Social media’s coverage of glyphosate has been on a par with that for the Covid vaccine – misunderstandings, mistruths and alarmist activist statements purporting to explain the reality.
And the language used is hyperbolic with anti-chemical lobbyists stating, for instance, that New Zealand is “drenched” in the chemical.
It isn’t.
In its controversial report in 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer alerted the world to potential carcinogen issues related to glyphosate but stated that evidence of a link to non-Hodgkin Lymphoma was limited.
Dr Andrew Kniss, Professor of Weed Science at the University of Wyoming, has calculated that 97 per cent of people with non-Hodgkin lymphoma have had no exposure to glyphosate.
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Despite the evidence, the statements of the health dangers continue. In New Zealand, the new focus in the media is the people applying the chemical.
An American study of 55,000 workers, over 80 per cent of whom had used glyphosate, did not find any significant association with cancer at any site.
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Glyphosate herbicide is approved in New Zealand because the positive aspects are indisputable and, when guidelines on use are followed, no link to cancer has been shown.