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Supreme Court to hear arguments in landmark Roundup weedkiller case

nytimes.com

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Re: Supreme Court to hear arguments in landmark Roundup weedkiller case

#61

Post by keane »

tptacek wrote: post #43
nekusar wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since 1991, the EPA has held that glyphosate is not carcinogenic; it was (at the time) categorized "Group E", which means that not only is there not evidence for it being carcinogenic, but that there is material evidence that it is not. Later, IARC (in a decision that was controversial among global public health agencies) listed glyphosate as a 2A probable carcinogen, alongside red meat, potatoes, deep fryer oil, a…

I mean, you can believe whatever you want to believe, and the EPA can be wrong, but "the EPA has been claiming X since 1991" is not a very powerful argument for "not X". (There are mechanistic reasons to believe glyphosate is less harmful than other landscaping treatments; it has a fairly elegant mode of action.)

Omitted here is mention that the EPA designation is under review: “the Agency is currently updating its evaluation of the carcinogenic potential of glyphosate to better explain its findings and include the current relevant scientific information”. Their February 2020 registration review decision was withdrawn and their new interim registration has not been completed. —https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-products/glyp...

Re: Supreme Court to hear arguments in landmark Roundup weedkiller case

#62

Post by tptacek »

keane wrote: post #57
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Important to note it's not Glyphosate on trial, it's Roundup. There is a huge gulf between studies and conclusions on Glyphosate, and studies and conclusions on Roundup. Glyphosate is the safest and most effective herbicide known to mankind. Roundup - which includes Glyphosate, in addition to other additives - may be unnecessarily dangerous. Also worth noting that Monsanto could stop selling Roundup entirely, and it…

A key paper on its safety from 2000 was retracted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46161125 Like the tobacco industry before them, a Monsanto employee proposed producing a scientific paper with outside scientists: “by us doing the writing and they would just edit & sign their names so to speak” — see https://retractionwatch.com/2025/12/04/glyphosate-safety-art...

There isn't one single study that glyphosate safety is based on. It's an intensively studied substance.

Re: Supreme Court to hear arguments in landmark Roundup weedkiller case

#63

Post by tptacek »

keane wrote: post #61
tptacek wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you can believe whatever you want to believe, and the EPA can be wrong, but "the EPA has been claiming X since 1991" is not a very powerful argument for "not X". (There are mechanistic reasons to believe glyphosate is less harmful than other landscaping treatments; it has a fairly elegant mode of action.)

Omitted here is mention that the EPA designation is under review: “the Agency is currently updating its evaluation of the carcinogenic potential of glyphosate to better explain its findings and include the current relevant scientific information”. Their February 2020 registration review decision was withdrawn and their new interim registration has not been completed. — https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-p…

I don't really care about EPA's designation. I discussed it upthread because it's very important to the legal case.

Re: Supreme Court to hear arguments in landmark Roundup weedkiller case

#64

Post by conductr »

gustavus wrote: post #7
yxhuvud wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, mass starvation would not ensue from having to fight weeds using mechanical means. It would take more work and more fuel, but it is eminently doable if the need is there. Especially if the change would be gradual. Making do without artificial fertilizer would be a lot harder.

Increased work and fuel means increased costs, increased costs means increased prices, increased prices means less food available for purchase by those on the margins, less food means starvation.

We have resources for plenty of nonessential expenditures that could be diverted if avoiding starvation was our collective goal. I’m not always sure it would be, but the constraint isn’t a death sentence on its own.

Re: Supreme Court to hear arguments in landmark Roundup weedkiller case

#67

Post by tptacek »

titzer wrote: post #54
chromacity wrote: post #13

It's striking how many of these "product safety" cases are decided in the court of public opinion, independent of actual scientific merit. The case of DDT was pretty interesting. More recently, we have microplastics - no one has really shown they're dangerous to humans, but there's enough hand-waving that "everyone knows" they're killing us. And aspartame, etc... Glyphosate is probably the safest of the things people…

Well I don't know of people claiming that microplastics are "killing us", there are dozens of papers that implicate microplastics in negative health effects from hearts to intestines, to sperm. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2309822 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.3c09524 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c03924 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-39... There are a…

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/13/micropla...

(This is a summary of a Nature Matters Arising article).

Re: Supreme Court to hear arguments in landmark Roundup weedkiller case

#68

Post by keane »

tptacek wrote: post #62
keane wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A key paper on its safety from 2000 was retracted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46161125 Like the tobacco industry before them, a Monsanto employee proposed producing a scientific paper with outside scientists: “by us doing the writing and they would just edit & sign their names so to speak” — see https://retractionwatch.com/2025/12/04/glyphosate-safety-art...

There isn't one single study that glyphosate safety is based on. It's an intensively studied substance.

I didn’t claim there was only one study. The concern is the corporate culture introducing biases into studies. In the tobacco industry, this was a pattern.

Re: Supreme Court to hear arguments in landmark Roundup weedkiller case

#69

Post by keane »

tptacek wrote: post #63
keane wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Omitted here is mention that the EPA designation is under review: “the Agency is currently updating its evaluation of the carcinogenic potential of glyphosate to better explain its findings and include the current relevant scientific information”. Their February 2020 registration review decision was withdrawn and their new interim registration has not been completed. — https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-p…

I don't really care about EPA's designation. I discussed it upthread because it's very important to the legal case.

I’m not claiming you needed to mention this in your original post about the lawsuit. This fact would be relevant in the sub thread here with nekusar about what we can or cannot draw from the designation.

Re: Supreme Court to hear arguments in landmark Roundup weedkiller case

#70

Post by perrygeo »

cmiles8 wrote: post #45

The evidence on glyphosphate causing cancer isn’t particularly strong. I wouldn’t bathe in the stuff, but the data strongly indicates it’s one of the more benign compounds used in agriculture and landscaping.

WHO classifies it as "Probably carcinogenic to humans". But it's important to talk about the exposure model.

Glyphosate in our food supply - almost no evidence of cancer risk. (The gut microbiome is affected though).

Direct and sustained contact to glyphosate as an agricultural worker - potentially very severe risks, particularly non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The data is strong but epidemiological.

So yeah, I think your conclusion is roughly correct. Don't bathe in it. Probably avoid using it at home or work. But otherwise, its not a serious risk to consumers.

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