Talk:Glyphosate

Safety must be seen in the context of the Human-gut biota symbiant.

The following needs careful consideration and the insights it provides should be incorporated into the main Wikipedia on Glyphosate

From: The Interplay Between Environmental Chemical Exposures and Obesity: Proceedings of a Workshop. Page 109

Young asked a question about the presence of small amounts of glyphosate—the pesticide sold as Round Up—in foods, particularly corn and high-fructose corn syrup. A paper published by Shehata and colleagues (Shehata et al., 2013) reported that many pathogenic gut bacteria are resistant to glyphosate, whereas many beneficial bacteria are susceptible to it. Could the presence of glyphosate in corn syrup be a confounding variable in the results showing a link between fructose and metabolic dysfunction? Goldman answered that she has not seen any studies addressing the issue, but that it is a reasonable question to ask. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.239.194.197 (talk) 20:18, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Citations

So, a study that found a minimum inhibitory concentration of 0.5 mg/mL at the lowest? When levels in food are at parts per million and lower, further diluted when eaten? No. Even if that weren't the case, this fails WP:MEDRS. --tronvillain (talk) 20:56, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Considering Glyphosate's safety merely in the context of how it affects the Human gut biota is woefully inadequate. Herbicides like RoundUp are known to have a serious negative effect on bee hive survivability, and as such on foods produced by all plants that need bee fertilization in their life cycle. This applies both to crops grown for human consumption and for all other flora of which parts are consumed by wild living creatures. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.7.28.195 (talk) 16:44, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Need a better source before this can even be considered — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aircorn (talk • contribs) 21:51, January 22, 2017 (UTC)

References

At this moment this article seems to be way behind the growing deluge of publications, including material presented in Congressional hearings, coming out on this issue of effects of glysophate on gut bacteria, to say nothing of soil microorganisms and symbiotic relationships within other organisms, ecosystems and the ecosphere. Take for example, more than 76 articles by Dr. Stephanie Seneff at MIT: https://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/. The Wiki article seems to imply that as long as there is not currently indication of cancer, then there is no problem for humans. But the works of Seneff and others observe that the human gut bacteria supply many different requirements for the human body, and when you start interfering with these a wide range of effects emerges. All these Families of bacteria contain the enzyme EPSPS and are susceptible to glyphosate in amounts as small as 1ppm: Neisseriaceae, Enterobacteriaceae, Pasteurellaceae, Mycobacteriaceae, Nocardiaceae, Brucellaceae, Streptococcaceae, Alcaligenacea, Micrococcaceae, Trichocomaceae, Bacillaceae, Chlamydiaceae, Listeriaceae, Pseudomonadaceae Enterococcaceae, Cardiobacteriaceae, Campylobacteriaceae, etc.

Monsanto's premise was that because humans don't have the enzyme EPSPS, then glyphosate would not be a problem for humans. But as the human gut is filled with bacteria that not only do have the enzyme but also supply a wide range of requirements for the human organism, interference with and disturbance of these bacterial communities manifest themselves in a wide range of human maladies.

From the 2016 Congressional Hearing on Glyphosate: "Glyphosate and Disease": "Monsanto long-term Trade Secret studies in mice and rats reveal that Glyphosate destroys the tissues of glands and organs. Tissue destruction leads to gland and organ dysfunction and failure. The effect of glyphosate mis-incorporation into diverse proteins leads to disease by mis-folded proteins. These diseases and increases in diseases include but are not limited to Alzheimer’s, ASD, PD other neurological disorders, obesity, diabetes, cataracts, CKD, celiac disease, liver disease, heart disease, lung disease, asthma, deterioration of joints, destruction of teeth, acid reflux, other digestive disorders, birth defects, infertility, sterility, sexual disorders, skin disorders, scleroderma, cancer, lack of vitamins D, B vitamins including cobalamin (B12) and folate, chelation of necessary minerals and more…."

This also extends itself to other organisms throughout the ecosystem and can be assumed to affect ecosystem and ecospheric systems more generally when hundreds of millions of pounds of glyphosate are dumped into agricultural and non-agricultural ecosystems, just as agroecologists have demonstrated already for other agricultural chemicals and the associated farming systems that come out of the policies and purposes that presume the need for these chemicals. There are also unexpected crossovers, such as what happens to organic growers who use manure from animals kept on pastures treated with glyphosate. One needs also to identify and inspect the premises that underlie the use of glyphosate and other chemicals within agroecosystems and the ecosphere more generally.

Regarding premises, there is the whole question of what is meant by an herbicide, for example, from the 2014 Congressional hearing on Glyphosate: "Glyphosate is an antibiotic masquerading as an herbicide. Imagine the consequences of farmers spraying 10 million metric tonnes of any other antibiotic like penicillin or tetracycline on the food crops of the USA and Canada. People and politicians would definitely react if they knew." As pointed out by the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, one problem at the very root of science is that when we assign a particular word to describe something, it leads us to ignore other dimensions not contained within the word.

As bacteria are the origin and substraight of life on this planet, every multicellular organism on the planet has complex symbiotic and symbiogenetical (from the word symbiogenesis) relationships with bacteria, it cannot be assumed that lack of observed experience of effects of glyphosate should mean that it does not have effects.Stephen Mikesell 15:04, 1 April 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Singing Coyote (talk • contribs)

Alot of this is just WP:FRINGE (especially whenever someone attempts to cite Seneff as credible in this topic). There's a lot of armchair biology and correlation = causation faulty logic to be wary of there. At the end of the day, WP:MEDRS sources are needed on the health related content, and the scientific literature does not reflect these viewpoints. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:53, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

RAC opinion

Glyphosate not classified as a carcinogen by ECHA → should be mentioned in the article. --Leyo 14:36, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Maybe the RAC decision is to European... At least it is published in English so even the US-American could read it.--Plastiktüte (talk) 07:00, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

recent development/publications possibly of interest

It seems that Monsanto tried to "play dirty" of sorts with various glyphosate and round-up studies.

• https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/business/monsanto-roundup-safety-lawsuit.html?_r=1
• http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/medical-school-examine-whether-professor-published-paper-partly-written-chemical
• http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273230099913715?via%3Dihub

--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:36, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

So it is alleged by plaintiffs an ongoing lawsuit. Geogene (talk) 23:27, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

I've been sort-of following that coverage. I do think that we need to source anything here to independent sources, rather than reports within sources of what the plaintiff's attorneys have been saying. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:25, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

It seems like that user Kmhkmh needs more help with literature research (2nd link):

"Update: After quick review, medical school says no evidence Monsanto ghostwrote professor's paper" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.91.64.15 (talk) 13:30, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Roundup

User:Smartse suggested having a discussion about this issue here. He had undone this addition I had made: "In 2017 Monsanto marketed Roundup for Lawns, a herbicide formulation without glyphosate".(See Roundup for Lawns description) I admit it could have said differently but the point here is this: "Roundup" does not mean anymore that there is glyphosate in the formulation. This was true in the past but is not anymore, yet the WP article continues to present "Roundup" as a glyphosate formulation without qualification. People may want to understand why "Roundup for Lawns" does not kill the lawn as it would if it would contain glyphosate.Ekem (talk) 22:32, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

I had mixed feelings about the revert when I first saw it, because I agree with you that it is relevant and useful information. As I understand it, the issue is that the source was from the company, and that a secondary source would be better. However, my understanding is that primary sources can be considered reliable for simple statements of fact within a page, and that's what this is. We wouldn't use such a source to establish notability of a page, but that doesn't mean that we cannot use a primary source here. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:20, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

As I see it, it's a problem of WP:WEIGHT. How are we supposed to determine whether this is really worthy of inclusion in the grand scheme of all information of roundup and glyphosate? I'm not totally against including it, but for example, can we even tell that they only started selling non-gly roundup in 2017? If it's to avoid confusion for readers, then a hatnote mentioning that roundup redirects here would be better than burying the information where it was, but this has the problem of there being nowhere to direct readers to. Maybe there are enough sources to have an article on Roundup as a brand, with a greater focus on their consumer products, as opposed to this article which is mainly agricultural. SmartSE (talk) 12:57, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree Roundup as a brand may be worth an article, more so now as the brand has been apparently uncoupled from glyphosate, and also in view of all the other ingredients. But what to do in the meantime to be accurate? By the way, I did not specify when non-gly Roundup entered the market, just that it is marketed in 2017, - I do not think we should get hung up on when non-gly Roundup was introduced.Ekem (talk) 14:41, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

I would be wary about starting a Roundup article. Pesticide companies tend to play fast and loose with their trade names, which is why we normally don't have articles named after the trade name. Sticking to active ingredients for article names gives the most consistency. If this lawn "Roundup" formulation gets to a point it's of sufficient weight (I don't think it's there quite yet from my quick glance), we can just say that the active ingredient is marketed as Roundup or Roundup for lawns at their respective active ingredient articles. There are so many pesticide trade names out there though that I think it's better to wait and see for now. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:19, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

I think we are getting sidetracked on if Roundup needs its own article. My starting point is that the current article is inaccurate when it indicates that Roundup is a glyphosate formulation without any qualifications.Ekem (talk) 20:27, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

I also feel that the discussion has gotten off-topic. So returning again to whether or not we should include the alternative formulation, based on a primary source, I can see now that the concern was about due weight. I believe that, as a single sentence, there is no problem with due weight, and furthermore, there is no reason to be concerned that the information is not reliably sourced. I'm inclined to add the material back in a day or so, unless someone presents a good reason not to. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:58, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Also, can we merge Glyphosate#Legal_cases with Monsanto legal cases#Roundup?Wakari07 (talk) 09:54, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Better to keep it as this article. Monsanto isn't the only producer of glyphosate. Kingofaces43 (talk) 14:26, 25 April 2017 (UTC)