Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Safest Systemic Killer for Stump?

nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Mark Angermayer" <hangermayer@isp.com>
  • To: <Unschooler@lrec.org>, "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Safest Systemic Killer for Stump?
  • Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2010 21:57:02 -0500

 
----- Original Message -----
From: Leslie Moyer
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 7:17 PM
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Safest Systemic Killer for Stump?


The EPA requires extensive endocrine and reproductive testing before a
pesticide is registered.  

This just isn't true.....or, at best I'd take issue with the use of your word, "extensive".  The EPA hasn't even been *around* long enough for testing that would qualify as "extensive" in my opinion. 
 
My response:
Glyphosate was orginally registered with the EPA in 1974.  After amendments to FIFRA, the EPA issued a Registration Eligiblity Decision (RED) in 1993 (after more testing).  I wish I could find the research cost for the original registration and reregistration of glyphosate, but feel confident it would be in the tens of millions of dollars.  According to  http://ipm.ncsu.edu/safety/factsheets/laws.pdf it costs $50 million to register a pesticide.  However, this is dated information.  A researcher in this industry indicated to me, research costs currently runs somewhere around $100 million to register a compound today.  In my opinion, whatever number is used qualifies as extensive.
 
MANY chemicals that the EPA has *previously* approved as "safe" (and were once widely considered to be "harmless") have now been removed from the market because they now know they are not and these kinds of "discoveries" continue to recent times. 
 
We are getting somewhat off the path here, but I suppose it still relates to glyphosate.  True, we may find out in 20 years chemicals (glyphosate) we thought safe now, aren't.  But we have to use the best science available to access risk and go with it.  I know of no other way.  I would point out this is not limited to just agriculture, rather it occurs with many products that have advanced our standard of living - i.e. white phosphorus in matches, mercury in the manufacture of hats, Paris Green to paint with, poorly designed cribs that choke babies, poorly designed accelerators that cause people to crash, Thalidomide, etc.  Even though these things caused horrific consequences, we don't get rid of matches, hats, art, cribs, cars, or pharmaceuticals. We use the best technology of the time to assess risk, and keep moving forward.
 
 But it's not because Monsanto came clean about their research....  The EPA certainly hasn't tested the long-term human effects of persistent pesticides (by the way, I imagine you know glyphosate isn't a pesticide, it's an herbicide)....particularly when used on such a huge percentage of the foods that we're eating in our modern American diet (corn, wheat, soy, canola--they're in virtually every processed food in the grocery store and they're virtually all 100% Round-up soaked).
 
The EPA hasn't done a lot of human testing on glyphosate (although some has been done).  As I'm sure you're aware, there is a moral componet that precludes much human testing.  However, regarding your point of the large amount of glyphosate we could be ingesting, the EPA did do a risk assessment.  According to the summary RED, "EPA conducted a dietary risk assessment for glyphosate based on a worst-case risk scenario, that is, assuming that 100 percent of all possible commodities/acreage were treated, and assuming that tolerance-level residues remained in/on all treated commodities. The Agency concluded that the chronic dietary risk posed by glyphosate food uses is minimal."
 
Regarding the general classification of pesticides, herbicides are actually classified as pesticides.  In simplest terms, a pesticide is anything that repels or eliminates a pest, including plant pests.
 
 
We are, in fact, unwitting participants in a very large, uncontrolled human experiment(s).  And that doesn't even take into account that those same 4 foods have been almost 100% genetically modified...a whole separate point of disagreement, I suspect. 

Besides--that's not the only peer-reviewed article against glyphosate--only the most recent I knew about. Here's another book that references many other peer-reviewed studies on the toxicity of herbicides and pesticides:
http://www.amazon.com/Living-Downstream-Ecologists-Investigation-Environment/dp/0306818698
Living Downstream: An Ecologist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment
by Sandra Steingraber
(This is the new edition--if you want to read more reviews, look for the older edition on Amazon.) I saw Steingraber speak at a conference just last weekend that also included speakers like Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, and other notables. (Wes Jackson, by the way, has a much better solution to soil erosion than glyphosate--research The Land Institute if you're interested.)  I don't know specifically what Steingraber's book has to say about glyphosate.

A risk/benefit analysis is prudent. How important is it, really, to remove the stump? Would a stump grinder do the job just as well?  Would time alone?  The mushroom spawn idea is a great one--that is, afterall, nature's solution.

I could look up other references to glyphosate studies--there are others that can be found online.  But those who are interested can find this for themselves as well.  This conversation has gone astray of the list parameters....perhaps the original question was itself inappropriate for the list.  I'll refrain from commenting further--I suspect that no minds will be changed in either camp. 

--Leslie



_______________________________________________
nafex mailing list
nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Reproduction of list messages or archives is not allowed.
This includes distribution on other email lists or reproduction on web sites.
Permission to reproduce is NEVER granted, so don't claim you have permission!

**YOU MUST BE SUBSCRIBED TO POST!**
Posts from email addresses that are not subscribed are discarded.
No exceptions.
----
To subscribe or unsubscribe, go to the bottom of this page (also can be used to change other email options):
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/nafex

File attachments are NOT stripped by this list.
TAKE STEPS TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM COMPUTER VIRUSES!
Please do not send binary files.
Use plain text ONLY in emails!

NAFEX web site:   http://www.nafex.org/



Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page