"Roundup Ready"

[robert beiriger]

Dear All:

    I thought that I would this thread about the talk about Glyphosate herbicide.  I was told be one of my professors that "round-up's" main ingredient, before it was used as a herbicide, it was part of a floor wax.  I guess we can be eating it or letting our children crawl on it.


Robert Beiriger
Loxahatcheee, FL
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: MexicoDoug at aol.com 
  To: mhg3 at cornell.edu 
  Cc: leps-l at lists.yale.edu 
  Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2002 10:43 PM
  Subject: Re: "Roundup Ready"


  En un mensaje con fecha 08/14/2002 11:49:33 AM Central Daylight Time, MexicoDoug escribe:

  From: Mike Griggs (mhg3 at cornell.edu)



    Doug while much of your discussion is good I must disagree with your assertion that "Glyphosate  is a probable carcinogen"read the following lifted from EXTOXNET.On all fronts it appears pretty safe--check out how toxic table salt is sometime!Mike_---


  Thanks for the objection, Mike.  Not being a wholesale subscriber to conspiracy theory of big companies, but simply a believer that we still live in a somewhat free and anarchistic world and need to make our own sense of it, I'll accept that Glyphosate is not any more harmful than other "X"icides that put food on the table for us members of the masses.  Like Bruce Ames says,  far more people will get a cancer for not eating enough vegetables, than those who will get cancers from any potential trace carcinogens that don't get removed from a quick washing of vegetables in the kitchen sink.  And any 'unreasonable' regulation that increases consumer price of vegetables, thanks to good ol' supply and demand, is bound to leave more folks with cancer.  I am sure Harvard's Medical School's Epidemiology gurus would agree that eating marginally tainted veggies on balance is better than cutting veggie consumption, to reduce long term cancers..

  But:  The comments about the impurities and even the active itself:  I see on Greenpeace's website Neil's case, but I also notice that even Greenpeace comments that Monsanto, etc. have changed formulations to remove these problems.  That doesn't leave a fuzzy feeling.  Though it may be illogical, I am still afraid of handling Roundup, even in dilute forms spraying the weeds in the driveway cracks. I'd much rather have a cup of delicious known carnicogenic Sassafras tea. (No, not from sassy butterflies).  By the way root beer is also traditionally made from Sassafras after the carcinigens are removed.  Another double standard, but what else is new...by the way I just tried a traditional salsa made from the Mexican garden "Root Beer Plant", which might as well be made from sassafras.  Delicious.  I don't take your comment on table salt with a grain of salt!

  Best wishes...Doug Dawn
  Monterrey, Mexico 
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