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Toxic shock: California allows up to one thousand times more glyphosate in drink

puhim says

The study, published in Food and Chemical Toxicology, is entitled, "Glyphosate induces human breast cancer cells growth via estrogen receptors." You can read the abstract here.

the benefits of GMO

Would you rather they use Agent Orange?

eastcoast guy says

the benefits of GMO

Glyphosate is a weed killer that is sprayed on plants. GMOs are genetically modified organisms. You need to learn the difference.

Homeboy says

Glyphosate is a weed killer that is sprayed on plants. GMOs are genetically modified organisms. You need to learn the difference.

There is a logical step you have to take....

Genetic modification to plants ("Roundup ready" soy beans, for example) are what enable the widespread use of glyphosate...without GMO you would just kill the plant along with the weeds.

swebb says

There is a logical step you have to take....

Genetic modification to plants ("Roundup ready" soy beans, for example) are what enable the widespread use of glyphosate...without GMO you would just kill the plant along with the weeds.

So you are saying that Roundup, which was invented in the 1970s, has never been used as a weed killer until Roundup-Ready GMO plants were invented? I'm not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work, there, Lou.

Chart showing roundup usage, note that it is relatively flat until the mid to late 90s when usage takes off.

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Wikipedia article on "roundup ready" soybeans (I believe this was the first roundup resistant crop available). It was approved for use in 1994 and other sources said it became commercially available in 1996.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundup_Ready_soybean

Is the correlation just a coincidence, or is there a causal relationship? If you don't think the introduction of glyphosate resistant crops is a significant causal factor in the massive increase in glyphosate usage, please explain.

Well, maybe the good news would be that if we're drinking weed killer in the water we could just go out to our back yards and pee all over the weeds and that'd take care of em'

You mean phtalates, yes bad for you. There are always some things more toxic than others at any given point in time, that's no reason to proclaim that glyphosphate is safe or that it has nothing to do with GMOs - swebbs correlation chart is fairly striking so far. In general the use of pesticides and/or herbicides is problematic and should be avoided - and it can.

donjumpsuit says

However, there is a looming food shortage that will be massive in scope coming. And here we sit bickering over using technology in agriculture.

Yeah, I have seen this argument so far mostly from proponents of GM crops. To me food has been always a problem of distribution, even with the still slightly rising population there is plenty, it just doesn't get distributed to where it's needed most. In the industrialized countries most people consume too much food and too many calories every day and the trend has been accelerating. Sure there are always people who are short on cash to buy food, but that's mostly because of other way more highly inflated factors eating up their cash. It's the same problem of distribution even in countries that had food shortages. Take India, it has a lot of people that are food-strapped, but if you go into the big (esp. tech) capitals, there is a diabetes epidemic unfolding and you see plenty of overweight people. But I agree on plastics.

donjumpsuit says

nor are we going to suffer if our plastics are replaced with sustainable
products from the environment, like mushrooms or plastics derived from (get
this) GMO plants specifically engineered for that purpose

Yes, corn that grows plastic kernels ready to melt and use is great, until next season, when the food corn harvested four fields downwind is riddled with inedible plastic kernels. Then the season after that, the crops in two counties are inedible. Then two seasons after that, the entire corn belt of the United States is growing corn that can only be used to make plastic.

I love technology and science, but see the terrible downside risk. If it was an investment vehicle we were discussing, would you buy in with this risk level?

That's some scary stuff.

Wouldn't surprise me, although kind of shocking, government always let large corporations sell poison until enough backlash makes it a toxic political issue.

And yet not a single thought or word about all the antibiotics in meat. Or why. Or how much of that is taken into our bodies.

Apparently 'GMO' is the new nazi/commie that must be defeated somehow.

swebb says

Chart showing roundup usage, note that it is relatively flat until the mid to late 90s when usage takes off.

And the usage of the more dangerous alachlor and metolaclhor has declined. Do you know what the maximum level of alachlor allowed in drinking water is? TWO parts per billion. That's how toxic it is.

So farmers have switched to a safer herbicide. Why is that a problem?

Homeboy says

So farmers have switched to a safer herbicide. Why is that a problem?

That's a fair point and worthy of discussion, but that's not what we were talking about, and not what my response was addressing.

You said:

Homeboy says

So you are saying that Roundup, which was invented in the 1970s, has never been used as a weed killer until Roundup-Ready GMO plants were invented? I'm not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work, there, Lou.

Your argument was basically that roundup was invented long before "roundup ready" soybeans (GMO) were available, therefore GMO crops and roundup usage are not connected. It's a weak position to take, and doesn't really make sense (to me). Sort of like saying "gasoline was invented 20 years before cars, so cars don't have an impact on how much gasoline we use."

So I posted the chart on usage and the information about when "Roundup ready" crops became available in order to demonstrate that GMO foods and roundup usage are related.

If you want to pretend that we were talking about something different, that's your choice.

swebb says

Your argument was basically that roundup was invented long before "roundup ready" soybeans (GMO) were available, therefore GMO crops and roundup usage are not connected. It's a weak position to take, and doesn't really make sense (to me). Sort of like saying "gasoline was invented 20 years before cars, so cars don't have an impact on how much gasoline we use."

So I posted the chart on usage and the information about when "Roundup ready" crops became available in order to demonstrate that GMO foods and roundup usage are related.

If you want to pretend that we were talking about something different, that's your choice.

I disagree. You are conflating herbicide usage with GMOs. Those ARE two different things. Now, if you want to go on and argue, as you did, that there is a correlation between increased usage of Roundup and the invention of GMOs, then you open the door to MY argument that the increased usage of Roundup ALSO correlates to decreased usage of other pesticides. That makes your argument seem quite silly. You haven't shown that pesticide usage has increased (let along that the food supply and ground water have become more dangerous); you have only shown that farmers are using a product that is safer than the products they used before.

So what was your point again?

Right now I'm trying to figure out if you are a troll or if you legitimately can't follow the train of thought.

Homeboy says

I disagree. You are conflating herbicide usage with GMOs. Those ARE two different things.

I agree they are two different things, but when:

eastcoast guy says

the benefits of GMO

and then:

Homeboy says

Glyphosate is a weed killer that is sprayed on plants. GMOs are genetically modified organisms. You need to learn the difference.

It sure seemed like you didn't understand the logical step that eastcoast guy was making, so don't you think it's reasonable for me to point out how the two are related, and that the comment actually does make sense. If we didn't have GMOs, roundup would have only a small fraction of the usage that we see currently.

Does it open up the conversation to your other point? Sure, the conversation was always open to that....but your other point is just that, another point. It doesn't speak to the logical connection that you missed...(that GMOs enabled widespread usage of roundup). It's *does* speak to the original point of "is roundup bad" (or whatever), and it is worth discussing...but it comes across as a way for you to distract from the fact that you called someone out when in fact you were the one who was confused.

That's how I see it.

Glyphosate induces human breast cancer cells growth via estrogen receptors.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23756170

Abstract
Glyphosate is an active ingredient of the most widely used herbicide and it is believed to be less toxic than other pesticides. However, several recent studies showed its potential adverse health effects to humans as it may be an endocrine disruptor. This study focuses on the effects of pure glyphosate on estrogen receptors (ERs) mediated transcriptional activity and their expressions. Glyphosate exerted proliferative effects only in human hormone-dependent breast cancer, T47D cells, but not in hormone-independent breast cancer, MDA-MB231 cells, at 10-12 to 10-6M in estrogen withdrawal condition. The proliferative concentrations of glyphosate that induced the activation of estrogen response element (ERE) transcription activity were 5-13 fold of control in T47D-KBluc cells and this activation was inhibited by an estrogen antagonist, ICI 182780, indicating that the estrogenic activity of glyphosate was mediated via ERs. Furthermore, glyphosate also altered both ERα and β expression. These results indicated that low and environmentally relevant concentrations of glyphosate possessed estrogenic activity. Glyphosate-based herbicides are widely used for soybean cultivation, and our results also found that there was an additive estrogenic effect between glyphosate and genistein, a phytoestrogen in soybeans. However, these additive effects of glyphosate contamination in soybeans need further animal study.

swebb says

That's how I see it.

That makes one of us. LOL.

swebb says

If we didn't have GMOs, roundup would have only a small fraction of the usage that we see currently.

But the use of Roundup REPLACED the use of more dangerous herbicides. Yes, we probably would use less Roundup, but we would use MORE of other herbicides. Why are you ignoring that point? Can you explain why replacing dangerous herbicides with a safer herbicide is bad? Because I'm not seeing it. Why is that bad?

I have already acknowledged your point that glyphosate use has increased, and moved beyond it. You seem to be stuck there.