We’ve hit a major milestone in our efforts to let the Australian government and councils know that we want restrictions on the use of glyphosate in public spaces.
Support for this petition has sky rocketed with more than 20,000 signatures in the past week alone, taking us to more than 30,000 signatures.
I want to say thank you first and foremost for your support. This milestone is a huge stride forward, one that I truly believe will help us create a better world for the children of today and generations to come.
I will now be contacting my local MP, Professor Kerryn Phelps AM MP, to try and get her support for this petition.
It is so important that we keep sharing this petition to send a strong message to Canberra that regulation on the use of glyphosate in Australia is a critical issue that needs to be addressed in the upcoming Federal election.
The German pharmaceutical giant Bayer will cut 12,000 jobs globally and sell off a number of its businesses, after its takeover of agrochemical company Monsanto.
In August Bayer’s shares dropped by more than a third, after a US jury awarded $US289 million ($396 million) in damages to a former school groundskeeper who said his terminal cancer had been caused by Roundup, a product made by Monsanto.
The damages were later reduced by a judge, but hundreds of other patients have made similar claims.
Monsanto disputes the judgement and has said the product is safe when used as directed but now faces more than 9,000 lawsuits over the alleged carcinogenic affects of Roundup.
About one in 10 workers will lose their jobs, with most going in Germany, and in a statement, Bayer Australia said it did know what the effect in Australia would be.
In the 80s, found myself in London when the AIDS epidemic was moving forward. Hope had to be sought. I was a cyclist, a patient advocate in 2 major hospitals and a palliative home carer with 2 or more, dying from AIDS, men in their flats We knew nothing for certain. Barrier nursing was common sense. Home care service was not yet developed.
I used to cycle more than a hundred kilometres a week, from Streatham to Highgate. I was learning how to care with out running away when it seemed too tough.
The tabloids screamed out at me every morning, me thinking what could this mean for those so weak and vulnerable, isolated in tiny rooms or flats with no-one who cares?
But in reality awareness was developing. Some people showed their humanity, others didn’t, mainly out of fear.
Understandable.
I used those screaming headlines, pulled them out of their wire advertising cages on the streets, held them in front of me and walked into social security offices where I was soon listened to. Those advertising sheets of news print, with confronting headlines, parted people waiting in the queue.
I was part of the education.
I lived in Paris for a year during 1984. I had no intention of staying that long but once I got there I found my ex-flat mate, from my Sydney days, seriously ill and alone. E. was ill when he left Sydney and after weeks of him barely able to get out of bed in my Sydney flat, unable to fly, we found a passage single berth on a Polish merchant ship which was to get him home to Paris eventually and to where his family lived.
We both knew he could have the new disease although diagnoses by Sydney doctors was inconclusive and speculative.
His 4th floor flat was situated in Montparnasse and the windows looked out over to the Pasteur Institute where the blue lights in the laboratories burned 24 hours. White-clad technicians could be seen moving slowly around. We both knew the scientists we could see were searching for the unknown virus. We also knew the same virus was what was going to kill my friend.
To the right of the Pasteur Institute, Montparnasse cemetery was visible nearby.
No family members any-where to be seen. Once a week a chocolate mousse and 6 bottles of coca cola was delivered to his front door by a servant of his banker father. No-one wanted to visit. Fear ruled.
My French was phrase book only then.
My duties were soon obvious. Feed him, bathe him and take care of him while he was awake. We would sit watching those blue lit windows at night from his bed-side in the hope that those moving white figures would find something, anything to help his suffering as dis-ease after dis-ease ravaged him by the minute and, if really lucky, save his young life.
Common sense, I learnt during my own long hospitalization when I was 13 and 14 years old, clicked in. Soon after the Pasteur Institute made their announcement that they had isolated the virus, he died.
I have often thought of those workers in the blue lab. Later, and when reading about the huge dispute between the French and the Americans as to who did what when, I never once read about Francoise-Barre-Sinoussi.
Red Cedar in the first zone where lantana was removed in the 1990s.A busy Saturday.Jayne and I removed 2 tightly packed bags of jump seed from the roadside. Others didn’t show to help as promised so we didn’t hang around. 2 hours later, a tick and a couple of leeches and the discovery of many emerging rain forest trees self seeded on the verges of the road. A small forest if transplanted. Lomandra we transplanted 2 years ago doing well.The road verges need a mow in some areas where visibility for vehicles is limited. Council has attended to clearing some drains out which is good to see.Last weeks sudden downpour gave us 20 mls in 30 minutes.Christmas comes early on Saturday night after an afternoon visit from Hannah………….delightful and a French pastry for after noon tea.Carmi arrived as Santa Claus, gifts for the Christmas tree.Dinner from the gardens. Green salad with chick peas and stuffed mushrooms served on Casino rice.
Following the recent Four Corners investigation into “known carcinogen” weedkiller glyphosate, cancer survivor Zara D’Cotta is calling on the government to regulate its use in public spaces.
You might have seen a recent episode of Four Corners, The Monsanto Papers. It exposed the tactics that global chemical corporation Monsanto use to protect its billion-dollar business and its product, the weed killer, Roundup, and its primary ingredient, glyphosate.
I was diagnosed with cancer just before my 30th birthday, and at age 31. Four beautiful, bright young women I knew growing up have tragically lost their lives to cancer in the past five years. I don’t want anyone to unnecessarily what these women and their families have been through, or what I have been through. So I’m calling on the Australian Government to take immediate action and restrict the use of glyphosate in public spaces in Australia.
In 2015 glyphosate was classified as “probably carcinogenic to humans” by the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) because of its strong association with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It is also on a list of known carcinogens in the state of California.
In August 2018, a US jury ordered Monsanto to pay Dewayne Johnson – a man dying of cancer – $289 million because it’s Roundup weed killer contributed to his disease. Nine thousand people in America are now suing Monsanto with claims that Roundup contributed to their cancer. Glyphosate has been found by IARC to linger in water, air and food long after it has been sprayed.
Here in Australia, there are around 500 products containing glyphosate registered for use in Australia including Roundup, the most commonly used weed killer in Australia and used by local councils around Australia. This means that children, other people, and their pets who visit parks and gardens around Australia are exposed to this probable carcinogen.
Currently, there are no regulations or checks in place and there is no way for the Australian public to know if their local council is using it according to label directions, nor how it is used or if it is present in the food we buy.
Belgium, Malta, The Netherlands and Argentina have banned or restricted the use of glyphosate. In Argentina, 30,000 doctors demanded the prohibition of glyphosate because it is associated with cancer, birth defects, skin diseases, respiratory illnesses and neurological disease. In November 2017 Emmanuel Macron announced France will issue an outright ban within the next three years.
Australia must now join growing international action to ban or restrict the use of glyphosate. I’m calling on the Federal Government to develop a consistent set of national guidelines, restrictions and regulations on how glyphosate is used until a viable alternative is found. Can you help me send a message to Canberra?
The need to protect the Australian public from associated health risks is urgent. Australians deserve peace of mind that measures are being taken to ensure the areas in which our pets and children play are safe.
It’s time to get serious about addressing the causes of cancer. The Australian Government must act immediately and restrict the use of glyphosate in public spaces in Australia.
Red Cedar in the first zone where lantana was removed in the 1990s.
