Monsanto ruled to have caused man’s cancer

Out of interest how common do posters think products containing glyphosate are? I was listening to a radio programme a few months ago when they had their regular gardening expert on. Question came in about controlling weeds in some area of a garden. Expert recommended a product with a lovely innocent sounding name. Quick Google search. Roundup. Different manufacturer, totally different product name but 100% roundup. It's been off licence for a generation. Anyone with the right production facilities can make it. Very cheap to manufacture apparently, great margins in producing it. It's in a lot of garden weedkillers. If it was as deadly as some would have you believe the casualty rate would be massive.

If I had to operate a sprayer day in day out but could pick the product I had to use it would be glyphosate. Apparently the guy in question here had little to no ppe.

Malayalam wrote: »

Your driveway, your problem, Listermint I spend enough time hoeing the weeds out of my own gravel drive. A little bit of weeding every day or so is quite pleasant exercise and it works to the extent I require. There is nothing pleasant about glyphosate. https://jech.bmj.com/content/71/6/613

Many of my clients use me because they are not able to spend hours hoeing. Have you tried hoeing a field ?

Malayalam wrote: »

I linked previously to an article by scientists and researchers. Use of glyphosate has increased 100 fold (not percent, but times) between 1974 and 2014. That's how increasingly common it is. And there is significant research showing detrimental effects, and accumulations in the body, for example levels in breast milk are in certain cases showing to be hundreds of times more than permissable levels for water. There has not been enough research done on its effects in the human body and current ''safety'' standards are based on outdated research. It might be worth googling it, reading from conflicting reports and seeing what you think.

Hugely conflicting. You could apply the same logic to thousands of products - plastics being the latest one.

Malayalam wrote: »

Yes, and the science gradually comes to the conclusion that there are levels of toxicity in many modern products that are implicated in adverse human health. Including plastics. I guess for some people it then becomes a cost benefit analysis type thing - we need more food, so lets spray the competing weeds and if a certain percentage of people accumulate the chemical and get cancer or other diseases it is collateral damage. I just cannot bring myself to think in that fashion.

and yes, I have hoed fields. Food can be produced organically, and with sufficient labour in sufficient quantity to provide our needs - it's just no one wants to pay the price of that, nor is the work appreciated as valid. Pity, because sitting on one's arse in an office instead is not all that happy making.

So you would prefer to see people starve ?

The cost would be astronomic & millions wouldn't be able to afford it.

It is always a risk/benefit choice. I use Roundup on weeds not crops. My concern is for domestic pets & wildlife for which Roundup is a reasonable choice.

Malayalam wrote: »

I absolutely never said that re people starving.

But carry on for the moment with your Round Up, your choice. I guarantee there will come a day when the research scientists are not so deep in the pockets of the corporations that manufacture it and governments will realise that the cost of damage claims outweighs the money earned. From that day you will not be permitted to use it because of the harm it does to human health. Guaranteed.

The damages claim in this case was classic California. They could of given him an appropriate amount & the rest to the poor. I would of thought his employers would be liable as, according to his testimony, "it involved him spraying herbicide to control weeds on school grounds, sometimes for several hours a day." He must of been using gallons of the stuff. I get through 5 litres a week, of diluted Roundup, maximum. What protection was he given to wear & what training ?

Wanderer78 wrote: »

that could very well be the case, but it does look like a lot of research is currently going into this concept, ive very little understanding of it, but it looks very interesting. i am convinced many of our modern agricultural practices are in fact very destructive for our planet and potentially dangerous for us, the destruction of our soil being one such issue due to these practices.

This was one of my first research projects. Think about it. We see ploughing as a good thing but soil has very structured layers & each has it's own unique fauna. Everything is living happily & then suddenly the top layer is buried & the bottom layer exposed to air.

We sprayed test plots with huge quantities of Paraquat over many years. These areas had a far greater number & diversity of soil fauna than the ploughed plots. Then factor in the pollution, energy use, cost, equipment to plough.

There are obvious other factors like compaction, drainage etc but it's not a simple tillage good, chemicals bad argument.

Discodog wrote: »

This was one of my first research projects. Think about it. We see ploughing as a good thing but soil has very structured layers & each has it's own unique fauna. Everything is living happily & then suddenly the top layer is buried & the bottom layer exposed to air.

We sprayed test plots with huge quantities of Paraquat over many years. These areas had a far greater number & diversity of soil fauna than the ploughed plots. Then factor in the pollution, energy use, cost, equipment to plough.

There are obvious other factors like compaction, drainage etc but it's not a simple tillage good, chemicals bad argument.

i appreciate your understanding, thank you, its something ive only been been recently enough made aware of, as i dont come from an agricultural background, actually attempted a masters in environmental science a couple of years ago, its a very interesting topic.

Wanderer78 wrote: »

i appreciate your understanding, thank you, its something ive only been been recently enough made aware of, as i dont come from an agricultural background, actually attempted a masters in environmental science a couple of years ago, its a very interesting topic.

Gardeners, like me, see digging as a good thing. We break up the soil, aerate it etc. But a natural field or forest doesn't get dug. We do it to help nurture the plants we want but it isn't necessarily the best thing for the environment.

I was really lucky. I worked with an amazing professor who taught us to question everything. But you can't legislate for human behaviour. Paraquat got a terrible reputation because people decanted it into drinks bottles & kids drank it by mistake with lethal consequences. Bleach is the same but is still on sale. The new example is detergent pods.

Malayalam wrote: »

Just going to once more link an essay by your fellow scientists expressing serious reserve https://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2017/02/22/jech-2016-208463

Science moves constantly, data is updated, at least allow for the possibility that glyphosate is not risk-free.

My work here is done

Why done ?

Does a photo like like convey an image of serious research or comment ? It just makes the people that posted it look stupid. Thousand of chemicals will have found their way into breast milk.

I have never said that it's risk free, very little ever is. Life is all about balancing risk.

Wanderer78 wrote: »

all humans should question everything, always, things, a lot of the time, dont seem to be what is perceived, sounds like a great professor. where did you study, if you dont mind me asking?

I was so lucky. I got the job first & then they sponsored me to study. I actually got payed to collect students at 5am, spending the day messing on the water or in fields, big pub lunch (on expenses) & then home

Malayalam wrote: »

Just going to once more link an essay by your fellow scientists expressing serious reserve https://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2017/02/22/jech-2016-208463

Science moves constantly, data is updated, at least allow for the possibility that glyphosate is not risk-free.

My work here is done

I don't consider roundup to be risk free but there's much more harmful sprays being used on food crops every day that never get a mention. Some of the research is laughable. I showed one particular paper to a relation of mine. She has a phd in an ag science field and would have a good understanding of the science involved. The paper showed a link between glyphosate and birth defects in laboratory rats. Her comment was that if they had administered folic acid to the rats in the same concentrations it would also have caused birth defects. Folic acid, you know the stuff women are advised to take if they are thinking of having a baby and in early pregnancy to prevent birth defects. I'm not an apologist for Monsanto or glyphosate but you'd have to wonder if it's almost a distraction from other more dubious products at this stage.