Glyphosate - possible problems?
Steve 309
Posts: 2,753
I hate to rain on everyone's parade but I've just come across this paper.
http://www.gmoevidence.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/GlyModern-diseaseSamsel-Seneff-13-1.pdf
As it's a long, technical, academic paper, I thought I'd quite the abstract here:
"Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup®, is the most popular herbicide used worldwide. The industry asserts it is minimally toxic to humans, but here we argue otherwise. Residues are found in the main foods of the Western diet, comprised primarily of sugar, corn, soy and wheat. Glyphosate's inhibition of cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes is an overlooked component of its toxicity to mammals. CYP enzymes play crucial roles in biology, one of which is to detoxify xenobiotics. Thus, glyphosate enhances the damaging effects of other food borne chemical residues and environmental toxins. Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body. Here, we show how interference with CYP enzymes acts synergistically with disruption of the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids by gut bacteria, as well as impairment in serum sulfate transport. Consequences are most of the diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet, which include gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. We explain the documented effects of glyphosate and its ability to induce disease, and we show that glyphosate is the “textbook example” of exogenous semiotic entropy: the disruption of homeostasis by environmental toxins."
This may be too technical for some. The gist of it is that glyphosate may make a long list of diseases and disorders (from Alzheimer's to obesity) worse. I should emphasise that this is just one paper and I don't want to be a Daily Mail scaremonger.
This is important because , since it's non-persistent, it's the herbicide most often used by 'nearly-organic' gardeners, which is what many of us are. The stuff's also made by Monsanto!
Any comments? I don't yet know what the balance of the evidence is.
Posts
I read something the other day that was blaming it for causing Autism too.
I've no idea of the veracity of the research or the researchers - however I do think that if there is any suspicion at all that this may have even just a snippet of truth, it really does need looking into.
One of the main aims of Monsanto's involvement with GM is, as I understand it, to produce crops that are resistant to Round-up so that they can all be sprayed with it
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I came across this last year. As I understand it, Glyphosate is sprayed on to GM crops which are resistant to it as a weedkiller. All other weeds in the field are killed. BUT the GM crop absorbs some of the glyphosate. Glyphosate is a hormone disrupter in humans, with all the problems that would entail.
So by eating GM produced food, you also eat some glyphosate.
As a gardener, I do not grow any GM crops. I only use glyphosate on land I want to clear, indeed it would kill any crop I grow. I got some on my wellies once and left a trail of dead grass footprints down the garden.
I'm not worried about it in my garden. I am worried about the use of GM crops in the general food chain. I wont touch anything with Soy in, because 95% of Soy is GM.
Oh gosh, just bought some,have had it 2 weeks as am always hesitant to use anything none organic, that'llstay on the shelf then
Yes Dove - it was my OH telling me a friend's neighbour had been spraying it indiscriminately and she'd done some research and found that it could "cause" autism. Mr Google will come up with a variety of scare stories if you search for "glyphosate autism" but since they're written by journalists rather than scientists they're unlikely to be reliable.
The research is published in what I think is a reputable scientific journal and as far as I can see from the headings, the authors aren't in the pay of any of the environmental organisations, so it looks authentic. But, as I said, it's only one paper and there may be others with opposing evidence.
The conclusion includes the phrase, "The pathologies to which glyphosate could plausibly contribute include..." so they're not exactly dogmatic about it!
It's not only GM crops that are sprayed with it , Oilseed Rape & Wheat crops in the UK are routinely sprayed 2 weeks before harvest so that the seed is all dry at the same time.
fidget; not all GM crops are resistant to glyphosate; from memory I think you're righgt about soya, and also Monsanto's variety of maize. They've put a glyphosate resistance gene into the genome of those plants so that they can do exactly what you describe.
What's particularly nasty is that they've also done something that prevents the seeds of the plants that you get from germinating, so the farmers can't save their own seed as they used to but have to buy more from the company.
Rosemummy - I think it should be OK if you use it on weeds growing away from food plants, avoid drift and wait a couple of weeks before planting anything else in that area. Although they've already had your money.....
This PowerPoint presentation (in pdf format) explains some of the information in the paper more accessibly.
How much of it you believe ...... A cursory viewing brings up a couple of inconsistencies.