right. thank you very much, Professor Huber, for for this discussion. We are going to
talk about a substance of very grave concern for many, many health issues.
Of course, I am referring to Glyphosate. And you, personally, have been at the
forefront of this criticism, of this calling-out of possible and probable
dangers of that substance [Glyphosate]. Maybe, Professor Huber, could you give us a short
background for those listeners over here in Europe who don't know of what
your work has been so far, and how you came to be concerned about glyphosate.
-- I'm a soil microbiologist and plant pathologist. A plant disease specialist, [and I've] worked for
almost 60 years of research in microbial ecology and other areas there. Also I have
had quite an extensive involvement in human diseases and epidemiology. If you
have healthy plants, you have healthy people. If you have healthy soils, you can
have healthy plants. By 1974, when glyphosate was first released and
commercialized as an herbicide, I started seeing things happening in the soil and
from a plant disease standpoint that didn't fit the information that we were
being provided from the company. And both, as far as its mode of action [is concerned], and its
impact on the environment. I was seeing some rather strange activities in the
environment, and especially the expression of increased severity of a
number of plant diseases, that if the mechanism, that we were being told that
this herbicide works, was really the active ingredient or the active
mechanism, those activities, those processes, should not occur. And yet we were
seeing them consistently. I initiated some research, just out of curiosity, to
see if maybe and understanding several of these diseases that we managed
primarily only through nutrition and management procedures that would
influence nutrition was to see if I had missed something that would be of benefit
to us and more effective control. The more research that I did then, the
greater concern I had, because this is a very unique chemical. It's a very simple
chemical. Very... it's just a synthetic amino acid, the simplest of the amino
acids, Glycine, with a phosphonate group, a PO3-group on it. Turns out, that that
PO3-group is not a normal component, or a normal chemistry, for most products
in the environment. So this synthetic amino acid then behaves very
different than it would if it had a phosphate group, rather than the
phosphonate group, a PO4 rather than a PO3. There are very few organisms in
the environment that can degrade glyphosate. So that, for one thing, it's
very persistent in the environment. There are reports of half-life as long as 22 years,
and the Australian Government's testing of their soils there a few years ago, and
we see this also in some of ours, that you can account for twenty years of
Glyphosate application in the soil today, because there has been very little
degradation or breakdown of this chemical because it's synthetic and we
haven't had those generations of time for organisms to evolve that can break
that carbon phosphonate linkage especially. That's usually the sticking
point from a degradation standpoint, but it has many other very unique
characteristics! It's considered a hundred year chemical, because of its
broad spectrum of activity in spite of its very simple chemical composition.
Biologically it's a very unique chemical both for..., in the soil, in our plants and our
animals, and in our own bodies. It's a very powerful mineral chelator. In
other words: it can grab on to other elements, change their characteristics so
that they're either more soluble, [or] less soluble. In this case, it makes those
essential minerals that we have to have for our physiology, our biological systems
all have to have those minerals, it makes them unavailable
physiologically, and that's how it really functions as an herbicide, as an antibiotic,
and as a general biocide, is by depriving our enzymes of the co-factors,
of the keys, that would turn them on or make them function. It merely immobilizes
those minerals. [It] doesn't have to be highly involved in the chemistry of enzymes,
because it makes the key for those enzymes non-available and therefore
[it] changes the physiology, changes the biology of the environment very dramatically.
Whether it's our gut microbiome, whether it's the soil, or whether it's the plant.
It's a similar effect there. -- Right. So you have already mentioned its property as a
Chelator. Over here in Europe the discussion about Glyphosate has been a
very strange one. Anyone who raises concerns about the substance is
considered simply like a quack or like a layperson who doesn't know anything
about it and doesn't understand that „this chemical is very safe to be used as
as a help for the farmers and agriculture." Now this of course refers to
the inventor, or the the company who first patented glyphosate as a herbicide,
Monsanto, saying to politicians, or regulators all over the world, I think
they are saying, that glyphosate is safe because it disrupts a „Shikimate pathway",
an enzymatic pathway which humans don't have. This is not the whole truth, is it?
Would you please explain to us: What does it mean when we are talking about a
chelating agent and what makes glyphosate so unique in even this
function as a chelator. -- As a chelator Glyhosate was patented ten years before Monsanto patented it as an herbicide. -- It was used to clean steam pipes and boilers because
it's able to grab on to your calcium, magnesium, and iron. Those minerals that
tend to give you the scale. [Glyphosate] can grab on to them, change their solubility or the
ability to remove those. So then in 1964 it was patented by Stauffer
Chemical Company. Several other companies that also had patents
as a mineral chelator to grab on to those minerals. But it's those minerals
that have to be available then as the co-factors for our proteins. 80% of the
proteins in our body or in a biological system are metalloproteins. That means
that they have a metal element, an essential element that's associated with
them, that can be used for electron transfer as we see with with our brain
functions, or as a cofactor. As I mentioned, [it's] the key for those enzymes that
provide the catalyst then that the enzyme can function with. So that it was
first patented and used for cleaning steam pipes and boilers 1964. [It was] 1974 that
Monsanto patented it. And they actually went to Purdue University and asked a
very well-known, very highly qualified biochemist at Purdue University, where I
was located as a professor, and asked him if he would determine if this chemical
would inhibit the shikimate pathway. Now, the shikimate pathway is secondary
metabolism for all biological systems except mammals. Mammals are the only
living entity, or biological system, that doesn't have the innate characteristics or
capabilities for the shikimate pathway. now they didn't ask him how many other
enzymes it might influence. To my knowledge they asked him if it would
inhibit the shikimate pathway, which, of course, it does. It's a very strong
manganese chelator, which is required for the FMN co-factor.
You have to have a reduced FMN, and FMN reductase
enzyme, that provides that actual cofactor for the EPS enzyme. And the
shikimate pathway has to have the reduced FM n. So, glyphosate actually chelates
that manganese that also chelates with cobalt, which is another enzyme right at
the start of the shikimate pathway. so that there are many enzymes that it
actually shuts down, in the shikimate pathway but also outside of that pathway.
it does it by chelating, by pulling the key out of the ignition on those enzymes,
if you want to look at it that way. That has ramifications then for all
biological systems. Even though mammals don't have the
shikimate pathway, all of our aromatic amino acids - there are three
essential aromatic amino acids: tryptophan, tyrosine, and phenylalanine,
that are required for biological systems. All of our neural chemistry originates
through tryptophane. We have Hormone systems, and other things, that
originate through phenylalanine, and through tyrosine. So they're essential
amino acids for us, but we can't synthesize them ourselves. For mammals
those amino acids are synthesized by our gut microbiology. The
bacteria and our GI tract are the organisms that provide us with our amino
acids. Now, we got a few from plants, from seeds and other other sources there, but
it's primarily from the microorganisms in our GI tract.
So when they say well it can never be toxic to humans, or to mammals, because
we don't have the shikimate pathway, it's only partially true. In ourselves we
don't have it, but in our GI tract, which we now refer to as our eighth organ,
because there are 10 times more cells in our GI tract, in our gastrointestinal
system, than there are in the rest of our bodies. It's very critical for us. If you...,
when you have gut dysbiosis, or a change in the balance in those organisms in
your GI tract, we have all kinds of mental problems, like bipolar [disorder],
schizophrenia, depression, all of those we have that. But the GI tract is also the
source for our immune system. So that we then become very susceptible to many of
the pathogens also in our GI tract. That Clostridium botulinum, that causes Sudden
Infant Death syndrome, or it causes Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or Leaky Gut,
Inflammatory Bowel [Disease] from Clostridium Butyricum, or Clostridium botulinum
Clostridium perfringens. All of those organisms are resistant to glyphosate,
but all of the organisms that we rely on for nutrition, for our neural chemistry,
all of those functions, all of those organisms are very dependent on having
those minerals available. And glyphosate is very toxic as a very powerful
broad-spectrum antibiotic against the beneficial organisms in our GI tract, as
well as in the stomach or the intestinal tract of animals, and bees, and lizards
and bats, and all other organisms have to have those minerals. And glyphosate is a
very toxic antibiotic against the beneficial organisms that would provide
that support for all living systems essentially. -- Right. You have mentioned the
immune system, which is stemming from our intestinal tract, from our microbiome.
There is a very close connection between our innate immune system, and the immune
system which we get from the bacteria we are providing a home to, if you
allow this expression. There is, in terms of toxicity of glyphosate on the
field, out out in the field, there is also a similarity. At least if I understood
correctly what you have been lecturing about in various talks I have had the
privilege of listening to on the Internet.
So there you say, that also the plant is not killed by glyphosate itself. In one talk
you mentioned that plant in sterile soil cannot be killed by
glyphosate, but that the killing also takes place by an impairment of the
plant's immune system. Can you elaborate on this maybe?
-- Yes, again: the shikimate pathway is secondary metabolism. It's not a primary metabolism
that would kill directly, but it is responsible for much of the defense
mechanism that the plant has against soil borne pathogens. So that this would
be your fungal and bacterial pathogens that are in the soil, cause disease, and
it's [Glyphosate is] very toxic to the organisms that would normally suppress those soil borne
diseases, but it stimulates the pathogens some of those pathogens, or a few of the
organisms, that can actually utilize glyphosate as a nutrient resource. But
their virulence, their ability to cause disease, is greatly increased, and it's a
very rapid colonization. Because these organisms are common in almost
all of our soils. You've put a little bit of glyphosate on the leaf of a soybean
plant, for instance, and in a matter of three to four hours it's already moving
out of the root system into the soil where it's antibiotic
activity suppresses the normal biological control organisms that would
suppress the pathogens, would control those disease organisms, and those are
taken out of the picture, out of the ecology, and you then have a stimulation
of the fungi that the Fusarium and Rhizoctonia, Pythium, Phytophthora. All of
those many soil borne disease organisms that then are no longer suppressed,
they're no longer in jail, in the soil, you've opened the door for them and it's
a matter of just a very few hours before they have colonized that plant that now
has AIDS, if you want to look at it that way. Its immune system has been
compromised, its defenses have been shut down, so that that plant is very
rapidly colonized. This is one of the reasons why it takes four to five days
or maybe even a little longer to kill the plants when they're treated with
glyphosate. It's not like pouring acid on them, or vinegar, or
weak acid, some of those things that we do use, that are fairly quick in acting.
Just a few hours and the plant becomes brown. The plant treated with glyphosate
first becomes yellow, as the minerals are all tied up, and as those enzyme systems
are compromised, or as they're shut down. And then it's the organisms, the soil
borne organisms, that come in and finish off the plant, or that destroy those
tissues that have no defense against that. Extracellular enzymes, and the
penetration of the mycelium of the fungus, and those things. So, it's
mode of action is very unique, very different than many of our chemical weed
killers, which do have a primary mode of action as an herbicide. If you read the
1995 review on glyphosate, this is 20 years after it was commercialized as an
herbicide. They state that the glyphosate inhibits the Shikimate pathway, but the
herbicidal mode of action is actually unknown. Well, it was known ten years
before that. There were a number of papers showing, as I stated, that you can't kill
a plant with glyphosate in sterile soil, because it's the fungi that kill it. You
give the plant a bad case of AIDS, and then shut down the defense mechanism, and
it's those soil borne organisms that kill, that do the actual killing of the
plant. I've demonstrated this, and others have demonstrated it in various ways. If
you block the movement of glyphosate into the root system by
severing the vascular system, it will only stunt the plant for several weeks,
and then as it recovers those minerals from the soil that have been chelated, it
will resume growth and take off. All of your lateral buds will take off, and you
end up with a big bush there. Glyphosate has to move down, has to compromise the
immune system, or the defenses of the plant, and stimulate the soil borne fungi
by changing the soil ecology. It's not just working on one organism or two
organisms, it's really a very dramatic change in the soil biology. Just as it
has a very dramatic change in our GI tract, in our own intestines and our colon,
that you'll find people with gout, for instance, as Dr. Seneff has a recent
paper on it shows that people with gout have a very different microbiome in
their GI tract than people who don't have gout. When you have glyphosate it
changes that whole relationship because of its toxicity, antibiotic activity
against the beneficial organisms, and it's stimulation of the organisms that
are very deleterious to us. the pathogens and that.
-- Thank you for this explanation! From listening to your words it is evident
that you clearly know what you're talking about. And this of course is no
coincidence. You have been professor at Purdue University, which is one of the
most respected and well-known universities in the United States of
America. So it is very hard for for critics to
question your scientific capacity. However there are few scientists who are
teaching or researching at universities over the globe who are as outspoken as
you are. And those who are outspoken, you mentioned Dr. Stephanie Seneff
from MIT in Boston, are being personally degraded because they don't hold any
capacity in the formal way which recognizes their expertise on this
matter. What is the reason behind this? Can you can you give us a clue?
-- Follow the money! If you… well again: if you follow the money you'll see a direct
correlation there. There's a tremendous amount of money involved here. I happened
to be at a stage in my career that it was difficult for them to damage me. They
can damage my reputation perhaps somewhat, but I think I have already set
my mark from a scientific standpoint. For a young person, who has come out - and
we've had a number of them who did try to report, their research as they were
seeing, it as it was unfolding - for many of them [they] lost their jobs. They've
been punished as a result of publishing that. We have one scientist that
published his research, showing the requirement for much higher levels of
minerals when glyphosate was involved in the production program. He did this so
that his growers would know that if they were using the new technologies and
those things, that they had to compensate for that reduced nutrient efficiency that
was present. When you change the soil biology, you change the availability of
nutrients, change the pathogens. When this scientist at a very well known
the University in the States published his data, so that his growers
would be able to use the technology and not compromise their quality or their …
the yield of their crops, two months later he had sent in a letter to the
editor of the journal that he had published in and apologized for
publishing his data. He said he didn't understand the unintended consequences
of publishing your science to benefit the producers that you are doing the
science for. We have many who have lost their jobs totally.
And so it just depends on where you are in your career on what the
impacts going to be. I've been blessed, I guess, because I was at that stage in my
career and also had other capacitors, other assignments, that I didn't have to
worry about the punitive aspects. I had support from my Dean. He did let me know
that they were… that the companies were not happy with me. With my research,
even though some of those I had consulted for in other scientific areas for
15 or 20 years. When I started taking a stand on this very unique chemical that
has extremely deleterious impact on our environment, that we rely on for our
survival as well as our direct health effects, they weren't happy with me. And my
Dean and my Department Head both let me know that I was a target in those areas.
But I also felt, at least from the Dean, not much my department Head, but from
the Dean, at least, I had his support. He recognized the value of the research, its
importance, and encouraged me to make sure that it was sound. Make sure that
all the principles of science were adhered to, but to do that which my
scientific training would tell me would be beneficial to the growers, and to our
society as a whole. So I was somewhat unique
in that capacity at Purdue University: I also had the opportunity to work as a
member of scientific teams, so that it wasn't just my research but there were
many others that were involved in that research that I could call on for
support. Even though some of them had to be very careful how they responded, and
they had to at times appear that they weren't associated. Those are things that
become part of the politics of academia, or for that part, of the politics of
agriculture there. And you just don't worry about them. You do what's right, and
you continue on. You remain friends, you're honest with each other, and honest
in your science, and continue. Now many, as I said, have sacrificed their jobs, their
reputation. You'll find it a common practice that if you can't argue with
the data you challenge the messenger. And that's just a standing operating
procedure for some of the companies in these areas. If it affects their bottom
line they're not very concerned about what it does to health, or what it what
it does to the overall agricultural system, or health of the population, as
long as the dollar continues to flow their direction. That seems to be the
criteria that's used now. It wasn't the criteria that I found with many of these
companies 30 or 40 years ago. Now it appears to be the modus operandi, or the
basis for the things they are doing now as we see the stacking of genetics,
different herbicides, mixing of those herbicides, endocrine hormone
disruptors. A very different system now. [I am] grateful I had an opportunity to work in
a system where I had the support. I was encouraged to be honest in my science, I
could be outspoken. As long as that science was correct, I had the support
that I needed as a scientist, and I felt I could do what was right. Always
tried to do that anyway, so that wasn't a challenge for me.
-- Thank you for these explanations, Professor Huber. In terms of challenges and in terms of hope:
Can you give us an impression of what options are there? Is what is being
done to the environment with Glyphosate, is it in any way reversible?
What can the ordinary citizen do to help achieve a change of awareness?
-- A few years ago I would have said it's a one-way street, we're going downhill very rapidly.
In the last few years I see a light at the end of the tunnel. And in some of my
presentations I feel like I get them to that deer-in-the-headlight type of an
expression where you have a deer running out in front of your car and and you
have the shock reaction where you're not aware of the serious implications of
glyphosate on the environment and on our own personal health and family's health.
It's easy to point those out to show them. We have all kinds of examples of
serious health consequences, so that at the time or a few years ago we didn't
have the information that we have now, showing that there are ways to remediate.
And searching for organisms that would break down glyphosate I found that there
are very few of them. They were kind of a few and far between in that ecology. So
that it looked like we would need to have mixtures, or biological cocktails
of at least six organisms in order to start breaking down the residual
glyphosate that was accumulating in our soils, if we were going to continue to
even be able to produce our crops. I was involved in visiting with many farmers
who have found that there are certain crops they can't even grow on their
soils now and meet the market demand for low glyphosate levels, because the
residual levels are so high that if they get any kind of desorption of that
stored glyphosate in the soil it's taken up by the plant and their crop is
rejected from excess glyphosate levels. A very serious concern. Also their
wheat and their barley plants that aren't genetically engineered for
tolerance to glyphosate were dying before harvest time, some of them only
four or five inches tall before they would die from the residual glyphosate
in the soil. This wasn't supposed to occur if you listen to the company.
In 1974, 1975 we were told first that it's safe enough to drink and the second
thing was that it's poof and it's gone. Well we know now that that's not the
case! Half-life, again, can be anything between a year and a half
as long as 22 years. If that's a half-life we're talking a generation or
two. We know that there are certain organisms now that can degrade it, both
in the soil as well as in our plants and food production system. They're still not
very common in our ecology but we can increase that availability in the
soil so that we can get some of that degradation. We can also use some
probiotic type approaches. In fact we have over 30 diseases that are directly
correlated with the exposure to glyphosate or the GMO
proteins. With at least 22 of those diseases the best treatment, or the most
effective treatment that we have today is a fecal transplant. Well it doesn't
sound very good, but what you're doing then is you're flushing out your GI
tract you're trying to recolonize with the healthy gut microbiome to get rid of
the pathogens and those organisms that are creating the health problems, whether
it's inflammatory bowel disease, or whether that's autism, or there's
Alzheimer's or whether it's c. difficile diarrhea. Any number of these diseases.
There are 22 of these very critical diseases now that are reaching epidemic
proportions that are all… can all be effectively reversed with a fecal
transplant, if it's a proper transplant. Now there's also a hazard there. If you
get a microbiome from someone that may not express the symptoms but your body,
being very unique, may let those other organisms express themselves, so that you
can also have some negative reactions for that. But it's a positive in 95
percent of the time for those 22 diseases, including diabetes, if you
change your diet. If they don't change the diet then it's a very transient type
of an effect, because the glyphosate levels in our food are up to four
thousand times higher than the science shows will cause gut dysbiosis, or the
antibiotic activities of the glyphosate will remove the beneficial organisms
and, again, put you in that same health status that you had before with the
pathogens overriding your beneficial organisms. So it's a very powerful
antibiotic, very extensive scope of the damage that that antibiotic has
in the environment and in our bodies. We're concerned about excess antibiotic
use in agriculture. We use about 29 million pounds of streptomycin,
actonomycin, cephalosporins and other antibiotics for disease control or
pathogen control. But we use half a billion pounds of this
very broad spectrum antibiotic we call glyphosate
indiscriminately in the environment. It's also been shown that the glyphosate will
induce resistance in other organisms to all of the other antibiotics, so that
just having the glyphosate present creates an antibiotic crisis for us from
a health standpoint of pathogen control. In addition to that it also stimulates
those same pathogens to become more virulent it changes the biology. The ecology
is changed dramatically. Where we would normally have suppression of those
pathogenic organisms by the beneficials and now we see the pathogens are even
expressing themselves in our food supply to measures or to levels that we had
never experienced in the past. We see contamination of lettuce, of cantaloupes,
of many of our fruit products, and especially our root
crops are and that because the glyphosate at such extremely low levels
changes that soil biology to favor the pathogens. And these, I'm not talking
about just the plant pathogens but also the human pathogens then that are
carried on those food products because we no longer have the beneficial
organisms that would have eliminated or prevented that colonization to start.
-- Well, Dr. Huber, thank you very much for these explanations, for this insight into a
very, very important matter! I think, at least that's what we are trying to do on
this program, is to make available this kind of expert knowledge expert insight
to raise awareness, because it is important that the general public
learn about what has been neglected over the decades already with the
glyphosate issue. So your contribution is extremely important, very much welcome
and we're grateful to have had you on this program. thank you very much!
-- Thank you I'd be derelict if I didn't mention that you have had some outstanding
scientists in Germany. Volker Römheld, [Günter] Neumann, Dr. Monika Krueger has been a
tremendous help to us and our approach in understanding of the animal and
human diseases Dr.Krüger, and [Arwad] Shehata, and her team that she had there Leipzig
University. Tremendous scientist that added a dimension that I don't know of
anyone else in the world that has made that depth of contribution in
understanding the power of this antibiotic glyphosate as a mineral chelator,
as an antibiotic, but as a general disrupter of the beneficial ecology that
we all rely on. And I certainly personally have benefited from their
research, from their friendship and association that I've been privileged to
have. But some tremendous science that you've been able to contribute for the
rest of the world in understanding what's happening now in such a subverted
manner to compromise health throughout the world, because of the indiscriminate
application and use of this strong mineral chelator and powerful
antibiotic that we're exposed to now.
-- That's very kind of you, and and also very telling about your humble and
team-oriented approach. Thank you very much for these words and God bless you!
All the best to you, Dr. Huber, thanks! -- Best wishes! Thank you for this
opportunity!
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