Doesn't sound too bad to me. http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles...osate-ext.htmlOriginally Posted by Mjolnir
Doesn't sound too bad to me. http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles...osate-ext.html
Co-worker says he was spraying his back fence with some bleach-based commercial solution, and fortuitously killed a bunch of blackberry vines.
Anything that kills blackberry vines is highly thought of around here.
Recovering Gun Store Commando. My Blog: The Clue Meter
“It doesn’t matter what the problem is, the solution is always for us to give the government more money and power, while we eat less meat.”
Glenn Reynolds
I work in land management, mainly forestry but lots of other stuff too.
After reading the MSDS for Roundup, it seems pretty mellow. Industrial applications can get pretty heavy and accumulate over time.
I wear muck boots and nitrile gloves when I spray, spray in low winds and higher humidity, dusk and the like. If I am running through a few gallons I’d change and wash my clothes or use coveralls. That might be a little much but it makes me feel better. Whether it is worth the hassle who knows.
I’d ask more of your purpose and what the end goal. Round up kills everything (mostly), you could get an herbicide that would target grasses or brush and just kill what you don’t want. You could till and seed what you want instead, burn the stuff out, or use animals. Lots of ways but sometimes herbicide is the way. It’s a last resort for me but somethings you have to. Bindweed in my current house, poison oak at my last one. Chemicals are the only way for those.
Good luck.
More importantly you might want to read up on some of Monsanto’s practices involving suppressing research, paying for bogus research, and lobbying. The usual run of the mill evil empire stuff. There’s a reason why juries have been smacking Monsanto/Bayer with these huge judgements.
Whether you think you can or you can't, you're probably right.
I have the worst neighbors. Among their transgressions is that they don't take care of their yards, so my lawn is constantly invaded by their crap. Several times a year I spray my perimeter with Roundup to keep the infestation away (and then follow up with a machete and a string trimmer), but this summer, thanks to my neighbors, I learned what goose grass is. As far as I can tell, the only way to deal with it is to spot spray Roundup and re-seed (which I'm doing today). I've already gone through several large containers of Roundup, and I have a fairly small yard. I think I've gotten all the goose grass, but now I have some lovely yellow patches of death in my otherwise nice yard.
As far as long-term health concerns go -- part of my PhD thesis was on quantifying risk from a particular substance. I'm not an epidemiologist, but I did enough study to recalibrate my way of thinking. I grew up in the 60s and 70s and had always naively believed the environmentalists and the media (don't laugh), but after reading the research, and doing my own critical analysis, I concluded that I shouldn't believe anyone at face value. I also learned that we do not have a good way of determining what substances are harmful, and then quantifying that risk. It's much worse when courts and lawyers and big money and deep pockets are involved. Maybe it's gotten better in the 30 years since I looked at this issue, but I don't think so.
I just prune them down to the ground every year. I don't think you can actually kill them. We have a few acres and I left most of it as a woodlot. I'm not a fan of using chemicals on weeds or brush. I spread salt on my driveway every year to kill the grass. I just mow or trim everything else. If I can't do that then it's just going back to nature. I don't mind.
All those chemicals eventually end up in the aquifers. I drink tap water from a well not too far from my house.
In the P-F basket of deplorables.
Damn, I love blackberry vines.
Let them grow over barb-wire fences and you'll never worry about weed-eating again, they strangle out weeds. And also they'll keep the livestock in. And the neighbors out. Plus in Texas they tend to force the fireants to go somewhere else, besides around the bottoms of fence posts.
And fresh blackberries are delicious. In the summer? When it's hot? Pick some and stick 'em on ice for an hour. It's like heaven sent mana.
I get it, they can be a pain in the ass if you don't control them. But aggressively pruning them back in winter is the way to go.
As for weedeating fence posts. Man, we never did that unless it was dry and thus could be a fire hazard. Otherwise, let it grow. If you need it short, a goat for every two acres you want maintained will generally keep the grass down. We had ten acres, but only 8 of it was "pasture". 4 goats lived happily ever after out there. A water trough and some hay in the winter.
When it's time to put one down - cabrito amigos.
1) Dig a pit line it with charcoal and hickory or mesquite
2) skin and gut the goat, remove the head if you don't want it (I usually don't, I'm not big on goat brain)
3) get the charcoal nice and hot get the wood in there, lay tin foil over the coals.
4) lay goat on foil, put foil over the goat.
5) Insert a piece of steel pipe (like gas pipe) into the fire horizontally
6) Take another piece of pipe vertically on the opposite side of of where you put the horizontal one (you're building a fireplace)
7) Bury the fire and goat
8) Wait 24'ish hours
9) Unbury goat and have fucking amazing goat tacos and roast goat sandwiches with friends and family (1 skinny goat serves 3, 1 fat goat serves 5)
10) Enjoy that your goat gave you several years of lawn mowing service and sustenance.
You may choose to season your goat in advance of roasting it. Some do, some don't. My great grandfather never did, instead opting for home made salsa and cilantro and onion with his cabrito tacos.
One of the better studies on the risks associated with glyphosate use in humans:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art...pmid/29136183/
I mean that basically supports that idea that Round-Up is generally safe.
My nitpick -
Then there was not an increased risk of acute myeloid leukemia compared to never users. If something is not statistically significant, it doesn't mean shit in this regard. They are unable to provide statistical support for that hypothesis.However, among applicators in the highest exposure quartile, there was an increased risk of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) compared with never users (RR = 2.44, 95% CI = 0.94 to 6.32, Ptrend = .11), though this association was not statistically significant.
No. There is some evidence that suggests there could, maybe, be increased risk of AML but this requires not confirmation, but much more thorough investigation.There was some evidence of increased risk of AML among the highest exposed group that requires confirmation.
That statistics presentation and conclusions of that paper should have never made it through peer-review. Complete misuse of statistical analyses and misrepresentation of the actual results of the study. I'm not saying that their conclusion is wrong per-se, just that it is not supported by their data at all. Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades, it damn sure doesn't count in statistics and science.
Last edited by RevolverRob; 09-07-2019 at 11:28 AM.
You do realize that these authors are professional epidemiologists, right? From the NCI? Believe it or not, they know what they are doing.
Firstly, I'd start by reading the whole paper:
Secondly, it's not misleading to point to a trend in the data that fails to reach statistical significance (e.g. their unlagged analysis), particularly when you are doing sub-group analyses (e.g. AML among heavily exposed users). This is important for many reasons:The rate ratio was elevated and the trend statistically significant with a 20-year lag and tertiles of exposure (to satisfy our reporting criteria due to a smaller number of exposed cases; n = 32 exposed cases; RR = 2.04, 95% CI = 1.05 to 3.97, Ptrend = .04).
1. Proper statistical interrogation of subgroups will be accompanied by corrections for multiple comparisons, eg Bonferroni's or Dunnett's, which increases your alpha by necessity. Given that they are looking at the association between Roundup exposure and basically all solid/liquid tumors, their correction for multiple comparisons dramatically decreases the odds that they will detect small differences between subgroups.
2. Corollary of #1, if the initial study was not sufficiently powered to detect a difference between two subgroups - particularly if the sample size is rather small (e.g. patients in highest quartile of exposure with AML, who number 32 total), then you run a very real risk of a Type I error.
3. Corollary of #2, it is wholly appropriate for the authors to suggest that further studies should be done to assess the relative risk of AML in patients with glyphosphate exposure, as their initial study is clearly underpowered to interrogate the null hypothesis for this particular sub-group.
With this in mind, a follow-up study appropriately designed and powered to detect a difference between exposed and unexposed cases of AML and high levels of exposure to glyphosate. There is nothing terribly controversial about this.
Finally, I do believe the authors did a very good job explaining the caveats of their observation in their discussion section:
This evaluation has some limitations that should be acknowledged. First, despite the specific information provided by the applicators about use of glyphosate, some misclassification of exposure undoubtedly occurred. Given the prospective design, however, any misclassification should be nondifferential and lead to attenuated risk estimates. Second, because we evaluated many cancer sites for potential associations with glyphosate use, we cannot dismiss the possibility that these results were observed by chance, and thus should be interpreted with caution. The fact that no other studies have reported an association between glyphosate and AML risk also calls for cautious interpretation. However, the observed consistent pattern of increasing risk with increasing exposure and the statistically significant trend with lagged exposure of 10 or more years is concerning.
In conclusion, we found no evidence of an association between glyphosate use and risk of any solid tumors or lymphoid malignancies, including NHL and its subtypes. However, we found some evidence of a possible association between glyphosate use and AML. This association was consistent across different exposure metrics and for unlagged and lagged exposure. Given the prevalence of use of this herbicide worldwide, expeditious efforts to replicate these findings are warranted.
Last edited by Nephrology; 09-07-2019 at 01:59 PM.
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