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Eh, I wouldn't trust these findings. Science is always changing. There was a time they told us butter was bad for you. Now it's not. Besides, weedkillers have other chemicals other glyphosate in them that are harmful.
Butter is still bad for you. What they found out is that margarine is worse. You will be healthier to avoid both.
Unfortunately I have little control over what is sprayed in my yard (although I am trying my best to communicate with the landscapers employed by our HOA). I have been raising monarch butterflies for the past few years, and last year every caterpillar that I fed milkweed from my yard got sick and died. Asked the landscapers about it and sure enough they were using Roundup in the beds.
If they were using glyphosate, you would not have had milkweed.
We studied and worked with glyphosate a lot where I was once employed. Glyphosate only affects one enzyme and that enzyme is only found in plants, not in any animals. So there was no way it would cause cancer directly. And it is chewed up by soil organisms and by plants too and none of the products/metabolites are cancer causing either. If there is any problem it would be with the "inert" ingredients it is mixed with to keep it in solution and help it stick to leaves. But those ingredients are used elsewhere too and without a problem when used as directed. And if you use a lot you need a pesticide applicators license because your tiny exposure to the inerts could add up.
It is sad to get cancer and everyone wonders "why me" but blaming it on some random thing in your life is not the way to go. Especially when herbicides like glyphosate have allowed us to greatly reduce pollution of the soil by other things like salt, heavy metals, and actual poisons like farmers had to do in the past (unless they wanted to pull weeds by hand and hoe for 25 hrs a day). But someone thought that the producers had deep pockets and could fund some lawyers and anti-science groups so why not sue?
Like coffee and other such offensive items, it will only cause cancer in California. Using it in Texas will be safe.
California certainly has (had?) some petty farms (apricot, walnuts, ect.) out in the San Joaquin Valley but a typical farm here on the Texas South Plains stretches out to one or more horizons and may consist of thousands of acres of crops and weeds.
The typical rural home summer "lawn" out here is dirt and weeds unless you have a sprinkler system, then you have green circles of Bermuda grass surrounded by weeds waiting on the day when you forget to water.
Of course I'm no less susceptible to cancer as anyone else but right now I have to be more concerned about effective weed control rather than dying a few years early.
I've used Round-up (glyphosate) for just about weekly for over 40 years and never have had any problems with it. Like anything else, follow directions and nothing to worry about.
A friend of mine who is an EPA toxicologist told me to never use roundup, especially not on my property that fronts on a river.
If I remember, I will ask him about this article.
The key to your toxicologist's comment is "fronts on a river". Runoff and overspray drift will be toxic for aquatic organisms during it's half life. Proximity to water bodies is one of the most basic reasons NOT to select Roundup for weed control there.
Last edited by Parnassia; 05-02-2019 at 02:55 AM..
If there is any problem it would be with the "inert" ingredients it is mixed with to keep it in solution and help it stick to leaves. But those ingredients are used elsewhere too and without a problem when used as directed. And if you use a lot you need a pesticide applicators license because your tiny exposure to the inerts could add up.
Right. The "other" ingredients that affect or enhance the effect of the glyphosate are the more troublesome ones, not the glyphosate itself. The recent lawsuits involved people who were applying it at agricultural or industrial scales over time, not residential homeowner usage. The formulations aren't even the same.
If they were using glyphosate, you would not have had milkweed.
Sure she would, unless the milkweed were sprayed directly with it.
Personally I think glyphosate is fine for killing weeds around normal yards, but I wouldn’t want to eat food that has been sprayed with it, like ‘Roundup ready’ corn, or non-organic oats.
Monsanto no longer owns the patent on glysophate so several companies are now selling it under different names. As long as I don't bath in the stuff, I find the benefits of its use far outweigh the potential adverse impacts.
I’m not sure I have ever bought name brand glyphosate, it’s too expensive. You can buy generic at the co-op for half the price.
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