Arizona State University researchers created an association between glyphosate exposure in mice and symptoms of neuroinflammation, as well as "accelerated Alzheimer’s disease-like pathology", whatever that is supposed to mean, and claim that farming could mean a persistent risk to human health.
There are numerous problems with the paper and why it will remain in the EXPLORATORY file, along with surveys claiming organic strawberries make customers happier, and only promoted by trial lawyers and the environmental groups they fund.
Scary-looking, right? That is the goal. It is also scientifically meaningless.
First, it is in mice. Little is understood about Alzheimer's in humans and even less in mice. Correlating inflammation in mice using toxic exposures of a common weedkiller to human maladies is not science, or Alzheimer's would have been cured 10,000 times by now.
Second, if the link is real, where are all the diseases? Glyphosate has been in common use for over 50 years. It is the most popular weedkiller in history. While Alzheimer's is better diagnosed than in the past, there are no more cases, and by now there would have been.
Third, glyphosate was invented in 1950 but went unused because it has no effect on humans. Glyphosate was not invented to kill weeds, it was created at a small pharmaceutical company, Cilag, by Dr. Henri Martin. They sold out to Johnson and Johnson, and then J&J sold those research samples to Aldrich Chemical. It was only decades later that researchers discovered that having no human effect but a great impact on weeds meant a huge benefit to the poor. "Population Bomb" and Government Sterilization efforts by Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren in their book "Ecoscience" became dystopian science-fiction only embraced by doomsday prophets in environmental groups a decade later.
Fourth, they claim glyphosate exposure created a "proxy" for anxiety in mice, which could lead to Alzheimer's, but their source for that was a paper that used the mouse microbiome as a proxy for anxiety. Not only is there no valid link to Alzheimer's, their ethereal link is only as a proxy of a proxy of a proxy.
Fifth, Researchers joke about "Researcher Number Two" in peer-review, the contrarian, but this pay-to-publish claim being made with no legitimate peer-review at all shows that anything goes if the credit card clears.
Science does not matter to evangelists against weedkillers. For example, they invoke supernatural numbers, like how much glyphosate is used each year, to try and get Mother Jones or Washington Post SEO writers to rehash their press release - without noting that the "organic" alternative embraced by anti-science fundamentalists is far more harmful to the environment and used in far greater quantities per calorie.
They note that it is persistent too, but what does that matter? In 2024, we can detect anything in anything. Everything can be considered "persistent" and if it isn't scaremongered as "persistent" some other group is claiming it can be "detected" in urine of breast milk or water and is therefore harmful.(1)
If that isn't enough, these academics are also opposed to GMOs because, really, why not go for all of it if you are going for any of it? Despite no ill effects in billions of humans and trillions of animals, they allege that because GMOs work so well, glyphosate got more popular and therefore...we're all getting Alzheimer's?
When they ask questions like "Is glyphosate safe to use at all?" they show that their goal is not science or to inform public health, it is to undermine science. People, especially on the left in America, only discovered that the anti-vaccine movement was a well-funded corporate conspiracy narrative when a Republican embraced Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and hopefully academics, who over 90% Democrats, will realize that the same conspiracy theory is behind the anti-GMO movement. And Kennedy is the leader of that also.
(1) Activists against farmers move the goalposts a lot. Fortunately, for them, and unfortunately for the poor who have affordable food, the Ayotollah of the Progressive Anti-Science Movement, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., may finally get access to a President that Obama was denied. He also gave up cigarettes and his Blackberry, so abandoning Kennedy was likely easier in that context. It may be more challenging to send Kennedy back to Natural Resources Defense Council this time.
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