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Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

theguardian.com

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Re: Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

#191

Post by peoplefromibiza »

IncRnd wrote: post #105

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. In 2010, Monsanto patented Glyphosate as an antibiotic. 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 d…

> were discovered to be a weedkiller

coke is a potent weedkiller

people love to drink it

or to put it in another way: some things we eat and drink are great to kill weeds, just not selective enough or too destructive

an example: salt

Re: Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

#192

Post by whimsicalism »

IncRnd wrote: post #116
slowking2 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dose makes the poison. It’s possible for a chemical to be perfectly safe if ingested in low quantities but dangerous in extremely high quantities. The duration of exposure for the same dose matters a lot too. Drinking glyphosate could be a much larger acute exposure so it’s perfectly reasonable to say it’s safe as normally used but not want to drink it. For example, you need trace amounts of copper to live, but v…

> Drinking glyphosate could be a much larger acute exposure so it’s perfectly reasonable to say it’s safe as normally used but not want to drink it. It's a short video. But, you are commenting without even having watched it. The executive said that glyphosate is so safe that it is safe to drink. When the interviewer then said that they have a glass of glyphosate and asked if the exec would like to drink it, the execu…

? I don't see how that in any way diminishes what the GP said.

Re: Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

#193

Post by chasil »

vixen99 wrote: post #169
WillPostForFood wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who have been exposed to got cancer, but that is meaningless in showing causation. Internal documents show concern, but show no evidence that it causes cancer, or that Monsanto had internal data showing it caused cancer.

Many consider glyphosate as the most heavily used weed-killer in history. If 'internal documents show concern', what should we conclude? https://theecologist.org/2016/feb/03/glyphosate-most-heavily... https://www.greens-efa.eu/legacy/fileadmin/dam/Documents/Stu... (All members of the EU Parliament from 13 countries, excrete glyphophosphate in their urine). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-18110-0 (Quantifable urine…

The wiki summary says two important things.

Glyphosate is the "penicillin of agriculture," a foundational discovery that has revolutionized the industry.

Glyphosate alone has not been found to be a strong carcinogen in scientific studies, but testing with the surfactants, adjuvents, and other additives with which it is normally used may increase the carcinogenicity.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate

Re: Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

#194

Post by whimsicalism »

mistrial9 wrote: post #101
slowking2 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dose makes the poison. It’s possible for a chemical to be perfectly safe if ingested in low quantities but dangerous in extremely high quantities. The duration of exposure for the same dose matters a lot too. Drinking glyphosate could be a much larger acute exposure so it’s perfectly reasonable to say it’s safe as normally used but not want to drink it. For example, you need trace amounts of copper to live, but v…

this is outdated thinking. LD50 is a measure of poison in testing, but since then it is acknowledged that there are cumulative over a lifetime effects, there are endocrine disrupting effects, and there may be effects from small doses that tip balancing systems in the body significantly.. those are from memory, not a specialist here.

Water also has an LD50 but you wouldn't say there are cumulative over lifetime harms from drinking water.

Re: Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

#195

Post by ReactiveJelly »

pragmatic wrote: post #142

Add I kid I watched people who worked with the spray coups/planes work with zero safety equipment. They would reach right into tanks full of weed killer with bare hands to try to fix something. No masks worn, no gloves. We’ve learned a lot since the 70s/80s/90s. I would imagine direct substained contact with the stuff is different than the minimal amounts in food.

Like how asbestos is never good for you, but if you're a shipbreaker working with asbestos for 40 years, it's definitely worse than if you're a homeowner and accidentally knock some asbestos out of your ceiling.

But in the same lines, I'm still more worried about glyphosate showing up in food from the supermarket than if I spray it around my house

Re: Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

#196

Post by thfuran »

elcomet wrote: post #140
thfuran wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would pretty much mean no new chemicals could be used for anything ever.

Of course they could, you just have to prove that they are harmless (at least in their expected usage and dosage)

Great, so we're just going to need a few long term clinical trials assessing the impacts of each of ingestion, skin contact, inhalation, eye exposure, etc. separately for childhood exposure, adult exposure, exposure during pregnancy, acute exposure, chronic exposure, and so on. 100 billion dollars and thirty years later, maybe you can start provisionally selling your slightly better scotch tape.

Re: Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

#197

Post by whimsicalism »

Retric wrote: post #94
whimsicalism wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Farming existed before weed killing Farming existed before pesticide .

Farming existed before people. Humanity has gotten very good at it and weedkilling is a big part of it. But, wild plants propagate quite well on their own, spending seeds of things you want more of results in more of that species. Preparing the environment and selecting seeds ca push that much further but the absolute minimum threshold is very low. Toss eaten apples into your yard, and eventually you get apple trees.

I think your definition of farming might be a wee bit broad.

Re: Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

#198

Post by ReactiveJelly »

240P_Climate wrote: post #119
csr86 wrote: post #115

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.

Eat meat like our ancestors did perhaps? Fat is only dangerous if it can stick to sugar. Sugar molecules are like little daggers that attach to arteries.

Maybe if it's lab meat. Otherwise it seems inefficient to grow food for animals instead of just growing food for humans

Re: Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

#199

Post by vanilla-almond »

microSnowball wrote: post #21

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—> > 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 Foo…

Related:

Status of glyphosate in the EU:

> "Glyphosate is currently approved in the EU until 15 December 2022."

https://food.ec.europa.eu/plants/pesticides/approval-active-...

The ECHA's (European Chemical Agency) assessment:

> "...the existing classifications for glyphosate as a substance that causes serious eye damage and is toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects should be retained.

> The committee found that the available scientific evidence did not meet the criteria to classify glyphosate for specific target organ toxicity, or as a carcinogenic, mutagenic or reprotoxic substance. "

https://www.echa.europa.eu/-/glyphosate-no-change-proposed-t...

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