activist groups are testing and finding trace amounts of glyphosate in crackers, breakfast cereals, bread, even in wine. This particularly nasty herbicide kills everything it touches and can have a 22 year half-life in soil! It’s unfortunately not going anywhere soon.

Here’s another terrible effect glyphosate has on us that may also have created an environment that cancer likes. When I said that glyphosate kills everything it touches, that includes bacteria, even the important bacteria in our gut—the human microbiome. And as you’ve read repeatedly here, 70% of your immune system is in your gut. We want to keep those bacteria happy and our immune systems strong so it can do it’s job seeking out and destroying any random cancer cells that might be floating around.

So here are my suggested action steps to reduce your risk of glyphosate exposure:

• Eat organic as much as possible. Food is not allowed to be labeled organic if glyphosate has been used on it.
• Do not use Roundup® (if that wasn’t already obvious).
• Educate yourself on the facts about the cancer causing data on glyphosate and get active in the fight to stop the use of this terrible chemical in the U.S..

p.s. There is a lot of misinformation regarding glyphosate due to Monsanto’s powerful influence in the American government on both sides of the aisle. It is best to source your information from European studies whenever possible.