Glyphosate probably is safe, by itself.
After college I did landscaping. Once I cleared brush that had been treated with Roundup, and broke into an itchy rash from head to toe. After that experience, I quite landscaping forever.
The biggest lie is that Roundup IS glyphosate. This false. Roundup is a chemical slurry of byproducts that happens to contain some glyphosate. Otherwise it would not be so cheap.
PROVE IT.
All studies thus far point to roundup/glyphosate being incredibly safe. Far safer than any alternative, including many "natural" ones. The LD50 for glyphosate is like a fucking kilogram for humans.
>After college I did landscaping
After college I did a Phd in genetics.
[1] http://www.monsanto.ca/products/Documents/roundup_transorb_m...
It also says:
Skin irritation Rabbit, 3 animals, OECD 404 test: Days to heal: 14 Primary Irritation Index (PII): 2.2/8.0 Moderate irritation. FIFRA category III.
Surfactants, such as (POEA used in roundup) are known skin irritants. They are used to help absorption of glyphosate in plants.
Skin irritation is a very well characterized reaction to contact with any kind of surfactant.
>POEA was recognized as a common inert ingredient in herbicides in the 1980s, when researchers linked it to a group of poisonings in Japan. Doctors there examined patients who drank Roundup, either intentionally or accidentally, and determined that their sicknesses and deaths were due to POEA, not glyphosate. (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weed-whacking-herb...; cf http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/tx800218n, http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/tx200072k) //
So presumably you consider POEA to be completely safe as you said Roundup is safe and that, what, the medical authorities reported of here are either misreported or mistaken?
Throwing around the term "safe" is not really helpful. Safe to handle is different than safe to drink and the truth is much more complicated than that. Nearly everything is "safe" or "toxic" the difference is in the quantity that makes it into our body.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15862083 "There is insufficient evidence to conclude that glyphosate preparations containing POEA are more toxic than those containing alternative surfactants"
Surfactants, in general, are toxic. There is nothing special about POEA. Used properly, surfactants can be of good use and result in safe improvement of agriculture.
But you said, did you not, that Roundup - which is about 50% surfactants - was safe, safe to drink even. You compared it to drinking coffee IIRC. How is Roundup not toxic then?
People who work with it in fields should be careful. Consumers have a thousand other things more dangerous to worry about.
Safe when used properly.
>safe to drink even.
Never said that.
FWIW the context was ability to harm humans in any way; you were responding to a person saying they'd been given a rash after using Roundup.
>>"A good portion of which can do serious harm to life. Therefore "unknown" is the issue." (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11715508, goda90)
>"Your daily coffee is probably an order of magnitude more carcinogenic than any glyphosate/roundup exposure." (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11715557, searine)
Which I'll accept was not quite what I thought you'd said.
Will you admit that you've claimed roundup to be "incredibly safe"?
Also that in response to someone claiming it was harmful that your response, in context, suggested that coffee was more harmful?
He didn't say "more harmful", he said "more carcinogenic". That is a very specific form of harm.
It's perhaps strictly true, buy the manner is dishonest. Such an answer discredits the writer. The intent is to sow the idea that 'Roundup is less harmful to drink than coffee' even if the explicit expression was different.
The sun is cancer causing, but knowing that means we can take precautions. Claiming exposure to UV rays in the sun is not harmful would be foolishly misleading. Just because there are greater harms doesn't mean something is "safe", yes people have different cut-offs, so comparatives are good (which toxicologists seem quite capable of using; median lethal dose, etc.).
"Safe" does not convey anything about wearing gloves or not, and the term should not be thrown around without understanding what is meant by it.
I think most people would say going outside in the sun is "safe", but most also know there is more to that than a binary "good" or "bad", "safe" or "toxic". You however seem to be using the term in binary form.
Poison Ivy is a skin irritant but that doesn't make it a cancer agent.
Actually, you need to prove that Roundup is safe.
The burden of proof should be on those introducing new agents into the ecosystem; not on those who are affected by the chemical agent.
If Roundup was only glyphosate, it would be safe. It is made from recycled chemicals. That is all I know.
Is this a joke? So are apples, people and cats.
No, I don't have any links to back it up.
It could be possible that more than Roundup was sprayed. No one told me. I should have guessed why the bushes were brown!
I've gotten rashes all over my arms clearing brush that wasn't treated with anything.
https://www.lakerestoration.com/pdf/GlyphosateMSDS.pdf
There are risks when working with it in large quantities. That is much different than having any risk in food.
Worldwide very many deaths by suicide are caused by people drinking weedkiller, so moving to glyphosate should stop some of those.