Glyphosate and paraquat have led to the “fastest rate of new cancer in the history of human civilization.” This farmer just blew Tucker Carlson’s mind with the truth about pesticides. “I’m not a scientist, I’m just noticing.” Tucker put it bluntly: “Farmers are being abused.” “They’re the victims here.” “They’re the ones getting cancer.” Zach Lahn is a regenerative farmer in Iowa and a candidate for Governor. Agriculture is the top industry in Iowa, but most of it uses chemical pesticides. That means that many Iowans now have a 1 in 2 chance of getting cancer. Lahn revealed that Nevada has comparatively low cancer rates, and Tucker pointed out that comparing Iowa and Nevada reveals a shocking statistic about the modern cancer crisis: “Nevada has the highest smoking rate out of 50 states, but one of the lowest cancer rates.” “Iowa has very low smoking rates relative to Nevada, and has a really high cancer rate.”
ZACH LAHN: Hard no, it shouldn’t be used. But what I want is good science so farmers can say, “Do I want to use this product?” And we can say, “Should this product be allowed?” And also know, “If I’m going to use this product, this is how it should be used.”
We know how glyphosate enters the bloodstream. We know that if it’s on your skin, about 30% enters your bloodstream. About 10% of that is through cardiac output. About 10% goes into your bone marrow. In bone marrow, glyphosate disrupts the replication of hematopoietic stem cells as they’re differentiating from red to white. It’s genotoxic. There are 50 studies that show this. We know how it happens.
And yet there are commercials showing people using this product in flip flops and shorts, just being cavalier about it. We have many products we use — you go into my shop at the farm, there are many products on the shelf that, if used improperly, are bad for your health. And they warn about that on the label. These do not. Not in that same way.
The Williams Study: A Retracted Lie That Stood for Years
But in these papers were also examples like this. In 2000, there was a study called the Williams Study. It’s the most cited study on the safety of glyphosate. The most cited. 99.9% of all papers that cite the safety of glyphosate cite this study.
Last month, that study was retracted because it was found that Monsanto executives wrote it — wrote the study. But here’s maybe even the worst part. We found that out in 2017, and it was retracted in 2025. The Monsanto executive actually said, when sending it back, “He better not have any revisions.” That’s what he said.
And so look, I think very often when you talk about this subject, especially in my home state, there’s this desire to paint you as some liberal hippie that doesn’t like farming. I’m the exact opposite of that.
https://aristotle.science/share/thread/thr_dWsyuT833FsWRnBnUp7A5Fbe
Discrepancies in Data Weighting
The divergence is heavily quantified in the literature. The EPA relied predominantly on registrant-commissioned, unpublished regulatory studies, of which 99% were negative for genotoxicity. Conversely, IARC relied mostly on peer-reviewed public literature, of which 70% reported positive evidence of genotoxicity. Overall, the EPA evaluated only 43% of the assays considered by IARC.
Furthermore, the EPA focused primarily on dietary exposures to pure technical glyphosate, while IARC evaluated all exposure routes, including occupational dermal exposures to formulated GBHs. This distinction is critical because, as established above, formulated GBHs are frequently reported to be more toxic and genotoxic than technical glyphosate alone.
This data gap extends to GMO safety assessments. A review of 30 published reports on glyphosate-tolerant crops found that only 16 studies (53%) used plant material that was actually sprayed with glyphosate during cultivation. Strikingly, none of the 20 industry-funded studies analyzed the plant material for glyphosate residues, whereas independent studies frequently reported significant biological effects from GM feed.
Furthermore, the literature is highly polarized. Industry-sponsored studies consistently report negative findings for genotoxicity and rely heavily on bacterial Ames tests, which lack mitochondria and are unlikely to detect oxidative stress. Conversely, independent literature frequently utilizes high-concentration in vitro exposures that may exceed realistic human dietary or occupational levels. The reliance on secondary narrative reviews by authors involved in litigation also introduces potential selection bias, though the quantitative discrepancies in data weighting between the EPA and IARC are well-documented and reproducible.
I just saw Thomas Massie going scorched earth over Round Up…
If you care to listen, minute 3:20
Glyphosate is neither safe nor effective when you look at the whole picture. The most common defense of glyphosate compares its acute lethal dose (LD50) to caffeine or table salt. The comparison is technically accurate and functionally irrelevant. The actual issue is not acute toxicity, its chronic, low-dose exposure over years via food, water, and contact. This is a different toxicological question, and LD50 cannot address it. IARC classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen, citing sufficient evidence of cancer in animal studies, consistent evidence linking it to non-Hodgkin lymphoma in exposed human populations, and strong mechanistic evidence that it damages DNA and generates oxidative stress. Glyphosate defenders cite the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and EPA over IARC without explaining why these agencies reached different conclusions. EFSA assessed pure glyphosate using unpublished, industry-submitted studies. IARC assessed the commercial formulations actually used in the real world, including surfactants that increase absorption and toxicity – using only peer-reviewed data. Beyond carcinogenicity, peer-reviewed studies associate chronic low-dose exposure with fatty liver disease, endocrine disruption, impaired male fertility, and neuroinflammation. The quoted thread also ignores glyphosate’s declining field efficacy. Decades of over-reliance have selected for herbicide resistant weeds across well over 60 million acres of US farmland and cause an estimated $43 billion in damage to corn and soybean crops in the US and Canada. The industry has responded by stacking additional herbicides onto failing programs, accelerating the cycle of resistance. Compounding this, glyphosate disrupts soil microbial communities, increasing colonization by pathogens, suppressing beneficial bacteria and fungi, and reducing plant immune function. When the health evidence is contested because regulators relied on different data, when field efficacy is eroding under resistance pressure, and when measurable harm to soil biology continues to accumulate – the response should be serious scrutiny, not a lethal dose chart.
I started using it in the 1970’s when it first came out. I was in Jr. High and we would use a 4 inch PVC with short overlapping ropes on the front that wick the herbicide out and rub it against the weeds. The weed that was the problem was Dogbane and it made the mistake of growing way above the crop. So I’d drive along with this pipe in front of the tractor raising it up and down wiping the weeds driving as fast as possible. You would fill the PVC with pure concentrated Roundup and so I was exposed early and often and know many others that were as well. Relentlessly and yearly for 50 years now.
I have one neighbor whose wife got Lymphoma and her husband has never owned a sprayer nor does he ever use a sprayer. He hires it done and they live a half mile back in the woods. It just makes no sense. It’s like the Covid thing over again with credible people losing their minds and writing books about the deadly and horrible chemical and people walking around oblivious.
I have no idea what’s going on but Roundup is not very toxic.
My Prompt to Gemini Pro:
Task: Perform a rigorous external verification of the negative health claims made about Glyphosate. You must perform live searches for each claim.
Part 3: Claims & Verification
- Extract Claims: Identify every specific biological, medical, or protocol claim made in the study.
- Verify Externally: Search for “[Claim] meta-analysis”, “[Claim] Cochrane review”, “[Claim] RCT”.
- Assess Hierarchy of Evidence: Evaluate support using this strict hierarchy:
- Level A: Human Meta-analyses / Systematic Reviews.
- Level B: Human RCTs.
- Level C: Human Observational / Cohort Studies.
- Level D: Pre-clinical (Animal/In vitro). Flag heavily if claim relies on this level.
- Level E: Expert Opinion / Anecdote.
- Detect Translational Uncertainty: If a claim is based on mouse/worm/yeast data but presented as human advice, label this as a “Translational Gap.”
STRICT CITATION PROTOCOL (MANDATORY):
- Hyperlink Syntax: Use inline Markdown hyperlinks: Title (Year).
- Verification: Do not generate a URL unless you have accessed the live webpage. Fallback to Title (Year) if the direct link is unstable.
- Search Query: For every claim, execute: “[Topic] study [Journal Name] [Year]”.
- Link Validation: Prioritize nlm.nih.gov, doi.org, nature.com, science.org. If no link is found, state “Source unverified in live search.”
Output Constraints:
- Use Markdown formatting.
- Do not use LaTeX, python code, or special characters that break simple text parsers or reveal formatting codes, etc…
- Tone: Objective, critical, “Tell it like it is.” No hype.
Output: Provide a bulleted list of claims with their associated Evidence Level (A-E) and supporting external citations.
Gemini Pro Response:
Here is the rigorous external verification of the primary negative health claims associated with glyphosate exposure, assessed using the strict hierarchy of evidence.
Glyphosate Health Claims: Evidence Hierarchy & Verification
Claim 1: Glyphosate exposure increases the risk of developing Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL).
- External Verification: The link between glyphosate and NHL is the most heavily debated clinical claim. A prominent 2019 meta-analysis showed a 41% increased risk of NHL for the highest exposure groups (primarily agricultural workers). However, subsequent reviews demonstrate that altering the latency period and exposure definitions drastically changes the risk ratio. When looking at “ever-exposure” with no lag time, the relative risk drops to a statistically insignificant 1.05. The consensus remains divided, with the WHO’s IARC classifying it as a “probable human carcinogen,” while the EPA and European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) state it is unlikely to be carcinogenic.
- Evidence Level: Level A (Human Meta-analyses).
- Translational Gap: No. The claim is based on human epidemiological and occupational cohorts.
- Citations: * Exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides and risk for non-Hodgkin lymphoma: A meta-analysis and supporting evidence (2019)
Claim 2: Glyphosate disrupts the human microbiome by inhibiting the shikimate pathway in commensal bacteria.
- External Verification: Glyphosate targets the 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS) enzyme in plants. Because some gut bacteria also utilize the shikimate pathway to synthesize aromatic amino acids, bioinformatic screens suggest up to 54% of the human core microbiome is intrinsically sensitive to glyphosate in vitro. Mouse models demonstrate that low-dose exposure can deplete beneficial bacteria like Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus. However, clinical human data verifying that dietary residue exposure causes clinically significant gut dysbiosis in humans is currently absent.
- Evidence Level: Level D (Pre-clinical / In vitro).
- Translational Gap: HEAVILY FLAGGED. Claims that dietary glyphosate destroys the human microbiome rely on in vitro bacterial susceptibility screens and murine models, heavily extrapolating physiological relevance to humans.
- Citations: * Does Glyphosate Affect the Human Microbiota? (2022)
Claim 3: Glyphosate acts as an endocrine disruptor, negatively impacting thyroid function and reproductive hormones.
- External Verification: A 2025 systematic review of human studies regarding thyroid disruption yielded mixed and inconclusive results; some cross-sectional studies of pesticide sprayers showed transient spikes in T4, while others showed no significant alterations in TSH, T3, or T4. Data regarding reproductive hormone disruption is largely derived from cell culture and rodent models demonstrating oxidative stress and altered hormone biosynthesis in testicular and ovarian tissues. Regulatory bodies (EPA, EFSA) currently state there is insufficient evidence to classify glyphosate as an endocrine disruptor in humans.
- Evidence Level: Level C (Human Observational) to Level D (Pre-clinical).
- Translational Gap: HEAVILY FLAGGED. Mechanistic plausibility exists in animal models, but human epidemiological data remains contradictory and lacks the statistical power to prove causation.
- Citations:
Claim 4: Glyphosate is neurotoxic and increases the risk of neurodegenerative diseases.
- External Verification: A 2022 systematic review of 25 epidemiological studies investigated links between glyphosate and neurological outcomes (Parkinson’s, depression, cognitive decline). The review concluded the evidence is sparse and methodologically limited, noting that the highest-quality human studies showed no association between glyphosate use and Parkinson’s disease or peripheral nerve conduction velocity. Conversely, isolated cross-sectional analyses (like a 2023 review of US biomonitoring data) suggest correlations between urinary glyphosate levels and lower cognitive scores. Animal models (such as C. elegans) reliably show accelerated neurodegeneration and amyloid-beta accumulation upon direct exposure.
- Evidence Level: Level A (Systematic Review of Epidemiology) demonstrating a lack of robust association; contradicted by Level C (Cross-sectional) and Level D (Animal models).
- Translational Gap: HEAVILY FLAGGED. Assertions that glyphosate causes Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s in humans are unsupported by high-quality epidemiological data and rely heavily on worm and rodent models.
- Citations:
And another recent story on the issue:
The AI summary seems pretty accurate to me. It’s not as terrible as it is popular to say. You can’t go wrong criticizing Monsanto.
These days we use much better equipment which includes usually active carbon air filters and pressurized cabs. Also people used to spray it 2 or 3 times a year because it was the cheapest way and worked perfect. Now it’s usually just an early season burndown and we rely on other chemicals to help with the weed that is resistant. Other chemicals that make it unnecessary to go back again and again.
I still think the gene drive and a couple of the less controversial chemicals would be the least toxic solution and I can’t get anybody to listen to me. If we use less chemical it cuts the profits of the companies that make them and they pay for the universities now too. Kinda like pharma owning the FDA. Maybe I’m paranoid.
Done. I used USDA’s 2022 Census of Agriculture state tables for Table 40 (treated acres for insects, weeds, and diseases), Table 8 (total cropland acres), and the FEC’s official 2024 presidential results to sort states by statewide winner. I counted Maine as blue statewide and Nebraska as red statewide, and left out D.C. because the USDA state ag tables are, in a shocking display of bureaucratic literalism, state tables. I hand-tallied the rows, so treat this as a rough but grounded cut, not holy writ. (NASS)
- Cropland base first: red states in this grouping hold about 76.7% of total cropland acres, blue states about 23.3%. (NASS)
- Raw treated acres: weeds are about 76.3% red / 23.7% blue; insect-treated acres about 73.0% red / 27.0% blue; disease-treated acres about 69.3% red / 30.7% blue. (NASS)
- Per total cropland acre, rough normalization: weeds come out nearly tied at about 69.0% in red states versus 70.4% in blue states; insect-treated acres are about 19.7% red versus 24.0% blue; disease-treated acres are about 9.6% red versus 13.9% blue. This normalization is only approximate, because USDA Table 40’s treated-acre measures are not a perfect one-to-one match with Table 8’s total-cropland denominator. (NASS)
So the annoying, less-memeable answer is: raw acreage is still much redder, but mostly because the cropland base is redder. Once you normalize, the weed gap mostly evaporates, while insect and especially disease treatment intensity tilt bluer. That fits the crop-mix story: big red-state row-crop systems dominate herbicide acreage, while blue states in this set include more specialty-crop-heavy places like California, Washington, Oregon, and New York, which pushes insecticide and fungicide intensity up. (NASS)
So the fairy-tale version is dead: “red states spray more” is only true in raw-acre terms. “Blue states spray less” stops working once you control even crudely for cropland.