Roundup, An Herbicide, Could Be Linked To Parkinson's, Cancer And Other Health Issues, Study Shows
Source: Huffington Post
April 25 (Reuters) - Heavy use of the world's most popular herbicide, Roundup, could be linked to a range of health problems and diseases, including Parkinson's, infertility and cancers, according to a new study.
The peer-reviewed report, published last week in the scientific journal Entropy, said evidence indicates that residues of "glyphosate," the chief ingredient in Roundup weed killer, which is sprayed over millions of acres of crops, has been found in food.
Those residues enhance the damaging effects of other food-borne chemical residues and toxins in the environment to disrupt normal body functions and induce disease, according to the report, authored by Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Anthony Samsel, a retired science consultant from Arthur D. Little, Inc. Samsel is a former private environmental government contractor as well as a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body," the study says.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/25/roundup-herbicide-health-issues-disease_n_3156575.html
Roundup ~ courtesy of Monsanto.
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)gateley
(62,683 posts)denem
(11,045 posts)I am waiting for a studies saying it's terrible, and Monsanto announcing some propriety herbicide that is supposed to be safer.
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)Roundup being made by any old so and so ?
Crepuscular
(1,057 posts)Glysophosphate is available from a variety of sources.
DCBob
(24,689 posts)DCBob
(24,689 posts)But for sure there could be long term effects that dont show up in any toxicology test.
LiberalEsto
(22,845 posts)that would contradict the "safe" argument.
Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)or grow your own.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)Apparently it's being used on acreage.
So many people get cancer these days. I can't help but think the growing use of pesticides and other environmental toxic things are one of the causes.
libodem
(19,288 posts)Pretty sure that is why all our gut bacteria needs recharged with probiotics. Who ever ever heard of that back in the 60's.
Yeah, roundup ready grains, all genetically modified to resist weeds, until we can't even digest wheat gluten any more. Great.
When I was reading the article that was the FIRST thing I thought of. All the information now on what inflammation does to the body and probiotics etc..... they know this and are preparing us all for it because it is in everything. I have no words for these people.
Xipe Totec
(43,872 posts)carefully unthreading the clover runners from the St Augustine grass using nothing but my hands and a small stick.
My neighbor watched me do it for more than an hour before finally coming over and saying:
"You know, I believe in better living through chemistry..."
I jut looked at her and smiled, and kept digging out the clover by hand.
It's been over thirty years. I wonder if she still thinks the same.
By the way, I am a trained chemist.
Carolina
(6,960 posts)I can manage alone, so I have a yard guy who helps. He always wants to spray some Roundup on weeds, but I emphatically say: no chemicals. Like you, I pull my weeds by hand and pay neighborhood kids to help. In addition to being healthier, I find pulling weeds mentally therapeutic. Clears the mind and the garden!
tabasco
(22,974 posts)And the neighborhood kids.
Consider letting it grow wild and invite nature into your backyard.
fasttense
(17,301 posts)He sprays our shared fence line with it. He also lets his girl friend's 8 year old son spray it around the edges of their house, fences, gardens, driveway and paths even during high winds. There is a huge patch of dead grass along the road where he must spray huge quantities of it down the slope. The neighbor near the slope has come down with cancer. I notice we always lose livestock within a week of his spraying. Last year we lost about 3 older chickens back to back in the week after he sprayed. This year we lost a newborn spring lamb (stillborn) two days after he sprayed. We don't use it. We don't use any chemicals.
His live in girl friend came down with a really deadly cancer last year. But surgery and chemo saved her life. I wonder if they ever considered not using the chemical?
wordpix
(18,652 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)appal_jack
(3,813 posts)I respect your commitment to hand-pulling, Xipe Totec, but why not let the clover (and, if you're in a biome similar to me, also the henbit & creeping charlie & plantain & chichweed & yarrow & queen anne's lace & lambsquarters & pigweed, etc. ) be in your lawn as part of a more diversified pastoral landscape. Many of these plants were accepted as natural components of lawns prior to the invention of broad-leaf herbicides. Once a chemical tool existed to rid us of them, the lawn companies tried to convince us that real lawns were only grass. I remain unconvinced, and believe that natural diversity in a lawn, mowed at 3"-4" depending upon site & species composition, will result in a pleasant & healthy open landscape.
-app
kentauros
(29,414 posts)It's been around for a while, and it's written more for farming than residential. Even so, it's still a good info source about why we need "weeds" and what they indicate about your soil health.
appal_jack
(3,813 posts)kentauros
(29,414 posts)They do have an excellent library. When I have some ground again, instead of just pots, I'll probably go through their library to save and print what I need.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Purity is vastly over-rated when it comes to lawns.
Xipe Totec
(43,872 posts)One neighbor built an English garden. After years of lawsuits he was finally forced to rip everything up and replace it with St Augustine grass.
It made the papers at the time but it was quite a while ago, so no luck finding a link
Here is a link to a book that talks in general about these issues:
http://books.google.com/books?id=jcKH9K_DHd0C&pg=PA124&lpg=PA124&dq=homeowner+deed+restriction+lawn+grass&source=bl&ots=vB-7HNRLaK&sig=8ZoHxeGLzu6mHY85n4hJlijr7Ds&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NqJ6Ud7tJsuO0QHmqoGoAQ&ved=0CG0Q6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=homeowner%20deed%20restriction%20lawn%20grass&f=false
appal_jack
(3,813 posts)I sincerely hope to go to my grave never having lived in any place where neighbors can tell me how to keep my grass & gardens, or what color to paint my house, etc.
Nonetheless, Xipe Totec, it sounds like you made the best and most environmentally sound choice in the situation.
-app
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)... as a medical study proving that Roundup causes cancer, Parkinson's disease, and infertility.
Let me ask you a couple of questions just to get the record straight:
1) Is Entropy a medical journal?
2) Are either of the authors medical doctors or anything similar?
3) Was a direct link between Roundup and cancer, Parkinson's disease, and infertility demonstrated in this study?
Let me say this pre-emptively: I am NOT defending Monsanto, I simply want accurate answers to these simple questions.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)"authored by Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Anthony Samsel, a retired science consultant from Arthur D. Little, Inc. Samsel is a former private environmental government contractor as well as a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists."
Link is above.
Entropy is a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal on entropy and information studies. It was established in 1999 and is published by MDPI. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2011 impact factor of 1.183.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_%28journal%29
MDPI is
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute is a publisher of open-access journals that was established in 2008. It operates as MDPI AG, Basel and Doubu Technology Service Company Ltd, Beijing.[3] MDPI currently publishes 89 peer-reviewed scientific journals of which 10 have a listed impact factor.[4] The company has its headquarters in Basel, Switzerland and two offices in Beijing, China.[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDPI
MIT is quite reliable. I am not familiar with the MDPI. Any DUers know it?
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)2) Are either of the authors medical doctors or anything similar? No. Samsel is retired, and running down his expertise is challenging. Dr. Sensef is an computer and electrical engineer.
3) Was a direct link between Roundup and cancer, Parkinson's disease, and infertility demonstrated in this study? No. This was not original research, but a review of literature. The link between Roundup and these diseases is hypothetical and indirect.
wordpix
(18,652 posts)he has a lot of experience in his field and has time to do research that others may not.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)And I think you missed them.
First, as I said, I am not dismissing the article, but it is not truly research.
My point about Samsel being retired was in the context of finding it difficult to establish his area of expertise. If we are going to hang our hats on research papers concerning health effects of pesticides, I truly believe that the research should be conducted by those in the field.
Crunchy Frog
(26,548 posts)Last time I looked, that was not their area of expertise, apart from the ones who have that as their specific focus.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Are you asking if my daughter's pediatrician is a research scientist, the answer is no. If you're asking if there are research scientists who specialize in the field of human health (and have graduated from med school), the answer is yes.
I guess the next question is, Why do you ask?
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)I just was providing the answers to your questions.
Botany
(70,291 posts)Hammer toes, the heartbreak of psoriasis, and iron poor blood.
"Roundup is also popularly used on lawns, gardens and golf courses."
Nobody uses roundup on their lawns or gardens ..... it is a non specific
herbicide.
BTW I was just using round up* today to help the environment .... i killed some
garlic mustard, honeysuckle, and multi flora rose .... to be replaced by native
plants that might in time help recreate natural ecological communities that will
fix carbon, help slow storm water run off, provide high quality habitat for native
pollinators, and maybe it can make areas that can help link together "ecological
corridors" to help biodiversity.
* Over one acre I might have used 1/2 an oz. of 47% glyphosate
Entropy is not a scientific journal ......
wordpix
(18,652 posts)Late stage Alzheimer's manifests with some Parkinson-like symptoms---I wonder if there's a link?
She has had Alz. disease for 6 yrs. now and can barely walk, talk or follow a simple instruction like, "Hold here on your walker." She used to be a brilliant artist with a million friends and vibrant social life.
Goddamn Monsanto!
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Hope the last line of your post was sarcastic.
BethanyQuartz
(193 posts)They've known for a long time how dangerous xenoestrogens are. And they've done everything possible to hide it, confuse the issue, claim links to cancer and other diseases are unproven, blah blah. I don't get it. Their kids will suffer shorter and sicklier lives, too.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)denverbill
(11,489 posts)yellowcanine
(35,692 posts)Last edited Fri Apr 26, 2013, 01:33 PM - Edit history (1)
Highly ranked journals are more difficult to publish in so it is important to look at where particular studies are published and generally one needs to be a little suspicious of studies which appear in journals which don't seem to fit the discipline. This study is a medical study and it is published in the journal Entropy, which is listed as a journal for entropy and information studies. It is an odd fit. And note that Entropy had an impact rating in 2011 of 1.2. In comparison, the New England Journal of Medicine had an impact rating in 2011 of 53.3. Why would someone publish a medical study in a relatively obscure non medical journal? There is really only one reason - it does not rise to the level of even mediocre medical studies. It is "peer reviewed" only in the sense that the reviewers were scientists - it does not appear to have been reviewed by medical researchers. A university tenure committee would probably not see this as a peer reviewed study.
Celefin
(532 posts)Medical journals with an impact factor below 15 do not count as especially important while journals dealing with history are -really- important with an impact factor above 2.
Impact factor is defined by citations divided by number of published articles. As everybody in medicine tries to cite everybody else to be on the absolute safe side and a lot of studies deal with similar issues in broad fields, the result is a very high impact factor in -general- for medical journals.
History articles tend to very specific concerning very specialized fields and there aren't nearly as many historians as there are medical scientists, thus obviously at lot less citations, thus a low impact factor.
In my field, agroecology, an IF of 4 is considered extremely important... but even a 'lowly' journal like 'agroforestry systems' with its IF of 1.2 has a very high impact in its specific field... just not a very high IF.
Impact factor is a lousy way to measure journal importance, but regrettably the only standardized one and it provides easily comparable numbers for managers of funding agencies. The latter making it downright counterproductive.
yellowcanine
(35,692 posts)like Entropy. Impact factor is ok as long as people publish things where they should be published and don't go shopping for easy publication outlets. Comparisons can be made as long as they are made within a field. Besides, as you noted, it is all we have and academic committees do use it.
It is best if people just read the papers and make their judgments that way but generally that is just not possible in many cases. Tenure committees generally look at a couple of papers and that is it.
Celefin
(532 posts)Just one more thing to consider is that if you want to publish in an open access journal out of the genuine concern that everybody should be able yo read your study you have few hi-IF journals available as there isn't the same institutional (and publisher) support for those.
Apart from that I do agree with your assessment on the problematic issue of searching for easy outlets to potentially very important or controversial studies.
Have a nice day
Arkana
(24,347 posts)I used that stuff to kill off a massive ornery thornbush in my parents' backyard.
Welp, it's been fun...I'll think of y'all when I'm dying from Parkinson's and cancer.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)One of Monsanto's bread-and-butter GMOs is "Roundup Ready". Here's how it works. You plant Roundup Ready seed and hope none of it blows over into your neighbor's field causing Monsanto to sue him. Then you hose the entire field down with Roundup, which kills everything in sight except for the GMO crop.
This, rather than any danger from the GMO crop itself, is likely the biggest threat to the food supply from GMO.
Brimley
(139 posts)DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)- Buh-bye Monsanto.....