GLUFOSINATE
Glufosinate is a new broad-spectrum herbicide whose use is expected to increase rapidly in the
near future. It kills plants by inhibiting the enzyme glutamine synthetase, an enzyme also found in
animals including humans.

Glufosinate chemically resembles glutamine, a molecule used to transmit nerve impulses in the
brain. Neurotoxic symptoms observed in laboratory animals following ingestion, dermal exposure or
inhalation  of glufosinate include convulsions, diarrhoea, aggressiveness, and disequilibrium.

Dogs appear to be the laboratory animal most sensitive to glufosinate. Ingestion of glufosinate for two weeks
caused heart and circulatory failure resulting in death.

Exposure of pregnant laboratory animals to glufosinate caused an increase in premature delivery, miscarriages, the number of dead foetuses. and arrested development of foetal kidneys.

Concentrations of a glufosinate-containing herbicide of less than than one part per million cause mortality  of oyster and clam larvae.

Several species of  disease-causing fungi are resistant to glufosinate, while a beneficial fungi that parasitizes
disease-causing fungi is very susceptible to glufosinate. This means that use of glufosinate can have "important
microbiological consequences."

EPA classifies glufosinate as “mobile” and “persistent”, and studies found half- lives (the time taken for half of the applied amount to break down or move away) of 12 – 70 days, with an average of about 40 days.

Glufosinate was found in the edible parts of spinach, radishes, wheat and carrots that had been planted 120 days after (soil) treatment with glufosinate-containing herbicide.

A major breakdown product of glufosinate found in plants and animals that have been exposed to glufosinate is 3-methylphosphinicopropionic acid (make mine a double – then I’ll only have to say it once - Ed). This metabolite is, like glufosinate, a neurotoxin. It is more persistent that glufosinate and has been found in wheat planted 120 days after soil treatment with a glufosinate-containing herbicide.

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