Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

I don't have an opinion for or against use of glyphosate with "organic" food and share the general cynicism of the thread about the "organic" label.

But this site has a strong position on glyphosate (in accepting the premise that it is a "probable human carcinogen"), which is worth staying aware of. That position is probably totally reasonable for their audience, but keep in mind that it's automatically being recontextualized by being posted on HN.

So on this site, it's worth keeping in mind that glyphosate's status as a human health bogeyman is, at least, debatable. There is a huge amount of controversy over the manner in which IARC came to its conclusion, other health agencies have sharply disagreed with it, and, perhaps most importantly for this article, the exposure scenarios connecting cancer risk to glyphosate probably aren't relevant to food consumers.

Since part of the point of glyphosate is to reduce application of stronger herbicides that are more biologically active in humans, and those herbicides are generally neither known by name to consumers nor banned from agriculture, it's worth splitting hairs here.

The site is not credible. This is not news, it's propaganda. The article doesn't belong here. It's just provocation designed to make amazon affiliate money.

For example, the article says:

> For those of you who don’t know – anything that touches the soil eventually gets taken up by the plant. It becomes apart of the plants tissues and DNA. It is unavoidable.

The point of hydroponic farming is the plants don't touch the soil. They don't take anything out of the soil at all. Glyphosate does not become part of a plant's DNA.

Edit: Down votes why?

It's an anti-vax website for crying out loud:

https://livelovefruit.com/still-vaccinating-25-questions-for...

There is no doubt that it's a carcinogen, just some questions about how strongly and at what kinds of exposure.

IARC has an easier decision than most national regulators as they only look at the science. National regulators have to balance the science with the political/economic reality that glyphosate plays. Some countries have nonetheless chosen to prohibit it's use, others not.

So the question is not at all whether it's a carcinogen, rather it's this: Should we prohibit it's use or certain especially dangerous use cases, given that much of Western agriculture has become dependent on it?

On the flipside, the WHO, FAOJC and ECHA (as well as the canadian, australian and german safety bodies) didn't find there to be sufficient evidence that Glyphosate is a carcinogen or dangerous in the dosages you'll be exposed to.

The IARC is actually the only international scientific organization that has actually classed glyphosate as carcinogen (based on including a few studies that the other bodies do not include to avoid bias).

Of course, eating Glyphosate isn't exactly healthy, it's a pesticide after all and not quite exactly designed to be consumed by anything but it's all about the dosage.

> Since part of the point of glyphosate is to reduce application of stronger herbicides that are more biologically active in humans, and those herbicides are generally neither known by name to consumers nor banned from agriculture, it's worth splitting hairs here.

I am operating completely from memory here so correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this at least partially counteracted by having to use significantly more herbicide to account for its lower efficacy?

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