6 ms·

Glyphosate found in granola, crackers and oatmeal

59 points by Trisell 8y ago

rando444 8y ago
I think the most puzzling part of the article for me was that the article says they've only been doing testing for this for two years now. I'm sure I'm missing some critical piece of information, but this seems like something that agencies should have started testing for decades ago.
- knieveltech 8y ago
  I'm guessing the critical piece of information you're missing is the FDA, like most government agencies that aren't the military, suffers from chronic underfunding and lobby-funded political agendas.
  - rando444 8y ago
    Not arguing that, but we're talking about Roundup, which we know is a health hazard and used everywhere. As a layperson, if the FDA hasn't been testing for this, it makes you wonder what they have been testing for.. or rather, it almost makes one feel like they haven't been testing food samples at all for 50+ years.. which even with an underfunded agency, would be shocking.
    - knieveltech 8y ago
      We are in violent agreement here.
- stevenwoo 8y ago
  From the sources linked in the article there appears to be quite a bit of pushback from Monsanto to even test that infiltrated the Department of Agriculture (FDA and Department of Agriculture appear to have some overlapping responsibilities to test to standards created by EPA), there was some movement by 2016 but that was all cancelled by the new administration, doubt we'll see any progress in the USA unless Canada and EU start testing their imports from USA and banning contaminated imports.
njx 8y ago
When I visited our friends/family in Toronto, I was walking through the community and noticed how the lawns had weeds everywhere. I was very intrigued. Don't they have laws, HOA etc. I talked about this to my friend and he said weed killers are prohibited for home use, only golf courses are allowed etc. That was an awesome news for me. I really wish weed killers are abandoned everywhere. Let nature grow, if you don't like it then just mow.
- stronglikedan 8y ago
  You can't mow the stickers away, and they are not fun to pick out of dog fur, or carpet, or couches, or...
- jasongill 8y ago
  Weeds choke out food crops - you can't just mow a soybean field. "Natural" alternatives like vinegar can be just as harmful to the soil & environment as commercial herbicides, and other methods can be economically unfeasible. Unfortunately, to sustain the growth of population and increasing consumer "appetite", herbicides are the only way (at this time). Nobody, including those who live in rural areas like I do, WANT to use herbicides (they aren't cheap) - it's just the only way to stay in business. There is no scaleable alternative at this time.
  - ItsMe000001 8y ago
    I read an article a few years ago but I cannot for the live of me remember even the larger context, so I don't even know what to ask Google to find it again. Might have been in the context of "The omnivores Dilemma" and the "grass farmer" he visited and described? Don't know if I got it form that book itself or something else I read. It mentioned that when they (don't remember who "they" was either) studied the productivity of rice production somewhere in Asia they found that traditionally worked land was much less productive than industrial-style rice agriculture. BUT - and there was a huge "but": They studied only rice, and that is how they came to that conclusion. Turned out they completely ignored that the traditional method produced not just rice but a long list of other stuff too. So yes, it was "inefficient in producing "just rice". Nature is a huge complex system. How about instead of continuing on a path that surely is not just sub-optimal, but probably even dangerous because it is counter to how nature works and you have to brute-force your way to "success" we give up the idea of gigantic monocultures, and instead go for complexity? That means fields that don't actually look like fields. Where lots of very different kinds of plants all grow together. Yes, that won't work with our current machinery, and not with current knowledge. But I think that you can create biological systems that are far more productive than anything we can get from monocultures, plus none of the dangers. That requires huge amounts of research, experiments - and IT!! Because all that knowledge is too complex to give to every farmer. We need to put that knowledge into systems that then are easy to use. I think trying to force our way to food victory won't work, over time you have to add more and more fixes for all the shortcomings that slowly accumulate in that system, from soil quality to side effects such as the wide distribution of poisons. With enough knowledge we might truly create the Garden of Eden on earth: We let nature do all the work (#) and only go in to grab our food. Like it used to be in hunter/gatherer times, but now managed by us based on the vast amounts of knowledge and "magic tools" (that contain lots of that accumulated knowledge and free the user from having to know even a fraction of it) we created so that it scales to the billions of people. It will also help us when we think about terraforming new planets :-) (#) Nature has trillions and trillions of little machines powered by sun energy working in unison. This is not far-fetched. We already know quite a bit about biological systems, and we have successfully created reasonably complex and large biological systems in some areas.
deelowe 8y ago
Weedkiller, pesticides, fossil fuel emissions, food additives, preservatives, industrial run off and on and on. Does anyone look at all this at scale? With all the crap we're pumping into the air, water, and our food, I really wonder.
- code_duck 8y ago
  Also plastic is ubiquitous and treated like it is harmless - it’s in close contact with your skin and your food pretty much continually, plus also in water and airborne dust.
matthewaveryusa 8y ago
This is the "lead in fuel" equivalent of our generation.
- bryanlarsen 8y ago
  If lead was an effective pesticide or herbicide, it would be considered natural and organic. cf copper sulfate.
insensible 8y ago
A lot of people don't know that RoundUp is sprayed on many (perhaps most) grains shortly before harvest. It desiccates the grain crop, keeping the combine from getting gummed up and increasing yields. When I learned this, I decided enough was enough and switched to strictly organic grains. I think it actually helps my health quite a bit. I wonder how many of the health problems we blame on wheat are actually due to the poison that is routinely sprayed on it.
- soperj 8y ago
  They spray organic food as well. Just with different stuff, like nicotine.
  - insensible 8y ago
    I've been a veggie farmer. I'm familiar with what's allowed in the NOP (national organic program), and given the chance to be exposed to the worst of it I'd choose it over RoundUp every day of the week.
- cfontes 8y ago
  The problem is to track a real organic food. You can be paying 30% more for your food and still be eating pesticides. There is no fool proof way to do this validation in most countries.
  - insensible 8y ago
    I absolutely know that organic food also contains glyphosate and that I'm not eliminating my exposure. My family has chosen to reduce our exposure this way, since to whatever extent the organic certification works, this practice is prohibited.
- khawkins 8y ago
  Snopes has debunked this claim. "We reject the notion, however, that this “common” practice of U.S. farmers “saturating” wheat crops with Roundup herbicide as a desiccant before each harvest has been causing an increase in wheat-related ailments, as these claims are unsupported even by the research cited in articles making such a claim." https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/grain-of-truth/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/grain-of-truth/
myth_drannon 8y ago
Please, someone. Instead of working on pushing ads into our minds, develop a software/device that can pick up all these chemicals.
- alexandercrohde 8y ago
  People are working on it, however it's just very very difficult. Contaminants can have an adverse effect at 1 part per billion, so as you can imagine the sensitivity of testing equipment must be very advanced. Currently contaminants can only be reliably detected with advanced equipment like mass spectrometers that run over a hundred thousand, require clean conditions, trained operators, advanced software, and routine upkeep. Improvements in these machines would be a huge step in the right direction.
- xkcd-sucks 8y ago
  I spent a while working on this sort of thing a few years ago. Right now there's basically no market for this sort of thing. The characterization technique(s) need to be really sensitive, really specific, really fast, and generalized to the whole domain possible contaminants, which means expensive. Consumers don't care enough to pay for it right now. Pretty much the only practical tech right now is a card with a shitload of immuno assays on it, like those pan-drug test strips. There are a pain to validate and expensive/no fun to develop. The business model here would be spending a few million buying antibodies from commercial suppliers, validating tests, and selling cards for <<$1 per test. Test cards would likely be e.g. "artificial hormones", "pesticides I/I/III" etc Education is also an issue, when the domain of possible contaminants is so large. The sample prep in this case is still a problem, though. Easy for drinking water, harder when you're trying to take a standard sample of e.g. apple skin There is a little bit more 'political will' in China because there is greater awareness of food contamination. But the market only supports water conductivity meters and gimmicks like that, unless something's changed in the past year. The closest thing I think is the "Consumer Physics SCiO," aka the Theranos of chemical characterization. Their device is both too expensive (for a mainstream consumer product) and useless for any real world contaminant test, although it is fine at testing water/sugar/protein content for e.g. bad baby formula
- insensible 8y ago
jihadjihad 8y ago
I am no expert, but isn't this stuff supposed to degrade quickly in soil? Isn't that the whole reason why we're using it in the first place? If it behaves differently than expected, the implications are enormous--this stuff is even sprayed, as one commenter also noted, over the entire crop before harvest. Can anyone trust Monsanto?
- jakewins 8y ago
  I think you are confusing "degrade" with "run-off"; glyphosate "sticks" to soils with high organic content - presumably due to opposing electric charges. The point of that being that it doesn't get washed into watersheds et cetera when it rains; of course, again, this only applies in high-organic-content soils. Glyphosate degrades with a "half-life" of about 1-170 days. If you consume a product sprayed with glyphosate within about 90 days of the last spray, on average it will contain about half of the original dose. Source: http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/dienochlor-glyphosate/glyphosate-ext.html http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/dienochlor-gly...
  - ItsMe000001 8y ago
    What is the half-life based on? Spontaneous decomposition? Or does it depend on external factors such as exposure to sun light (certain wavelengths)? If it depends on such factors half-life is variable depending on those conditions.
    - jakewins 8y ago
      It seems this number is for soil decomposition from microbial action. It's stable to chemical and photo decomposition. It also seems I was wrong about half-life in plants; the half life given for some tree species is 9 days. Unsurprisingly, industry does not appear to have funded research on the half-life in corn, soy and other commonly sprayed products. http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/archive/glyphotech.html http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/archive/glyphotech.html
avoutthere 8y ago
To counter this in fresh produce, is it possible to just do a thorough rinsing in the sink before preparation/consumption?
DiabloD3 8y ago
I've been anti-glyphosate for awhile. But first, my point of view: A lot of crops require "Roundup Ready" varieties, and Monsanto (ab)uses patent law to enforce licenses on their RR seeds, even in situations where it is clear Monsanto crops contaminated someone else's field. Worse yet, due to horizontal gene transfer in some grasses and weeds, we now have RR weeds, and that is a one way process. Due to this, Glyphosate-based products are no longer useful for new weed eradication solutions, only for existing solutions until their last users are overtaken by RR weeds. Roundup had its time, and now it is essentially a commercial failure after the fact. All of that said, I'm anti-glyphosate because, frankly, it should have never been cleared for use. It kills valuable crops that have not been supplied with the RR gene (which has happened repeatedly due to overspray effecting neighboring fields), they've known since day one that horizontal gene transfer could produce RR weeds, and now we've lost an important tool in weed control due to the overuse and abuse of glyphosate. Due to this overuse and abuse, the American public has been unwittingly used as guinea pigs due to bad science stating that it doesn't harm us, but very little (until recently) was done to see how it interacts with our gut flora. We now know that in at least some of the population, glyphosate exposure has side effects. Maybe it screws with our gut bacteria (most likely not the pathway described in Glyphosate II (Samsel 2013)), maybe it is because of APMA (a metabolite of glyphosate) which mimics glutamate toxicity (and want some extra fun? Look at the relationship between autism and glutamate). I don't know. I don't need to know the exact mechanism (although I'd like to us to know, to prevent future mistakes from harming people due to accidentally using the same pathway), I just need to know that there is enough science to link glyphosate exposure to modern diseases and disorders. Well, that, and it doesn't really work anymore in a lot of crops, especially RR ones.
- jakewins 8y ago
  Not to be a Monsanto shill, but: > [forces patent compliance] even in situations where it is clear Monsanto crops contaminated someone else's field Can you provide any example of this? The only cases I'm aware of are the likes of Bowman. The supreme court finding in that case makes it pretty clear Monsanto was in the right: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-796_c07d.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-796_c07d.pdf > we now have RR weeds, and that is a one way process No, it is not. This is the same nonsense as people touting antibiotics resistance as a dead-end street. It costs energy for these organisms to maintain resistance. Once you remove the antibiotic, or glyphosate, from the environment, the biologically ideal thing to do is to lose resistance, redirecting that energy to other things that actually serve a purpose. > I don't need to know the exact mechanism If you are going to be implying glyphosate causes autism, for some "extra fun" as you say, then you should perhaps reconsider this. Pointing out they've both followed the curve of modern industrial chemistry expansion and implying that correlation to be causative is irresponsible.
xfactor973 8y ago
For the determined or crazy with a little land there’s always this: https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/small-scale-grain-raising/ https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/small-scale-grain-raisi...
superplussed 8y ago
Anyone know if this would likely be true in Europe as well? Or are there vastly different pesticide policies here?
- ctack 8y ago
  In 2017, the EU voted to allow glysophate use for another 5 years.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago
Glyphohosate has been extensively studied and is considered safe for humans at dietary doses. Per the joint FAO and WHO report http://www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf?ua=1 http://www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf?ua=1 >Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide. Several epidemiological studies on cancer outcomes following occupational exposure to glyphosate were available. The evaluation of these studies focused on the occurrence of NHL. Overall, there is some evidence of a positive association between glyphosate exposure and risk of NHL from the case–control studies and the overall meta- analysis. However, it is notable that the only large cohort study of high quality found no evidence of an association at any exposure level. Glyphosate has been extensively tested for genotoxic effects using a variety of tests in a wide range of organisms. The overall weight of evidence indicates that administration of glyphosate and its formulation products at doses as high as 2000 mg/kg body weight by the oral route, the route most relevant to human dietary exposure, was not associated with genotoxic effects in an overwhelming majority of studies conducted in mammals, a model considered to be appropriate for assessing genotoxic risks to humans. The Meeting concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to be genotoxic at anticipated dietary exposures. Several carcinogenicity studies in mice and rats are available. The Meeting concluded that glyphosate is not carcinogenic in rats but could not exclude the possibility that it is carcinogenic in mice at very high doses. In view of the absence of carcinogenic potential in rodents at human-relevant doses and the absence of genotoxicity by the oral route in mammals, and considering the epidemiological evidence from occupational exposures, the Meeting concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet. The Meeting reaffirmed the group ADI for the sum of glyphosate and its metabolites of 0–1 mg/kg body weight on the basis of effects on the salivary gland. The Meeting concluded that it was not necessary to establish an ARfD for glyphosate or its metabolites in view of its low acute toxicity. From the above, it seems that glyphohosate is pretty safe, and that it being found on food items in trace amounts is not big a deal. This seems yet another article that tries to get clicks by having a scary headline of the form "Look chemicals!"
- atomical 8y ago
  Great comment, thanks for posting it. There are so many pseudoscience type comments in this thread.
sampo 8y ago
> a weedkiller linked to cancer This is controversial to say the least. And very one-sided reporting from The Guardian. Every research agency but one considers glyphosate safe and not linked to cancer. Bodies like WHO (World Health Organization) and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) [1], EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) [2], and ECHA (European Chemicals Agency) [3] have concluded that there is no evidence for glyphosate causing cancer. Only one agency, IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) in France, has classified glyphosate as a probable carcinogen, but their work has raised some suspicion [4]. [1] http://www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf http://www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf [2] https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/151112 https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/151112 [3] https://echa.europa.eu/fi/-/glyphosate-not-classified-as-a-carcinogen-by-echa https://echa.europa.eu/fi/-/glyphosate-not-classified-as-a-c... [4] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-who-iarc-glyphosate-specialreport/in-glyphosate-review-who-cancer-agency-edited-out-non-carcinogenic-findings-idUSKBN1CO251 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-who-iarc-glyphosate-speci...
throwaway84742 8y ago
Glyphosate is not carcinogenic though, and not dangerous to humans in concentrations typically found on produce. This is due primarily to its mechanism of action. The biological pathways it disrupts in plants are simply not present in humans.
notadoc 8y ago
Everyone I know who eats organic food does so to avoid these type of pesticides.
stillbourne 8y ago
Does it matter? Its probably way below the level of toxicity. The ld50 in rats is 5,600 mg/kg multiply that by 130 and that's close to 1 and 1/2 lbs you would need to ingest to get half of a lethal dose. So it'd take 3 lbs to kill you. A couple of specks of it in food in benign. I mean the ld50 of caffeine is 26 grams people. I don't see people complaining about caffeine killing us all. Stop it with the chemophobia.

59 points by Trisell 8y ago

I think the most puzzling part of the article for me was that the article says they've only been doing testing for this for two years now. I'm sure I'm missing some critical piece of information, but this seems like something that agencies should have started testing for decades ago.

knieveltech 8y ago
I'm guessing the critical piece of information you're missing is the FDA, like most government agencies that aren't the military, suffers from chronic underfunding and lobby-funded political agendas.
- rando444 8y ago
  Not arguing that, but we're talking about Roundup, which we know is a health hazard and used everywhere. As a layperson, if the FDA hasn't been testing for this, it makes you wonder what they have been testing for.. or rather, it almost makes one feel like they haven't been testing food samples at all for 50+ years.. which even with an underfunded agency, would be shocking.
  - knieveltech 8y ago
    We are in violent agreement here.
stevenwoo 8y ago
From the sources linked in the article there appears to be quite a bit of pushback from Monsanto to even test that infiltrated the Department of Agriculture (FDA and Department of Agriculture appear to have some overlapping responsibilities to test to standards created by EPA), there was some movement by 2016 but that was all cancelled by the new administration, doubt we'll see any progress in the USA unless Canada and EU start testing their imports from USA and banning contaminated imports.

njx 8y ago

When I visited our friends/family in Toronto, I was walking through the community and noticed how the lawns had weeds everywhere. I was very intrigued. Don't they have laws, HOA etc. I talked about this to my friend and he said weed killers are prohibited for home use, only golf courses are allowed etc. That was an awesome news for me. I really wish weed killers are abandoned everywhere. Let nature grow, if you don't like it then just mow.

stronglikedan 8y ago
You can't mow the stickers away, and they are not fun to pick out of dog fur, or carpet, or couches, or...
jasongill 8y ago
Weeds choke out food crops - you can't just mow a soybean field. "Natural" alternatives like vinegar can be just as harmful to the soil & environment as commercial herbicides, and other methods can be economically unfeasible. Unfortunately, to sustain the growth of population and increasing consumer "appetite", herbicides are the only way (at this time). Nobody, including those who live in rural areas like I do, WANT to use herbicides (they aren't cheap) - it's just the only way to stay in business. There is no scaleable alternative at this time.
- ItsMe000001 8y ago
  I read an article a few years ago but I cannot for the live of me remember even the larger context, so I don't even know what to ask Google to find it again. Might have been in the context of "The omnivores Dilemma" and the "grass farmer" he visited and described? Don't know if I got it form that book itself or something else I read. It mentioned that when they (don't remember who "they" was either) studied the productivity of rice production somewhere in Asia they found that traditionally worked land was much less productive than industrial-style rice agriculture. BUT - and there was a huge "but": They studied only rice, and that is how they came to that conclusion. Turned out they completely ignored that the traditional method produced not just rice but a long list of other stuff too. So yes, it was "inefficient in producing "just rice". Nature is a huge complex system. How about instead of continuing on a path that surely is not just sub-optimal, but probably even dangerous because it is counter to how nature works and you have to brute-force your way to "success" we give up the idea of gigantic monocultures, and instead go for complexity? That means fields that don't actually look like fields. Where lots of very different kinds of plants all grow together. Yes, that won't work with our current machinery, and not with current knowledge. But I think that you can create biological systems that are far more productive than anything we can get from monocultures, plus none of the dangers. That requires huge amounts of research, experiments - and IT!! Because all that knowledge is too complex to give to every farmer. We need to put that knowledge into systems that then are easy to use. I think trying to force our way to food victory won't work, over time you have to add more and more fixes for all the shortcomings that slowly accumulate in that system, from soil quality to side effects such as the wide distribution of poisons. With enough knowledge we might truly create the Garden of Eden on earth: We let nature do all the work (#) and only go in to grab our food. Like it used to be in hunter/gatherer times, but now managed by us based on the vast amounts of knowledge and "magic tools" (that contain lots of that accumulated knowledge and free the user from having to know even a fraction of it) we created so that it scales to the billions of people. It will also help us when we think about terraforming new planets :-) (#) Nature has trillions and trillions of little machines powered by sun energy working in unison. This is not far-fetched. We already know quite a bit about biological systems, and we have successfully created reasonably complex and large biological systems in some areas.

deelowe 8y ago

Weedkiller, pesticides, fossil fuel emissions, food additives, preservatives, industrial run off and on and on. Does anyone look at all this at scale? With all the crap we're pumping into the air, water, and our food, I really wonder.

code_duck 8y ago
Also plastic is ubiquitous and treated like it is harmless - it’s in close contact with your skin and your food pretty much continually, plus also in water and airborne dust.

matthewaveryusa 8y ago

This is the "lead in fuel" equivalent of our generation.

bryanlarsen 8y ago
If lead was an effective pesticide or herbicide, it would be considered natural and organic. cf copper sulfate.

insensible 8y ago

A lot of people don't know that RoundUp is sprayed on many (perhaps most) grains shortly before harvest. It desiccates the grain crop, keeping the combine from getting gummed up and increasing yields. When I learned this, I decided enough was enough and switched to strictly organic grains. I think it actually helps my health quite a bit. I wonder how many of the health problems we blame on wheat are actually due to the poison that is routinely sprayed on it.

soperj 8y ago
They spray organic food as well. Just with different stuff, like nicotine.
- insensible 8y ago
  I've been a veggie farmer. I'm familiar with what's allowed in the NOP (national organic program), and given the chance to be exposed to the worst of it I'd choose it over RoundUp every day of the week.
cfontes 8y ago
The problem is to track a real organic food. You can be paying 30% more for your food and still be eating pesticides. There is no fool proof way to do this validation in most countries.
- insensible 8y ago
  I absolutely know that organic food also contains glyphosate and that I'm not eliminating my exposure. My family has chosen to reduce our exposure this way, since to whatever extent the organic certification works, this practice is prohibited.
khawkins 8y ago
Snopes has debunked this claim. "We reject the notion, however, that this “common” practice of U.S. farmers “saturating” wheat crops with Roundup herbicide as a desiccant before each harvest has been causing an increase in wheat-related ailments, as these claims are unsupported even by the research cited in articles making such a claim." https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/grain-of-truth/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/grain-of-truth/

myth_drannon 8y ago

Please, someone. Instead of working on pushing ads into our minds, develop a software/device that can pick up all these chemicals.

alexandercrohde 8y ago
People are working on it, however it's just very very difficult. Contaminants can have an adverse effect at 1 part per billion, so as you can imagine the sensitivity of testing equipment must be very advanced. Currently contaminants can only be reliably detected with advanced equipment like mass spectrometers that run over a hundred thousand, require clean conditions, trained operators, advanced software, and routine upkeep. Improvements in these machines would be a huge step in the right direction.
xkcd-sucks 8y ago
I spent a while working on this sort of thing a few years ago. Right now there's basically no market for this sort of thing. The characterization technique(s) need to be really sensitive, really specific, really fast, and generalized to the whole domain possible contaminants, which means expensive. Consumers don't care enough to pay for it right now. Pretty much the only practical tech right now is a card with a shitload of immuno assays on it, like those pan-drug test strips. There are a pain to validate and expensive/no fun to develop. The business model here would be spending a few million buying antibodies from commercial suppliers, validating tests, and selling cards for <<$1 per test. Test cards would likely be e.g. "artificial hormones", "pesticides I/I/III" etc Education is also an issue, when the domain of possible contaminants is so large. The sample prep in this case is still a problem, though. Easy for drinking water, harder when you're trying to take a standard sample of e.g. apple skin There is a little bit more 'political will' in China because there is greater awareness of food contamination. But the market only supports water conductivity meters and gimmicks like that, unless something's changed in the past year. The closest thing I think is the "Consumer Physics SCiO," aka the Theranos of chemical characterization. Their device is both too expensive (for a mainstream consumer product) and useless for any real world contaminant test, although it is fine at testing water/sugar/protein content for e.g. bad baby formula
insensible 8y ago

jihadjihad 8y ago

I am no expert, but isn't this stuff supposed to degrade quickly in soil? Isn't that the whole reason why we're using it in the first place? If it behaves differently than expected, the implications are enormous--this stuff is even sprayed, as one commenter also noted, over the entire crop before harvest. Can anyone trust Monsanto?

jakewins 8y ago
I think you are confusing "degrade" with "run-off"; glyphosate "sticks" to soils with high organic content - presumably due to opposing electric charges. The point of that being that it doesn't get washed into watersheds et cetera when it rains; of course, again, this only applies in high-organic-content soils. Glyphosate degrades with a "half-life" of about 1-170 days. If you consume a product sprayed with glyphosate within about 90 days of the last spray, on average it will contain about half of the original dose. Source: http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/dienochlor-glyphosate/glyphosate-ext.html http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/dienochlor-gly...
- ItsMe000001 8y ago
  What is the half-life based on? Spontaneous decomposition? Or does it depend on external factors such as exposure to sun light (certain wavelengths)? If it depends on such factors half-life is variable depending on those conditions.
  - jakewins 8y ago
    It seems this number is for soil decomposition from microbial action. It's stable to chemical and photo decomposition. It also seems I was wrong about half-life in plants; the half life given for some tree species is 9 days. Unsurprisingly, industry does not appear to have funded research on the half-life in corn, soy and other commonly sprayed products. http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/archive/glyphotech.html http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/archive/glyphotech.html

avoutthere 8y ago

To counter this in fresh produce, is it possible to just do a thorough rinsing in the sink before preparation/consumption?

DiabloD3 8y ago

I've been anti-glyphosate for awhile. But first, my point of view: A lot of crops require "Roundup Ready" varieties, and Monsanto (ab)uses patent law to enforce licenses on their RR seeds, even in situations where it is clear Monsanto crops contaminated someone else's field. Worse yet, due to horizontal gene transfer in some grasses and weeds, we now have RR weeds, and that is a one way process. Due to this, Glyphosate-based products are no longer useful for new weed eradication solutions, only for existing solutions until their last users are overtaken by RR weeds. Roundup had its time, and now it is essentially a commercial failure after the fact. All of that said, I'm anti-glyphosate because, frankly, it should have never been cleared for use. It kills valuable crops that have not been supplied with the RR gene (which has happened repeatedly due to overspray effecting neighboring fields), they've known since day one that horizontal gene transfer could produce RR weeds, and now we've lost an important tool in weed control due to the overuse and abuse of glyphosate. Due to this overuse and abuse, the American public has been unwittingly used as guinea pigs due to bad science stating that it doesn't harm us, but very little (until recently) was done to see how it interacts with our gut flora. We now know that in at least some of the population, glyphosate exposure has side effects. Maybe it screws with our gut bacteria (most likely not the pathway described in Glyphosate II (Samsel 2013)), maybe it is because of APMA (a metabolite of glyphosate) which mimics glutamate toxicity (and want some extra fun? Look at the relationship between autism and glutamate). I don't know. I don't need to know the exact mechanism (although I'd like to us to know, to prevent future mistakes from harming people due to accidentally using the same pathway), I just need to know that there is enough science to link glyphosate exposure to modern diseases and disorders. Well, that, and it doesn't really work anymore in a lot of crops, especially RR ones.

jakewins 8y ago
Not to be a Monsanto shill, but: > [forces patent compliance] even in situations where it is clear Monsanto crops contaminated someone else's field Can you provide any example of this? The only cases I'm aware of are the likes of Bowman. The supreme court finding in that case makes it pretty clear Monsanto was in the right: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-796_c07d.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-796_c07d.pdf > we now have RR weeds, and that is a one way process No, it is not. This is the same nonsense as people touting antibiotics resistance as a dead-end street. It costs energy for these organisms to maintain resistance. Once you remove the antibiotic, or glyphosate, from the environment, the biologically ideal thing to do is to lose resistance, redirecting that energy to other things that actually serve a purpose. > I don't need to know the exact mechanism If you are going to be implying glyphosate causes autism, for some "extra fun" as you say, then you should perhaps reconsider this. Pointing out they've both followed the curve of modern industrial chemistry expansion and implying that correlation to be causative is irresponsible.

xfactor973 8y ago

For the determined or crazy with a little land there’s always this: https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/small-scale-grain-raising/ https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/small-scale-grain-raisi...

superplussed 8y ago

Anyone know if this would likely be true in Europe as well? Or are there vastly different pesticide policies here?

ctack 8y ago
In 2017, the EU voted to allow glysophate use for another 5 years.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago

Glyphohosate has been extensively studied and is considered safe for humans at dietary doses. Per the joint FAO and WHO report http://www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf?ua=1 http://www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf?ua=1 >Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide. Several epidemiological studies on cancer outcomes following occupational exposure to glyphosate were available. The evaluation of these studies focused on the occurrence of NHL. Overall, there is some evidence of a positive association between glyphosate exposure and risk of NHL from the case–control studies and the overall meta- analysis. However, it is notable that the only large cohort study of high quality found no evidence of an association at any exposure level. Glyphosate has been extensively tested for genotoxic effects using a variety of tests in a wide range of organisms. The overall weight of evidence indicates that administration of glyphosate and its formulation products at doses as high as 2000 mg/kg body weight by the oral route, the route most relevant to human dietary exposure, was not associated with genotoxic effects in an overwhelming majority of studies conducted in mammals, a model considered to be appropriate for assessing genotoxic risks to humans. The Meeting concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to be genotoxic at anticipated dietary exposures. Several carcinogenicity studies in mice and rats are available. The Meeting concluded that glyphosate is not carcinogenic in rats but could not exclude the possibility that it is carcinogenic in mice at very high doses. In view of the absence of carcinogenic potential in rodents at human-relevant doses and the absence of genotoxicity by the oral route in mammals, and considering the epidemiological evidence from occupational exposures, the Meeting concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet. The Meeting reaffirmed the group ADI for the sum of glyphosate and its metabolites of 0–1 mg/kg body weight on the basis of effects on the salivary gland. The Meeting concluded that it was not necessary to establish an ARfD for glyphosate or its metabolites in view of its low acute toxicity. From the above, it seems that glyphohosate is pretty safe, and that it being found on food items in trace amounts is not big a deal. This seems yet another article that tries to get clicks by having a scary headline of the form "Look chemicals!"

atomical 8y ago
Great comment, thanks for posting it. There are so many pseudoscience type comments in this thread.

sampo 8y ago

> a weedkiller linked to cancer This is controversial to say the least. And very one-sided reporting from The Guardian. Every research agency but one considers glyphosate safe and not linked to cancer. Bodies like WHO (World Health Organization) and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) [1], EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) [2], and ECHA (European Chemicals Agency) [3] have concluded that there is no evidence for glyphosate causing cancer. Only one agency, IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) in France, has classified glyphosate as a probable carcinogen, but their work has raised some suspicion [4]. [1] http://www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf http://www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf [2] https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/151112 https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/151112 [3] https://echa.europa.eu/fi/-/glyphosate-not-classified-as-a-carcinogen-by-echa https://echa.europa.eu/fi/-/glyphosate-not-classified-as-a-c... [4] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-who-iarc-glyphosate-specialreport/in-glyphosate-review-who-cancer-agency-edited-out-non-carcinogenic-findings-idUSKBN1CO251 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-who-iarc-glyphosate-speci...

throwaway84742 8y ago

Glyphosate is not carcinogenic though, and not dangerous to humans in concentrations typically found on produce. This is due primarily to its mechanism of action. The biological pathways it disrupts in plants are simply not present in humans.

notadoc 8y ago

Everyone I know who eats organic food does so to avoid these type of pesticides.

stillbourne 8y ago

Does it matter? Its probably way below the level of toxicity. The ld50 in rats is 5,600 mg/kg multiply that by 130 and that's close to 1 and 1/2 lbs you would need to ingest to get half of a lethal dose. So it'd take 3 lbs to kill you. A couple of specks of it in food in benign. I mean the ld50 of caffeine is 26 grams people. I don't see people complaining about caffeine killing us all. Stop it with the chemophobia.