Subject: Re: Roundup - don't shoot, please!

From: "John A. Keslick, Jr." <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 06:36:04 -0400

I

Ten reasons to "NOT" use roundup.

Compiled by Caroline Cox, Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to
Pesticides- (NCAP)

	Roundup, and related herbicides with glyphosate as an active
ingredient, are advertised as products that can "eradicate weeds and
unwanted grasses effectively with a high level of environmental safety."
However, an independent, accurate evaluation of their health and
environmental hazards can draw conclusions very different from those
presented in the ads.  Consider these facts:

1.    Glyphosate can be persistent.  In tests conducted by Monsanto,
manufacturer of
glyphosate-containing herbicides, up to 140 days were required for half
of the applied glyphosate to break down or disappear from agricultural
soils.  At harvest, residues of glyphosate were found in lettuce,
carrots, and barley planted one year after glyphosate treatment.
2.     Glyphosate can drift.  Test conducted by the University of
California, Davis, found that glyphosate drifted up to 400 meters (1300
feet) durng ground applications and 800 meters 12600 feet) during aerial
applications.
3.     Glyphosate is acutely toxic to humans.  Ingesting about 3/4 of a
cup can be lethal.  Symptoms include eye and skin irritation, lung
congestion, and erosion of the intestinal tract.  Between 1984 and 1990
in California, glyphosate was the third most frequently reported cause
of illness elated to agricultural pesticide use.

4.     Glyphosate has shown a wide spectrum of chronic toxicity in
laboratory tests.  The National Toxicology Program found that chronic
feeding of glyphosate caused salivary gland lesions, reduced sperm
counts, and a lengthened estrous cycle (how often an individual comes
into heat).  Other chronic effects found in laboratory tests include an
increase in the frequency of lethal mutations in fruit flies, an
increase in frequency of pancreas and liver tumors in male rats along
with an increase in the frequency of thyroid tumors in females, and
cataracts. (ne fruit fly study used Roundup; the other studies used
glyphosate.)

5.     Roundup contains toxic trade secret ingredients.  These include
polyethoxylated tallowamines, causing nausea and diarrhea, and
isopropylamine, causing chemical pneumonia, laryngitis, headache, and
bums.

6.     Roundup kills beneficial insects.  Tests conducted by !he
International Organization for Biological Control showed that Roundup
caused mortality of live beneficial species: a Thrichgramma, a predatory
mite, a lacewing, a ladybug, and a predatory beetle.

7.     Glyphosate is hazardous to earthworms, Tests using New Zealand's
most common earthworm showed that glyphosate, in amounts as low as 1/20
of standard application rates, reduced it- growth and slowed its
development.

8.     Roundup inhibits mycorrhizal fungi.  Canadian studies have shown
that as little as 1 part per million of Roundup can reduce the growth or
colonization of mycorrhizal fungi.

9.     Glyphosate reduces nitrogen fixation.  Amounts as small as 2
parts per million have had significant effects, and effects have been
measured up to 120 days after treatment.  Nitrogen- fixing bacteria
shown to be impacted by glyphosate include a species found on soybeans
and several species found on clover.

10.     Roundup can increase the spread or seventy of plant diseases. 
Treatment with roundup  increased the severity of Rhizoctonia root rot
in barley, increased the amount and growth of take-all fungus, a wheat
disease), and reduced the ability of bean plants to defend themselves
against anthracnose.

	These facts about Roundup are taken From a two-part article about the
health and environmental hazards of glyphosate published in NCAP's
Journal of Pesticide Reform.  Copies of the article, with complete
references for all of .the information presented, are available from
NCAP for $2.00. NCAP,  PO Box 1391; Eugene, OR 97440; (541) 344-5044.

-- 

John A. Keslick Jr.---Tree Anatomist & Tree Biologist.-             
Sustainable Forest? Only with TREE BIOLOGY in mind.                  
Organic Tree Treatment Web Site: 
http://www.pond.com/~treeman

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From: "John A. Keslick, Jr." <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 06:42:44 -0400

Thank you for your inquiry and your campaigning activities.

There is superior documentation on Roundup, both its toxicology and
ecological effects, available from the Northwest Coalition for
Alternatives
ro Pesticides, P.O. Box 1393, Eugene, OR  97440, (503)344-5044. For a
modest
fee, ask for reprints of two articles authored by Caroline Cox:
- "Glyphosate, Part 1: Toxicology," Journal of Pesticide Reform, Fall,
1995,
Vol. 15, No. 3.
- "Glyphosate, Part 2: Human Exposure and Ecological Effects,"
Winter, 1995, Vol. 15, No. 4.
Over 100 references are cited.

You may also wish to rely on the excellent information available from
other
groups focusing on pesticide use, such as the Rachel Carson Council
whose
offices (301 652-1877) are always very helpful.

Thank you for campaigning for the forest and the elimination of
pesticides,
and for your continuing efforts on behalf of trees.

--