More than 30,000 doctors, scientists and environmentalists in Argentina have joined a campaign calling on Monsanto products to be banned after a study found they could contain carcinogens, it was reported by TeleSUR. They join a growing chorus of protest against the multinational that includes researchers and social organisations throughout Latin America.

Citing a recent declaration by the World Health Organisation that glyphosate chemicals used in Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide Round Up are “likely carcinogenic”, the doctors, which form part of the Fesprosa medical union, also claim that the chemical is linked to birth defects, spontaneous abortions, skin diseases, respiratory illness and neurological disease.

The WHO conclusions are based on a peer-reviewed study published in March 2015 in The Lancet Oncology.

“In our country glyphosate is applied on more than 28m hectares. Each year, the soil is sprayed with more than 320m litres, which means that 13m people are at risk of being affected, according to the Physicians Network of Sprayed Peoples (RMPF),” Fesprosa said. “Soy is not the only crop addicted to glyphosate: the herbicide is also used for transgenic maize and other crops. Where glyphosate falls, only GMOs can grow. Everything else dies.”