12 ms·

Roundup herbicide ingredient connected to epidemic chronic kidney disease

366 points by wglb 3y ago

stevev 3y ago
Now try the US. It’s found almost everywhere and it’s in foods. A dumb human moment.
candiddevmike 3y ago
Glyphosate is being found in US drinking water too: - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5486281/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5486281/ - https://www.health.state.mn.us/communities/environment/risk/docs/guidance/gw/glyphosateinfo.pdf https://www.health.state.mn.us/communities/environment/risk/... The common message is Glyphosate has a very short (ish) half life in soil. What happens when it enters the water table first?
- sokoloff 3y ago
  It seems like the half-life in water is less than that in soil: >* From literature studies, glyphosate’s half-life in surface waters and soil ranges from 2 to 91 days and from 2 to 215 days, respectively (Battaglin et al. 2014; Castro Berman et al. 2018). * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8827352/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8827352/
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    An actived carbon filter will remove ~99.9% of Glyphosate from water, if for human consumption. (source water from a ~100ft deep water table next to a large ag plot at a property, have both pre and post filter water tested to validate filtration effectiveness)
    - cj 3y ago
      Any recommendations for where to get water tested for uncommon contaminants?
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - toomuchtodo 3y ago
        Your local university extension should be able to provide this service at a reasonable cost ($100-$500, depending on what is being tested for). There are commercial water testing firms, but I do not have experience with any that I could recommend. https://www.nifa.usda.gov/about-nifa/how-we-work/extension https://www.nifa.usda.gov/about-nifa/how-we-work/extension https://www.isws.illinois.edu/health-environmental-applications/home-water-testing https://www.isws.illinois.edu/health-environmental-applicati...
        giantg2 3y ago
        Instead of testing for every one-off thing that comes up, maybe just go with a small reverse osmosis system for a similar price range.
        toomuchtodo 3y ago
        A quality iron/hydrogen sulfide water filter sets you back about $2k, and will last ~10 years or ~500k gallons. If you do not have this in your water, you can safely skip. High iron can lead to iron reducing bacteria scumming up fixtures and, more importantly, rapidly dissolving a hot water heater tank. If you smell sulfur in your hot water when you shower on a well, that bacteria is eating up your tank's anode rod quicker than normally would (I also suggest a powered anode rod, good for 20+ years to keep a tank tip top vs having to replace consumable anode rods, but that is another topic). A three cartridge system will cost you a few hundred dollars for setup, replacing the cartridges roughly every year after ~100k gallons of water has passed through them (~$100-200/year, depending on cartridge filter selection). You can mix and match cartridges for your specific water contaminant filtering needs (sediment, iron, heavy metals, VOCs, pesticides, etc). I would agree with optimizing for use case, but RO systems can be costly and high maintenance depending on the demand put on them. They are ideal for low demand, low flow applications like a kitchen faucet or refrigerator water supply for water and ice. Design accordingly.
    - quasse 3y ago
      Do you measure concerning levels of glyphosate in the pre-filtration water? I've always been curious about this for the sake of my friends who live in rural areas near pesticide dependent farmers.
      - toomuchtodo 3y ago
        I send both a sample of raw water right off the well pump before going through any filtration as well as a sample of the filtered water that has gone through a 50 micron spin down filter, an iron and hydrogen sulfide filter, and then a three stage cartridge filter system (containing a 1 micron sediment filter, heavy metals filter, and active carbon filter), the output of which gets sent off as water supply to fixtures, appliances, etc. I have not noted concerning levels of glyphosate, but impurities can fluctuate and water tests are a snapshot in time of water quality.
        DANmode 3y ago
        > concerning levels of glyphosate Go on.
  - hammock 3y ago
    >glyphosate’s half-life in surface waters ranges from 2 to 91 days According to new research from Duke University, while it was always thought that glyphosate would break down very quickly in the environment, it seems to stick around a lot longer than we expected when it complexes in hard water. This new research found that when glyphosate encounters certain trace metal ions that make water hard—like magnesium and calcium—glyphosate-metal ion complexes can form. Those complexes can persist up to 7 years in water and 22 years in soil. Source: https://phys.org/news/2023-10-roundup-herbicide-ingredient-epidemic-chronic.html https://phys.org/news/2023-10-roundup-herbicide-ingredient-e...
- rgrieselhuber 3y ago
  Definitely a good idea to filter drinking water in the US, make sure to get a filter that will filter out other toxic chemicals such as fluoride.
  - hammock 3y ago
    Is fluoride in drinking water toxic? I thought they added it on purpose to help our teeth or something
    - Nicksil 3y ago
      >Is fluoride in drinking water toxic? I thought they added it on purpose to help our teeth or something No, not toxic; you are correct.
      - whalesalad 3y ago
        the real debate is on whether the toxicity of fluoride outweighs the benefits of using it to prevent tooth decay. we know that it can cause issues. there are also issues that have not been measured. a lot of folks forget that unless the outcome of X is death or cancer etc ... it is often not studied. your quality of life can be greatly reduced by something but if it doesn't kill you then no one is looking at it.
        isk517 3y ago
        Tooth decay can cause a whole litany of issues so it really is a weighing of pros and cons versus the long term effects of fluoride consumption.
        rgrieselhuber 3y ago
        Or just brush and floss properly?
        isk517 3y ago
- imglorp 3y ago
  Linked to Parkinsons and cancer. And it's still for sale next to fertilizer in the home box store so you can spray your yard and poison your family.
  - algoatecorn 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - ejb999 3y ago
      ...or at McDonalds.
    - Podgajski 3y ago
      What about dementia and Alzheimer’s? https://www.kpwashingtonresearch.org/news-and-events/recent-news/news-2021/roundup-3-recent-studies-dementia-risk https://www.kpwashingtonresearch.org/news-and-events/recent-...
      - ffssffss 3y ago
        In this context "Roundup" means "collection". None of these studies are about the herbicide Roundup.
        Podgajski 3y ago
        Sorry, I made the same mistake in another response as well. I meant to paste this. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0300483X13000322 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03004...
    - profsummergig 3y ago
      Has anyone here tried the bespoke home-made weed-icide made with vinegar + salt + dish-soap? If yes, was it effective? A cursory google search suggests the internet is divided on this.
      - 3y ago
- vondur 3y ago
  According to the linked article, it reacts with hard water minerals and forms complexes that last up to 20 years or so.
- cbmuser 3y ago
  Everything is found everywhere with modern analytical methods in chemistry.
- refurb 3y ago
  “Found in drinking water” tells me nothing since current analytical techniques can detect compounds down to parts per trillion or better. So you’re looking at 1 microgram in a liter of water. Ok. But does it have any impact at levels like that? Is the impact more or less than the arsenic, mercury and other naturally occurring toxins in drinking water?
gryzzly 3y ago
[flagged]
- candiddevmike 3y ago
  Depends on your definition, the smart ones made a killing (literally and probably figuratively) convincing people this stuff is safe. These people will never receive any consequences for their actions, aside from the ones we all collectively face.
  - kapilvt 3y ago
    Meanwhile we can’t get the fda to add sunscreens ingredients list for decades, even while the rest of the world uses them, regulatory capture fun.
    - willcipriano 3y ago
      Hey, trust the experts.
  - gryzzly 3y ago
    Yeah, it’s sarcasm. we put chemicals that miraculously kill biological matter (grass) and then are surprised that bees and kidneys fail. It’s like all the people who need a proof that if you throw garbage into a river it will become dirty and affect the environment.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
> To this point, Ulrich also found elevated levels of fluoride and vanadium—both of which are linked to kidney damage—in the drinking water of most all of the communities with high incidence of CKDu. How much of the damage is actually from the hard water and the high glyphosate is a correlation (because of the hard water) and not causation?
whalesalad 3y ago
Have y'all seen the movie "Don't Look Up"? It's a reference to the climate crisis but could very well be a reference to industrial agriculture. Then again, the climate crisis is largely rooted in our agricultural industrial complex. It's wild when I see folks defending the use of glyphosate... the movie does a great job demonstrating this sort of predicament. edit: looks like I am already being downvoted. outstanding.
- Supermancho 3y ago
  > edit: looks like I am already being downvoted. outstanding. Either your point stands or it isn't contributing anything. Pointing out that it's being voted one way or the other is frowned upon (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, near the bottom). It might be read that your motivations are emotionally based. Either way, it doesn't make the situation on HN or in the world, any better. +1, because I think that your post is important. Pointing out how this can be a way to characterize Don't Look Up never occurred to me.
  - whalesalad 3y ago
    I wish HN took place in a physical arena because it would be much easier to identify friends who are operating outside the bounds of honesty, healthy debate and Socratic dialogue - and are just here to praise corporate overlords and protect the popular narrative. This is why I make reference to being downvoted as I genuinely feel a valid criticism is being oppressed by folks with an ulterior motive. Someone recently asked on a thread - "where have all the hackers gone?" I often ask myself the same question.
    - chiefalchemist 3y ago
      My sense is, based on comments I've made and have been down voted, is that every _______ Industrial Complex has actors on HN. Some are likely employees who will naturally stick up for their industry and employer. However, there are plenty of hired-gun PR types who use the down vote to help influence the narrative.
plussed_reader 3y ago
Always nice to see Monsanto making the rounds again, or whatever german multinational actually holding their rotten bag.
- adventured 3y ago
  The Bayer Corporation owns Monsanto. The same company that gave us fluoroquinolones such as Cipro, one of the more vile groups of drugs ever mass prescribed to people. Before that they helped the Nazis perform experiments on prisoners, among other things. Their history is particularly shocking. It makes sense that such an evil corporation would want Monsanto. We're probably lucky they're not directly dumping Roundup into the water supply. [0][1] [0] "Bayer was particularly active in Auschwitz. A senior Bayer official oversaw the chemical factory in Auschwitz III (Monowitz). Most of the experiments were conducted in Birkenau in Block 20, the women's camp hospital. There, Vetter and Auschwitz physicians Eduard Wirths and Friedrich Entress tested Bayer pharmaceuticals on prisoners who suffered from and often had been deliberately infected with tuberculosis, diphtheria, and other diseases." ... "Bayer, however, did little to come to terms with its Nazi past. Fritz ter Meer, convicted of war crimes for his actions at Auschwitz, was elected to Bayer AG’s supervisory board in 1956, a position he retained until 1964." https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/bayer https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/bayer [1] https://www.bayer.com/en/history/1925-1945 https://www.bayer.com/en/history/1925-1945
  - code_biologist 3y ago
    Uh, why is Cipro bad? From the wikipedia article about Cipro: "It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. The World Health Organization classifies ciprofloxacin as critically important for human medicine. It is available as a generic medication. In 2020, it was the 132nd-most-commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 4 million prescriptions."
    - reaperman 3y ago
      FDA now advises against using fluoroquinolone antibiotics for the treatment of common infections like acute sinusitis, acute bronchitis, and urinary tract infections (UTI) without complications. The agency made this decision because the chances of serious side effects outweigh the benefits for most people. Some people who take these medicines may develop disabling and potentially permanent side effects of the tendons, muscles, joints, nerves, and central nervous system. About half of the patients who had serious side effects from fluoroquinolones said the side effects began after the first or second dose and included: Long-term pain Pain, burning, tingling, numbness, weakness Symptoms affecting tendons, muscles, and joints, including swelling, pain, and tendon rupture Symptoms that lasted longer than a year Depression, anxiety , or other changes in mental health Sensation changes or nerve damage in hands, feet, arms, or legs Dramatic impact on quality of life such as job loss, financial problems, and increased family tension https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/fluoroquinolones-safety-risks https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/fluoroquinolones-safety-r...
LesZedCB 3y ago
it's doubly stupid because you can eat dandelions which are one of the many "weeds" people kill with this shit to protect their useless-at-best lawns. kill your lawn. plant native shit.
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  people don't spray glyphosate on their lawns. it's a systemic non-specific herbicide that will kill your grass (or any other plant) you might be thinking of dicamba or 2,4d which are much worse for the environment (and probably for you) and target broadleaf plants only (e.g. dandelions) glyphosate is most used for cash crop farming, large quantities sprayed on "roundup ready" corn and soy that has been engineered to be immune to it
  - baq 3y ago
    Also used for dessication (…is that a word…?): https://cropscience.bayer.co.uk/roundup-hub/roundup-use-pre-harvest/ https://cropscience.bayer.co.uk/roundup-hub/roundup-use-pre-...
    - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
      Yeah, though there are other contact herbicides that tend to work better for that. Definitely "mini" or "new" potatoes is where this happens a lot. Kill the plant before full maturity so that the tuber stops growing and accumulates starches, then harvest. The potato farms near me do it, it's kinda gross.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  Glyphosate would kill lawns too.
  - LesZedCB 3y ago
    I just searched for "remove weeds from lawn" and while they do admirably suggest manual removal methods first, the last resort measures are indeed chemical herbicides, including specifically glyphosate
mvdtnz 3y ago
This is not a very convincing connection. All they established is that glyphosate is hanging around in water wells longer than expected. There was no causal connection found, no dose-response, nothing. They didn't even test water sources in regions without the CKDu epidemic to falsify the hypothesis.
- hammock 3y ago
  >They didn't even test water sources in regions without the CKDu epidemic to falsify the hypothesis They did... "the researchers found significantly higher levels of the herbicide in 44% of wells within the affected areas versus just 8% of those outside it."
  - mvdtnz 3y ago
    Ah thank you, I missed that in my reading of the piece. I will need to dig into the study itself to see how significant the "higher readings" are and how closely they track CKDu, I won't have time for that until later today.
- gniv 3y ago
  They had reason to suspect glyphosate due to previous studies. Ex: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/6/3278 https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/6/3278
algoatecorn 3y ago
Let's just take a pause and consider some key information: -This is an association study -If we CTLR+F "cause", "causing", "causal", etc, the only mention of causation is with extremely high levels of flouride and another mention with extremely high levels of glyphosate and zebrafish Now let's zoom way out, and consider the use of glyphosate in general. If you plot grain yields over time compared to herbicide use over time and fertilizer use over time, you can see one thing quite clearly. The use of synthetic inputs, along with plant breeding and genetic engineering, has saved humanity from starvation and allowed unhindered growth. Any experienced agriculturalist knows this. Any experienced commodity trader knows this. All this talk about commercial farming needing to be eradicated is fantasy talk. There are trade-offs to everything. When you consider cost/acre and calories/acre, it is also abundantly clear that for all its flaws, modern industrial farming is a technological marvel. When you look back into the history of herbicides, you can consider glyphosate to be way better than many of the past options. So things are definitely getting better. As for the demonization of glyphosate, I would say that most of this literature is just provocative headlines for the sake of grant funding. It's very trendy to claim that glyphosate is causing X,Y, and Z. We saw the same thing with MSG as a food additive, and are still dealing with the proliferation of bad science, bad messaging, and a sticky belief system within genpop.
- xpe 3y ago
  > When you consider cost/acre and calories/acre, it is also abundantly clear that for all its flaws, modern industrial farming is a technological marvel. Modern farming seems optimized for the wrong thing all too often: cheap calories. Calories are important (for basic metabolic needs) but not the whole story. Nutrient density and sustainable practices are worth promoting.
  - mvdtnz 3y ago
    It's easy to be picky about nutrient density and sustainable farming when you have a full belly. Modern farming techniques have saved the lives of millions of people who would otherwise starve to death.
    - 3y ago
tuckerconnelly 3y ago
> But when glyphosate encounters certain trace metal ions that make water hard—like magnesium and calcium—glyphosate-metal ion complexes can form. Those complexes can persist up to seven years in water and 22 years in soil. Isn't basically all water outside hard water? How did public health agencies miss this?
- oasisbob 3y ago
  > Isn't basically all water outside hard water? No, many surface water sources are soft. eg, Seattle and Portland municipal water supplies are both drawn from rivers in local watersheds, and have no appreciable mineral content.
- whalesalad 3y ago
  Money talks and Monsanto is not afraid to use it. Lobbyists are the answer. - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/16/revealed-monsanto-mexico-us-glyphosate-ban https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/16/revealed-mo... - https://ahrp.org/a-profit-enhancing-policy-shift-trumps-public-safety-scientific-integrity/ https://ahrp.org/a-profit-enhancing-policy-shift-trumps-publ... - https://corporateeurope.org/en/2016/10/monsanto-lobbying https://corporateeurope.org/en/2016/10/monsanto-lobbying - https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/youll-never-guess-how-much-bayer-and-monsanto-spend-lobbying-2016-09-16 https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/youll-never-guess-how-much-b...
- gniv 3y ago
  It's even worse than that. Those are the half-lives. From the paper: "These glyphosate-metal complexes increase the half-life of the herbicide dramatically, from 90 days to 7 years in water and 47 days to 22 years in soil." On the plus side, things should get better soon: "In 2012, Sri Lanka imported >5 million kg of glyphosate until a ban was imposed since 2014."
jonbischke 3y ago
So we can now take Ozempic to offset the deleterious effects of Roundup? https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/novo-nordisk-ozempic-kidney-outcomes-trial-semaglutide/696273/ https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/novo-nordisk-ozempic-kidn...
user3939382 3y ago
Remember when Bayer (who now owns Monsanto) intentionally sold HIV infected blood in South America? The people that own these companies would sell their own grandmother for $5. They’re poisoning the world, as science and litigation they couldn’t buy their way out of has evidenced, and we get people on here “hacktually”ing their defense. Glyphosate is used for only one reason, it’s profitable for Monsanto.
- jaredhallen 3y ago
  Glyphosate is used because it works.
  - onemoresoop 3y ago
    If it's causing problems it may actually work more for the party profiting than the rest. "It just works" is lazy...
    - permalac 3y ago
      I use it to kill the driveway weeds, works like a charm.
      - thghtihadanacct 3y ago
        Well, let us know if/when you or your kids get kidney disease or any of the other listed diseases associated with it. I feel knowing the dangers and using it anyway should auto opt-out one out of the class action settlement. Ever try a weed eater or gloves? Gasoline would work just as well, probably less toxic
        m00x 3y ago
        You're a lot less likely to get roundup in your system from killing weeds outside than eating vegetables and fruits that have been bathed in it.
sph 3y ago
Then we wonder why people feel so good on ultra-restrictive diets like carnivore. Animals benefit from having a chemical filtration system, called a liver, while all the vegetables and fruits claimed to be healthy are treated with all sort of nonsense that cause long term chronic disease, because we value perfect looking, plump vegetables.
- olyjohn 3y ago
  Also lots of people are really susceptible to placebo. The people I see on carnivore diet who feel "so amazing" now, are the same ones who feel so amazing every time they try a new diet. If the liver is so amazing at filtering all this out of the animals we eat, when why doesn't our liver do it when we eat?
  - DecoPerson 3y ago
    If an animal consumes poisonous food, is injured by the poison (but not killed), then is butchered and none of the poison remains in the meat, then the animal has “filtered” the poison for us. Our livers and such do filter such things out, but we are injured before/during that filtering. A vegetable that is coated in some preservative chemical to keep its shiny coating does not filter that chemical out. Additionally, herbicides and pesticides that are sprayed on the plots may or may not be picked up by the crops and may or may not be filtered by those crops before they get to us. Or may or may not be converted to some other chemical that isn’t the same! It’s such a complex scenario that we cannot know whether we are dosing ourselves with health or behaviour -affecting chemicals unless we spend far, far more money on research (both wide-spread statistical research and hyper-focused chemical pathway research). Carnivore seems like a good way to get some filtering? It’s hard though, it’s expensive, questionably healthy, and questionably unethical.
  - sph 3y ago
    It's disingenuous to ascribe health benefits over years to placebo. Placebo works on individual experiments, not in the long-term, because it would not be placebo any more, would it? > If the liver is so amazing at filtering all this out of the animals we eat, when why doesn't our liver do it when we eat? That's disingenuous as well. The liver isn't made to filter chemicals that are constantly ingested over a long time, because they tend to accumulate and cause damage. Additionally, how can a human liver have evolved to filter chemicals we have invented in the past 100 years?
beeforpork 3y ago
Alternatives may be worse: https://www.wur.nl/en/newsarticle/full-short-term-ban-on-glyphosate-could-be-counterproductive.htm https://www.wur.nl/en/newsarticle/full-short-term-ban-on-gly... Or whyelse is it still not forbidden?
declan_roberts 3y ago
What I don't get is crop dissection with roundup and other herbicides. They'll spray a whole field of wheat with the stuff to dry it out. It's not like you can simply wash off your flour before using it.
- kmbfjr 3y ago
  I have never seen that application, as I live in farming central of Michigan. But I would not doubt someone thinks this is a good idea to speed to-market for extremely large fields. Most of those use contract harvesters on very tight schedules.
diogenescynic 3y ago
If you discuss this on the internet, shills come out of the woodwork immediately to promote glyphosate. I've never seen such astroturfing for any other topic. For example, there are a handful of super user accounts on reddit that pop up at all hours and only discuss this topic and use extremely well researched talking points and citations.
- algoatecorn 3y ago
  Except astroturfing is coordinated. It's not a conspiracy. The shills you mention are just people who are well-informed on nuanced topic. A topic that that seemingly affects everyone (because food), and therefore everyone chimes in. Except most people don't know jack about modern food systems and its history. All they know is: big pharma bad, big ag bad, big food bad.
  - diogenescynic 3y ago
    I disagree that these are just people who are well-informed. The frequency and rapid follow up comments by these shills/power users make it nearly impossible for these people to be doing anything else--it's clearly their full-time job. More likely, it's a shared account that some public affairs/relations company shares and they get alerts via keywords and immediately reply. It's very clearly a highly organized machine.
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  Which accounts
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
tomohawk 3y ago
When oats are harvested (in most of North America), they are first killed with glyphosate. This ensures that the harvest time is not left to chance, where a rain storm could ruin it. The result is that most things with oats have unacceptable levels of glyphosate. Even organic oats have been tested to be contaminated. https://www.leafscore.com/grocery/glyphosate-free-oatmeal-everything-you-need-to-know/ https://www.leafscore.com/grocery/glyphosate-free-oatmeal-ev...
tmaly 3y ago
5 years ago the guy at the local garden store use to tell me this stuff was so safe you could drink it. I had my doubts
- isk517 3y ago
  Safe enough to drink in the same way Tabaco is safe enough to smoke.
jkern 3y ago
Glyphosate is great for killing the invasive Tree of Heaven which is rampant in my area. Really the only time I've needed to use it personally
DoreenMichele 3y ago
Roundup is a glyphosate-based herbicide used to control weeds and other pests. Because it is supposed to break down in the environment within a few days to weeks, its use is relatively under-regulated by most public health agencies. But when glyphosate encounters certain trace metal ions that make water hard—like magnesium and calcium—glyphosate-metal ion complexes can form. Those complexes can persist up to seven years in water and 22 years in soil. Similarly: International aid groups dug wells in Pakistan to alleviate sickness from contaminated surface waters, such as rain water collection. It was successful and dramatically reduced incidence of illness and death from that cause. It also led to widespread arsenic poisoning from many of the wells. Actually improving things is tough and even if you succeed, people will focus primarily on any unintended and undesirable consequences. People almost never mention that the wells in Pakistan achieved the intended goal and I full well expect to be met with open hostility and accusations of some sort (apologist, downplaying). There may well be good reasons to not be more even handed in presenting such info. Or there may not be. When we start with a presumption of guilt and looking for someone to blame for presumed intentional malice, it frequently interferes with moving towards solutions. Even if you can find someone to blame and successfully indict, it typically doesn't fix the problem. Few people focus on fixing the problem and trying to discuss solutions is often met with vastly more hostility than finger pointing.
lpernille 3y ago
I own about 15 hectares of agricultural land in SE Asia and recently have given up on our manual battle against weeds and have temporarily opted to go for herbicides. We are presently planting a new batch of trees and the weeds have grown faster than our farmhands ability to keep up and have strangled our saplings. Hopefully after the trees have matured, the amount of sunlight hitting the ground would reduce and this should in turn reduce the weeds ability to grow. I am fortunate in that I can support the farming from other income sources, but a typical debt ridden farmer in this region would be completely unable to do so. But using herbicide makes me a bit sad, from a lush biodiverse field we now have something I would describe as a barren wasteland minus our monocrop. I wish there was another way.
imchillyb 3y ago
'sola dosis facit venenum' It is only the dose that makes the poison. Nothing is without toxin, all things are toxic. It is only the dose that makes the poison. 'ne quid nimis' Nothing in excess. There is a reason modern day pharmacology has its roots in these statements. Truth is, even drinking an excess of water will unalive a human.
cvccvroomvroom 3y ago
Patrick Moore will stop by again to offer to drink it to prove how safe it is.
segmondy 3y ago
Terrifying as someone who has well water. I don't use chemicals to control the weed on the lawn, but who knows what my neighbors are doing. Guess I'm going to switch to bottled water. :-/
- gniv 3y ago
  I'm assuming you have it tested. Is the well water hard? That's apparently what makes the chemical stick around.
jelliclesfarm 3y ago
Glyphosate is also used as a dessicant…off label use. Brilliant 2018 article from nautilus https://nautil.us/herbicide-is-whats-for-dinner-237256/ https://nautil.us/herbicide-is-whats-for-dinner-237256/

366 points by wglb 3y ago

Now try the US. It’s found almost everywhere and it’s in foods. A dumb human moment.

Glyphosate is being found in US drinking water too: - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5486281/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5486281/ - https://www.health.state.mn.us/communities/environment/risk/docs/guidance/gw/glyphosateinfo.pdf https://www.health.state.mn.us/communities/environment/risk/... The common message is Glyphosate has a very short (ish) half life in soil. What happens when it enters the water table first?

sokoloff 3y ago
It seems like the half-life in water is less than that in soil: >* From literature studies, glyphosate’s half-life in surface waters and soil ranges from 2 to 91 days and from 2 to 215 days, respectively (Battaglin et al. 2014; Castro Berman et al. 2018). * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8827352/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8827352/
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  An actived carbon filter will remove ~99.9% of Glyphosate from water, if for human consumption. (source water from a ~100ft deep water table next to a large ag plot at a property, have both pre and post filter water tested to validate filtration effectiveness)
  - cj 3y ago
    Any recommendations for where to get water tested for uncommon contaminants?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      Your local university extension should be able to provide this service at a reasonable cost ($100-$500, depending on what is being tested for). There are commercial water testing firms, but I do not have experience with any that I could recommend. https://www.nifa.usda.gov/about-nifa/how-we-work/extension https://www.nifa.usda.gov/about-nifa/how-we-work/extension https://www.isws.illinois.edu/health-environmental-applications/home-water-testing https://www.isws.illinois.edu/health-environmental-applicati...
      - giantg2 3y ago
        Instead of testing for every one-off thing that comes up, maybe just go with a small reverse osmosis system for a similar price range.
        toomuchtodo 3y ago
        A quality iron/hydrogen sulfide water filter sets you back about $2k, and will last ~10 years or ~500k gallons. If you do not have this in your water, you can safely skip. High iron can lead to iron reducing bacteria scumming up fixtures and, more importantly, rapidly dissolving a hot water heater tank. If you smell sulfur in your hot water when you shower on a well, that bacteria is eating up your tank's anode rod quicker than normally would (I also suggest a powered anode rod, good for 20+ years to keep a tank tip top vs having to replace consumable anode rods, but that is another topic). A three cartridge system will cost you a few hundred dollars for setup, replacing the cartridges roughly every year after ~100k gallons of water has passed through them (~$100-200/year, depending on cartridge filter selection). You can mix and match cartridges for your specific water contaminant filtering needs (sediment, iron, heavy metals, VOCs, pesticides, etc). I would agree with optimizing for use case, but RO systems can be costly and high maintenance depending on the demand put on them. They are ideal for low demand, low flow applications like a kitchen faucet or refrigerator water supply for water and ice. Design accordingly.
  - quasse 3y ago
    Do you measure concerning levels of glyphosate in the pre-filtration water? I've always been curious about this for the sake of my friends who live in rural areas near pesticide dependent farmers.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      I send both a sample of raw water right off the well pump before going through any filtration as well as a sample of the filtered water that has gone through a 50 micron spin down filter, an iron and hydrogen sulfide filter, and then a three stage cartridge filter system (containing a 1 micron sediment filter, heavy metals filter, and active carbon filter), the output of which gets sent off as water supply to fixtures, appliances, etc. I have not noted concerning levels of glyphosate, but impurities can fluctuate and water tests are a snapshot in time of water quality.
      - DANmode 3y ago
        > concerning levels of glyphosate Go on.
- hammock 3y ago
  >glyphosate’s half-life in surface waters ranges from 2 to 91 days According to new research from Duke University, while it was always thought that glyphosate would break down very quickly in the environment, it seems to stick around a lot longer than we expected when it complexes in hard water. This new research found that when glyphosate encounters certain trace metal ions that make water hard—like magnesium and calcium—glyphosate-metal ion complexes can form. Those complexes can persist up to 7 years in water and 22 years in soil. Source: https://phys.org/news/2023-10-roundup-herbicide-ingredient-epidemic-chronic.html https://phys.org/news/2023-10-roundup-herbicide-ingredient-e...
rgrieselhuber 3y ago
Definitely a good idea to filter drinking water in the US, make sure to get a filter that will filter out other toxic chemicals such as fluoride.
- hammock 3y ago
  Is fluoride in drinking water toxic? I thought they added it on purpose to help our teeth or something
  - Nicksil 3y ago
    >Is fluoride in drinking water toxic? I thought they added it on purpose to help our teeth or something No, not toxic; you are correct.
    - whalesalad 3y ago
      the real debate is on whether the toxicity of fluoride outweighs the benefits of using it to prevent tooth decay. we know that it can cause issues. there are also issues that have not been measured. a lot of folks forget that unless the outcome of X is death or cancer etc ... it is often not studied. your quality of life can be greatly reduced by something but if it doesn't kill you then no one is looking at it.
      - isk517 3y ago
        Tooth decay can cause a whole litany of issues so it really is a weighing of pros and cons versus the long term effects of fluoride consumption.
        rgrieselhuber 3y ago
        Or just brush and floss properly?
        isk517 3y ago
imglorp 3y ago
Linked to Parkinsons and cancer. And it's still for sale next to fertilizer in the home box store so you can spray your yard and poison your family.
- algoatecorn 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - ejb999 3y ago
    ...or at McDonalds.
  - Podgajski 3y ago
    What about dementia and Alzheimer’s? https://www.kpwashingtonresearch.org/news-and-events/recent-news/news-2021/roundup-3-recent-studies-dementia-risk https://www.kpwashingtonresearch.org/news-and-events/recent-...
    - ffssffss 3y ago
      In this context "Roundup" means "collection". None of these studies are about the herbicide Roundup.
      - Podgajski 3y ago
        Sorry, I made the same mistake in another response as well. I meant to paste this. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0300483X13000322 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03004...
  - profsummergig 3y ago
    Has anyone here tried the bespoke home-made weed-icide made with vinegar + salt + dish-soap? If yes, was it effective? A cursory google search suggests the internet is divided on this.
    - 3y ago
vondur 3y ago
According to the linked article, it reacts with hard water minerals and forms complexes that last up to 20 years or so.
cbmuser 3y ago
Everything is found everywhere with modern analytical methods in chemistry.
refurb 3y ago
“Found in drinking water” tells me nothing since current analytical techniques can detect compounds down to parts per trillion or better. So you’re looking at 1 microgram in a liter of water. Ok. But does it have any impact at levels like that? Is the impact more or less than the arsenic, mercury and other naturally occurring toxins in drinking water?

gryzzly 3y ago

[flagged]

candiddevmike 3y ago
Depends on your definition, the smart ones made a killing (literally and probably figuratively) convincing people this stuff is safe. These people will never receive any consequences for their actions, aside from the ones we all collectively face.
- kapilvt 3y ago
  Meanwhile we can’t get the fda to add sunscreens ingredients list for decades, even while the rest of the world uses them, regulatory capture fun.
  - willcipriano 3y ago
    Hey, trust the experts.
- gryzzly 3y ago
  Yeah, it’s sarcasm. we put chemicals that miraculously kill biological matter (grass) and then are surprised that bees and kidneys fail. It’s like all the people who need a proof that if you throw garbage into a river it will become dirty and affect the environment.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago

> To this point, Ulrich also found elevated levels of fluoride and vanadium—both of which are linked to kidney damage—in the drinking water of most all of the communities with high incidence of CKDu. How much of the damage is actually from the hard water and the high glyphosate is a correlation (because of the hard water) and not causation?

whalesalad 3y ago

Have y'all seen the movie "Don't Look Up"? It's a reference to the climate crisis but could very well be a reference to industrial agriculture. Then again, the climate crisis is largely rooted in our agricultural industrial complex. It's wild when I see folks defending the use of glyphosate... the movie does a great job demonstrating this sort of predicament. edit: looks like I am already being downvoted. outstanding.

Supermancho 3y ago
> edit: looks like I am already being downvoted. outstanding. Either your point stands or it isn't contributing anything. Pointing out that it's being voted one way or the other is frowned upon (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, near the bottom). It might be read that your motivations are emotionally based. Either way, it doesn't make the situation on HN or in the world, any better. +1, because I think that your post is important. Pointing out how this can be a way to characterize Don't Look Up never occurred to me.
- whalesalad 3y ago
  I wish HN took place in a physical arena because it would be much easier to identify friends who are operating outside the bounds of honesty, healthy debate and Socratic dialogue - and are just here to praise corporate overlords and protect the popular narrative. This is why I make reference to being downvoted as I genuinely feel a valid criticism is being oppressed by folks with an ulterior motive. Someone recently asked on a thread - "where have all the hackers gone?" I often ask myself the same question.
  - chiefalchemist 3y ago
    My sense is, based on comments I've made and have been down voted, is that every _______ Industrial Complex has actors on HN. Some are likely employees who will naturally stick up for their industry and employer. However, there are plenty of hired-gun PR types who use the down vote to help influence the narrative.

plussed_reader 3y ago

Always nice to see Monsanto making the rounds again, or whatever german multinational actually holding their rotten bag.

adventured 3y ago
The Bayer Corporation owns Monsanto. The same company that gave us fluoroquinolones such as Cipro, one of the more vile groups of drugs ever mass prescribed to people. Before that they helped the Nazis perform experiments on prisoners, among other things. Their history is particularly shocking. It makes sense that such an evil corporation would want Monsanto. We're probably lucky they're not directly dumping Roundup into the water supply. [0][1] [0] "Bayer was particularly active in Auschwitz. A senior Bayer official oversaw the chemical factory in Auschwitz III (Monowitz). Most of the experiments were conducted in Birkenau in Block 20, the women's camp hospital. There, Vetter and Auschwitz physicians Eduard Wirths and Friedrich Entress tested Bayer pharmaceuticals on prisoners who suffered from and often had been deliberately infected with tuberculosis, diphtheria, and other diseases." ... "Bayer, however, did little to come to terms with its Nazi past. Fritz ter Meer, convicted of war crimes for his actions at Auschwitz, was elected to Bayer AG’s supervisory board in 1956, a position he retained until 1964." https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/bayer https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/bayer [1] https://www.bayer.com/en/history/1925-1945 https://www.bayer.com/en/history/1925-1945
- code_biologist 3y ago
  Uh, why is Cipro bad? From the wikipedia article about Cipro: "It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. The World Health Organization classifies ciprofloxacin as critically important for human medicine. It is available as a generic medication. In 2020, it was the 132nd-most-commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 4 million prescriptions."
  - reaperman 3y ago
    FDA now advises against using fluoroquinolone antibiotics for the treatment of common infections like acute sinusitis, acute bronchitis, and urinary tract infections (UTI) without complications. The agency made this decision because the chances of serious side effects outweigh the benefits for most people. Some people who take these medicines may develop disabling and potentially permanent side effects of the tendons, muscles, joints, nerves, and central nervous system. About half of the patients who had serious side effects from fluoroquinolones said the side effects began after the first or second dose and included: Long-term pain Pain, burning, tingling, numbness, weakness Symptoms affecting tendons, muscles, and joints, including swelling, pain, and tendon rupture Symptoms that lasted longer than a year Depression, anxiety , or other changes in mental health Sensation changes or nerve damage in hands, feet, arms, or legs Dramatic impact on quality of life such as job loss, financial problems, and increased family tension https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/fluoroquinolones-safety-risks https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/fluoroquinolones-safety-r...

LesZedCB 3y ago

it's doubly stupid because you can eat dandelions which are one of the many "weeds" people kill with this shit to protect their useless-at-best lawns. kill your lawn. plant native shit.

cmrdporcupine 3y ago
people don't spray glyphosate on their lawns. it's a systemic non-specific herbicide that will kill your grass (or any other plant) you might be thinking of dicamba or 2,4d which are much worse for the environment (and probably for you) and target broadleaf plants only (e.g. dandelions) glyphosate is most used for cash crop farming, large quantities sprayed on "roundup ready" corn and soy that has been engineered to be immune to it
- baq 3y ago
  Also used for dessication (…is that a word…?): https://cropscience.bayer.co.uk/roundup-hub/roundup-use-pre-harvest/ https://cropscience.bayer.co.uk/roundup-hub/roundup-use-pre-...
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    Yeah, though there are other contact herbicides that tend to work better for that. Definitely "mini" or "new" potatoes is where this happens a lot. Kill the plant before full maturity so that the tuber stops growing and accumulates starches, then harvest. The potato farms near me do it, it's kinda gross.
lotsofpulp 3y ago
Glyphosate would kill lawns too.
- LesZedCB 3y ago
  I just searched for "remove weeds from lawn" and while they do admirably suggest manual removal methods first, the last resort measures are indeed chemical herbicides, including specifically glyphosate

mvdtnz 3y ago

This is not a very convincing connection. All they established is that glyphosate is hanging around in water wells longer than expected. There was no causal connection found, no dose-response, nothing. They didn't even test water sources in regions without the CKDu epidemic to falsify the hypothesis.

hammock 3y ago
>They didn't even test water sources in regions without the CKDu epidemic to falsify the hypothesis They did... "the researchers found significantly higher levels of the herbicide in 44% of wells within the affected areas versus just 8% of those outside it."
- mvdtnz 3y ago
  Ah thank you, I missed that in my reading of the piece. I will need to dig into the study itself to see how significant the "higher readings" are and how closely they track CKDu, I won't have time for that until later today.
gniv 3y ago
They had reason to suspect glyphosate due to previous studies. Ex: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/6/3278 https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/6/3278

algoatecorn 3y ago

Let's just take a pause and consider some key information: -This is an association study -If we CTLR+F "cause", "causing", "causal", etc, the only mention of causation is with extremely high levels of flouride and another mention with extremely high levels of glyphosate and zebrafish Now let's zoom way out, and consider the use of glyphosate in general. If you plot grain yields over time compared to herbicide use over time and fertilizer use over time, you can see one thing quite clearly. The use of synthetic inputs, along with plant breeding and genetic engineering, has saved humanity from starvation and allowed unhindered growth. Any experienced agriculturalist knows this. Any experienced commodity trader knows this. All this talk about commercial farming needing to be eradicated is fantasy talk. There are trade-offs to everything. When you consider cost/acre and calories/acre, it is also abundantly clear that for all its flaws, modern industrial farming is a technological marvel. When you look back into the history of herbicides, you can consider glyphosate to be way better than many of the past options. So things are definitely getting better. As for the demonization of glyphosate, I would say that most of this literature is just provocative headlines for the sake of grant funding. It's very trendy to claim that glyphosate is causing X,Y, and Z. We saw the same thing with MSG as a food additive, and are still dealing with the proliferation of bad science, bad messaging, and a sticky belief system within genpop.

xpe 3y ago
> When you consider cost/acre and calories/acre, it is also abundantly clear that for all its flaws, modern industrial farming is a technological marvel. Modern farming seems optimized for the wrong thing all too often: cheap calories. Calories are important (for basic metabolic needs) but not the whole story. Nutrient density and sustainable practices are worth promoting.
- mvdtnz 3y ago
  It's easy to be picky about nutrient density and sustainable farming when you have a full belly. Modern farming techniques have saved the lives of millions of people who would otherwise starve to death.
  - 3y ago

tuckerconnelly 3y ago

> But when glyphosate encounters certain trace metal ions that make water hard—like magnesium and calcium—glyphosate-metal ion complexes can form. Those complexes can persist up to seven years in water and 22 years in soil. Isn't basically all water outside hard water? How did public health agencies miss this?

oasisbob 3y ago
> Isn't basically all water outside hard water? No, many surface water sources are soft. eg, Seattle and Portland municipal water supplies are both drawn from rivers in local watersheds, and have no appreciable mineral content.
whalesalad 3y ago
Money talks and Monsanto is not afraid to use it. Lobbyists are the answer. - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/16/revealed-monsanto-mexico-us-glyphosate-ban https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/16/revealed-mo... - https://ahrp.org/a-profit-enhancing-policy-shift-trumps-public-safety-scientific-integrity/ https://ahrp.org/a-profit-enhancing-policy-shift-trumps-publ... - https://corporateeurope.org/en/2016/10/monsanto-lobbying https://corporateeurope.org/en/2016/10/monsanto-lobbying - https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/youll-never-guess-how-much-bayer-and-monsanto-spend-lobbying-2016-09-16 https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/youll-never-guess-how-much-b...
gniv 3y ago
It's even worse than that. Those are the half-lives. From the paper: "These glyphosate-metal complexes increase the half-life of the herbicide dramatically, from 90 days to 7 years in water and 47 days to 22 years in soil." On the plus side, things should get better soon: "In 2012, Sri Lanka imported >5 million kg of glyphosate until a ban was imposed since 2014."

jonbischke 3y ago

So we can now take Ozempic to offset the deleterious effects of Roundup? https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/novo-nordisk-ozempic-kidney-outcomes-trial-semaglutide/696273/ https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/novo-nordisk-ozempic-kidn...

user3939382 3y ago

Remember when Bayer (who now owns Monsanto) intentionally sold HIV infected blood in South America? The people that own these companies would sell their own grandmother for $5. They’re poisoning the world, as science and litigation they couldn’t buy their way out of has evidenced, and we get people on here “hacktually”ing their defense. Glyphosate is used for only one reason, it’s profitable for Monsanto.

jaredhallen 3y ago
Glyphosate is used because it works.
- onemoresoop 3y ago
  If it's causing problems it may actually work more for the party profiting than the rest. "It just works" is lazy...
  - permalac 3y ago
    I use it to kill the driveway weeds, works like a charm.
    - thghtihadanacct 3y ago
      Well, let us know if/when you or your kids get kidney disease or any of the other listed diseases associated with it. I feel knowing the dangers and using it anyway should auto opt-out one out of the class action settlement. Ever try a weed eater or gloves? Gasoline would work just as well, probably less toxic
      - m00x 3y ago
        You're a lot less likely to get roundup in your system from killing weeds outside than eating vegetables and fruits that have been bathed in it.

sph 3y ago

Then we wonder why people feel so good on ultra-restrictive diets like carnivore. Animals benefit from having a chemical filtration system, called a liver, while all the vegetables and fruits claimed to be healthy are treated with all sort of nonsense that cause long term chronic disease, because we value perfect looking, plump vegetables.

olyjohn 3y ago
Also lots of people are really susceptible to placebo. The people I see on carnivore diet who feel "so amazing" now, are the same ones who feel so amazing every time they try a new diet. If the liver is so amazing at filtering all this out of the animals we eat, when why doesn't our liver do it when we eat?
- DecoPerson 3y ago
  If an animal consumes poisonous food, is injured by the poison (but not killed), then is butchered and none of the poison remains in the meat, then the animal has “filtered” the poison for us. Our livers and such do filter such things out, but we are injured before/during that filtering. A vegetable that is coated in some preservative chemical to keep its shiny coating does not filter that chemical out. Additionally, herbicides and pesticides that are sprayed on the plots may or may not be picked up by the crops and may or may not be filtered by those crops before they get to us. Or may or may not be converted to some other chemical that isn’t the same! It’s such a complex scenario that we cannot know whether we are dosing ourselves with health or behaviour -affecting chemicals unless we spend far, far more money on research (both wide-spread statistical research and hyper-focused chemical pathway research). Carnivore seems like a good way to get some filtering? It’s hard though, it’s expensive, questionably healthy, and questionably unethical.
- sph 3y ago
  It's disingenuous to ascribe health benefits over years to placebo. Placebo works on individual experiments, not in the long-term, because it would not be placebo any more, would it? > If the liver is so amazing at filtering all this out of the animals we eat, when why doesn't our liver do it when we eat? That's disingenuous as well. The liver isn't made to filter chemicals that are constantly ingested over a long time, because they tend to accumulate and cause damage. Additionally, how can a human liver have evolved to filter chemicals we have invented in the past 100 years?

beeforpork 3y ago

Alternatives may be worse: https://www.wur.nl/en/newsarticle/full-short-term-ban-on-glyphosate-could-be-counterproductive.htm https://www.wur.nl/en/newsarticle/full-short-term-ban-on-gly... Or whyelse is it still not forbidden?

declan_roberts 3y ago

What I don't get is crop dissection with roundup and other herbicides. They'll spray a whole field of wheat with the stuff to dry it out. It's not like you can simply wash off your flour before using it.

kmbfjr 3y ago
I have never seen that application, as I live in farming central of Michigan. But I would not doubt someone thinks this is a good idea to speed to-market for extremely large fields. Most of those use contract harvesters on very tight schedules.

diogenescynic 3y ago

If you discuss this on the internet, shills come out of the woodwork immediately to promote glyphosate. I've never seen such astroturfing for any other topic. For example, there are a handful of super user accounts on reddit that pop up at all hours and only discuss this topic and use extremely well researched talking points and citations.

algoatecorn 3y ago
Except astroturfing is coordinated. It's not a conspiracy. The shills you mention are just people who are well-informed on nuanced topic. A topic that that seemingly affects everyone (because food), and therefore everyone chimes in. Except most people don't know jack about modern food systems and its history. All they know is: big pharma bad, big ag bad, big food bad.
- diogenescynic 3y ago
  I disagree that these are just people who are well-informed. The frequency and rapid follow up comments by these shills/power users make it nearly impossible for these people to be doing anything else--it's clearly their full-time job. More likely, it's a shared account that some public affairs/relations company shares and they get alerts via keywords and immediately reply. It's very clearly a highly organized machine.
faeriechangling 3y ago
Which accounts

aaron695 3y ago

[dead]

tomohawk 3y ago

When oats are harvested (in most of North America), they are first killed with glyphosate. This ensures that the harvest time is not left to chance, where a rain storm could ruin it. The result is that most things with oats have unacceptable levels of glyphosate. Even organic oats have been tested to be contaminated. https://www.leafscore.com/grocery/glyphosate-free-oatmeal-everything-you-need-to-know/ https://www.leafscore.com/grocery/glyphosate-free-oatmeal-ev...

tmaly 3y ago

5 years ago the guy at the local garden store use to tell me this stuff was so safe you could drink it. I had my doubts

isk517 3y ago
Safe enough to drink in the same way Tabaco is safe enough to smoke.

jkern 3y ago

Glyphosate is great for killing the invasive Tree of Heaven which is rampant in my area. Really the only time I've needed to use it personally

DoreenMichele 3y ago

Roundup is a glyphosate-based herbicide used to control weeds and other pests. Because it is supposed to break down in the environment within a few days to weeks, its use is relatively under-regulated by most public health agencies. But when glyphosate encounters certain trace metal ions that make water hard—like magnesium and calcium—glyphosate-metal ion complexes can form. Those complexes can persist up to seven years in water and 22 years in soil. Similarly: International aid groups dug wells in Pakistan to alleviate sickness from contaminated surface waters, such as rain water collection. It was successful and dramatically reduced incidence of illness and death from that cause. It also led to widespread arsenic poisoning from many of the wells. Actually improving things is tough and even if you succeed, people will focus primarily on any unintended and undesirable consequences. People almost never mention that the wells in Pakistan achieved the intended goal and I full well expect to be met with open hostility and accusations of some sort (apologist, downplaying). There may well be good reasons to not be more even handed in presenting such info. Or there may not be. When we start with a presumption of guilt and looking for someone to blame for presumed intentional malice, it frequently interferes with moving towards solutions. Even if you can find someone to blame and successfully indict, it typically doesn't fix the problem. Few people focus on fixing the problem and trying to discuss solutions is often met with vastly more hostility than finger pointing.

lpernille 3y ago

I own about 15 hectares of agricultural land in SE Asia and recently have given up on our manual battle against weeds and have temporarily opted to go for herbicides. We are presently planting a new batch of trees and the weeds have grown faster than our farmhands ability to keep up and have strangled our saplings. Hopefully after the trees have matured, the amount of sunlight hitting the ground would reduce and this should in turn reduce the weeds ability to grow. I am fortunate in that I can support the farming from other income sources, but a typical debt ridden farmer in this region would be completely unable to do so. But using herbicide makes me a bit sad, from a lush biodiverse field we now have something I would describe as a barren wasteland minus our monocrop. I wish there was another way.

imchillyb 3y ago

'sola dosis facit venenum' It is only the dose that makes the poison. Nothing is without toxin, all things are toxic. It is only the dose that makes the poison. 'ne quid nimis' Nothing in excess. There is a reason modern day pharmacology has its roots in these statements. Truth is, even drinking an excess of water will unalive a human.

cvccvroomvroom 3y ago

Patrick Moore will stop by again to offer to drink it to prove how safe it is.

segmondy 3y ago

Terrifying as someone who has well water. I don't use chemicals to control the weed on the lawn, but who knows what my neighbors are doing. Guess I'm going to switch to bottled water. :-/

gniv 3y ago
I'm assuming you have it tested. Is the well water hard? That's apparently what makes the chemical stick around.

jelliclesfarm 3y ago

Glyphosate is also used as a dessicant…off label use. Brilliant 2018 article from nautilus https://nautil.us/herbicide-is-whats-for-dinner-237256/ https://nautil.us/herbicide-is-whats-for-dinner-237256/