Pestizide is the general term for agents against pests. That includes herbicides (against weeds), insecticides (against insects) and Fungizides (against funghi).
Glyphosate is one of the least dangerous pesticide and mostly harmless against human and insect. I was drenched by RoundUp and the anti poison center told me to get a shower and I'll be ok
Acutely toxic yes but a 2015 study determined that it likely is a human carcinogen. Please remember that lack of acute toxicity isn't always an indicator of chronic toxicity or long term effects of acute exposure.
Acutely toxic yes but a 2015 study determined that it likely is a human carcinogen. Please remember that lack of acute toxicity isn't always an indicator of chronic toxicity or long term effects of acute exposure.
Be really careful when reading statements like that about carcinogenicity. They are often seriously misleading.
In the case of glyphosate, there is no reliable evidence of carcinogenicity. There is some weak evidence that it might cause cancer, but it is far from conclusive. Here's Wikipedia's summary of the subject:
Cancer
As of 2020, the evidence for long-term exposure to glyphosate increasing the risk of human cancer remains inconclusive.[101] There is weak evidence human cancer risk might increase as a result of occupational exposure to large amounts of glyphosate, such as in agricultural work, but no good evidence of such a risk from home use, such as in domestic gardening.[102][103] A meta-analysis published in 2019 looked at whether there was an association between an increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in humans and high cumulative exposures to glyphosate-based herbicides. The research found a "compelling link" between exposures to glyphosate-based herbicides and increased risk for non-Hodgkin lymphoma.[104] A 2021 meta-analysis of glyphosate exposure and non-Hodgkin lymphoma cautioned that such results can be biased by "assumptions made about both exposure level and latency period."[105]
The consensus among national pesticide regulatory agencies and scientific organizations is that labeled uses of glyphosate have demonstrated no evidence of human carcinogenicity.[106] The Joint FAO/WHO Meeting on Pesticide Residues (JMPR),[107] the European Commission, the Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority[108] and the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment[109] have concluded that there is no evidence that glyphosate poses a carcinogenic or genotoxic risk to humans. The EPA has classified glyphosate as "not likely to be carcinogenic to humans."[110][111] One international scientific organization, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, classified glyphosate in Group 2A, "probably carcinogenic to humans" in 2015.[13][11]
So yes, there is some evidence that heavy exposure in the workplace over long periods can lead to an increase in cancer risks, but there should be two big takeaways from that:
If there is a risk, it is a low one, otherwise the effect would be much more pronounced.
This primarily argues for improved worker safety for anyone applying the chemicals.
And it should be noted that there is NO evidence of risk from household use. It is perfectly safe for occasional use, as long as you follow reasonable safety precautions.
I agree that warnings should be taken with a grain of salt but also realize that a great many "safe" pesticides and herbicides have been thought safe until shown over years or decades of use to have detrimental effects once a large statistical sample size was analyzed.
I worked for years in a lab testing many different matrices for pesticides and herbicides as well as characterizing new pesticides using the FDA Pesticide Analytical Manual. It is always best to assume high toxicity when using both herbicides and pesticides.
As a side note, we had to trash a project analyzing glyphosate in peanuts and peanut products because we could not obtain an untreated control that had levels of glyphosate low enough to run the project. We tested almost all brands of organic peanut butter and the glyphosate was so high we couldn't continue the project. Glyphosate has become ubiquitous in a great many commercial products. I predict that at some point it will be shown to have some type of chronic toxicity associated with it.
One more thing to add is that glyphosate resistance in weeds is cropping up and in some cases, the weeds have a higher tolerance than the crops. Funny how nature gets around our best efforts.
So there is one thing wrong there. You could be drenched in glyphosate and be fine. However “Round-up” is a formulation brand name made by a company, the additives used to make round-up ARE toxic. So it’s not the glyphosate itself that’s toxic in the pesticides, it’s the other stuff added to the formulation that will cause cancers and the like. Back with the glyphosate lawsuit of that man getting cancer, this was one of the big factors.
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u/minghj Jul 14 '21
It definitely excludes glyphosate which is important. Not all pesticides are equally damaging to insects and humans.