Thread: Roundup - interesting new research

Originally Posted by bob10

This hits a nerve with me , I'm sure you all know of Agent Orange, Vietnam Veterans are still dying from the effects of this to this day. Please bear with me as I quote from the Research Officer from the ACT. Vietnam Veterans Federation branch.[ rather long winded]
R.A.N. Personnel have the highest incidence of prostrate cancer of all the service group from the Vietnam era. Why? Their prolonged and unrelenting exposure to Agent Orange in their drinking, cooking and washing water. In short, members of Ships Companies deployed to Vietnam waters during the war were exposed to Agent Orange toxins at unnacceptable levels by consuming potable water which had been produced by evaporative distillation of estuarine Vietnamese waters. This report, in the main has not been challenged by D.V.A. the report goes on in detail, too long for our forum, however one statistic is very surprising----the mortality rate of Vietnam Veterans from prostrate cancer is 53% higher than the Aust. average, lung cancer 29% higher, and dioxins have been directly linked to these diseases. The breakdown between the services was even more surprising;

Army 1.00%

R.A.A.F. 1.12% - 12% ABOVE THE AVERAGE

Navy 1.37% -37% above the average.

The report goes on, and none of it is good news for any Vietnam Veteran, but a point I would like to make is --- if Vietnam Veterans are falling off the perch this many years after the war , we pulled out in 1975, what is ahead for the people of Aust. who are subjected to the run off of toxins used in our farming community today? Who knows what toxins the Chinese farmers use on their products we import? Sorry to be morbid, but I'm one of the ones waiting and wondering when my number will come up--to hell with it , lets have a beer! Bob10

State Forests around Australia use a Monsanto product called Tordon (also known as Agent White, AKA 245T) to poison trees in their Silviculture activities, this is a Chlorine based Herbicide and when the wood is burnt either in bushfires or woodheaters it releases Dioxins and Furans into the atmosphere. This eventually settles on the ground and in the rivers and finds it's way into the food chain. These toxins are absorbed by the body and cannot be gotten rid of, that's why they are called Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP). In Australia busfires and woodheating is the largest source of POP's.
Regards Frank.

Originally Posted by roverrescue

But I also disagree with sloppy, inflammatory reporting of scientific results

Steve

Does that differ from sloppy, inflamatory reporting of nonscientific public opinion???

Seriously though Steve - you raise some good points. The text I pasted was from a blog AFAIK. Hardly unbiased, but the paper seems rigorous, and ACS papers are very good quality (- I just submitted to an ACS journal )

It is pointed out that the dosage was 1/10 of what is acceptable in crops. Plenty of animals eat 1/10 of their body weight in a day. Maybe not humans, but then...

Also - as mentioned, this study should hopefully prompt a bunch of further studies, which will improve the body of knowledge...

all fair points Ben.
WRT your first call - the best of the internets is the dissemination of knowledge across the globe : the worst is that critical analysis of information is not widely practiced.


I feel for the researchers - by the sounds of it they will get a bit of heat from the big end of town!

Steve

Originally Posted by Tank

State Forests around Australia use a Monsanto product called Tordon (also known as Agent White, AKA 245T) to poison trees in their Silviculture activities, this is a Chlorine based Herbicide and when the wood is burnt either in bushfires or woodheaters it releases Dioxins and Furans into the atmosphere. This eventually settles on the ground and in the rivers and finds it's way into the food chain. These toxins are absorbed by the body and cannot be gotten rid of, that's why they are called Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP). In Australia busfires and woodheating is the largest source of POP's.
Regards Frank.

Not sure on the 245,T component, but Tordon 75 definitely has 2,4-D amine (ester) and picloram (a residual) as an active base.

I considered it and Grazon as part of a woody weed control program on a grazing property, but settled on the more benign Starane 200 and (and MCPA for thistle/broadleaf weed control)

The property was organic/BD in transition when i took over and by using the above two chemicals we could re-apply for organic status twelve months after ceasing use of Starane, not so with Tordon, Grazon, etc.

The then County weeds officer warned me off the esters, in his opinion (a long time farmer) they were too damned nasty to use and so we worked with the chem companies agronomist for the best outcome for us.

Obviously they tried to upsell us to their most exxy products (Grazon and Tordon, etc) but there were several considerations IMO.
1, what was best for the farm/soil/etc, including impact on the other grazing grasses and hence stock.
2, what was best (least impact) for us using it, and
3, the $ value.

That first season the farm bought $16,000 worth of herbicide, if we'd used Grazon and a little Tordon it would have been around $22-24,000 (and we put the lot out to tender to get the best price)
That is a pure chem cost, it doesn't include the cost of hiring spary contractors for boom spraying (we did most of the spot spraying, we had a 400litre tank on the back of the ute)

I think a lot of people would be shocked at how much chem usage there is in rural Australia, but as one Cockie said to me once "we don't want to use it, and we use as little as possible but we need to use it stay afloat"

Before anyone thinks it's open slather out there, I had to record temps, wind direction and velocity before starting to spray, and we'd stop as soon as the wind strength picked up too much, record how much went out any time, etc.
The spray contractors who boom sprayed for us had to do the same.
Farmer have to do ChemCert courses these days before they can buy any of the nastier type of herbicides, their chems have to be locked away in a bunded enclosure, etc, etc.

Having worked both sides of the organic/ conventional divide, good organic farming isn't easy, it can be extremely labour intensive and from what I've seen a lot of 'organic' farms are organic by neglect/laziness. That's not to say there aren't some fantastic organic/BD operators, but a few seem to close their eyes to the state of health of their farm, the opposite of what is often spruiked as a benefit of an organic system.

The flip side is that a lot of chem is sprayed out on pasture, crops and animals and what the long term exposure to the build-up of some of these chems in our collective systems is, well, sometimes it can be generations before effects show up.

Oops, sorry for the monologue

Originally Posted by Tank

State Forests around Australia use a Monsanto product called Tordon (also known as Agent White, AKA 245T) to poison trees in their Silviculture activities, this is a Chlorine based Herbicide and when the wood is burnt either in bushfires or woodheaters it releases Dioxins and Furans into the atmosphere. This eventually settles on the ground and in the rivers and finds it's way into the food chain. These toxins are absorbed by the body and cannot be gotten rid of, that's why they are called Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP). In Australia busfires and woodheating is the largest source of POP's.
Regards Frank.

For The sake of accuracy sake Tordon does not contain 245T which has been banned in Australia since the 1980s. It coes contain 2,4-D which is currently still allowed as an amine. The ester variety was deregistered fairly recently I believe.
Regards,
Tote

Originally Posted by Tote

The ester variety was deregistered fairly recently I believe.

Not to my knowledge, only time of year and temperature restrictions and that's due to its volatility and thus ability to be carried by air currents, not its active ingredient per se.

Originally Posted by Tote

For The sake of accuracy sake Tordon does not contain 245T which has been banned in Australia since the 1980s. It coes contain 2,4-D which is currently still allowed as an amine. The ester variety was deregistered fairly recently I believe.
Regards,
Tote

You might be confusing it with endosulfan which has (finally) been de-registered in the last couple of weeks, as per one of my posts above.

Nope, I was just wrong about the esters, they are restricted, not banned.

Regards,
Tote