Misleading article by the Organic Producers Association of Queensland, Australia on Glyphosate use in agriculture

Glyphosate is the active ingredient of some of the most common herbicides used in farming and gardening. These products have been promoted as quickly biodegradable and non toxic. People believe that they are so safe that you can drink a cup of these herbicides without any ill effect.

Reply: Anything is toxic at sufficiently high intake and exposure, and not toxic if the exposure is small and the dose is small. People don't believe any such thing like “you can drink these herbicides without any ill effect”. This author is deliberately mounting a straw man to proceed to pull it apart.

Most people are worried about “poison in their plate of food and water”. There is widespread fear of agrochemicals although this is no scientific evidence for this. The health of countries which use very high amounts of agrochemicals (and proportionately high amounts of glyphosate) enjoy high health standards compared to countries like El Salvador which use small amounts of agrochemicals. In Sri Lanka, another country which rushed to ban glyphosate blaming its epidemic of kidney disease on Glyphosate, and then reversed it, glyphosate use is least in the endemic area!

What is seen is a NEGATIVE CORRELATION between agrochemical use and health standards. The figures for New Zealand and USA are 1717 kg/hectare and 137 kg/hectare (2015 World bank data) respectively, while Qatar uses over 7100 kg/hectare. Data for over 150 countries verify this negative correlation. Even within Sri Lanka, the first country to ban glyphoste and reverse the ban after three years when agriculture suffered, the highest use of glyphosate is in the Tea Estates, while the lowest is in the paddy fields. Yet it is the paddy farmers who contract a kidney disease of unknown aetiology (CKDu), and in only certain Dry-Zone villages. In spite of this, the organic-farming lobby, Dr. Mercola, Stephanie Seneff, TruthOUT.org and others with an axe to grind junp to link Cancer, CKDu and other illnesses with glyphosate use, although what we see is an ANTI-CORRELATION.

Consequently, it is sprayed on roadsides while people are driving, on footpaths when people are shopping and in schoolyards and sports fields, exposing children to drift and residues.

Reply:

Glyphosate is NOT sprayed in its concentrated form, but in an AEROSOL form at hundreds of times dilution. It is indeed NOT TOXIC at the concentrations and levels used. But what do we mean by Toxicity?

There are two types of toxicity. (A) Acute toxicity, arising from taking a large dose of the concentrate in one shot, as in a suicide attempt (B) Chronic toxicity, arising from taking very small doses over a long period of time. What is the cumulative toxicity (or chronic toxicity) of glyphosate?

Gyphosate formulations with ALL ITS ADDITIVES have NO chronic toxicity at even 10 to 1000 times the dosages commonly used in agricultural and other normal applications.

HOW DO WE KNOW THIS?

There are many studies to test if Glyphosate causes chronic toxicity. Two well known ones are:

Reference [1]: The Journal of the National Cancer Institute., year 2017,

DOI: 10.1093/jnci/djx233.

The nearly 25 year long health study on some 90,000 farmers in the US, conducted by the US Department of Health (i.e., with no links to the agrochemical industry what so ever). At the end of the study, they concluded in their Nov. 17, 2017 report that the use of glyphosate (containing wetting agents and other usual additives) had no significant correlation what ever with any additional ill health, and in particular with any type of cancer including non-Hodgkin lymphoma. This reference was indeed not available to the spokesman of the Organic Producer's association, but they should either update their webpage or delete the obsolete web page.

Reference [2]: Environ Health Perspect volume 112(3): pages 321–326, year 2004

The reference gives studies on Farmers in Minnesota and North Carolina by Prof. Acquavella et al and published in 2004. They studied urine samples from farmers in South Carolina and Minnesota and found a mean glyphosate level of 3 ppb (.e., 3 micrograms per kg of body weight), with higher values in farmers who used no gloves, at a maximum of 233 ppb. The WHO-FAO Joint Committee on Pesticide Residues (JCPI) states that even a daily intake of up to 1 mg/kg of body weight is safe and thus sets the threshold for chronic toxicity at 1mg/kg (1 ppm). This is almost a MILLION times higher than the maximum found in farmers, given in parts per So the Organic Consumers writer Andre Leu is concentration on an intake which a million times smaller than the toxic does, and tries to make out that this is highly toxic. In 2007 this reference was avaialble to Andre Leu.

Reference [3]
The report of the WHO-FAO JCPR
issued on 16th May 2106, Geneva. This report gives the threshold for chronic toxicity to be 1 mg/kg of body weight.

People buy it from supermarkets or garden shops and use it without any protective clothing because it is deemed 'safe'. It is sprayed in national parks and other environmentally sensitive areas in the belief that it is not toxic and or residual. I continuously hear Primary Industries officers and other agricultural specialists telling farmers that it is not necessary to wear any protective clothing because it is harmless.

Unfortunately, the facts show that this is not the case. While pure Glyphosate has a low acute toxicity (the amount needed to cause death), when it is sold as a commercial herbicide it is combined with surfactants and other ingredients to make it more effective at killing plants. Studies show that the commercial products, such as Round Up, can be three times more toxic than pure glyphosate.

Reply: here again we see that Andre Leu is confusing ACUTE TOXICITY (AC) with chronic toxicity (CC).
There is NO rigorous MEANING to the statement that commercial products “can be” three times more toxic than pure glyphosate unless we kno weather Andre L talking is of AC or LC? Is Andre talking of ingestion by mouth, through the nose and by lungs, or absorption by the skin? These different routes of ingress have different levels of toxicity, and it also depends on the period of exposure.
We saw in Reference 1, reference 2, the roust safety of glyphosate. Reference 3 states that the chronic toxicity for daily exposure is above 1 mg per kilogram of body weight ( 1 part per million). So, even if we include a factor of three higher toxicity as claimed by Andre Lue, this threshold drops only to 0.33 mg per kg, or 1 part in 333 million. The maximum amount found in farmers who used glyphosate formulations (which contain all the other ingredients needed for glyphosate to be effective) without using protective clothing was 223 parts per billion.
That is, the maximum found in farmers is 669670 times, i.e., nearly 700,000 times smaller than the toxicity threshold. So what is Andre Leu talking about is obsolete and incorrect. The Organic Producer's spokesman is ignoring even the most basic principles of toxicology and health science and fanning fear in the consumer to ensure an advantage for his product, whose toxic residues, coming from compost products from urban and industrial sources are not mentioned at all.

Japanese researchers analyzing suicides have found that drinking 3/4 of a cup (200 millilitres) of commercial glyphosate products is fatal.

Reply: So we see that Andre Leu is concerned about ACUTE TOXICITY. But this is IRRELELAVAT to farm use. However, let us discuss acute toxicity. If glyphosate products are sprayed to control weeds in farms or along railroad tracks, how does that cause anyone to drink it?
What would happen if you drink ¾ cup of gasoline, saturated salt water, saturated laundry detergent, house hold bleach, household Sesame oil, household ketchup, household vinegar? What would happen if you drink ¾ cup of Listerine mouthwash or common Jey's Fluid? Glyphosate is in fact less toxic than many of these household products in terms of acute toxicity. Also, remember that many herbicides like Paraquat are incomparably more toxic (no antidote) and that is why glyphosate is considered a safe substance. Even if someone has drunk a cup of glyphosate, he can be saved if hospitalized rapidly.

Survivors (those who consumed less than 3/4 of a cup) suffered a range of severe health problems. These problems included intestinal pain, vomiting, erosion of the gastrointestinal tract, excess fluid in the lungs, pneumonia, lung dysfunction, clouding of consciousness, destruction of red blood cells, abnormal electrocardiograms, low blood pressure, kidney damage and damage to the larynx. It is important to note that damage to the kidneys and the lungs is usually permanent. These body tissues do not repair themselves, instead forming scar tissue that does not function to help filter toxins from the blood or breathe oxygen.

In California, where there is a mandatory system of reporting pesticide poisoning, Glyphosate is the third most common cause of pesticide illness in farm workers. It is the most common form of reported pesticide poisoning in landscape gardeners.

Two separate studies in Sweden have linked exposure to Glyphosate to Hairy Cell Leukemia and Non Hodgkins Lymphoma. These types of cancers were extremely rare, however non-Hodgkin lymphoma is the most rapidly increasing cancer in the Western world. It has risen by 73% in the USA since 1973. Another study has found a higher incidence of Parkinson disease amongst farmers who used herbicides, including glyphosate.

Other studies show that Glyphosate and commercial herbicides containing Glyphosate cause a range of cell mutations and damage to cell DNA. These types of changes are usually regarded as precursors to cancer and birth defects.

Studies show that exposure to Glyphosate is associated with a range of reproductive effects in humans and other species. Research from Ontario, Canada found that a father's exposure to Glyphosate was linked to an increase in miscarriages and premature births in farm families.

Glyphosate caused a decrease in the sperm count of rats and an increase in abnormal and dead sperms in rabbits. Pregnant rabbits exposed to Glyphosate had a decrease in the weight of their babies.

Reply: Again, Andre Leu omits to give the dose and the exposure that was needed to produce such effects. Most substances, and indeed sunlight, cause such effects if the exposure is sufficient. This type of claim that frogs and other organisms (including babies, calves etc.) are born with birth defects is a common horror story brought up by “green” zealot activists. In a Kangaroo court named and patented by a French Journalist the “International Court” was held in the Hague to mislead the public into believing that this had something to do with the United Nations. See: https://dh-web.org/green/NatuNewsFake.html
Various witnesses at this Kangaroo court, including a Buddhist Monk (also politician) from Sri Lanka, Shamans from some Latin American countries claimed that glyphosate use causes some 3% birth defects in human babies. They seem to be unaware that this 3% is the typical world average for almost every part of the globe. This is believed to be the effect of radiation(cosmic rays and UV light) naturally falling on the earth.

The proponents of Glyphosate herbicides promote them as environment friendly or benign. They say that they breakdown very quickly in the environment.

The facts show otherwise. A report from The United States Environmental Protection Agency states that Glyphosate is 'extremely persistent under typical application conditions'. It is one of the most residual herbicides, with studies in Sweden showing that one application can last up to 3 years.

In warmer climates, it can take less than a year per application for Glyphosate to degrade. However, when it breaks down it does not disappear into harmless basic elements. It degrades into an even more residual compound called aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA). While AMPA has a low acute toxicity, the studies conducted on this compound show that it damages the livers and bladders of rats. Unfortunately, very few long-term health and environmental studies are conducted on the breakdown products of synthetic chemicals.

Reply: This is a completely misleading set of statements. In frozen soils it can indeed last for a long time. But mostly in a “chelated” from where it is inert. AMPA type substances are found in the breakdown of soya bean. The studies conducted on rats has been done with very large doses. As usual Andre Leu is careful to not to reveal any sources. Some rat studies have been done using breeds of rats specially prone to targeted diseases. It is because much of this is fake science that 107 Nobel Laurates took the trouble to issue a press release (Washington Post 31 June 2016) condemning various “Green-activist” organizations including Green Peace for supporting and even funding the generation nof such fake news related to GMO foods, glyphosate etc.

Residues of Glyphosate have been found in a variety of fruits and vegetables. This is because it readily moves into all parts of a plant. As it is inside the plant tissues, it cannot be washed off.

Residues can be detected long after glyphosate treatments have been made. One study showed that lettuces contained residues five months after the field was treated with glyphosate. The disturbing thing about this research is that the lettuce seedlings were planted four months after the field was sprayed for weeds. The seedlings absorbed the glyphosate from the soil residues.

A World Health Organisation study revealed significant Glyphosate residues in wheat after harvest. Milling did not remove it, as it moves into the plant and the wheat seed. The study showed that cooking does not break down Glyphosate.

Glyphosate based herbicides have been shown to cause a significant decline of beneficial insect species in farms. Studies by the International Organization for Biological Control and other researchers have found that between 50 to 80 percent of beneficial insects are killed from exposure to residues of a Glyphosate herbicide.

Reply: This is fake news at its best. Insects are known to be killed by some specific pesticides (like neo-nicotinoides) but even this is contested. Most insects and wild-bee populations have declined due mostly loss of habitat (due to clearing of land for urbanization, roads, mining, irrigation, oil etc) and the rise of new parasites due to climate change. If glyhposate kills insects, how does Andre Leu explain that honey bee populations found in agricultural neighbourhoods have increased by 45 %, as reported in the Review article by David Goulson et al (2015) in Science. See

Reference 4, Science 27 Mar 2015: Vol. 347, Issue 6229, 1255957

DOI: 10.1126/science.1255957

Glyphosate is very toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms. Concentrations as low as 10 parts per million can kill fish. Daphnia, a very important part of the aquatic food chain, especially for fish, can be killed by as little as three parts per million. This is an important reason why it should not be used near waterways or in drains.

Glyphosate is extremely toxic to the soil life. One application can cause a dramatic plunge in the number of beneficial soil micro-organisms and arthropods. Studies show a reduction in the species that build humus, thus it contributes to the decline in soil organic matter.

Glyphosate significantly reduces the activity of nitrogen-fixing bacteria. These bacteria transform soil nitrogen into forms that plants can use. Studies of Soybeans grown for nitrogen fixation showed a reduction in the number of rhizobium bacteria and the nitrogen they produce when Glyphosate was used for weed control.

Is glyphosate bad for the environment?

Many websites run by Organic Food chains etc., Organic Producers, claim that glyphosate kills bacteria and earthworms. The internet is full of fake news. If you consult research journals maintained by learned societies or universities, or standard textbooks, a different picture emerges. Glyphosate is broken down by bacteria into amino acid derivatives and phosphates which are food for bacteria. So, most types of bacteria thrive in the presence of small amounts of glyphosate, which are what the soil gets (parts per billion) as the glyphosate is sprayed in dilution as an aerosol. Similarly, earthworms thrive better as glyphosate binds to toxic metals like cadmium and make them insoluble. For instance, regarding the beneficial effect towards earthworms, see e,g,:

Reference 5, Zhou et al, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, vol. 33, p 2351-2357 (2014). Also, see

Reference 6, Lane et al, Peobiologia, vol. 55, pages 325-342 (2012) regarding the effect.

Other studies show that Glyphosate herbicides increase the susceptibility of plants to diseases. This is partly because it reduces the growth of mycorrhizal fungi and other beneficial fungi that help plants absorb nutrients and help fight disease. However, plants suffer more disease, as there is an increase in the soil pathogens and a decrease beneficial species that control diseases after an application of Glyphosate.

Glyphosate exposure damages or reduces the populations of earthworms. A New Zealand study showed that 5% of the usual application rate caused delayed development and increased death in earthworms.

Glyphosate reduces populations of small mammals and birds by damaging the vegetation that provides food and shelter for these animals. The populations of all of these living organisms can take years to recover due to Glyphosate's persistence in the soil.

Glyphosate spray drift from both ground and aerial applications has been measured from 400 to 800 meters from the target site. Studies have shown that Glyphosate drift will cause more severe and extensive damage than many other herbicides. This is because it is a broad spectrum, non-selective herbicide and it is transported throughout the plant causing damage to the unexposed parts. This damage, when it does not kill the plants, can last for many years.

Drift that is one thousand times less than the usual application rates has been shown to damage surrounding vegetation, including the killing of wild plants. This is an important reason why it should not be used in national parks and environmentally sensitive areas for weed control.

The use of glyphosate is expected to increase substantially in the next few years because several genetically engineered crops are "Roundup Ready" and will be grown by many farmers.

This expected increase in use has resulted in an application for the MRL (residue level) for glyphosate to be increased by 200 percent. This need to increase the permitted residue levels is due to genetically engineered herbicide tolerant crops using more chemicals, not less as the proponents of GMO's claim. These crops cannot be legally sold in Australia under the present residue levels, as the increased number of sprays will mean higher residue levels.

This need for a dramatic increase in residues demonstrates that this herbicide is residual. If it is rapidly degraded and leaves no residues as is commonly claimed, why is there a need for such a large increase on residues on the crop?

The persistent nature of these residues in genetically engineered food crops such as Soybeans, Corn and Canola is another reason why we need mandatory labeling of all GMO's. We need to have the freedom of choice to avoid foods that we believe will contain residues of toxic chemicals.

Reply: A key reason by Organic food advocates oppose Glyphosate is their ideological opposition to genetically engineered food. Hence they are ready to exaggerate and magnify tolerable and controllable dangers of conventional agriculture to levels of hyperbole inconsistent with reality.
The organic food promoters attempt to push an elitist agenda catering to a small wealthy stratum of society looking for food choices, while ignoring the huge world population whose most frequent only “choice” is to go hungry.
It is this moral imperative that pushed the present writer to continue to write against the narrowly self-centered organic lobby
The impossibility of feeding the world using Organic food (which is currently less than 2% of world food needs) is clear from a recent attempt to examine this by Adrian Mueller, a swiss researcher who is a strong apologist and supporter of organic food. He grants that the only way to feed the world using only organic food is to (a) cut down th world population perhaps by 40%, (b) making the whole world go vegetarian so that the land now used for livestock and dairy can be used for organic farming, as the latter needs more land and more water. Neither item (a), or (b) will happen. For more details, see:
https://dh-web.org/place.names/posts/CD-Mueller-OrganicL.pdf

https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/moving-from-conventional-farming-to-organic-farming-jumping-from-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire

Glyphosate is widely used in the mistaken belief that it is harmless, safe and readily breaks down leaving no residues. Consequently, it is sprayed in public areas while people are present and by operators without protective clothing. These people are exposed to the drift of this herbicide. The facts show that Glyphosate causes a range of health problems to humans, plants and animals, it causes environmental problems and that it is highly persistent. It is time that the widespread use of this toxic chemical on roadsides, footpaths, parks, gardens, schools, farms, forestry, national parks etc was stopped or highly restricted.

Most of the information for this article came from an excellent paper authored by Caroline Cox in the JOURNAL OF PESTICIDE REFORM, Fall 1998, Vol.18, No. 3.

Lehmann V. and Pengue W. (2000), Herbicide Tolerant Soybean: Just another step in a technology treadmill? Biotechnology and Development Monitor. September 2000.

Nordstrom M. et al, (1998), "Occupational exposures, animal exposure, and smoking as risk factors for hairy cell leukaemia evaluated in a case-control study," BRITISH JOURNAL OF CANCER Vol. 77 (1998), pp 2048-2052.

Hardell L. and Eriksson M. (1999), "A Case-Control Study of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and exposure to Pesticides," CANCER Vol.85, No. 6 (March 15, 1999).

An Answer to the Misleading article by Andrew Leu of the Organic Producers association

Monsanto's Toxic Herbicide Glyphosate: A Review of its Health and Environmental Effects

Reply:

Glyphosate is NOT sprayed in its concentrated form, but in an AEROSOL form at hundreds of times dilution. It is indeed NOT TOXIC at the concentrations and levels used. But what do we mean by Toxicity?

There are two types of toxicity. (A) Acute toxicity, arising from taking a large dose of the concentrate in one shot, as in a suicide attempt (B) Chronic toxicity, arising from taking very small doses over a long period of time. What is the cumulative toxicity (or chronic toxicity) of glyphosate?

Gyphosate formulations with ALL ITS ADDITIVES have NO chronic toxicity at even 10 to 1000 times the dosages commonly used in agricultural and other normal applications.

HOW DO WE KNOW THIS?

There are many studies to test if Glyphosate causes chronic toxicity. Two well known ones are:

Reference [1]: The Journal of the National Cancer Institute., year 2017,

DOI: 10.1093/jnci/djx233.

Reference [2]: Environ Health Perspect volume 112(3): pages 321–326, year 2004

The report of the WHO-FAO JCPR

issued on 16th May 2106, Geneva. This report gives the threshold for chronic toxicity to be 1 mg/kg of body weight.

Reply: This account of acute toxicity is applicable to any toxin intake, like consumption of a cup of vinegar, cup of detergent etc. The attempt to make a case out of this shows the bias of the this Organic Food advocate who is perhpas creating fake information.

Reply:

Reference 4, Science 27 Mar 2015: Vol. 347, Issue 6229, 1255957

DOI: 10.1126/science.1255957

Is glyphosate bad for the environment?

Reference 5, Zhou et al, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, vol. 33, p 2351-2357 (2014). Also, see

Reference 6, Lane et al, Peobiologia, vol. 55, pages 325-342 (2012) regarding the effect.

Reply:

As usual, statements like “Studies have shown that Glyphosate drift will cause more severe and extensive damage than many other herbicides” are unsubstantiated and are a form of fake information. What studies are these, and what herbicides are safer than glyphosate?

Reply:

Note that all the references given by Andre Leu are approximately two decades too old in today's context. Andre did not have the most important works given in Ref. 1 (2017) and Ref. 3, but Ref. 2 (2004) was available.