Forum Index > Public Lands Stewardship > Glyphosate use in Clallam Co Parks
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PostFri May 17, 2019 7:10 pm 
Anyone with even a passing interest in the glyphosate debate needs to read the 1990 paper by Bruce Ames: Abstract The toxicological significance of exposures to synthetic chemicals is examined in the context of exposures to naturally occurring chemicals. We calculate that 99.99% (by weight) of the pesticides in the American diet are chemicals that plants produce to defend themselves. Only 52 natural pesticides have been tested in high-dose animal cancer tests, and about half (27) are rodent carcinogens; these 27 are shown to be present in many common foods. We conclude that natural and synthetic chemicals are equally likely to be positive in animal cancer tests. We also conclude that at the low doses of most human exposures the comparative hazards of synthetic pesticide residues are insignificant. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC54831/pdf/pnas01044-0440.pdf

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PostFri May 17, 2019 7:13 pm 
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PostSun May 19, 2019 2:41 pm 
Great thread! It is so rare to see factual scientific information and the precautionary principle discussed side by side in a civil and thorough manner. Well done, friends! up.gif

"of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt" - John Muir "the wild is not the opposite of cultivated. It is the opposite of the captivated” - Vandana Shiva
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PostMon May 27, 2019 7:25 pm 
And another good one, for added perspective (the eventual perspective being: basically everything causes cancer): acetaldehyde. Came across this today in reference to broccoli. Acetaldehyde is listed as a Group 1 carcinogen by IARC: Group 1 Carcinogenic to humans Group 2A Probably carcinogenic to humans Group 2B Possibly carcinogenic to humans Group 3 Not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans "There is high potential for exposure of the general population to acetaldehyde through ingestion, inhalation, and dermal contact and of workers through inhalation and dermal contact. The main source of exposure of the general population is through consumption of alcoholic beverages and the subsequent metabolism of alcohol to form acetaldehyde. Because acetaldehyde may form in wine and other alcoholic beverages after exposure to air, alcoholic beverages (including wines, beer, and spirits) also frequently contain acetaldehyde as a volatile component. Acetaldehyde is a product of most hydrocarbon oxidation reactions and is a normal intermediate in the respiration of most higher plants. It is found in trace amounts in many plant products, including apples, broccoli, coffee, grapefruit, grapes, lemons, mushrooms, onions, oranges, peaches, nectarines, pears, pineapples, raspberries, strawberries, cranberries, sour cherries, and mango. It has been detected in the essential oils of alfalfa, rosemary, balm, clary sage, daffodil, bitter orange, camphor, angelica, fennel, mustard, peppermint, and lychee, and in oak and tobacco leaves and cotton leaves and blossoms. Acetaldehyde has also been detected in breast milk. Consumers may be exposed to acetaldehyde in many milk products, including all types of cheese, yogurt, and milk of varying fat content. Acetaldehyde has also been detected in cooked beef, chicken, and fish and is used as a synthetic flavoring ingredient in processed foods, especially margarine." (references removed) https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/roc/content/profiles//acetaldehyde.pdf

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PostThu May 30, 2019 5:48 am 
Ok Thank you for that public awareness moment

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PostThu May 30, 2019 2:18 pm 
Thanks to everyone who contributed information to this thread that I began. I have no particular set opinion on the use of glyphosate/Roundup; I'm just trying to get at the truth. I've used limited amts of Roundup myself on rare occasions with extremely controlled applications. But I do get irked by reports of herbicides used for convenience rather that necessity in non-critical situations (like regular playground/park maintenance). Today in the Stewardship section I made a post about the recently broadcast PBS doc on Rachel Carson, which can be streamed free for a short time. Its relevance to this thread is the program's coverage of the history of DDT use: the heavy promotion of the latest "magic bullet", the "better living thru chemistry" optimism, and acceptance of collateral damage (what's a few dead birds compared to the eradication of malaria). It was the same with early nuclear testing, also noted in the program. One thing that struck me as I watched it is that human nature, the profit motive, and gov't/industry tendencies to minimize, cover up and at times outright falsify research results hasn't changed much in the last 50 years and may have gotten worse given the (cough, cough) near total corporate capture of our gov't and ongoing efforts to deregulate everything. I try to keep an open mind, but given all the factors and our history, I prefer cautious skepticism. It seems the best that can currently be said about glyphosate (and Roundup) is: the jury is still out (no pun intended, given the recent court cases). Its near-ubiquitous use, the subsequent development of "Roundup-ready" crop seeds, and the support of its many benefits by the agricultural community sound eerily like the old DDT optimism (and I'm not suggesting they're remotely similar in toxicity). Farther up the thread, someone made a great post with a link to an article about acute vs. chronic toxicity issues, and several have noted that many natural substances (even water) can be toxic/carcinogenic at certain doses.Our manipulations of nature are getting more sophisticated and subtle; it may take much longer to know about long-term effects of glyphosate. Meanwhile, in this morning's news, the "latest" on Roundup via NPR.

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PostThu May 30, 2019 4:43 pm 
"Secular environmentalists are trying to return us to a Garden of Eden state, not realizing that even God himself said the ground was cursed, more interested in producing thorns and thistles than herbs. “In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life” is the line from the Bible." The basis of the "don't do anything about it" argument summed up quite nicely. Gotta love self fulfilling prophecies. The end is near. dance.gif

Since I have no expectations of forgiveness, I don't do it in the first place. That loop hole needs to be closed to everyone.
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PostThu May 30, 2019 5:13 pm 
Carcinogenic or not it's disturbing the levels of glyphosate that are being found in our food and grains. I happily drank beer, ate bread and ate wheat-based cereal until I was 60 with no ill effects. Then it all changed. It took a year for someone to finally do a test on gluten-specific-antigen and I was off the charts. When I eliminated wheat from my diet I was back to normal but now sadly missing many foods I used to consume. I read the reports blaming Roundup instead of gluten and dismissed them as having no scientific basis. Now the new data is coming out and I'm quite alarmed. It's pretty obvious that Roundup is not being applied as it was intended. https://detoxproject.org/alarming-levels-of-glyphosate-contamination-found-in-popular-american-foods/ https://detoxproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/anresco_reports_food_testing_2016.pdf https://www.ewg.org/childrenshealth/glyphosateincereal/

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PostThu May 30, 2019 9:02 pm 
Schroder wrote:
Now the new data is coming out and I'm quite alarmed. It's pretty obvious that Roundup is not being applied as it was intended. https://detoxproject.org/alarming-levels-of-glyphosate-contamination-found-in-popular-american-foods/
The linked article states that Cheerios were shown to contain residual glyphosate at 1125ppb. Should we really find that alarming? Not only is it far below the EPA's allowable limit (for whatever that's worth) but it's a third the concentration of the acetaldehyde found in orange juice (3860ppb or 3.86mg/kg) according to this paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3124883/ Ironically, the grapes in the bowl of glyphosate-ridden cereal might be a bigger health concern than the cereal since they're known to naturally contain acetaldehyde as well. Probably some copper sulfate on them too...

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PostThu May 30, 2019 9:14 pm 
You don't think we shouldn't be alarmed about both?

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PostThu May 30, 2019 9:42 pm 
Schroder wrote:
You don't think we shouldn't be alarmed about both?
As public health issues? If the Bruce Ames paper referenced earlier is anywhere near correct that 99.99% of the pesticides consumed in our diet (many of them carcinogenic) are natural in origin, then what are we supposed to eat that doesn't contain toxins? There's really no avoiding the dozens or hundreds or thousands of minor toxins in our daily life, so why worry about them? Stay healthy as best you can - get some exercise, don't smoke, don't turn yourself into a diabetic, try to stay halfway fit - and hope for the best with the other stuff. Not trying to sound flippant here, I just think if we had a comprehensive appreciation of all the possible environmental hazards that surround us, the threat posed by glyphosate would fade into insignificance. And that's not a blanket endorsement of all the chemicals out there, but honestly we first-world countries are fairly good at identifying substances/practices that are unacceptably risky to the public. As far as the orange juice, personally I'd be more worried about the massive amount of sugar in it than the acetaldehyde.

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PostFri May 31, 2019 5:34 am 
Glad they are keeping the weeds down

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PostFri May 31, 2019 9:04 am 
I just assume that any nice looking lawn is a chemical lawn. I try to avoid walking down the aisles of lawn and garden chemicals in stores. It just doesn't smell good. Pretty unscientific though.

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PostThu Jun 06, 2019 11:43 am 
A few interesting details re the lawsuits and research from an article in Business Insider:
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A tightly reviewed and vetted paper published in the journal Environmental Sciences Europe earlier this year looked into why the EPA and IARC appear to disagree about the risks of glyphosate. It found that the EPA's conclusions relied mainly on "unpublished regulatory studies," many of them industry-funded. The IARC, on the other hand, looked at "mostly peer-reviewed studies." That could explain why 99% of the glyphosate studies that the EPA considered found that the chemical is not a cancer-causer, while 70% of the studies the WHO looked at suggested it probably is. ...Benbrook [an agricultural economist who now serves as an expert witness for plaintiffs involved in Roundup litigation] alleges that the reason so many big payouts are being won in court is that Monsanto didn't properly warn people who used Roundup at home or on a small scale that they should wear protective clothing when they applied the weed-killer.
https://www.businessinsider.com/glyphosate-cancer-dangers-roundup-epa-2019-5 I went out to my yard shed to get the hi-test Roundup concentrate I'd been using only on some ivy and a small clump of knotweed growing on my neighbor's side of the chain-link but obscured to him by his (equally obnoxious) laurel hedge. Sure enough: in the directions for use it cautions to "wash protective clothing separately, wash hands," and that no one except the person doing the application should be in the area, but doesn't specifically say, "you must use protective clothing, gloves, respirator" and so forth. So small-time users were not adequately warned. That plus the research discrepancies, plus the fact that Monsanto tweaked its formulations for European use explains the jury verdicts. The greatest risk (if any) is obviously in its careless use by homeowners and small-time landscaper types cited in the article (applied 30 times over one summer, and in shorts and flip-flops). eek.gif Monsanto was obviously deficient in explicit instructions for people not professionally trained in the application of any and all pesticides/herbicides. No doubt appeals will go on for years. But to put things in perspective, there's this recent article about all the persistent chemical loads we've been accumulating since WW2: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/fda-food-sampling-finds-contamination-by-forever-chemicals/

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PostTue Jun 11, 2019 10:49 pm 
Hi Anne! Well.... your new thread on water compelled me to finally log in, so I guess I may as well chime in here as well. As I mentioned to you via email, I made some phone calls after reading your first post in this thread and talked to some people who are in the business of dealing with non-native invasive flora on public lands. As I noted, the Clallam County Parks Department follows the guidelines set forth by the Clallam County Noxious Weed Control Board, the agency which oversees such operations. To satiate my curiosity, I also contacted Olympic National Park and had a rather interesting conversation concerning the use of various herbicides, of which glyphosate is only one. It should be noted that it's quite possible the staff people at the Park mentioned in the first post of this thread may or may not have been using "Round Up". It is quite possible that they may have been using a generic form of glyphosate, or any number of other herbicides used to deal with non-native invasive flora. I believe I sent you a list of just a few, which included "Crossbow", "Garlon", "Vastlan", "Polaris", and "Milestone". In addition to those, there are various generic forms of triclopyr. It should also be noted that the lawsuits mentioned in the first post were filed against Montsano (now owned by Bayer) for "Round Up", not glyphosate. "Round Up" is a proprietary mix of various agents (the primary ingredient being glyphosate) and as such Montsano (Bayer) is (as is the case with Kentucky Fried Chicken's "Seven Secret Spices") not required to tell you what those other agents are. It is therefore a mistake to equate "Round Up" to "glyphosate" - they are not the same. Also worth noting is the fact that the plaintiff in the case admitted that he "had been drenched" twice with "Round Up", and took no action to wash the solution off. He also admitted he had used "Round Up" 30 times during the course of a summer, which is about every three days on average. He also admitted that he has used "Round Up" wearing short pants and short-sleeved shirts. Unfortunately our legal system allows plaintiffs to be awarded huge monetary settlements in jury trials regardless of whether or not they've used what most of us would refer to as "common sense". As I noted in one of my communications to you, I dug into the subject because I take care of several properties and I use quite a bit of glyphosate (as well as 2-4D.) I'm also quite concerned about the management of non-indigenous invasive species of flora on our public lands, particularly those in Olympic National Park. I am also greatly concerned about the declines in return number of anadromous salmonids. (Fortunately there's another thread on that - there's no reason to go off on tangents here.) Bottom line: From what I've been able to gather, the jury is definitely still OUT on glyphosate. The group that found it to be carcinogenic also found carcinogenic properties in table salt, caffeine, and hot water. When used properly, and where appropriate, glyphosate isn't causing nearly as many problems as what some would have us believe. (Montsano's "Frankenfood" hybrid seed production notwithstanding.) Again, let me mention that recent University of Michigan study which concluded that when presented with facts that refuted the beliefs of individuals with belief systems and ideologies, those individuals became more resolute and more convinced that they were right, facts to the contrary notwithstanding. (Another one which I found fascinating was the Stanford study where students were given piles of suicide notes and instructed to sort out which were real and which were fake. Definitely worth looking into.) Don't believe everything you think. BK

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