> The only large cohort study of high quality found no evidence of an association at any exposure level

Was that the retracted study or a different one?

CGMthrowaway writes:

> Trust the science.

Science is a process, not a result. Retractions like this promote the integrity of scientific research and evidence-based medicine.

> When Dr. Oz in 2015 spoke out against glyphosate...

Oz also promoted MLM dietary supplements, antimalarial drugs as COVID treatments, gay conversion "therapy", colloidal silver, and vaccine skepticism. He has zero credibility and cannot be trusted.

Big Dr Oz fan eh? Got any quotes from Oprah or other HNers to balance the epistemic master class?

Don't spray herbicides everywhere (unless you're certain that's what you want or need).

Instead, just spray each weed a little bit, right above where the leaves connect to the stem.

I get a little paintbrush and paint the leaves of each dandelion with round-up - that ends up killing them but largely leaving other plants alone.

I had a tree root growing through the driveway asphalt. My handyman told me to get Roundup Pro because it will actually kill the root, unlike the other herbicides. So I got a gigantic gallon tub of it. It was effective. Good to know that "the good stuff" is now found to be not problematic.

This is cool, & new to me. Do you know when they made the change? "some quantities may remain on store shelves until remaining stocks are sold" implies it was recently to the post, but I'm not sure when that was.

You can also use just heat. Like a long propane torch or one of the newer electric infrared ones. It doesn't need a lot of heat, a short burn (like a bit less than a second) is perfectly sufficient to make them wilt within a few days.

Weeds are the flora equivalent of VC-hype-startups. All growth, no substance and no plan B. They pop-up everywhere, with seemingly infinite growth resources and hope you'll despair and do nothing.

Just going around plucking leaves from everything that looks like you won't like it for a few weeks twice a year works wonders.

Basically regulatory capture for your lawn. No need to help along your darlings (in the beginning), just make everyone else play with stupid rules. And once things start going down the drain, it's time for subsidies (fertilizer) and public contracts (pre-germination).

This is just a recipe to spread weeds everywhere. If you mow them, most of the time you’ll just break them open and spread their seeds

I will hate the ground elder as long as I live (but did manage to eradicate it from our garden thru hard work, only to see it spring back up in our neighbor's yard, it's their problem (for) now).

I don't understand. What we call "weeds" are plants that evolved to grow quickly and spread quickly. Many gave segmented stems/leaves to resist core damage from cuts and pulls.

Or if you do want a manicured plot, just cut them with a lawnmower?

The bane of my young life was having the job of cutting the grass around the house - we lived in the country at the time and had about 1/2 an acre of lawn as well as fruit trees, plants, vegetables, etc.

We never considered using weedkiller - I just can't see the need. Isn't it just as easy to pull the weed out of the ground as it is to spray round-up on it and wait for it to die, before presumably anyway pulling the remains of it?

Ignoring the health implications completely, I can see some "value" of using round-up in a commercial environment where your dealing with 100s of acres or more but fail to see what benefit it provides in a domestic setting when the number of weeds is small enough that it would just takes minutes to remove them physically and toss them into a compost heap.

I agree about with your claim, but the answer to your question is that “weeds” is a set of species that contains both invasive, ecologically harmful species, and crucial native annual and perennial forbs+grasses.

From the universalizability principle, if everyone merely let “weeds” propagate, because of the ecology of invasives that are in that set, we would be MUCH worse off for the next few millennia than we are now. Until the ecosystems healed and the “invasives” become “keystone species”. Not sure how long that would take but we won’t see it :)

In my area, some weeds will absolutely take over and choke out everything else while also spreading throughout the neighborhood to the delight of all.

But roundup isnt much of an option when the weeds are next to the nice stuff. My compromise is to pull the weeds when I'm motivated to and call it a day.

I live in an extremely high wildfire risk area. I also have an extreme rodent problem. Keeping the vegetation low around structures is indicated.

Why is something someone else enjoys a "pesticide-ridden hellscape?"

How would you like me to come and pompously shit all over something you enjoy?

Pesticides aren't used to kill weeds.

Herbicides are useful, they certainly help prevent invasive weed species from taking over native plants and grasses. I'm Kentucky I'm always fighting Johnson grass, thistle and Japanese knotweed in my bluegrass

Some weeds are quite unpleasant, such as sticker burrs. I'd rather not have a dog and children covered in those.

Some weeds can be damaging to property, trees, sidewalks, etc. or are poisonous.

It's not always about being annoyed by dandelions in an otherwise overly fussed over sterile lawn environment.

How about letting him do what he wants with his own land and not insulting his ideal home?

Thanks for the advice. I bought 30% vinegar on Amazon. The instructions are to add in a little dish soap. Do you think that will safely repel the dog when dry?

If it's low-concentration or diluted vinegar, then yes, but more for maintenance than to kill established weeds.

But industrial-strength vinegar is corrosive and harmful on skin, eye, and lung contact. If OP looked at the bottle and saw skin irritant or corrosion warnings required to be present on it (in the US, at 8% or higher acetic acid concentrations; in the EU, I think it's skin irritant 10-25%, corrosion 25%+), then it's probably that.

Garden stores often sell 20%-45% concentration vinegars, and YouTube/TikTok influencers often promote industrial-strength vinegar at 75% concentrations, at which point it'll damage turf on contact. And any repeat or large pour of high-concentration vinegar can reduce the soil pH deeper than expected, which can be harmful to nearby trees or other root-system plants.

Pulling weeds by hand works for a lot of weeds and is the most environmentally friendly solution where possible. It's what I've done, for the most part.

I will say for some weed species that can be ineffective or counterproductive, unfortunately, and for those a chemical (or other) solution may be in order.

Weeds can also be a sign of a potential problem, such as poor drainage, a leak, etc.

Nutsedge is an example of that. As I recall, pulling it out results in it sending more shoots up if you don't get the nut (which can be feet underground).

At that point, you have to continuously pull weeds on a daily (or multiple times daily) basis in order for it to use up more energy growing than it generates.

It likes water, so if it's there, it might be because there's standing water from rain.

I dug up a raised flower bed to get rid of it once. Nuts were absolutely everywhere because of poor drainage. I had to go down 2 feet I think to get them all, I replaced the bottom layers of impermeable clay soil with something that drained, along with a drain pipe or two.

Now the sedge is gone, the risk of foundation damage from being too wet is gone, and no chemicals were required.

When the alternative is regular and predictable violence. The corporate elite who don't cause issues will vouch for a stronger rule of law wrt their actions, out of fear of becoming an undeserving victim of the zeitgeist. It's better to get dragged into court and be able to prove that you didn't do anything wrong (or even to actually face that prison term), than to get dragged into the street and not see the next sunrise.

I do think that Thompson and Kirk are finally opening some eyes to the possibilities, on both sides.

Yep. There was a company in my country that got a hefty bill after they contaminated a river for a few decades. They simply decided to go bankrupt and leave the country.

Apparently corporations can spin up subsidiaries that are legally siloed.

Right. This is not an area of fines. This is a criminal conspiracy with intent to kill on a wide scale. Absolutely deserving of prison for everyone involved.

It's bizarre that the right wing wants to execute people convicted of a single murder, but tobacco and opioid execs, responsible for millions of deaths, don't receive jail time or even fines.

In this economy? We have people murdering CEOs for free!

OK, but that is not how you properly test pesticides for safety.

Only if you wait for them to go to seed. If it's important to you, don't do that.

I let them grow. Dandelions are harmless.

Wiping out shareholders. I bet shareholders would be a lot more cautious if that was an option.

When it comes to mechanistic speculation, absolutely.

If what you say is true, we would know almost nothing about pharmacology and modern medicine wouldn't exist.

There are basic scientific and statistical methods to avoid this.