cyberageous
Newly Registered
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Sep 06, 2018 2:40 pm

My Dr says Roundup causes cancer

I am an avid gardener for many years. I had a 30+ acre farm in the Everglades a few years back. I used Roundup quite a bit and with a contant blowing wind and severe heat, I absorbed quite a bit of the Roundup. I have had Breast Cancer several times and the last time was a blow out of it unexpectedly. I have no history of it any where in my family. Because of the aggressive growth of my cancer and no known cause, it was then broken down to studying environmental reasons and it turns out IT WAS ROUNDUP. The more I absorbed it from using it on windy days, the more I built up carcinogens that caused calcium clusers and then became cancer. BE CAREFUL.

User avatar
rainbowgardener
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 25279
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
Location: TN/GA 7b

see this post about garden poisons : viewtopic.php?f=11&t=57653&start=15

There was just a lawsuit about that: "Monsanto suffered a major blow with a jury ruling that the company was liable for a terminally ill man’s cancer, awarding him $289 million in damages.

Dewayne Johnson, a 46-year-old former groundskeeper, won a huge victory in the landmark case on Friday, with the jury determining that Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller caused his cancer and that the corporation failed to warn him of the health hazards from exposure. The jury further found that Monsanto “acted with malice or oppression”. Given that precedent, if your cancer is serious, you might want to talk to a personal injury lawyer about suing Monsanto. I'm sure there will be many more of those lawsuits coming. Good. Monsanto will be forced to stop manufacturing it. They have known about this for a long time.

You are right, that people should be careful. Problems usually arise only with chronic/ repeat exposures as in the grounds keeper or agricultural workers. But Round Up also causes many problems in the environment, wiping out aquatic plants and the insects and animals that depend on them, wiping out beneficial soil-dwelling mycorrhizal fungi and nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the soil. Although Monsanto claims RU is not harmful to earthworms, a recent study showed it reducing activity and reproduction of earthworms https://www.nature.com/articles/srep12886

Round Up is an organophosphorus compound. Do you remember when we got all the phosphates out of laundry detergents because they were leading to eutrophication and algae blooms and the death of waterways? The phosphonates (phosphorus compounds) in Round Up act the same way. Florida is currently in the midst of a huge algae bloom slaughtering fish and other marine life by the many thousands. Algae blooms usually happen in the late summer or early fall and last around three to five months. But this current algae bloom -- also known as a red tide -- started in October and has stretched for more than nine months, unprecedented. Governor of Florida has called a state of emergency. https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/02/us/sea-t ... index.html

Image

I haven't seen anyone talking about the (potential?) connection between RoundUp and this unprecedented die off, but the conclusion seems pretty inescapable to me.

If you look it up, southern FL is one of the areas with the heaviest glyphosate usage. https://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/pnsp/usage ... Glyphosate

Round Up is far and away the most used herbicide.
"Farmers have sprayed billions of pounds of a chemical now considered a probable human carcinogen over the past decade. Spraying has increased to multiple times a year recently on the majority of U.S. cropland. The sheer volume of use of this toxic weed-killer is a clear indication that this chemical dependency is a case of farming gone wrong." https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 090536.htm The reason the usage keeps going up with more frequent sprayings, etc. is that weeds are becoming Round Up resistant.

pepperhead212
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 2851
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2014 1:52 pm
Location: Woodbury NJ Zone 7a/7b

I had a younger cousin who ran a landscaping business with her spouse, and both of them passed away in their 50s from cancer. While they used many other chemicals in their business, I'm sure that Roundup was one of the most used, and probably had a lot to do with their cancers.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

If you read the complaint. Mr Johnson accidentally "drenched himself" with the roundup. The product he used was not plain glyphosate, it was a product that had glyphosate and something else. The claim was that the combination caused harm. Monsanto is appealing the verdict. There is no scientific proof that glyphosate has caused any cancer. It took a large dose of the product in rat studies to even make the rats sick. The link to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma was weak and did not have many cases.

Obviously Mr. Johnson "drenching himself" was not using the product according to the label instructions and the label is the law. There was no information about what other clothing, gloves, or eyewear was worn for protection and there was also nothing mentioned about him taking any remedial action like removing the clothes and showering immediately to lesson the time the roundup was in contact with his skin. Since the product was not just glyphosate, the complainant is arguing that the combination caused harm. I did not find out what was the other chemical in the product and I don't know the cancer risk of that product.
There are now many more ambulance chasers wanting to sign up people to sue Monsanto.

cyberageous
Newly Registered
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Sep 06, 2018 2:40 pm

Well, I can say I drenched myself with Roundup on many occasions and didn't have the opportunity to quickly shower it off. I had no idea about the lawsuit but I can only complain- I never saved receipts or can prove that I used it. Cancer was a common cause of death out in the 'Glades. You think you have a healthy lifestyle and instead practically kill yourself. I had estrogen fed breast cancer so I am not sure if it is even relevant. On a good note, getting a complete mastectomy made me a better person. I now value my life and take better care of myself, spiritually and physically.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

The problem is that cancer is very common especially as we get older. Egyptian mummies had evidence of cancer as well. There are many carcinogens and if you look on the cancer website it has a list of them. It also says on that same website that the presence of a carcinogen does not mean you will get cancer. You need to have a susceptible host. Someone with a family history and some bad genes have a higher risk than people who do not have genes that make them more susceptible to certain types of cancer. Exposure is another thing, if you have excessive exposure to a known carcinogen, and you have bad habits like not taking measures to reduce exposure risk, then over time repeated exposure to the carcinogen will break down the body's defenses. A healthy immune system encounters bad cells all the time and normally a healthy immune system will recognize and destroy them before they can cause harm. However, some things act like viruses and trick the immune system and block them from recognizing them as being foreign. Cancer cells from one part of the body is able to spread to other parts because the body does not recognize that the cells in the first site are foreign, they don't recognize it even though breast cells are in the lungs or muscles where they should not be, because part of them still contain the hosts' original protein and most the time the body does not attack their own proteins. People who get lung cancer from smoking for decades, knowingly expose themselves to a known carcinogen. Nothing good comes from smoking. Besides cancer, emphysema, kills almost as many. Yet, cigarettes, cigars, and even e-cigs (smoking addicting nicotine in concentrated form) are all still on the market.
Other known carcinogens charcoal and grilling fatty meat (stomach cancer risk higher for people who char their food weekly. The fat creates carcinogens PAH when it is dripped off and hits the heat. That burnt smoke deposit the chemicals back on the meat) Peanut butter (26 tablespoons in your lifetime is equal to 1 chest xray. I have had way more than that in my lifetime, I must be a goner). Cancer is a serious thing, and my cousins wife battled ovarian cancer for over twenty years. It made her sick and miserable for much of the time. Her mother died of it too when she was 17. People who have had cancer or have a family history of cancer, do need to take extra precautions to protect themselves and it can be a very anxious and frightening time. It can be frightening for their children as well with cancer and any hereditary disease since their risk will always be higher. It is just that we are surrounded by carcinogens everywhere. It is in the air, food, all the things we come into contact with in life, it is even in the sun. It does not mean everyone will get cancer. It also means that we are all exposed to multiple carcinogens everyday. How, do you single out just one possible carcinogen.

When the EPA did their review of roundup, one of the researchers was in charge of a study to try to prove that roundup caused a form of non-Hodgekin's lymphoma. It was not a published study and should not have been even considered and it was later learned that the researcher knew that his research was not panning out. It took a ridiculous amount of glyphosate to even make the rats sick, much less give them cancer. However, the EPA, given his original testimony did say that 100's of studies said that glyphosate did not seem to cause cancer, and one said it might. The EPA based on that testimony, recommended that glyphosate could be a carcinogen. The European agency used the EPA report and the American cancer society using the same report put glyphosate as a possible carcinogen. Later, the researcher was called out and he admitted that at the time he made his statement, he knew that the research he was doing did not really support his hypothesis. The EPA has gone back and forth on the issue. I think there is a lot of political pressure from both sides of the debate. The American cancer society lists glyphosate as a probable carcinogen but is not listed as something likely to cause cancer. One person from the EPA did say that the dosage needed to be equivalent to that given to the rats would have been many times more than a normal person would be exposed to if the product was used as directed. Besides, rats are not people, the studies do not always translate. Rats are used for cancer studies because it is easy to give them cancer, they are small, cheap, reproduce rapidly and have short lifespans.

User avatar
Gary350
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 7396
Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

How long does it take for Round up to get out of the soil? I worry the people that lived in this house before put toxic poisons on the yard.
Last edited by Gary350 on Tue Nov 06, 2018 10:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.

PaulF
Greener Thumb
Posts: 910
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2010 5:34 pm
Location: Brownville, Ne

Glyphosate is designed to evaporate in 24 to 72 hours. It can be tied up in the soil for one to seven days depending on the amount and type of carrier chemicals. Many studies have been done on the cancer causing effects and as mentioned above only one study indicated cancer and that one was debunked. Cornell University did studies on several types of animals, including fish and said no residual chemical could be found in any of those animal subjects.

I am not a fan of Monsanto, but reason needs to be applied when accusations are falsely made. Round-Up has been on the market for decades with no real problems, especially if used according to directions. Take baths in any chemical or drink it like water and there will be problems. Besides, they have never paid out any money on lawsuits and all litigation has been reversed if they were found liable.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

Actually. Glyphosate in its original form is usually dry in about 2 hours on a sunny day. There are formulations that accelerate and it can be rainfast in as little as 10 minutes. According to my chemist friend, he said that glyphosate is inactivated and broken down by soil bacteria pretty much as soon as it hits the ground. Regular glyphosate is broken down very fast. You can even replant in about 3 days for most plants. It has to be taken up by the leaves; absorbed and then it makes its way down to the roots. It takes about 8 days for the weeds to yellow in most cases. Round up does not work on everything. There are some plants that are not as affected by the herbicide. The active ingredient interferes with an enzyme, EPSP synthase, it blocks phosphorus in the ATP cycle of plants and causes them to eventually starve since they cannot produce enough energy to grow.

This enzyme is important in plant metabolism, but it does not exist for animals. That is why glyphosate has low toxicity for animals and people once it is dry. When people claim they have measured round up residues in the air and the soil. They are usually sampling while the plane is dusting the crops overhead. They are measuring metabolites not glyphosate. No one has provided any conclusive evidence that the metabolites cause cancer.

What is of concern is that mother nature does not like to be messed with. Just as you get resistant bacteria from indiscriminate and misuse of antibiotics. The weeds that survive Round Up can mutate and develop resistance to Round Up and become Round up ready. The other consequences of using any herbicide is that while you are killing weeds, they do serve a purpose to support other insects and the soil web. Mono culture is one of the worst things for the environment. If you want to complain about something, complain about that.



Return to “What Doesn't Fit Elsewhere”