LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

New York should ban pesticide

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To the editor:

Please print this letter to inform the public that they, too, can submit a comment to the Committee on Health, New York City Council, on the proposed pesticide ban.

I am a very concerned resident of Riverdale in the Bronx, urging you to support local law Int. 0800-2015, banning the use of toxic pesticides and herbicides, including Roundup.

Roundup contains glyphosate, an endocrine disruptor. According to Jeffrey Smith of the Institute for Responsible Technology and Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist at MIT, glyphosate is an herbicide that destroys nutrients.

The way glyphosate works is that it interrupts the shikimate pathway, a metabolic function in plants that allows them to create essential amino acids. When this path is interrupted, the plants die.

Human cells don’t have a shikimate pathway, so scientists and researchers believed that exposure to glyphosate would be harmless. The problem is that bacteria do have a shikimate pathway, and we have millions of good bacteria in our guts — our “gut flora.”

These bacteria are essential to our health. Our gut isn’t just responsible for digestion, but also for our immune system. When glyphosate gets in our systems, it wrecks our gut, and as a result, our immune system. An assortment of diseases that can be potentially linked to glyphosate exposure and gut problems include autism, Alzheimer’s, obesity, low serotonin and tryptophan (causing depression, mental illness and increased violence), Parkinson’s, birth defects, Crohn’s and colitis, diabetes and cancer.

Glyphosate targets the extra-cellular matrix, hitting cell membranes that fall apart, leading to leaky gut. We become more susceptible to pathogens.

Let’s be proactive. There have been no long-term health and safety studies on Roundup/glyphosate. It should be banned in all New York City properties and parks as there is too much at stake.

Glyphosate is water soluble, and the runoff contaminates our water supply.

Last night (Sept. 5) I was horrified when, from approximately 1 a.m. to 2 a.m., a police car with a megaphone was making an unintelligible announcement, followed by a truck spraying a toxic pesticide in our streets. I have found out that this was to combat the mosquitoes that spread West Nile.

On what basis was this decision made? What is the incidence of West Nile in my neighborhood? I am attempting to grow some organic herbs and produce — now that produce is ruined.

We don’t know the unintended consequences on other wildlife.

Please give these concerns your careful consideration, and vote yes on Local law Int. 0800-2015, on Sept. 26.

Deborah Dolan

Deborah Dolan

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