The possible health risks of weedkiller are the subject in this Utalk. Karin in Amsterdam ask:
“The World Health Organisation has recently classified a herbicide, glyphosate, as ‘probably carcinogenic’. Is there any risk in using products containing it, such as Roundup?
Kurt Straif, of WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer responds: “You have to understand that the monographs programme are a programme of “hazard identification” that is the question : can it cause cancers in humans under some circumstances ?”
“Now, your question is more to the question of risk assessment. What is the risk in low dose exposure if you use it rarely in your garden? Most of the cancer studies in humans – and that is currently the best evidence – come from farmers and other professionals applying this in agriculture.
It (glyphosate) is certainly one of the most widely used herbicides and it exists in more than 750 different products being used around the world, and it has more recently even
