North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Leslie Moyer <unschooler@lrec.org>]

On 9/29/10 10:26 AM, Mark Angermayer wrote:

While it may be glyphosate is more dangerous than originally thought, it's
not at all convincing from the Mother Earth News article.  It would be
interesting to see what the scientists doing the research actually said, but
there were no citations in the article.  We are forced to rely on
environmental organizations and individuals to interpret the information for
us.

I admit the source is questionable, but that's why I said that it referenced the journal Toxicology--so that those who were interested could track down that article themselves. 

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.  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.  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). 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