Probably…
Hmmmm . . . I will have to wait for the Monsanto-sponsored study that shows Roundup is perfectly safe, not only as a weed killer but as a shampoo and salad dressing, before I make my own conclusion.
I predict this will either be VERY BIG NEWS.
Or be disappeared within a week.
Anyone care to give odds?
Despite what some of the reporting on this has said, this is not the first study to question the safety of glyphosate, or even the “inert” ingredients of Roundup.
And it’s still “possibly” killing off pollinators and “possibly” giving us cancer and “definitely” resulted in glyphosate-resistant weeds.
Kudos for including a link to the original report in the Lancet, an unfortunate rarity in ecology reporting. An even less gated version is available directly from the WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer here:
Some reactions to the report from other recognized experts are here:
http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-carcinogenicity-classification-of-five-pesticides-by-the-international-agency-for-research-on-cancer-iarc/
Would it be even a little bit surprising if this deadly poison causes cancer? It kills every plant it touches!
I’ve been seeing a ton of PR this past month along the theme of “Anti-GM = anti-science,” as though GM skepticism is the same as climate change denial, or creationism. I guess the other shoe finally dropped.
Tonight on ‘It’s the Mind’, we examine the phenomenon of déjà vu. That strange feeling we sometimes get that we’ve lived through something before, that what is happening now has already happened.
It doesn’t do squat to a yucca plant or ivy for that matter…
Given the substantial dissimilarities between humans and plants, it would be modestly notable. With a few exceptions that kill by interfering with damn near any chemistry(really zesty oxidizing agents like fluorine, strong alpha emitters like polonium), or that target some life-critical chemistry (if you have DNA; Methyl fluorosulfonate will probably make your day a worse place); a good poison usually throws a wrench in something vital that the target has; but may or may not have much effect if you don’t depend on that particular chemistry.
In this case, ‘compound that kills plants good and hard causes animal cells to start dividing dangerously out of control’ is perfectly possible but far from immediately intuitive.
So workers who are spraying it and nonconclusive evidence, or hey this is an interesting blip we need to study it further find.
Nothing about those of us on the end of eating plants exposed long long after the half-life of the chemical has passed.
Roundup ≠ GMO, but of course most GMO crops are Roundup resistant so GMO increases roundup use. I’m still a little concerned that anti-GMO is anti-scienceish, but it’s not as barking mad as creationism.
Generally doesn’t work on dandelion, either, which is ironic given marketing to homeowners.
We’re the group to whom the workers who spray the stuff were compared, no?
Does wonders to bamboo though. That is the one thing I have a supply of it for. The neighbors bamboo planting escaped it’s confines and wants to grow right up against the side of my house and that is what all the local garden experts say to use.
The food is a big deal, even if the “half-life” of the chemical has long since passed.
But I’m also kind of worried about Joe Average homeowner with a crabgrass problem who can buy a 1 gallon container of the weapons grade super concentrate that is 50.2% glyphosate.
http://www.roundup.com/smg/goprod/roundup-weed-grass-killer-super-concentrate/prod70348
Who says this?
Just skimmed the first part of the linked BMJ paper, which turns out to be from 2003. It looks like all of the study participants were from Nebraska, where one would think there would be a pretty high level of ambient pesticides. This is actually good news for pesticide non-applicators.
From the OP:
What the scientists do know is that the people in these studies who were exposed to glyphosate experienced a higher incidence of non-Hodgkin lymphoma than those not exposed to the chemical. Other studies found that glyphosate led to DNA and chromosomal damage in human and animal cells in vitro, which can lead to cancer.
