Disease

Monsanto's Roundup may be linked to fatal kidney disease: Study

A heretofore inexplicable fatal, chronic kidney disease that has affected poor farming regions around the globe may be linked to the use of biochemical giant Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide in areas with hard water.

Researchers suggest that Roundup, or glyphosate, becomes highly toxic to the kidney once mixed with “hard” water or metals like arsenic and cadmium that often exist naturally in the soil or are added via fertilizer. Hard water contains metals like calcium, magnesium, strontium, and iron, among others. On its own, glyphosate is toxic, but not detrimental enough to eradicate kidney tissue.

The glyphosate molecule was patented as a herbicide by Monsanto in the early 1970s. The company soon brought glyphosate to market under the name “Roundup,” which is now the most commonly used herbicide in the world. The hypothesis helps explain a global rash of the mysterious, fatal Chronic Kidney Disease of Unknown etiology (CKDu) that has been found in rice paddy regions of northern Sri Lanka, for example, or in El Salvador, where CKDu is the second leading cause of death among males.

Furthermore, the study’s findings explain many observations associated with the disease, including the linkage between the consumption of hard water and CKDu, as 96 percent of patients have been found to have consumed “hard or very hard water for at least five years, from wells that receive their supply from shallow regolith aquifers.”

The CKDu was discovered in rice paddy farms in northern Sri Lanka around 20 years ago. The condition has spread quickly since then and now affects 15 percent of working age people in the region, or a total of 400,000 patients. At least 20,000 have died from CKDu there. CKDu does not share common risk factors as chronic kidney disease, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and glomerular nephritis, or inflammation of the kidney.

Fresh typhoid outbreak hits Zimbabwe

AN outbreak of typhoid is feared in Mabvuku township in Harare amid reports that nine cases of the disease have so far been treated at a council clinic in the suburb.

Typhoid is a systemic bacterial disease that is characterised by a fever, headache, malaise, spots on the chest, and a non-productive cough in the early stages of the illness. Constipation and diarrhoea are also common.

The mode of transmission is the faecal-oral route, through ingestion of bacteria in food or water contaminated with faeces or even the urine of infected persons.

This happens in conditions with poor sanitation and inadequate supply of clean water.

However, typhoid used to be a very rare condition in Zimbabwe but the progressive deterioration of the water and sewerage reticulation infrastructure resulted in the disease becoming common.

The local authorities however deny the existence of any disease outbreak.

Rare case of brain disease discovered - New Zealand

An Auckland patient is the latest person to be diagnosed with the incurable brain disorder Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a condition that became notorious because of its association with Britain's "mad cow disease" outbreak of the mid-1990s.

CJD is a neurological disease in which misfolded proteins in the brain, called "prions", create tiny holes throughout the brain tissue, leaving it resembling a sponge when seen under the microscope.

Victims suffer swift memory loss, dementia, hallucinations and personality change. Some types of CJD occur spontaneously, while others spread through contact with infected tissue.

An Auckland District Health Board spokesman confirmed a patient had been admitted to Auckland City Hospital last month with the "sporadic" form of CJD.