- A: Getting as much hits as possible so they have more income from ads.

Also: "Cancer-linked herbicide, sold as Roundup by Monsanto, present in 45 products including granola, snack bars and Cheerios" is very sensational because there are a lot of types of herbicides.

Glyphosate is possible connected to cancer but there is not much proof for it.

Edit: (disclaimer) I think it's still crazy companies are allowed to add toxic synthetic chemicals to nature.

For example: In the US and Netherlands there is now GenX [1] in drinking water because it is unsure if GenX can cause any harm. Well imho that should be the other way around: only allow chemicals to be dumped in open water if you are 100% sure it can't do harm.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GenX

These are the levels deemed safe for levels in food[1]. The median seems to be about 0.2ppm for glyphosate levels in food meant for human consumption.

[1] https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/retrieveECFR?gp=&SID=0f2a0a6738...

Even at 1 ppm it is above the line, so they didn't need to sensationalize it.

The 310 ppm mentioned in the article is the limit for "grain aspiration fraction", which I believe is the stuff that falls off grain when you clean it with air(?), which is not something you'd normally be eating, so I don't know why the Guardian pulled that number out. The highest limit I saw in the EFCR tables for anything people would be eating seemed to be mint at 200ppm; most everything else was under 100ppm for human consumption, and the things with 200, 300, 400 ppm limits was animal feed.

Combine that with a "think of the children" perspective and it makes great sensational-but-vacuous news.

As they say, the dose makes the poison...

Looks like they were wrong.

(Note that I'm not saying that RoundUp is worse than other stuff, or that there's more of it in our food that of other stuff.)

Glyphosate is sometimes used on wheat and oats when the plant is at the end of its lifecycle when it is fine, if not desirable, if it kills the crop. We can reasonably conclude that the traces showed up because of the crop being non-GMO, delaying application until the plants are old.

That's not true at all. Many companies offer Non-GMO oats. There's is a big difference between crops being sprayed with glyphosate and crops coming from non-GMO seeds.

Being a grain farmer, I know. :)

Here's something a little more reputable. https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-science-behind-the-roun...

That's a bit of an oversimplification.

This article helps clarify the situation: https://www.factcheck.org/2017/08/glyphosate-cause-cancer/

An important point is the following:

> "An FAQ page on WHO’s website clarifies why the IARC’s and the pesticide residue experts’ conclusions aren’t contradictory.

> "The 2015 IARC conclusion aimed to identify any potential cancer hazard glyphosate may pose to humans at some level of exposure, WHO explains. But in 2016, the pesticide residue experts at WHO and the U.N. assessed the actual cancer risk the herbicide poses to consumers at a specific level of exposure, namely the level commonly found in foods."

Further:

> "In fact, a yet-to-be-published study that found no link between glyphosate and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, may have changed IARC’s 2015 analysis of the herbicide had it been published."

It's also worth noting that the IARC's finding is somewhat speculative, as described in https://www.nature.com/news/widely-used-herbicide-linked-to-... :

> "The IARC review notes that there is limited evidence for a link to cancer in humans. Although several studies have shown that people who work with the herbicide seem to be at increased risk of a cancer type called non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the report notes that a separate huge US study, the Agricultural Health Study, found no link to non-Hodgkin lymphomas. That study followed thousands of farmers and looked at whether they had increased risk of cancer.

> "But other evidence, including from animal studies, led the IARC to its ‘probably carcinogenic’ classification. Glyphosate has been linked to tumours in mice and rats — and there is also what the IARC classifies as ‘mechanistic evidence’, such as DNA damage to human cells from exposure to glyphosate."

There's a good amount of research showing no cancer links in practice at realistic levels, though, for example. Here are a couple of studies (one of which is mentioned above):

Cancer Incidence among Glyphosate-Exposed Pesticide Applicators in the Agricultural Health Study - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1253709/ - "Glyphosate exposure was not associated with cancer incidence overall or with most of the cancer subtypes we studied."

Epidemiologic studies of glyphosate and cancer: A review - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027323001... - "Seven cohort studies and fourteen case-control studies examined the association between glyphosate and one or more cancer outcomes. Our review found no consistent pattern of positive associations indicating a causal relationship between total cancer (in adults or children) or any site-specific cancer and exposure to glyphosate."

In short, this is not an issue that justifies running around with one's hair on fire, unless that happens to be your hobby, which it does seem to be for some people.

BTW: "drivel" my arse, as they say there.