# Objective info on Monsanto and evils of Roundup
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 19, 2015, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085 "2015-10-19T01:14:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2015, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085/1 "2015-10-19T01:14:30Z")
I was at a party last night listening to another guest go on and on about her participation in some [march against Monsanto](http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/thousands-gather-in-washington-dc-to-rally-against-dark-act-gmo-labeling-ban-october-17th-300155045.html) in D.C.
My intuition was that she sounded vaguely brainwashed. As soon as the right topic triggered her she recited a litany of complaints and supposed facts as though she had memorized them from an activist pamphlet. She was anti-Monsanto and anti-GMOs. I did not have the impression she had done any original research from objective sources, knew the underlying science, or was familiar with studies other than to be able to say “studies have shown that…”
So what are objective sources for this? Info I’ve seen (I have just scratched the surface) is either from activist organizations with an agenda or from pro-GMO groups with an agenda. (My own agenda is that I am an all-around skeptic and haven’t heard anything about GMOs that bothers me.)
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### Author:  [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2015, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085/2 "2015-10-19T01:22:46Z")
Hmmm I’m interested in this particularly as to Roundup. Poking around on line and sticking to original sources seems to leave you in a no man’s land somewhere between “it’s virtually cyanide” and “it’s totally harmless”.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2015, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085/3 "2015-10-19T02:38:15Z")
I had much more on this and then my browser went crash-poo.
Most regulatory agencies around the world have declared Glysophate to be safe in normal quantities. And have seen no evidence of any cancer causing effects. [The EPA](http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-05-01/pdf/2013-10316.pdf)states:
> [@](#):
>
> A chronic feeding/carcinogenicity study in rats found no systemic effects in any of the parameters examined (body weight, food consumption, clinical signs, mortality, clinical pathology, organ weights, and histopathology). A second chronic feeding/carcinogenicity study in rats tested at higher dietary levels, and a lowest-observed-adverse-effect level (LOAEL) was identified at 20,000 ppm (approximately 940 milligram/kilogram/ day (mg/kg/day)) based on decreased body-weight gains in females and increased incidence of cataracts and lens abnormalities, decreased urinary pH, increased absolute liver weight, and increased relative liver weight/brain weight in males. No evidence of carcinogenicity was found in mice or rats. In a chronic toxicity study in dogs, no systemic effects were found in all examined parameters.
That said the WHO’s cancer group declared that Glysophate as “proabably causing cancer in humans” which was heralded by many all natural groups as proof positive, but that classification category also includes [Night Shifts, Grapefruit Juice, and Cooked meat & fish](http://www.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/VoYS/Agents_Classified_by_the_IARC_Monographs.pdf).
Large quantities of Glysophate will cause cancer, but so will a huge number of things. Once again the dosage is key. Formaldehyde is cancer-causing, but the formaldehyde in an apple won’t really cause you any trouble.
Many scientists have [outright criticized](http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-carcinogenicity-classification-of-five-pesticides-by-the-international-agency-for-research-on-cancer-iarc/) WHO’s classification, one of them calling the evidence ‘thin’.
Some have claimed that Glysophate is as safe as water. which isn’t really true either. But it is much less toxic than a lot of things we consume daily, such as caffeine.
While it would be nice to not have to use Glysophate and 'Round-Up ready crops, most modern agriculture needs some kind of weed killer and running around the crops pulling them out manually isn’t gonna happen. Glysophate is probably one of the more benign herbicides out there - yes that includes that ‘all natural weed killer’ posted constantly on FaceBook that is a mix of soap, salt and vinegar that is actually more toxic than Glysophate.
Don’t know if this is objective enough for you.
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### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2015, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085/4 "2015-10-19T02:55:37Z")
> [@Mr.Miskatonic](#):
>
> Glysophate is probably one of the more benign herbicides out there …
>
> Don’t know if this is objective enough for you.
I’ll admit to not researching the issues at all. My own suspicion of such things is rather vague, and quite unrelated to things like the toxicity of Roundup, or the nutritional value of GM foods.
I can’t articulate well why it seems insidious that companies design herbicides effective against all but their own genetically engineered crops, but I think you’re gullible if you don’t see it! Loss of biodiversity is already a big problem; why accelerate it?
The standard retort here at SDMB against fears about genetic engineering is that humans have been indulging in genetic engineering since the Neolithic. My answers are:
- Yes, and that already led to loss of biodiversity, and nutritional problems even before the modern era.
- The speed of genetic engineering today is millions of times faster than any “Neolithic GM.”
Given the hugely excessive human population, _I do understand that GMO, at this point, may be a “least of evils” solution._ But it _is_ evil, and overpopulation\* is\* excessive: two simple truths that the majority at SDMB do not accept.
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### Author:  [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2015, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085/5 "2015-10-19T04:50:04Z")
> [@septimus](#):
>
> I can’t articulate well why it seems insidious that companies design herbicides effective against all but their own genetically engineered crops, but I think you’re gullible if you don’t see it!
It’s the other way about. Monsanto invented this very effective generalist herbicide in glyphosphate. It kills damn near everything that’s green and doesn’t have a woody stalk. So when they started genetically engineering crops, they engineered them to be resistant to this herbicide that kills virtually every weed. It’s far and away the most obvious starting point.
Feel free to have concerns about biodiversity, though. That seems a far more legitimate concern than the carcinogenic nature of glyphosphate.
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### Author:  [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2015, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085/6 "2015-10-19T05:24:34Z")
\*\*septimus \*\*is well into GD territory (perhaps the whole OP is) but in addition to your point, while reduction in biodiversity may be a problem, since when has that been a problem caused by either insecticide or GMO crops? Biodiversity loss is pretty much entirely a habitat/monoculture problem.
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### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2015, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085/7 "2015-10-19T05:28:33Z")
> [@septimus](#):
>
> Given the hugely excessive human population, _I do understand that GMO, at this point, may be a “least of evils” solution._ But it _is_ evil
Cite?
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### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2015, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085/8 "2015-10-19T05:45:01Z")
> [@septimus](#):
>
> I can’t articulate well why it seems insidious that companies design herbicides effective against all but their own genetically engineered crops, but I think you’re gullible if you don’t see it
I think the problem is when that genetic material spreads through natural methods and you get issues like:
1. Monsanto will sue you if their plants are in your field by accident. There was ONE lawsuit back in 1999. The actual facts are that Monsanto prevents planting their crops as seed crops as a patent violation.
2. GMO seed can contaminate a crop. That is true but it tends to get ignored because it is felt to be a de minimis contamination and with little effective definition or oversight to non-GMO or organic designations.
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### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2015, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085/9 "2015-10-19T07:08:55Z")
> [@Princhester](#):
>
> Biodiversity loss is pretty much entirely a habitat/monoculture problem.
Precisely. Mechanisms like Roundup/Ready encourage single crops. Indeed, they might even presage a future where there are _zero_ natural crops, _only_ engineered crops.
@ **Derleth** : Why did you leave it a mystery whether you wanted a cite for (a) population is excessive, (b) evil, or (c) despite (b), \*least \*of evils? 😕 In any of the three cases, you’re on your own! Reject my claim, or source it yourself; it’s all the same to me.😃
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### Author:  [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2015, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085/10 "2015-10-19T07:30:50Z")
> [@septimus](#):
>
> My own suspicion of such things is rather vague, and quite unrelated o…
They seem actually mostly about a political tendency that begins with a reflexive hostility to the private businesses and particularly the large ones.
> [@](#):
>
> Loss of biodiversity is already a big problem; why accelerate it?
Indeed. therefore one should support development of a more efficient agriculture that uses less land and less resources, for more production from the same land.
Any other solution in the face of larger populations mechanically means more of the land in more intensive and more constant production. It means mechanically for a level of production efficiency of existing plants under the declining soil fertilities from more intensive usages, the cutting down of forest, expansion of the fields into the fallows areas, etc.
> [@](#):
>
> Given the hugely excessive human population,
This is a value statement, like your evil statement. For GD.
_I do understand that GMO, at this point, may be a “least of evils” solution._ But it _is_ evil, and overpopulation\* is\* excessive: two simple truths that the majority at SDMB do not accept.
[/QUOTE]
> [@septimus](#):
>
> Precisely. Mechanisms like Roundup/Ready encourage single crops.
How do they do this? please be specific about the difference in the specific practices from what happens otherwise.
In the real world of the agriculture in my continent we already have for these commodity crops - without any of this inputs and done by the small farmers that are so romanticized by the anti-gmos left - monocropping to push for the income. In the maize, in the rice…
> [@](#):
>
> Indeed, they might even presage a future where there are _zero_ natural crops, _only_ engineered crops.
the only natural crops are the wild plants gathered in the wild, if the world natural can be understood in any objective fashion.
All the other crops have been in a profound way, engineered.
otherwise, the above is only a kind of scaremongering.
> [@](#):
>
> @ **Derleth** : Why did you leave it a mystery whether you wanted a cite for (a) population is excessive, (b) evil, or (c) despite (b), \*least \*of evils? 😕 In any of the three cases, you’re on your own! Reject my claim, or source it yourself; it’s all the same to me.😃
It is the GQ, you are asserting some moral positions that do not fit this forum. Unless you can present the objective science.
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### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2015, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085/11 "2015-10-19T08:05:05Z")
> [@septimus](#):
>
> @ **Derleth** : Why did you leave it a mystery whether you wanted a cite for (a) population is excessive, (b) evil, or (c) despite (b), \*least \*of evils? 😕
You seemed to be making the claim that GMO foods are evil. That’s what I’m asking for a cite for.
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### Author:  [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2015, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085/12 "2015-10-19T08:32:03Z")
Monsanto seems to have become a poster boy as the all-time most hated corporation, especially amongst those that make it their passion to hate corporations. Once this happens it is pretty hard to get any sort of objective argument.
My experience with Glyphosate (I use generic, the Monsanto stuff is a lot more expensive) is that it can cause very clear shifts in the relative abundances of different weeds. I used it intensively for some years, and every year the problem weeds changed, and slowly I got more hard to deal with and more woody varieties. In retrospect, this should hardly have been a surprise. Sage advice I got was to quit the Glyphosate and the slash the weeds hard, and that this would result is a reversion to a more benign and easier to control situation - which it largely did. But I’m not growing crops, so I have a lot more freedom. I just need to keep the grasses down to avoid bushfire risk. I’ll be out with the brush cutter pretty soon.
The principle problem with mono-cultures is that they are brittle. When things are going well, things go really well. But if a pathogen creeps into the system, it can wreak havoc. The loss of genetic diversity across agriculture leaves us more exposed. It is unlikely to cause the zombie apocalypse, but the danger that an entire year’s harvest of a crop could be lost before a resistant seed crop was ready is ever present. The economic damage could be catastrophic, and in the right circumstances could have fairly dire knock-on consequences. The dangers that the Glyphosate resistant gene could cross into wild grasses and weeds is also cited. If it could happen, and did, the commercial eco-system of glyphosate and resistant crops would eventually fail, and glyphosate eventually become useless.
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### Author:  [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2015, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085/13 "2015-10-19T10:52:43Z")
> [@septimus](#):
>
> Precisely. Mechanisms like Roundup/Ready encourage single crops.
No, the efficiency of monoculture encourages single crops. Single cropping came along before GMO crops resistant to glyphosate existed. This is a key point you aren’t understanding. Glyphosate resistant strains just allow single cropping more efficiently. This leaves more land for other things.
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### Author:  [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2015, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085/14 "2015-10-19T11:37:31Z")
They’re nothing more than anti-science conspiracy theorists. They believe GMOs make people ill, vaccines cause autism, and fluoride added to drinking water is a secret government plot to poison humanity.
It’s all the same crowd.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2015, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085/15 "2015-10-19T12:20:55Z")
Regardless of how you feel about glyphosphate and Monsanto, this should be of interest:
> **[Condemning Monsanto With Bad Science Is Dumb](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/condemning-monsanto-with_b_3162694)**
>
> Industrial agriculture has created a lot of environmental problems. We have to find ways to reform our food system, but shoddy research only helps Monsanto. If we base our objections on papers like this one, we won't -- and we shouldn't -- be taken...
> [@](#):
>
> Condemning Monsanto With Bad Science Is Dumb
>
> Posted: 04/26/2013 12:51 pm EDT Updated: 06/26/2013 5:12 am EDT
>
> Did you see the latest indictment of Monsanto making the rounds? It’s a “peer-reviewed” paper in the journal Entropy, co-authored by Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff, blaming glyphosate, the compound in the herbicide Roundup, for virtually all the ills that can befall us.
>
> But here’s the thing – they made it up. Or, all but. They say, “We explain the documented effects of glyphosate and its ability to induce disease, and we show that glyphosate is a ‘textbook example’ of exogenous semiotic entropy: the disruption of homeostasis by environmental toxins.” Exogenous semiotic entropy! That sounds serious. Google it, though, and you find that those three words occur together in only place. This paper. They made it up. At first, I thought the whole thing was one of those jargon-laden academic hoaxes but, alas, it isn’t.
>
> Slog through their argument (and, please, if you take this seriously, read the paper!), and you find it boils down to two things. Glyphosate, they claim, 1) inhibits CYP enzymes, which are active in lots of metabolic processes, and 2) disrupts gut bacteria, which are susceptible to its mechanism (disrupting the shikimate pathway), even though humans are not. Therefore, any condition that involves metabolic processes or gut bacteria must be affected by glyphosate exposure. QED!
>
> Here’s the list of ills they blame, at least in part, on Roundup: inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, Alzheimer’s, autism, anorexia, dementia, depression, Parkinson’s, reproductive issues, liver diseases and cancer.
The paper’s two years old, but Samsel and Seneff posted another one this year (for which other articles have been written to point out the problems). Samsel and Seneff protest that they’re pointing out the potential connections, but the paper’s title doesn’t reflect that, and a lot of the Marchers the OP mentions are acting under the assumption that the case has been proven, when it hasn’t. There are even news reports and blog postings saying that a “Top MIT Scientist” has shown glyphosphate to be responsible for these ills.
Seneff is an MIT scientist in Electrical Engineering, not in this area (although her debunkers generally don’t point out that she has a bachelor’s degree in biophysics). These papers seem to stem from a personal interest rather than a professional one. To quote the linked article:
> [@](#):
>
> Samsel and Seneff didn’t conduct any studies. They don’t seem interested in the levels at which humans are actually exposed to glyphosate. They simply speculated that, if anyone, anywhere, found that glyphosate could do anything in any organism, that thing must also be happening in humans everywhere. I’d like to meet the “peers” who “reviewed” this.
>
> After reading the paper, I had to wonder – who are Samsel and Seneff? Seneff is a Senior Research Scientist in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT. Her advanced degrees are in electrical engineering. She describes herself as having “recently become interested in the effect of drugs and diet on health and nutrition.” Samsel describes himself as an “Independent Scientist and Consultant,” and, for the last 37 years, has run Anthony Samsel Environmental and Public Health Services, which does “Charitable community investigations of industrial polluters.” I think it’s fair to say they probably went into this with a point of view.
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2015, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085/16 "2015-10-19T12:39:50Z")
I wouldn’t worry too much about who has an “agenda”. Everybody’s got one, but it’s not that hard to winnow out who has evidence on their side.
As **CalMeacham** indicates, there’s a small amount of heavily publicized (and deeply flawed) research pointing to GMO harms, and [a vastly greater body of research](http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonentine/2014/09/17/the-debate-about-gmo-safety-is-over-thanks-to-a-new-trillion-meal-study/) validating its safety and efficacy.
There are certainly concerns about pesticide resistance and crop diversity, none of which are exclusive to GM agriculture (but which in some cases biotechnology may be accelerating). Farmers more than ever have to practice sound agricultural techniques, rotating crops and pesticides and otherwise acting responsibly.
Personally, I don’t care all that much about corn and soybeans. But if scaremongering about genetic modification prevents development of pest-resistant varieties so that I lose out on [morning coffee](http://www.biofortified.org/2013/06/coffee-the-next-crop-to-be-saved-by-transgenics/) and orange juice, I’m going to be heavily pissed off (and people who don’t have access to life-saving drugs because Greenpeace thinks genetically modifying bacteria to produce them is satanic, are going to be way more hugely pissed off).
I’m not going to get into how pissed off starving Third World people will be when the GM food production that could’ve saved them gets derailed, because some think that biotechnology encourages overpopulation.
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### Author:  [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2015, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085/17 "2015-10-19T12:47:50Z")
If I were at MIT I would want to ask serious questions about Seneff claiming any academic connection for this paper. Once it is being quoted as “Top MIT scientist” the university itself should wake up and take an interest. It get pretty close to the line of ethical impropriety leaving impression that you are implicitly endorsed as an MIT expert in the field, when you are very clearly not.
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### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2015, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085/18 "2015-10-19T16:00:31Z")
While I’ve drifted into GD territory, to serve OP’s purpose we must not overlook real dangers. Ignoring them (because one is not prepared to defend them immediately) is NOT “objective.”
And please note that at least two of the accusations made here against anti-GMO folk do NOT apply to me.
> [@Ramira](#):
>
> They seem actually mostly about a political tendency that begins with a reflexive hostility to the private businesses and particularly the large ones.
I’ll cheerfully stipulate that governments often make the biggest environmental mistakes. Destruction of the Aral Sea is an obvious mistake, or even, closer to home, federal engineering of the lower Mississippi.
> [@](#):
>
> … carcinogenic
No, it is long-term systemic risks that concern me. Nor am I prepared to enumerate all such risks; loss of biodiversity is just one example.
There are quantitative effects to consider. I mention that present-day GM is millions of times faster than Neolithic GM and a Poster dismisses this with "[del]Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter[/del] “Neolithic man proved that GM isn’t a problem.” 😃 [slight exaggeration but do let us not quibble.]
Or this:
> [@Princhester](#):
>
> No, the efficiency of monoculture encourages single crops. Single cropping came along before GMO crops resistant to glyphosate existed.
The dismissive “No, the efficiency of monoculture encourages single crops” ignores that _effects can have more than one cause_. I’ll assert that Roundup/Ready schemes obviously make monoculture more efficient and prevalant (and only chortle if you need a cite for that.)
> [@Princhester](#):
>
> This is a key point you aren’t understanding. Glyphosate resistant strains just allow single cropping more efficiently. This leaves more land for other things.
There is some validity in this. (Though it ignores risks like air-borne spores.) But will there really be more land? For the discussion in this post, let’s all stipulate that human population already exceeds any optimum. Haven’t improvements to agriculture been a big part of that problem? Why encourage more of it?
And, do be aware that _I’ve conceded GM may be the least-bad approach for the immediate future_. Call it wishful thinking, but I think both humanity and Gaia herself would be better off with, say, only a billion humans, and that any GM experiments be small-scale and avoid any risk to overall biosphere.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2015, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085/19 "2015-10-19T16:35:05Z")
> [@septimus](#):
>
> There is some validity in this. (Though it ignores risks like air-borne spores.) But will there really be more land? For the discussion in this post, let’s all stipulate that human population already exceeds any optimum. Haven’t improvements to agriculture been a big part of that problem? Why encourage more of it?
Uh, correct me if I am wrong but ‘not encouraging’ it would lead to famine.
Frankly I like the world where we have the abilty (albeit not the political moxie) to feed everyone on it. That world is actually quite a recent development vs. the old days of hoping nothing went wrong this year with the crops that results in mass starvatio.
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### Author:  [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2015, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/objective-info-on-monsanto-and-evils-of-roundup/735085/20 "2015-10-19T16:37:43Z")
> [@Mr.Miskatonic](#):
>
> Frankly I like the world where we have the abilty (albeit not the political moxie) to feed everyone on it. That world is actually quite a recent development vs. the old days of hoping nothing went wrong this year with the crops that results in mass starvatio.
And the result of that recent development is decreased birthrates and leveling population.
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