I am a skeptical consumer of scientific data but I am also a skeptical consumer of pseudo-science.
I understand that science is continually evolving, and that we know things today that we didn’t know 20 years ago. This is a good thing. I also understand that if the results are not replicable, or there is some “big mystery” being touted as here, then we are most likely in the realm of pseudo-science.
One of the hallmarks of pseudoscience (or a conspiracy theory) is when way too many effects are linked to one cause, especially when there is no logical physical explanation for how the things works, for either good or ill (that is, whether its a proposed cure or a proposed poison).
As far as people saying they “feel better” when they cut out GMO food or food that might have been treated with glyphosphate, or gluten, or refined sugar, I tend to believe that they do feel better. Most people in North America end up eating poor diets, generally too many sugars, too much fat.
When someone cuts out the things listed above, it generally means that they end up cutting out alot of sugars and refined carbs, and it generally means that they also start paying more attention to their meal plans, cooking more at home from scratch, and thinking about the kinds of food they eat. My guess is, for instance, that for a lot of people who are not celiac sufferers but go “gluten free” that means they have to ditch a wide range of cheap baking, donuts and coffee-break scones and pizza and white bread, etc. And replace it with something healthier. Same same if you decided to cut out everything with corn syrup, corn oil, wheat, beet sugar, in it.
Depending on what pseudoscience lens the person is looking through, they will attribute their increased feeling of health to avoiding GMO food, or avoiding glyphosphate, or avoiding gluten, or whatever the flavor of the day is, when it’s probably just they have cut out a whole range of junk food and had to replace it with something healthier.
When the FDA approves a drug and later removes that drug from the market, it is due in part to the human “outliers” (patients, consumers, doctors) providing antidotal evidence on drug safety issues and side effects. Those safety issues and side effects aren’t known at the time of the drug’s approval. And sometimes it takes many years to see side effects.
Drugs such as Accutane for acne was on the market for 27 years before being pulled. Darvon and Darvacet were on for over 40 years.
Remember when Vietnam vets came back and complained about agent orange and even the VA refused to acknowledge the exposure?
So when a guy like Huber presents his research and warning to Vilsack at the USDA, I and others don’t summarily dismiss him. We await other research:
Is this enough empiric evidence to make conclusions? Of course not, but I certainly would not mock anyone for deciding not to use Glyphosate, or who expresses concerns about potential Glyphosate and AMPA effects on soil biota, and the environment.
If people want to make a personal choice not to use glyphopsate, I could not care less. Unless, of course, they, like so many do, switch to an alternate product that has a less friendly environmental profile because they don’t understand enough to make an honest assessment of the environmental impacts of the alternatives.
At this point, glyphosate is probably the most studied pesticide product in the world. Certainly the most studied herbicide product. In studies that are conducted using realistic exposure conditions, realistic exposure doses, large enough numbers of test organisms to provide adequate statistical power, and a realistic test environment, glyphosate has virtually no negative environmental and health impacts. Unless, of course, you’re looking at plants being sprayed with glyphosate, because glyphosate is a herbicide and its purpose is to kill plants.
Studies in which glyphosate is shown to have meaningful negative impacts on anything other than plants are almost universally flawed in one or more significant factors.
I would agree that there is not enough empirical evidence to make conclusions about any potential negative side effects of glyphosate.
While I may not publicly “mock” someone for their decision to not use glyphosate (and yes, I talk to many urban gardeners who are making the choice to not use glyphosate for urban (not agricultural) weed control, I maybe have a little invisible bubble over my head that does not understand the reasoning they use to arrive at their decision as often the decision is arrived at emotionally via what they read/see on the internet/m media vs attempting to do meaningful research on glyphosate that can be found on the internet with a bit more work.
I think that it is commonly accepted by scientists that high concentrations of glyphosate pose a health risk, but this risk would mostly be carried by agricultural workers and their families.
As far as the credibility of outlier claims, you really need to look at each claim individually. A credible claim will have coherent statistics, and transparency, and honestly there are enough enivironmental science journals these days that there wouldn’t be a huge block to getting something published in a peer reviewed journal. It’s not like the past when there was only a few medical journals, and much fewer options for peer review. If someone has real evidence about an environmental risk these days and can not get published in any environmental science journal, that to me is a red flag about the level of evidence they really have.
i think I would also distinguish between outlier claims and outsider claims.
An outlier claim to me would be when a scientist working within a research community comes to conclusions that are at odds with current findings.
An outsider claim to me would be when someone who is not working within a research community, and has no peer review of their work, makes a claim that contradicts current findings without being able to supply verifiable data to support it. Another name for this would be pseudo science.
I personally would not be surprised if glyphosphate ends up being more dangerous either environmentally or to consumers than the current consensus. But I have not seen any evidence this way yet that is remotely credible.
Remember that Bayer is selling glyphosate.
Lets keep in mind that glyphosate has been in use now for decades, in which thousands of studies have been produced and discusses and cussed.
Internationally, politics have been involved as trade restrictions because of use of glyphosate that have closed markets to some to the advantage of others, etc.
Also that the glyphosate controversy is a profit leader for all those non-profits that live by the controversies.
That controversy is free publicity and millions of dollars in donations to ostensibly fight glyphosate, in reality as part of providing those non-profits causes and money to exist at all.
Remember they pay themselves first, then stash money away, then fight whatever cause of the moment fits best their goals.
Seems that everyone here is making a profit from glyphosate, if by selling it, using it, or asking for donations to fight against it.
Looking down all these decades, it seems curious that a breakthrough herbicide, that gave us a revolution in farming that permitted preserving way more resources, producing much less CO2, reducing considerably farming’s carbon footprint and considered by all measures one of the safest herbicides to use, that such a positive product has been demonized and used against that same goal it serves, a greener earth.
Of course glyphosate is not without caution and concerns and at times it may have been misused, even when being one of the safest such products out there, but by any sensible measure, we have all been better for it’s presence than fearmongers that make their living from opposing glyphosate want anyone to know.
As science advances, as it tends to do, we may find more yet that glyphosate fits, or how to alter it to fit better, or more situations it should not be used at all, than we are aware now.
That doesn’t mean that we don’t know enough right now to have made the decision that it is indeed, in the right place, under the right management, the best and safest tool for the job.
I trust Science. When Stauffer Chemical patented Glyphosate as a Mineral Chelator in 1964 to clean boilers. I believe that is what it does. When Monsanto patented Glyphosate as a Antibiotic. That is what it does. What I don’t trust are Corporations who will spin the truth to make a dollar. Purdue Pharma said Oxycontin was not addictive. That had all the test and studies to present to the FDA. So it was allowed. Pharmacies and Doctors all pushed it and made a killing. No pun intended. Glyphosate want kill your Horse but it will make them sick. But not to worry. Your feed store, has a feed and a supplement to fix that. Mean while Monsanto has funded another chair at your states AG school.
Glyphosate has been in use for decades. Funny that until Roundup-Ready seeds were developed and the anti-GMO movement got rolling, no one had anything negative to say about glyphosate. It was globally recognized as a safe and effective broad-spectrum herbicide. Now, all of a sudden, it’s an environmental scourge? With no good scientific evidence to support this sudden change in view?
If anybody really wants to learn about glyphosate, I have a recommendation. And, unlike scientific publications that are often behind paywalls, this is free and available to the public. I’m not going to put in the links because it seems like about half the time these days, my posts with links get “unapproved.”
Go to regulations dot gov. Search for Docket EPA-HQ-OPP-2009-0361. Read the Glyphosate Proposed Interim Registration Review Decision. If you don’t want to wade through the whole thing, just read the summary of public comments and agency responses, which starts on page 6.
If you want more, read the whole PID and the supporting documentation. It’s all right there in the docket.
If you’ve got access to an academic library, I recommend John Geisy’s review. It’s older, but still valid.
Giesy, John P., Stuart Dobson, and Keith R. Solomon. “Ecotoxicological risk assessment for Roundup® herbicide.” In Reviews of environmental contamination and toxicology, pp. 35-120. Springer, New York, NY, 2000.
Dr. Franz discovered that Glyphosate is a herbicide and Monsanto patented at it as a Herbicide. The original patent was in 1950 by Dr. Henri Martin for the Swiss Company Cilag. Stauffer later patted as a Chelator. You are only relying on what Monsanto has told you. You are a perfect example of relying on what the Cooperation tells you. You should do your research.
One of the toughest things about my job is that people can just make stuff up and throw it out there faster than an honest scientist can collect the information to rebut it. Fortunately, I’ve heard most of this crap before and already have the materials on hand.
For example:
To the Editor:
We read the publication by Mertens et al. (2018) and wish to address a critical piece of misinformation that may have been inadvertently perpetuated by the authors, namely, the widely held belief that glyphosate was patented as chelator. This myth results in further sophistry that this property enables glyphosate to sequester key nutrients in the phloem or in soil, thus reducing their bioavailability to plants.
The basis for the review (Mertens et al. 2018) was “to critically evaluate its [glyphosate’s] role in effects that are not readily explained by the inhibition of EPSPS,” specifically, to evaluate the “well-known” chelation properties of glyphosate. This faulty premise that glyphosate was patented as a chelator results in the authors’ supposition that glyphosate’s chelation properties present “potential additional environmental risk was never adequately considered” in the European Food Safety Authority’s regulatory risk assessment (EFSA 2015a, b).
The statement that “Glyphosate is also known as a potent chelator for minerals, a property that has been observed decades ago (Toy and Uhing 1964)” is misleading. The Stauffer Chemical Company patent is about phosphinic acids and their properties including as chelating agents and as chemical intermediates in the synthesis of phosphonic acids. Glyphosate is a phosphonic acid, not a phosphinic acid, and it is in this context that glyphosate is mentioned, as an example of a product that can be synthesized from a phosphinic acid. While glyphosate (in the patent named “glycine-methylenephosphonic acid”) is mentioned (page 7, example 14, paragraph 2), glyphosate is not the molecule being patented and there is no discussion of its chelating properties.
Monsanto did receive a patent for the herbicidal properties of glyphosate (Irani 1969), but the compound was discovered and synthesized independently, and was not acquired from Stauffer. Thus, glyphosate was never patented as a chelator by either Stauffer Chemical Company or Monsanto Company. Yet, somewhere this misinformation was first promulgated to be passed through numerous introductions to journal articles as if it is scientific evidence.
Swarthout, John T., Marian S. Bleeke, and John L. Vicini. “Comments for Mertens et al.(2018), Glyphosate, a chelating agent—relevant for ecological risk assessment?.” Environmental Science and Pollution Research 25, no. 27 (2018): 27662-27663.
Monsanto did not patent glyphosate as an antibiotic. There is a Monsanto patent titled “GLYPHOSATE FORMULATIONS AND THEIR USE FOR THE INHIBITION OF S-ENOLPYRUVYLSHIKIMATE-3-PHOSPHATE SYNTHASE.” (Note, this inhibition is the way glyphosate kills plants.) The patent addresses exploration of use of glyphosate in combination with oxalic acid to treat patients infected by “protozoan parasites of the phylum Apicomplexa,” which may, like plants, rely on the shikimate pathway to synthesize essential amino acids.
However, inhibiting this pathway in bacteria isn’t particularly “antimicrobial” because, bacteria being highly opportunistic, they simply absorb these essential amino acids from their surrounding environment. This is the same reason that the lab studies reporting that glyphosate kills bacteria in the bee gut (like the one someone cited previously) are irrelevant to the real world. In the real world, there are plenty of these amino acids in the bee’s diet and the bacteria simply absorb them that way rather than synthesizing them. Bacteria actually prefer to do this anyway because they don’t then have to waste valuable internal resources to synthesize their own.
And you see the problem people like me face. It’s easy for someone to say “Monsanto patented glyphosate as an antibiotic and it’s dangerous!” Everybody can read and understand that and it’s easy to believe, in part because it’s stated with such certainty and emphasis.
I have to go dig through the scientific literature to sort it out, and then try to come up with a brief, plain language explanation of the science that half the people probably won’t bother to read all of and may not believe even if they do.
Why did Monsanto patent Glyphosate as an antibiotic? Also, the medical establishment has been preaching for years that we should not overuse antibiotics, so as to prevent the development of super bugs. So, doesnt the generous use of the antibiotic Glyphosate as the Ag industrys go to herbicide contradict this line of thought?
Submitted by: Transparency
GMO Basics Health & Safety [HR][/HR]Answer
Former Senior Science Fellow and Lead, Medical Sciences and Outreach, Monsanto Company
Tuesday, 25/11/2014 11:49
Companies with patented chemical technologies will generally try to patent all reasonable potential uses of that chemical in order to obtain maximal return on their research investments. Such uses cannot be speculative — we can’t patent glyphosate as jet fuel or nail polish remover, because it clearly does not do those things — but glyphosate does inhibit an enzymatic pathway in many bacteria and parasites, and a reasonable case can be made that glyphosate might be effective as an antimicrobial. (Technically, an antibiotic is naturally occurring, while antimicrobial covers a broader range of compounds, but most people use the terms interchangeably today.)
There is more to the answer than I posted here
Can you provide information that glyphosate has actually been used as an antibiotic vs just being registered as one?
Just a minor point… Monsanto patented the mixture of glyphosate and oxalic acid as inhibitors of the shikimate pathway that might be an effective treatment for infection with certain specific protozoan parasites.
There is no actual glyphosate-containing product that can be used in this fashion. In order to be approved/registered as an actual treatment for these parasites, the product would have to go through the whole FDA drug approval process.
So, not only has glyphosate never been used as an antibiotic (anti-protozoan), it has never been registered (approved) as one, either.
Could you not find some research article, that’s not from the Bayer/Monsanto GMO answer website. Some form of independent research would be refreshing. As I have said before. Purdue Pharma, had a long lists of “Scientists” writing arctics talking about the safety of Oxycontin. Swarthout and Bleeke worked for Monsanto.
FWIW, I’ve not been the one insisting glyphosate is an antibiotic
I’ve asked the individual who is much more on board about glyphosate being registered as an antibiotic to post references as to such and still, as expected, crickets :lol:
Still waiting for references from anywhere that demonstrate that glyphosate has been used (not registered) as an antibiotic.
At least my link explains to my satisfaction why a company may choose to register a chemical compound as something it isn’t really intended to be used for/as.
Glyphosate is used as a Antibiotic everyday. When a grain that is conventualy grown is fed to your Horse, cattle, swine, sheep, Goat, Chicken, fish, lama, and you is fed. Why??? Glyphosate is an antibiotic!!!
I suspect you mean insulin resistance vs. “reliance”.
And it has been around far longer than you might think, though the pathophysiology was not elucidated. It was the old fat, cresty, easy keeper horses (Morgans come to mind as the poster child of my early years) who would founder, be diagnosed as “hypothyroid” and be put on thyroid supplementation, which would help the condition, because it cranked up the metabolism and reduced weight. Same thing for the ponies who would founder on lush grass.
Commercials on television (and in print, for that matter) exist because a perceived market exists more than an actual need. Many of the supplements added to human and equine feed are unneeded, and serve largely to produce expensive urine.
The designation of “antibiotic” is typically restricted to naturally-derived compounds, and “antimicrobial” more broadly covers compounds with activity against microorganisms. But that is largely semantic for the purposes of this discussion.
”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹FWIW, glyphosate would make a crappy clinical antibacterial, because the T1/2 in humans is about 2 hours.
