http://share.banoosh.com/2012/09/08/roundup-herbicide-linked-to-parkinsons-related-brain-damage/

Wear your PPE people. I know I have been soaked a ton of times.

That's pretty scary considering how prevalent that stuff is.

"Roundup herbicide is now a ubiquitous contaminant in our air, rain, groundwater, and food, making complete avoidance near impossible. A growing body of experimental evidence now indicates that it in addition to its neurotoxicity it also has the following."

Wow these people have zero concept of herbicides, soil microbiology, or organic chemistry. Nothing to see here folks.

PPE is important.

Not arguing with that at all.

Also remember, the dose is the poison.

[This message has been edited by Seven (edited 9/9/2012 9:42p).]

Glyphosate has a half-life of about 2 days. It is primarily carbon (which microbes love) and phosphate (which microbes love). It also has a high soil affinity. So once you spray it, the stuff that doesn't stick onto the surface of the leaf will hit the soil surface. Once it hits the soil it will bind fairly tightly and then be broken down by the microbes. It doesn't stick around long enough to move much. Now atrazine on the other hand is something that is in our drinking water.

I have no doubt that putting glyphosate directly on top of cell pathways that wouldn't normally be in contact with could cause all kinds of bad things to happen. Too much of anything especially in the wrong place isn't good for anyone.

/rant

All that being said, please remember your PPE. Even if "it's just RoundUp." Better to be safe now than sorry later.

My Dad has been farming for 50+ years and was diagnosed with Parkinson's a few years ago. He's been convinced that it was all related to the chemicals.

And I know tons of folks that farmed without Parkinson's and tons that did not farm that do have Parkinson's.

I'm sorry for your dad, I've seen it and it sucks. I just think it's a bad idea to draw conclusions from individual cases.

Yeah, my wife's family has a history of parkinson's and I'd bet her aunt had never even SEEN a jug of roundup, much less used any... I would wager a fair amount of $$$ that a farmer would be more likely to get bladder or kidney cancer from pesticides than some sort of degenerative nurological disorder.

Lots of Vietnam vets blamed Agent Orange for cancers later in life. But I recall reading that the guys who were most exposed, the mixers, loaders, aircrew and pilots did not have increased rates of cancer.

Strange if true, unless Agent Orange was not the cause of the cancers.

What level PPE we talking about? I already wear gloves and an N85 mask due to allergies, plus glasses to weedeat with. I'd have to think that's enough for household use of roundup, right?

The chemical's label is probably going to tell you that proper PPE is gloves, long sleeves, long pants, boots, glasses/goggles, and maybe a mask to cover your mouth/nose. But for glyphosate I think you're fine with glasses and gloves as long as you're not careless and sloshing the stuff around everywhere.

Just my opinion...

I tend to agree with Seven but I have no professional background to make it an educated opinion. My Dad is 79 and has been confined to a power chair for the past three years for a combination of reasons but the primary factor is a progressive peripheral neuropathy that began bothering him over a decade ago. It started in the toes and worked its way up his legs. It is a combination of numbness and what he calls "raging" which is an neuropathic pain for which he takes a combination of some pretty dtrong medications. I have always suspected that it had something to do with his exposure to pesticides and herbicides when he was a kid. He grew up in the valley (Pharr) and told stories of lying in the furrows of the field with his friends as the crop dusters flew over them. As the duster overflew them they would reach up to see if they could touch the wheels of the old Steerman. It probably never dawned on them that getting sprayed down with all of that highly effective 1930s herbicide and pesticide would have some serious long term adverse effects.

Pesticides today undergo very extreme and tough testing and research in order to be put on the market. This testing ensures that the products that are commercially available are as safe as possible. However this doesn't mean that they are absolutely save and precautions need to be taken in order to limit exposure. All the recommended PPE information as well as what to do if exposure does happen can all be found on the pesticide label.

There are many older pesticides that are still on the market and still used today. A lot of organically grown agriculture is able to use these pesticides and still maintain the organic label. These chemicals are not only more toxic to humans because of how they are made but are also put out in higher doses because the chemical isn't as effective.

Here is the PPE recommendations from the RoundUp PowerMax label

Seven clearly has a better educational background on this stuff than I do. With that stated, what do you make of this article that says glyphosate has been found in rainwater and rivers in the Mississippi Delta?

Honest question, I'm not trying to set you up for an "gotcha".

I have been talking about this article with some of my colleagues lately.

It is possible for it to move especially in areas that are prone to soil erosion (delta areas typically have a lot of top soil and can tend to have higher run off from soil texture and lack of structure, along with increased irrigation, rainfall, and drainage). In the field in contact with soil glyphosate has a half life of 2 days in optimal conditions. If conditions are less than optimal the half life could be as high as 174 days which isn't really that bad. In aquatic conditions glyphosate has a half life of less than 7 days.

see page 7 here

The article talks about the degradation product of glyphosate. Without doing much research on this (I will check in to it sometime this week) I don't know much about it.

That being said, I would assume that the majority of the chemical found in water comes from improper application (spraying before rainfall or irrigation, high winds, careless aerial application etc.) When applied following the label recommended rate, properly calibrated equipment, PPE and according to the local best management practices, there should be virtually zero risk of glyphosate contaminating water sources, or moving to off site targets.

When looking at something as large as the Mississippi Delta, don't discount urban areas. Most folks in ag know how to apply chemicals, trust me, Joe Blow homeowner does not. You have a lot of chemical making it straight to concrete or asphalt, not soil.

Seven, I don't have time to dig on it today, but you may know the equivalent stats between an acre of suburban area vs. an acre of cropland vs. pasture in regards to level of chemical use. I want to say out of the University of Nebraska (but could be wrong). If you test downstream near one of the urban areas, it's not a really a shock to find just about anything.

quote:

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Most folks in ag know how to apply chemicals, trust me, Joe Blow homeowner does not.

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Not surprising. Even if they read the label, most have the attitude that "if some is good, more is better and too much is just enough".

But it's really simple economics. If a chemical costs $15 an acre, a guy on a 1/4 acre lot can double the recommended rate and it costs him $3.75.


If a farmer doubled the rate on a quarter section, that would be $2,400.00. Average farm size is more like 1000 acres rather than 160, to boot.

The problem with the 'rigorous' testing that a company has to go through to get a chemical on the market is that the company does the testing. The law is the label and the label is the law. Most companies do a decent job of this because they want to cover their own butts if something goes wrong, but these days its too hard to prove something definitively. so who's to say there might not be some truth to the independant research. It at least needs to be further tested.

Urus,

You are absolutely correct in that statement. Homeowners are very bad about applying excess pesticides, fertilizer, and water. Farmers have the mentality of an investment. Homeowners it is all about how it looks and don't really care how much money they put into it because they aren't trying to get money back out of their lawn.

[This message has been edited by Seven (edited 9/11/2012 2:30p).]

Cool.

There was some stat I remember reading comparing the amount of chemicals put down on an acre of residential area vs. an acre of ag area. Even subtracting impervious surfaces area (part of the problem), the chemical application rate was higher, and percent present in runoff was higher.

http://www.epa.gov/opp00001/pestsales/07pestsales/usage2007_table3_4.htm

Found this from 06-07 from the EPA. Agriculture 80% Industry 12% H&G 8% for total pesticides used.

For herbicides ag used 442 million pounds, industry used 46 million, H&G used 43 million used in 2007.

I'll find a better source, but this is along the lines of what I was talking about.

http://www.cela.ca/article/hudson-quebec-pesticide-law/urban-versus-agricultural-pinning-down-numbers-pesticide-use

quote:

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At a November 2000 conference in Banff on weeds, Janet McLean of Alberta Environment made a presentation called "Pesticide Use Across Different Agricultural Sectors". McLean reported that in 1998, urban residential pesticide use intensity in Calgary was 2.92 kg/ha, while agricultural use was 0.8 kg/ha. In other words, 3.65 times more pesticide was used per hectare in urban settings than in agriculture.

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quote:

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Seven clearly has a better educational background on this stuff than I do. With that stated, what do you make of this article that says glyphosate has been found in rainwater and rivers in the Mississippi Delta?

Honest question, I'm not trying to set you up for an "gotcha".

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Glyphosate in "rainwater" and the Mississippi Delta should not be considered odd, as there is an aquatic product called Rodeo that has glyphosate as the a.I. Aquatic herbicides may had been used prior to the testing, causing the elevated levels.

Thats more along the lines of what I was looking for Urus. Your interwebs skills are mad brah.

Good thread ! Seven, please post and share your finding when you do your research next week. Very interesting.

I took this article to say/show that urban runoff is just as responsible as ag runoff, especially when you consider the size of the areas that drain into these water systems. The ag area is more than triple the size of the urban area, but the urban numbers aren't 1/3 that of the ag numbers.
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1071&context=usgsstaffpub

The degradation product of glyphosate is Aminomethylphosphonic Acid (AMPA). Here is an article that talks about the environmental fate of AMPA and its possible effects on species around it in water systems.
http://www.egeis.org/home/glyph_info/ampa_report_summaries.html?article_id=151

My conclusion:

When following label recommended rates, application methods, and PPE recommendations, and local Best Management Practices, glyphosate poses virtually a "zero" risk to our environment