This is a continuation of part 1 (can be found here) where I will go over more questions or statements made about glyphosate and go over the statement in explanation. My goal is to go into more depth with answering questions than before, and to use more citations.

Well Presented Questions

The EU is talking about banning glyphosate, so how can it be considered safe?

The EU is less voting on a ban and more voting on revoking/providing a license for it to be sold. The problem with this is that there has been a large amount of opposition of the revoking of a license and a large opposition to renew it. One of the most important factors to consider is that glyphosate is so non selective that it will kill almost any plant ranging from weeds all the way to trees and because of this environmentalists warn of threat to many different populations. On the other hand, farming with herbicide has been revolutionary for crop yields and because it has become paramount for farmers, many are banding together to threaten lawsuit if it is banned. The banning in the EU has less to do with potential harms to humans and more to do with the potential harm it has caused to the ecosystem but even so petitions have been signed for the ban on the potential carcinogenic properties.^[1][2][3][4]

From a standpoint, this topic of banning glyphosate actually has some backing when you take in all the information and if glyphosate is banned in the EU then we could potentially see it become slowly phased out all over the world for other herbicides or potentially more organic foods. However, if pressure is kept on the political figures around this subject then we may see the license get renewed. Either way I am looking forward to see what happens but yet fear the potential of licenses not being renewed as that has a larger potential of causing problems within the community. On that note though if the license is removed then farmers will basically have until 2020 to phase it out which will be interesting at that. This one is rather opinionated as it is happening, let me know what your opinions of the potential phasing out, or ban, of glyphosate as a reply.

Bee populations have been steadily declining since the 1970's and 80% of all insect populations have died!

So as you can see from the image on my left here, honey bee populations have been in a steady decline since the 1950's and around 1980 they actually increased a little bit. Basically this argument can be answered with Correlation does not imply Causation^[5] but many people have made the argument of herbicides destroying bee populations. In the first study they looked at how acetylcholinesterase (AChE) was affected with sub-lethal exposure to a variant of pesticides including glyphosate, imidacloprid, clothianidin, and atrazine. There was also a set of control groups placed next to three different corn fields (organic, non-cultivated, and conventional) and monitored the affects of AChE. Glyphosate lowered AChE activity while the neonicotinoid insecticides (imidacloprid and clothianidin) had raised AChE activity. While this does not delve into potential lethality of glyphosate, it does show how bees can represent a biomarker for neonicotinoids^[6]. The big problem with lookin directly for glyphosphate related articles affecting the bee population is that there are other culprites that are assumed to be much worse, and it is predicted the the relative doses found on plants and in soil is harmless to bees. For this reason a better assertion as to why the bee population is decreasing would be the increased use of neonicotinoids^[7], not glyphosate.

The next problem to talk about is the insect problem of a decline in nearly 80%^[8] which is a more... extrapolated concept. First off, if the usage of insecticides has increased over the years than certain insect species that feed on plants will have a decreased population, but so will the insect populations that feed off of those populations. This continues as certain weeds, or other plants deemed unwanted, may be used as a food source for other plants and if their populations decrease via herbicide usage than they also have a decreased population. The thing to note is that decreased insect populations are not a cause of a single item but the product of many items^[9]. That all being said, not all populations have suffered equally and because of that a broad statement saying all insect populations have dropped by 80% is incorrect.

Intermission

I truly want to put forth a notion that many may find surprising which is that there are honest reasons to not use glyphosate, and there are plenty of good arguments against it. The problem with many of these arguments is that they are not made and instead the arguments get reduced to incorrect comprehensions at best and full conspiracy hypothesis at the worst. The biggest problem with determining problems of glyphosate, or some other new chemical, is that we generally look at the chemical on its own and maybe a few interactions it makes with other chemicals. This leads to issues with the fact that there are a near infinite number of interactions that can potentially change a chemical into something else and because of this some chemical can be deemed safe, yet cause harmful effects in the environment. For this reason it is safe to say that glyphosate is safe for humans in moderate doses (like that found on produce) but that the presence of other chemicals may change toxicity^[10]. Now if you notice that picture is a link to a website that argues against glyphosates usage on the grounds it is genotoxic (true in high enough doses^[11][12]), that it doesn;t break down in the environment (it does^[11][12]), that it is a endocrine inhibitor (will discuss), that it is linked to cancer (it is in high doses^[11][12]), it causes DNA damage (genotoxic, which again, repeating themselves much?) and so on. I figured I will create a list of all their reasons they produce and remove any duplicates.Remember this is their list of items that determine that lyphosate should be banned.

1. Genotoxic (has the potential to alter genetic information) -> True
2. Weed resistance is making it obsolete -> kind of, but no.
3. Usage is increasing steadily -> true
4. "Glyphosate causes birth defects, tumors, and reproductive disorders in animals, as well as sharp declines in beneficial insects" -> No,
5. Endocrine Disruptor -> I will discuss further
6. Research is still being done to determine if it is toxic -> yes it is, which is good
7. Primary reason for GM crops -> maybe for Monsanto but otherwise this is false.

We have effectively reduced their list of 10 to a list of 7 of which many parts have been answered already

Endocrine disruption of Glyphosate

A study in 2009 found that endocrine disruption was present at around 5 ppm when direct contact with a specific cell was made <sup[13] which would in turn contradict the findings of a study done be the EPA^[14]. Now the discussion when looking further into this becomes important as when looking at other studies around this subject I either got referred back to a copy of these studies or else the study took in the conclusions of one of these studies (though not all did) and because of this I will not make any decisive conclusions on this as I feel that there is not enough evidence to fully classify it either way. Yes on the small scale it is found that it will interact with endocrine pathways but on a more macro scale it does not appear to have any evidence of actually disrupting the endocrine pathways. One thing to note as important though is the study looking at the more micro scale looked not only at glyphosate but also glyphosate based herbicides (roundup) and could be used to determine roundup as a endocrine disruptor.

Conclusion for Part 2

I would like to write a conclusion for part 2 right now. There are many potential questions to answer for this topic, and many of which I am working on. However, I decided to put a little more effort into answering the questions for part 2 and a little more effort into formatting, hopefully it may pay off. If there are anymore pressing questions, or statements I come across that would be better off to correct then I will make a part 3. If you yourself have any questions than please ask, and if you have any corrections to make to the information then please comment a correction. I will have no problem giving you credit for correcting me on anything unless you do not want me to. Please tell me what you think of this, whether it be on content, formatting, or otherwise. Thank you for reading!

References

[original] steemit.com/science/@kryzsec/debunking-misinformation-abot-glyphosate-with-direct-references-to-studies-part-1
[image 1 source] www.hoajonline.com/journals/A-Z/J/toxicology/content/figure/volume/2/1/fig1.jpg
[1] www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/24/eu-brink-historic-decision-pervasive-glyphosate-weedkiller
[2] www.greens-efa.eu/en/article/document/alternatives-to-herbicide-in-weed-management/
[3] stopglyphosate.org/en/
[4] www.farminguk.com/news/Farm-groups-threaten-legal-action-if-EU-fails-to-decide-on-glyphosate-renewal_47707.html
[image 2 source] www.navdanyainternational.it/images/campagne/stop_glyphosate_small.jpg
[image 3 source] honeybee-blakeshelton.weebly.com/uploads/3/0/1/1/30110695/839480798.jpg?537
[5] ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation.html
[6] link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11356-013-1568-2
[7] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid
[8] www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/where-have-all-insects-gone
[9] www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24406559
[image 4 src] e360.yale.edu/assets/site/F1.large_C.jpg
[10] web.uvic.ca/~ssrl01/CAREXtemp/Timis%20Glyphosate.pdf
[11] www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/emon/pubs/fatememo/glyphos.pdf
[12] npic.orst.edu/factsheets/glyphogen.html
[image 5 source] upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Illu_endocrine_system_New.png/250px-Illu_endocrine_system_New.png
[13] www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19539684
[14] web.archive.org/web/20160116111524/http://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-06/documents/glyphosate-417300_2015-06-29_txr0057175.pdf