Not knowing anything about glyphosate, I went to the article before reading the comments. I’ll just put this here because it was clear the researchers wanted to be sure people see it. From the first paragraph of the article—><p>> In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer determined that glyphosate is a “probable human carcinogen” (IARC, 2015). However, the European Food Safety Authority and the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)/World Health Organization (WHO) Meeting on Pesticide Residues (EFSA 2015, FAO/WHO 2015) determined that glyphosate is unlikely to be a carcinogen. The US EPA concluded that “available data and weight-of-evidence clearly do not support the descriptors “carcinogenic to humans,” “likely to be carcinogenic to humans,” or “inadequate information to assess carcinogenic potential” (US EPA 2017a). Controversy and concern that the rising use of glyphosate may have adverse human-health effects exist (Myers et. al., 2016).
I've been in the field for many years and I see the EU on the forefront of public chemical safety, both in terms of legislation and enforcement.
ECHA is transparent about glyphosate [1]. It is not even labelled as CMR on REACH Annex III [2], and that's saying a lot.
If you follow the developments, you will find that there is no way to prove a chemical as "safe". All it takes is one bloke on record to develop any health condition which can be linked to a chemical, and it will be scrutinized six ways to Sundays. Often leading to the introduction or decrease of an OEL, or a classification of this substance. As new humans are born all of the time, and diagnostics and analysis methods are still being improved, the likelihood of any given chemical to be "harmless" asymptotically approaches zero.
1 in 2 people develop cancer during their lives [3]. There are currently > 23000 chemicals on the EEA market at >= 1 t/a [4].<p>1 <a href="https://echa.europa.eu/hot-topics/glyphosate" rel="nofollow">https://echa.europa.eu/hot-topics/glyphosate</a>
2 <a href="https://www.echa.europa.eu/information-on-chemicals/annex-iii-inventory" rel="nofollow">https://www.echa.europa.eu/information-on-chemicals/annex-ii...</a>
3 <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/cancer/" rel="nofollow">https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/cancer/</a>
4 <a href="https://echa.europa.eu/registration-statistics" rel="nofollow">https://echa.europa.eu/registration-statistics</a>
Society loves to make fun of those who choose organic produce, but avoiding glysophate is the main reason I do so, and it works:<p>> Organic diet intervention significantly reduces urinary glyphosate levels in U.S. children and adults
> <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935120307933" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001393512...</a>
How far off are we from having drones that mechanically remove weeds at a reasonable cost? It's ridiculous that we put up with spraying sketchy chemicals on our food. We can build loyal wingman drones to kill enemy aircraft but we can't kill weeds??<p>Edit: I'm talking about farming, not lawns. RTFA
There is very basic, simple reason for it and has nothing to do with the company being evil. I believe it is possible to use Roundup safely and the reason it gets into our food is misuse.<p>(disclamier: "possible to use safely" does not mean it is reasonable to expect people to do so on their own)<p>Roundup kills plants. It does it by breaking roots of the plant which causes the entire plant to dry out.<p>For some crops (like wheat), it is very beneficial to harvest the crop after it dried out. But plants do not care about calendar and do not necessarily all dry out at the same time.<p>So what farmers do, is to spray their crop just before harvest. It all dries out nicely and uniformly and can be harvested all together at the same time with minimum spoilage. It can also let them schedule harvest on various plots to happen at different times rather than all at the same time. It can also allow to force harvest earlier if you, for example, predict bad weather. Or if you want to go for vacation.<p>This is not how Roundup is supposed to be used but this is very popular "hack".
This is bad journalism. Glyphosate is not “linked” to cancer. Sone groups think it is “probably” a carcinogen but most every governing body around the world says it is not as there’s no proof of the link at all.<p>This is probably not journalism but rather propaganda designed to rally public support around glyphosate bans which we have seen in Germany and now the Netherlands. Farmers can still use it of course, but the ban is for home use. Even though it is safe to use when following the label.
I quit a job in the industry during the era the studies started coming out when I found out about the bosses ties to Monsanto. The real kicker for me was during my digging into them, although largely due to corporate buyout name games, they were the ones responsible for agent orange, with Nam vets in my family I couldn't stay.<p>Use the most natural chemicals you can for crop/yard control. The same warning applies to the neurotoxins that are bug killers.
I would encourage everyone to take a look at the glyphosphate toxicity report done by experts on toxicology: <a href="https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp214.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp214.pdf</a><p>Most other summaries of glyphosphate toxicity are not by toxicity experts, are more politically influenced (today's agriculture relies on glyphosphate), and set the bar of evidence very high and otherwise assume glyphosphate is okay instead of taking a precautionary approach.
The US sprays this all over Colombia to get rid of Coca but it ends up getting into the water and other crops <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/03/20/biden-pushes-colombia-restart-glyphosate-spraying-program" rel="nofollow">https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/03/20/biden-pushes-co...</a>
Maybe one day we can skip plants and weedkillers by using artificial process to make food. Photosynthesis is not very efficient either. Less land for farms and more forests.
Yet another reason to avoid grains, soy, and processed foods.<p>I would love to see some meat tested to see if it’s still detected in the meat after the animals eat the tainted corn.
It's been in global use for almost 50 years. I don't doubt that it may produce some negative effects, but it wouldn't concern me even a little bit to discover that some of it could be detected in my urine. If the impacts were that severe I expect that they would have shown up in force by now.
While most are focusing on glyphosate's debated status as a carcinogen, it was approved by the FDA as as an herbicide, in part, because it does not interact with any human metabolic pathways. We may be missing the forest for the trees talking about cancer when we could be exploring glyphosates negative impact on gut microbiome and bacterial/fungal metabolic pathway inhibition.<p>Anecdotally, I know a lot of folks who have GI-distress from eating wheat (99% of which is sprayed with RoundUp to allow for faster harvesting time), but are fine when eating a non-commoditized grain like Farro. Notably, both contain plenty of gluten, however, Farro is harvested <i>without</i> RoundUp (fact-check required...) in a much less efficient way (hence the higher price tag).
"said it was “obviously concerning” that a large percentage of the US population is exposed to glyphosate, but said it is still unclear how that translates to human health"<p>That last line pretty much sums up the article. Lots more questions than answers.
Aren’t there side effects of this stuff killing other microorganisms in the soil? Like it’s not just the cancer aspect, or the gmo crop aspect. It’s, as I understand it, contributing to arable land loss
Monsanto has poisoned the world..not just the US. Now that it sold out to Bayer, most of the world is fed by the same powers that made Agent Orange and Napalm.<p>Our food is grown with fossil fuels and chemicals. It’s chemical warfare on soil and water.<p>Glyphosate gets into us due to runoff’s into the water system and the aquifers. This is food grown as fodder and it gets into animals and then into us. It’s hideously obscene.<p>Most of the problem would be solved if we adopted eesponsible animal husbandry. Which means less meat and animal based foods. But that’s only one part of the solution.
Add I kid I watched people who worked with the spray coups/planes work with zero safety equipment.<p>They would reach right into tanks full of weed killer with bare hands to try to fix something. No masks worn, no gloves.<p>We’ve learned a lot since the 70s/80s/90s.<p>I would imagine direct substained contact with the stuff is different than the minimal amounts in food.
The world react very slow. I posted a similar news 6 years ago about te same issues in Argentina <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11544254" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11544254</a><p>It doesn't really require a deep study when you see values outside the normal range.
"tied to cancer"
Bullshit. I've looked this up and researched it extensively as I was looking at different chemicals to use for weed control<p>The science isn't settled, this is just more news media garbage fear mongering
GMO skepticism is pretty much the same as anti-vax. Lots of talk about big corporations and a fetish for “natural” as well as a litany of vague syndromes without a clearly elucidated biological mechanism.
I always thought GMO was used to make plants resistant to diseases and pests but in reality these plants are resistant to one thing only. Monsanto's chemicals.
> <i>a finding scientists have called “disturbing” and “concerning”.</i><p>What were they expecting; that stuff sprayed onto crops will magically <i>not</i> end up in people?
In 1961, 13 years prior to being sold by Monsanto to kill weeds, Glyphosate was patented in the U.S. as a Descaling and Chelating Agent by the Stauffer Chemical Co.<p>In 2010, Monsanto patented Glyphosate as an antibiotic.<p>Take a moment to consider that if CLR (a brand name that removes Calcium and Lime from metal pipes) were discovered to be a weedkiller, your sons or daughters would have this same conversation in a decade or two about CLR in their urine.<p>You can substitute trace plutonium, anthrax, or anything else for CLR in the above paragraph.
If you're eating anything with oats grown in the US, especially things like Cheerios, you're likely getting a big dose of glyphosate. They spray this on the oats to kill and dessicate them prior to harvest to prevent the crop from being ruined by rain.
This previous HN post, which refers to Monsanto's astroturfing efforts, relates.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17043836" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17043836</a>
Well, if it truly is tied to cancer, I'll be sure to let Hacker News know.<p>Back in college I was paid $50 to wear a backpack sprayer loaded with the stuff and go nuclear on a guy's weed-infested garden. Backpack sprayers leak, so I got glyphosate all over my skin, my back in particular.<p>It's been a little more than 10 years, so nothing, but then again, I'm also only 32, live a fairly healthy lifestyle, and have no family history of cancer, so maybe it just sort of cancels itself out.