
Glyphosate perturbs the gut microbiota of honey bees - mayamatrix
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/09/18/1803880115
======
arctangos
I find it disheartening that it takes studies of this nature to reshape
regulations. Glyphosate (as Roundup) has been the bestselling herbicide on the
market since 1980. Among bee-keepers, asserting that "roundup kills bees" is
about as controversial as "rain makes things wet."

The US regulatory environment treats artificially prepared chemicals as
innocent until proven guilty. A safer approach (recently adopted in Europe)
would be to guarantee the safety of industrial, agricultural, and household
chemicals before they are allowed to go to market.

On a potentially related note, sperm counts in the western world have been
declining precipitously since 1990. I'd bet that glyphosate and/or other
common poorly regulated chemicals have something to do with this.

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sperm-count-
dropp...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sperm-count-dropping-in-
western-world/)

~~~
klmr
> I find it disheartening that it takes studies of this nature to reshape
> regulations.

You … find it disheartening that regulations require sound evidence? That’s
odd.

> Among bee-keepers, asserting that "roundup kills bees" is about as
> controversial as "rain makes things wet."

You may be confusing Roundup with neonicotinoids here. The latter are known to
harm bee ecosystems by weakening the bee immune system. Glyphosate generally
hasn’t, _despite previous studies_ (which showed no effect on bees). That’s
why the new study is actually surprising (if it holds up, and there are
already some potential concerns).

> I'd bet that glyphosate and/or other common poorly regulated chemicals have
> something to do with [reduction in sperm counts].

There is no evidence for this, and no good reason to assume so (for one,
there’s no known biochemical connection here, and the general population does
not come into contact with glyphosate in noticeable amounts). A much more
plausible reason is the presence of residues from hormonal contraceptives in
drinking water. But even that is tenuous, and general changes in nutrition are
a more plausible candidate.

In sum, nothing of what you’ve said is supported by evidence.

~~~
titzer
> There is no evidence for this, and no good reason to assume so

I'm gonna invite you to a game called the Pepsi challenge, wherein you're
obliged to imbibe a glass full of unknown chemical X and survive 24 hours
before you spray it on food that other people eat and/or insert it directly
into the foodchain. Wanna play?

It's not scare tactics to be careful with food specifically and the ecosystem
in general. You see, we now have the science to actually do experiments and
test things for safety before industry belches out thousands or millions of
tons of the stuff into the foodchain, whereas 100 years ago we did not. IMO it
is actually irresponsible to not do so. What we lack is the political will,
and default positions like yours are not helpful.

In my very honest opinion, 100% serious--I think it's entirely reasonable to
require proof of safety before _society grants you permission_ to inject your
newly designed chemicals into the food chain.

~~~
brandonmenc
A glass of pure caffeine would kill you. Probably any single compound
naturally present in fruits and vegetables would kill you if you drank a
concentrated, purified cup of it.

~~~
fggcc
List of things in fruit that, if consumed pure, wouldn’t kill me (a cup):

1\. Water 2\. Fiber 3\. Sugar (that would hurt though) 4\. Protein

Yes, trace amounts of essential oils would kill me if purified and I drank a
cup of it. But be precise!

Also, we’ve co-evolved with essential oils in plants. We haven’t co-evolved
with synthetic chemicals. Therefore, synthetic analogies can be expected to
behave in a similar but devastatingly different manner (nicotine, vs nicotine-
like. Natural vs. synthetic insulin, etc)

------
sampo
A critical comment:

Look at Figure 1B. The variation in the gut microbes is large at the start of
the study (day 0). Feeding the bees 5 mg/liter glyphosate, they have a
statistically significant difference from the control (no glyphosate) in 5
microbes out of 8. But feeding 10 mg/liter, they get no statistically
significant differences from the control.

They have no explanation for why glyphosate seems to have an effect at 5
mg/litre concentration but not at the higher 10 mg/litre concentration ("The
relative lack of effects of the G-10 treatment on the microbiota composition
at day 3 posttreatment is unexplained"). They do give speculations, though.

------
hinkley
I don’t _care_ what glyphosate does or doesn’t do. Monsanto has a pile of
research showing it as mostly harmless. Maybe that’s like Big Tobacco. Time
will tell.

What I do care about is what Roundup does. There are many many curious
compounds in Roundup, and some of them appear to be much nastier than
glyphosate. If for instance all of these stomach problems people have been
having lately are caused by application of Roundup to aid in grain harvesting,
we need to know sooner rather than later. And it doesn’t really matter as much
to me which chemical is the culprit. It’s the same bad actors regardless.

~~~
bmillare
Yes, just like this study shows:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15929894](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15929894)

~~~
hinkley
> Surprisingly, Roundup is always more toxic than its active ingredient.

Yeah. I dunno why that's surprising.

We put surfactants in pesticides so that the bugs absorb more. Stabilizers in
other things so they don't break down. This is just another Thursday.

------
mkettn
Figure 1 looks weird. At day 0 the ranges for the bacterias in the evaluated
groups (C, G-5, G-10) differ a lot - Is this noise? Why? If i interpret this
graphic right the study did find bacteria changes at lower levels of
glyphosate(G-5), but not at higher levels of glyphosate expose (G-10). I am no
bee expert but I doubt that bees normally eat sugar syrup all day - which also
will contribute to the weird stuff happening in the C-group in comparision
from day 0 to 3.

------
bmillare
Worse, Roundup (what's actually being sprayed) is likely causing even more
damage than what these glyphosate (just one "active" ingredient) studies are
suggesting since other studies demonstrate a significant difference in effect
of the cocktail vs just the "active" ingredient

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15929894](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15929894)

------
chr1
We need to invest more into development of gene drives for elimination of
agricultural pests.

The recent development of gene drive on doublesex gene for mosquitoes gives
hope that it can work for majority of insects.

And if we find a way to use similar technique for plants, the resulting
reduction of pesticide use will be helpful not only for the people but also
for remaining species of insects and plants.

------
bryanlarsen
This is a "coffee causes cancer" type of study. The concentrations involved
are very high. And as they say, "the dose makes the poison".

But it's a great first study; there will be lots of people looking a lot
closer at the link now.

~~~
shijie
No, it's not. Did you read the article?

From the study:

 _Glyphosate concentrations were chosen to mimic environmental levels, which
typically range between 1.4 and 7.6 mg /L, and may be encountered by bees
foraging at flowering weeds._

They fed the bees concoctions of Glyphosate between 5 mg/L and 10 mg/L, which
at the top end is a bit more than 7.6 mg/L, but still quite near normal
parameters found in a normal environment.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Those are high normal concentrations for glyphosate in spot spraying
applications, not for the much more common broadcast applications, and assume
that the bees are drinking straight from the sprayer for five days in a row.

------
partingshots
Bayer really messed up with their Monsanto acquisition. Right when sentiment
against the company reached a breaking point, and people finally began
imposing a concerted backlash.

------
40four
Glyphosate is the main ingredient in "Round up". I imagine residential use
probably has a minimal impact, but this seems like a big problem considering
the rise of "Round up resistant" crops. When whole fields are being sprayed at
scale, seems like that could be very disruptive to a bee population.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Actually, it's quite possible that residential use is much more harmful than
agricultural usage. The study used _very_ high concentrations of glyphosate,
and residential usage of glyphosate uses it at a much higher concentration
than farmers do.

~~~
chicob
I was about to say that.

From a personal experience (I'm a farmer) the concentrations used in a
residential context are exaggeratedly above the recommendation. They are
mismeasured and generally high.

Plus, glyphosate preparations need to be corrected in pH (below 5 for maximal
efficacy), which is something many people don't do.

The professionals doing weed control in cities absolutely must have training
and adequate PPE. The same thing applies to pest control.

I'm not against professional usage of pesticides, but I would be OK with
forbidding most insecticides and herbicides for personal usage. The every day
insecticide spraying can? That thing is poison. Does anyone use a FFP2 mask or
even a simple cotton mask? Many permetrine-based insecticides don't even
mention that this active substance is specially deadly to cats.

~~~
Karunamon
>I'm not against professional usage of pesticides, but I would be OK with
forbidding most insecticides and herbicides for personal usage

That is entirely unreasonable as a conclusion. It leads to a world where only
people rich enough to hire landscapers and exterminators are able to control
insects and weeds.

Of course insecticide is poison. That's literally the point. Don't breathe it,
get it on you, or let your pets around it. It's not difficult advice to abide
by.

~~~
klmr
You make a good point but I wouldn’t banning a potentially dangerous chemical
that requires expert use to be safe “entirely unreasonable”. In fact the same
is true for _most_ such compounds, at least in large parts of Western Europe
(less so in the US, I think, but something as harmless as Sudafed is a
counter-example): there are many industrial chemicals which you cannot (or
only via detours) purchase legally in stores.

I’m generally not a fan of such regulations because most of these chemicals
have no common use and the potential for abuse is therefore relatively small.
But for many pesticides and herbicides, the potential for harmful misuse is
very real.

------
macawfish
Maybe some self righteous "skeptics" could take this as a moment to apologize,
figuratively or actually, to the people they derided as "quacks" for urging
caution about glyphosate.

~~~
CodeWriter23
No, they’ll just move on to attacking people about other products where the
assumptions of safety or efficacy have not yet been debunked. Thanks for the
good laugh though.

------
nyc111
Is there a living creature without a microbiome?

------
nikkiofearth
Is this the reason they have been dying! WOOT! Will we be able to change fast
enough to save them?

