by Dr. Bill Rawls
Posted 6/20/19
A new study commissioned by the Environmental Working Group discovered too-high levels of glyphosate — a known carcinogen found in the weedkiller, Roundup® — in 21 oat-based cereals and snacks with household names. (Think: Cheerios, Nature Valley, and Fiber One). In this episode of Real Talk, Dr. Bill Rawls sounds off on why this is so dangerous to our health even beyond the cancer risk, and what you can do to protect yourself and your loved ones.
Video Transcript
Hello, everyone. This is Dr. Rawls with a news item that I thought you might be interested in. The topic is glyphosate.
So what’s glyphosate? Glyphosate is an herbicide; it kills weeds. It’s Roundup®. It’s the stuff that you commonly put on your yards.
But it’s also very, very heavily used in agriculture. The company that makes it is Monsanto; they were bought out by the drug company Bayer, so now it’s Bayer-Monsanto. Most farmers use it, it’s especially heavily used in soybeans, corn, and other grains.
This is what GMO foods — genetically engineered foods — are all about. So what they’re doing is they’re genetically engineering the crop to be resistant to Roundup, so you can specifically use Roundup on that crop to kill the weeds.
The idea is that you might be able to use a little bit less of it. But once you use GMO seeds that are specific for Roundup, you’re pretty much stuck buying Roundup from Monsanto, and that’s the whole idea.
Now, I’ve been following this topic for a long time, but this is a recent article that was posted on the front page of the website in the Environmental Working Group. The Environmental Working Group is a really wonderful nonprofit that looks out for consumer advocacy and rights. So what they’re doing is basically looking at problems, and calling out problems, and warning consumers of things that they might be interested in. So this one was about glyphosate.
So the Environmental Working Group did independent testing, or they sponsored testing, and they found glyphosate in higher than accepted levels in 21 foods, oat-based products that were commonly marketed to children. That’s a big deal.
If you go to the website, it’s actually posted on the website, so you can look at the foods. But I’m telling you, it’s not just these foods. It’s everywhere. Virtually every product that you’re getting out there has glyphosate in it. Now even some organic things have trace levels of glyphosate, because it’s so heavily used in the industry, it crosses, it’s everywhere.
And everybody is dumping it on their yards. It’s getting in the environment. It is truly wrecking the environment. This stuff is a real hazard.
So, what are the concerns? In 2015, the World Health Organization, WHO, found it to be a probable carcinogen, and this is after years of research suggesting that it was. I’ve been following this research all along. In 2017, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment deemed it a definite carcinogen.
After that time, there have been some court cases. Since last August, in California, there have been three cases that were settled against Monsanto, or Bayer-Monsanto, for a total of $2.2 billion. The claim was that glyphosate causes cancer, and that Bayer-Monsanto knew about the risk and went to great lengths to cover it up.
This article published by the Environmental Working Group even claims that Bayer-Monsanto, knew about the risk and colluded with the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, to classify it as safe. That’s a big deal. So this is a very concerning substance, and it’s really out there.
How does it cause harm? It disrupts messaging systems in the body. A lot of herbicides and pesticides are disrupting communication systems in insects or other plants. That’s how they work. So if you can design a plant that it’s specific, that it doesn’t harm this thing, then it affects the targeted insect, or plant, weed, whatever you’re trying to get rid of. But when we take it in our bodies, it disrupts our signaling agents.
So our body is a collection of cells, and for our cells to be healthy, we have to have systems that take care of our cells — the gastrointestinal system, lungs, everything. It’s all-for-one and one-for-all kinds of situations.
For cells to work in the body, they have to communicate. That’s what hormones, neurotransmitters, the nervous system is all about: Communication between cells, so our body can function as a unit.
All these toxins disrupt communications in the body. When you disrupt communications, that’s when everything starts to break down, and illness sets in.
Illness is basically sick cells. If cells aren’t getting the nutrients, oxygen, all the things that they need because the systems in the body aren’t working, you get sick. So, when you take in, pull in, toxins that are disrupting those messaging systems, you can count on being ill and it leading to some bad problems, even cancer. But before we even talk about cancer, it’s disrupting a lot of things in the body.
So what do you do about it? Well, top of the list is trying to avoid GMO foods, but again, you’re still getting glyphosate in a lot of other things. So second to that, eat organic, and preferably vegetables. You’re going to get much lower concentrations of glyphosate in organic vegetables than anywhere else.
So it’s mainly going to be concentrated in the highly processed grain products. You’re also going to find it in meat though, because these things are heavily used in the corn and also the soybean industry for feeding animals. If you’re getting a lot of these foods that are being used to feed animals, it’s going to concentrate up the food chain. And these things are fat soluble, it’s going to be concentrated in the fats of the animals.
If you’re a high meat eater, and a high grain consumer, plan on having plenty of glyphosate in your system, and that goes for your kids, too. Cutting back on those processed grain products, eating more vegetables, avoiding GMO, eating organic is really important.
One other thing you can do, take herbs. Herbs are really important. Herbs have the contrary effect. So, we’ve got all these things that come at us that disrupt our hormone systems, what I call system disruptors.
Plants have very similar chemicals to ours, so because our system is so much more tuned to recognizing these chemicals, plants have a balancing effect. Herbs counteract and cut out some of the disturbance that’s being caused by these other chemical messengers. So when you take herbs, you’re automatically counteracting those things.
Another thing that we found that herbs do, which is really important, is they boost detoxification of these chemicals. They help you get them out of your body faster. And they have a direct effect of protecting your cells, which is really important.
So which herbs to take? Really most any of them are good. They’re all going to have some effect, but top of the list, chlorella is really good for binding organic toxins and removing them from the body. So chlorella is a freshwater algae, a really good one to have.
Other herbs, adaptogens. Adaptogens are immune modulators and hormone balancers. So there are a lot of great adaptogens — reishi, cordyceps, rhodiola — that have the effect of counteracting the negative effects of some of these harmful chemicals that come into our bodies.
But there is a bigger problem. A lot of weeds are becoming resistant to Roundup now. So Monsanto is out there building new chemicals, and new GMOs, and so a lot of new things are coming on the market that are just as harmful, if not worse than Roundup. So don’t just put all your attention on the Roundup, there are other things out there that are just as bad, and you’ve got to make your stance. You’ve got to give an opinion.
One thing that you can do is make your voice known. There is a petition that’s being circulated by Environmental Working Group: Go to their website, sign the petition, be part of this movement. Be proactive.
You also vote with your dollar. Don’t buy processed grain products. Don’t buy GMO products. Buy organic, buy better foods. Work on things that are going to have less total harm to the environment and your family, which is really, really important.
Those are some things that you can do actively that can make a difference. When enough people get together and talk about these issues, then we start to have change, we start to have recognition. This is a problem that we can deal with, but everybody has to be active.
If you think this information is valuable, please take the time to share it with others. Go to the Environmental Working Group website, it’s a great website for finding out a lot of wonderful information. Everything from sunscreens to foods. And it’s a good way to protect yourself, and your family.
Dr. Rawls is a physician who overcame Lyme disease through natural herbal therapy. You can learn more about Lyme disease in Dr. Rawls’ new best selling book, Unlocking Lyme.
You can also learn about Dr. Rawls’ personal journey in overcoming Lyme disease and fibromyalgia in his popular blog post, My Chronic Lyme Journey.