The kidneys play a critical role in the body: Acting as the body’s filtering system, they help control water levels and eliminate wastes through urine. They also help regulate blood pressure, red blood cell production, and the levels of calcium and minerals.
But sometimes the kidneys don’t develop properly and, as a result, don’t function as they should. Often these problems are genetic and not due to anything a parent did or didn’t do.

New research has found that two compounds which are used worldwide in the cultivation of non-organic soybeans, fruits and vegetables, cause direct death to kidney cells.
According to a recent study published in the Journal of Applied Toxicology, Roundup and the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) pesticides are toxic and they both cause direct damage to the kidney cells. If you are like most people, you are probably wondering what exactly Roundup and Bt even are. Roundup is a glyphosate-based herbicide and it is not only Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide, it is also the most widely used herbicide on earth.  Bt is a biopesticide, which is a pesticide that is grown from toxic organic matters such as bacterial species which exist naturally in the wild.

This work comes at a time when the French environment and agricultural ministers are seeking an EU-wide ban of Monsanto’s MON810 Bt corn variety that is already outlawed in Hungary, Austria, Germany, Greece, and Luxembourg. The EU commission approved this crop in 2009, concluding that it “is as safe as its conventional counterpart with respect to potential effects on human and animal health”. In response to their publication the research team raised questions about the safety assessment procedure stating that their findings were a “surprising outcome and this risk was somehow overlooked” in past assessments of such crops.

Monsanto is pushing the use of genetically modified organism (GMO) crops, which are created with the use of a combination of both Bt and Roundup. In fact, almost all of the GMO crops worldwide are currently made with Bt and Roundup and the majority of mass produced tomatoes, potatoes, corn, cantaloupes and strawberries are genetically modified.  This is highly unfortunate, because eating organic fruits and vegetables simply isn’t enough to avoid Bt and Roundup due to the fact that most junk food, fast food and processed food contains at least one ingredient which has been grown with them.  Although it is unlikely that you can completely avoid contact with Bt and Roundup, boycotting GMO fruits and vegetables, eating locally grown, organic foods and avoiding junk food and fast food can help to keep your exposure to these dangerous toxins to a minimum.

These studies, along with the observation that Bt protein is present in the blood of pregnant women and their babies makes it an urgent matter for the health impacts of Bt proteins in GM crops to be thoroughly investigated along with the known effects on the environment and non-target species