“It’s inevitable that glyphosate is all wound up in GMOs,” writes Tamar Haspel in the Washington Post. Many of the strains of GMO crops on the market were designed to tolerate the herbicide, so the crops survive when the chemical is sprayed in fields to kill weeds. A WHO agency says glyphosate is probably carcinogenic for humans although other evaluators, including EPA, determined it’s not. The WHO agency looked at risk but not the exposure that would cause cancer. “Unfortunately, dosage is an issue we humans tend to ignore,” writes Haspel. A professor emeritus at the University of Guelph says humans have a relatively low exposure to glyphosate.
Glyphosate replaced more toxic weedkillers in some cases and weedkillers are key in the low-till or no-till practices that reduce soil erosion. But heavy use of glyphosate has led to weeds that withstand the chemical. “The most destructive consequence of herbicide tolerance, though, is consumer hostility in a conversation about GMOs that is dominated by that trait,” says the Post article, noting some GMO strains utilize biopesticides that reduce the need for synthetic sprays. “We have a baby here, and we have bathwater. We have to learn the difference.”