Talk:Glyphosate

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
          This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:
WikiProject Agriculture (Rated B-Class, Low-importance)
Farmer plowing.jpg
Agropedia portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Agriculture, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of agriculture on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.
B-Class article B  This article has been rated as B-Class on the project's quality scale.
 Low  This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
WikiProject Chemicals (Rated Start-Class, High-importance)
Ethanol-3D-vdW.png
Chemistry portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Chemicals, a daughter project of WikiProject Chemistry, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of chemicals. To participate, help improve this article or visit the project page for details on the project.
Start-Class article Start  This article has been rated as Start-Class on the project's quality scale.
 High  This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Archives
Archive 1

Contents

[edit] Cited glyphosate source differs from current article content

In Wikipedia's current article it states that a Swedish study shows that the half-life of glyphosate is up to 3 years. This is incorrect, the actual article found here:

http://www.labmeeting.com/paper/18974220/torstensson-1989-influence-of-climatic-and-edaphic-factors-on-persistence-of-glyphosate-and-24-d-in-forest-soils

tracks the glyphosate metabolite aminomethylphosphonic acid as existing this long, but not glyphosate itself. Lenschulwitz (talk) 10:37, 13 September 2009 (PST)

[edit] Can someone add this with a cite?

Hey, came across something interesting and thought it should be added to the page, i could not figure out how to add a footnoted citation

via http://www.croplifefoundation.org/Documents/PUD/NPUD%202002/Fung%20&%20Herb%202002%20Data%20Report.pdf

its on pages 15 and 16

In terms of pounds of active ingredient, glyphosate accounted for approximately 25% of the total 399 million pounds of herbicide active ingredients applied to United States crops in the year 2002. In 1992, glyphosate comprised less than 3.5% of the total amount sprayed.

thank ye —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.184.236.176 (talk) 05:04, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Merge completed

I've completed the merge from Roundup. I've tried to keep all information from the old page without really evaluating it for its merit. I summarized the effect on plant diseases by citing a new 2007 review instead of importing Roundup's half-dozen primary articles. I removed a couple references on negative health effects because they were in Spanish and thus difficult to evaluate. Otherwise no information should be gone. II | (t - c) 19:37, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

This wasn't discussed in the RoundUp page. I disagree with the merge since Roundup is a formulation that contains Glyphosate.[1] I'm reverting the merge.--Nutriveg (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:17, 15 April 2009 (UTC).
As you can see from the #Merge discussion above, there's a strong consensus against that. There's been a merge tag up on both pages for a long while. Anyway, I don't much care if you add Roundup-specific stuff to the Roundup page, but we need a central page for discussing glyphosate and the various formulations of it, and that is this page. Note that main difference with Roundup is that it has various different surfactant which may cause different and potentially worse effects on aquatic organisms and such. That's not really worth another page and is discussed clearly here, but if you want to create the page on that, you can try. All other concerns with Roundup seem to be actually about glyphosate. II | (t - c) 21:29, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
That discussion was dead, and died with a partial merge consensus
"So, shall we merge the chemical and glyophosate-specific information to glyophosate, and leave Roundup for the brand name? --Rifleman 82"
"I think that is a good solution. (Roundup should also contain the majority of the controversy story). And then try to keep it that way"
The most recent comment (April 1) previous to your merge was against it
If the tag is the problem I may remove it later.--Nutriveg (talk) 21:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Responded at Talk:Roundup#Merge_to_glyphosate, where you posted the same question. Or should we keep doing our discussion in two places? Can't you see how irritating this redundancy is? II | (t - c) 21:56, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Support Merge There is too much reduncancy between the pages. Roundup should redirect to Glyphosate. The claim that "there is a distinction made in the scientific literature between studying the effects and benefits/harm of Roundup as a whole product, vs. Glyphosate as a chemical" is misleading. It is true that studies need to examine the total formulation of any herbicide and not only its active ingredient. But if you are going to have a whole article for every herbicide formulation of a given active ingredient you are going to have a very large amount of duplication indeed. Why does the Roundup brand and formulation get its own article but no other brand get its own? Why isn't there are Zero weeding wand page? It is far more sensible to group the articles on particular herbicides based on their active ingredients. People opposing this merge need to write up a Brunning Glyphosate 360 Weedkill article to report the effects of the formulation of glyphosate that I found in my shed just now. Ttguy (talk) 08:19, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Cross-posting? It's so fun you come up only to edit Roundup and Genetically modified food controversies articles pushing a Monsanto POV.--Nutriveg (talk) 14:18, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] EPA as a Reliable Source

Why does this article put so much emphasis on what the EPA says? They're more of a threat to the environment than it's protector. Corporations, like Monsanto, pay millions in "campaign contributions" (legal bribes) to get the politicians who control the EPA to produce the results they desire. Any real scientist would never trust such a biased organization.

Don't take my word for it: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v452/n7183/full/452002a.html

Wikipedia claims to be neutral and unbiased and yet what it considers "reliable sources" are often the most biased sources you could imagine. You can't trust corporate funded research, that's been proven over and over again. Have people forgotten what science was founded upon? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.243.197.47 (talk) 03:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

The EPA also publishes their research in peer-reviewed scientific journals on a regular basis. It's not like it's just a sock-puppet for big chemical corporations, and just because they're a regulatory agency doesn't make unreliable. Plus, their publications are usually supported with independent, peer-reviewed scientific literature. They're a credible source - they just shouldn't be the only source. MMagdalene722talk to me 13:58, 3 December 2009 (UTC)


This isn't meant as an attack, but an editorial does not count as a reliable source either. I can't comment either way about the EPA being reliable, or not, but using an editorial as proof of something being unreliable doesn't seem reliable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.231.124.104 (talk) 22:35, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Yield Drag?

The reference for this claim is 10 years old. I know from personal experience that this claim is untrue now. I do not work for a seed company and am not trying to promote my own agenda, just trying to improve the accuracy. If a more recent article can't be found, then this claim should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.231.88.105 (talk) 22:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. Some things haven't been studied in ten+ years but still stand. If the results have been found to be untrue, then there are surely new studies to argue that--but it's not acceptable to remove referenced material, especially when it's in a peer-reviewed journal, just because it's old and you have an intuition that it has been proven wrong. If the only thing that is known about a subject is from an old study, and no new studies have challenged the results from the old one, then it's reasonable to assume the results may still hold. If you want to clarify, a good way is to bring attention to the fact that the study is old in the text...i.e. saying: "A 1991 study found that...". What would be best would be to find new studies either supporting the old study or supporting your new intuition--but in the absence of this, you could also find remarks in some other article that support that this hasn't been studied more recently, and is considered unknown/uncertain. These are all ways to improve the article, just deleting the text does seem to come across as promoting an agenda. Cazort (talk) 12:54, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] "Weeds"

Glyphosate is used to kill much more than just weeds, as the lead statement stated, so that has been corrected to show that it kills plants that have not be genetically modified to be resistant to Glysphosate. Simply stating "weeds" is very misleading. --Skyemoor (talk) 14:19, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

As previously stated I disagree. Glyphosate can kill much more than just weeds but it is mostly used to kill weeds. Stating otherwise would unbalance its purpose. That's as well reflected by the article text. Your statement is also wrong where Glyphosate is also ineffective against some non "genetically modified" plants and is also used previously of culture of non "genetically modified" plants that there's no intention to kill.--Nutriveg (talk) 18:19, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
The term "weeds" is subjective and imprecise. The word 'mostly' is a weasel word, and the lead statement is incorrect without it and would violate WP:AWW with it. Any homeowner spraying it on their lawn to rid it of 'weeds' would find that he killed everything they sprayed, so the WP audience must be taken into consideration. Simply stating 'weeds' only captures the perspective of an agricultural business that incorporates Roundup-Ready farming. What is needed here is a NPOV. --Skyemoor (talk) 10:45, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
"The term "weeds" is subjective and imprecise". My Weed Science lecturer would disaggree. A weed is a plant in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just because a gardner might spray a whole garden with Glyphosate and find that it kills more than his weeds does not mean that Glyphosate is not used to kill weeds. It kills weeds when used as directed. Drano cleans drains when used as directed. But it will also kill people if they drink it. It does not mean that Drano is not a drain cleaner. Glyphosate is used by people to kill plants that are in the wrong place at the wrong time - ergo it is used to kill weeds. " Simply stating 'weeds' only captures the perspective of an agricultural business that incorporates Roundup-Ready farming" - This total B.S. - I use glyphosate in my garden to kill weeds and I am not useing RR farming. Farmers used Roundup to kill weeds for decades before round up ready crops were available. This is such a dumb argument I can hardly believe it.
The "intended to kill plants that are not genetically modified to be resistant to glyphosate" lead is demonstably false since the invention of glyposate predates the invention of GM crops by - I would guess - 20 years or so. Ttguy (talk) 00:09, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
My Weed Science lecturer would disaggree. Then your weed science lecturer should join this thread, as others cannot speak for him. It is a fact that Glyphosate will kill any plant that is not genetically modified to resist it, with the exception of 'naturally' emerging resistant plants. Attempting to use Drano as a metaphor does not provide supporting rationale.
This is such a dumb argument I can hardly believe it. Such communication is in violation of WP Etiquette Guidelines (WP:ETIQ). It would be advisable for you to refrain from such language in the future. --Skyemoor (talk) 17:45, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Add reference

The page is shown as protected, so I can't add this reference. The endocrine disrupter section mentions glyphosate's been part of the (USA's) EPA's endocrine disrupter screening program. Here's the address for the reference: http://www.epa.gov/endo/pubs/final_list_frn_041509.pdf Carltzau (talk) 12:12, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Interesting note at the end of that list: "Because this list of chemicals was selected on the basis of exposure potential only, it should neither be construed as a list of known or likely endocrine disruptors nor characterized as such." Physchim62 (talk) 03:07, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Protected

Please add interwiki zh:草甘膦, thanks. --Choij (talk) 07:04, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Glyphosate is responsible for an epidemic of cancer and birth defects

Glyphosate causes cancer, and the article doesn't even mention it. I'm going to link to the information here since I'm not allowed to edit the article, and I hope some admin will end the "protection" of this article, but if not, at least the information can be found here.

Visit the following links: http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6254 http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/142495/when_cocaine_and_monsanto%27s_pesticide_collide%2C_the_war_on_drugs_becomes_a_genetically-modified_war_on_science/?page=entire

The study in Argentina is not the only research concluding that the number one selling herbicide may be harmful to human health. Gilles-Eric Seralini, professor at the University of Caen and specialist in molecular biology, led a study that concluded the herbicides in the Round Up Ready package causes cells to die in human embryos. "Even in doses diluted a thousand times, the herbicide could cause malformations, miscarriages, hormonal problems, reproductive problems, and different types of cancers," said Dr. Seralini in an interview with Dario Aranda published in Página/12. Round Up Ready is currently marketed in more than 120 nations. Latin American nations Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay are the region's fastest growing markets.

Also take a look at the village in which 6% of inhabitants have cancer now:

In a small town bordering soy farms in the province of Cordoba, the Mothers of Ituzaingo group was formed in response to sudden increases in the local cancer rate. Ituzaingo has 5,000 residents—in 2001 they reported more than 200 cases of cancer and by 2009 that number has jumped to 300. This is 41 times the national average. (I conducted this calculation: the national average or percentage is 0.145 of the population diagnosed with cancer—in this town 6% of the population has cancer.) They have fought for regulations against fumigating soy crops in residential areas and a ban of agrochemicals.

Counteraction (talk) 09:49, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a soapbox for promoting your personal cause. Physchim62 (talk) 11:17, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Glyphosate"