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A new article on RoundUp and glyphosate toxicity:

http://ecowatch.com/2015/11/20/monsanto ... lyphosate/

Joe

 [font=Georgia, serif]“Currently pesticide formulations are tested for acute toxicity—the amount that will kill you in two weeks—but not for all the long-term diseases like cancer, endocrine, nervous, immune metabolic, birth defects, and on and on".[/font]

Not so ... twenty years ago I was working for the largest independent toxicology lab in the UK that, amongst other things, did work on pesticides. We may even have worked on glyphosphate but I don't remember for certain.  Anyway, we most certainly and routinely undertook lifetime pre-clinical carcinogenicity studies on these compounds as well as teratology studies and all the rest. That statement quoted above is not true.

Totally untrue. In simple terms products are tested for what would be considered the NOEL. The No effect level in some cases
is astronomically small. Once that is established, then an amount of residue is determined through multiple testing
on each crop that the product will be labelled. The residue has to be 100 times smaller than the No effect level. The NOEL level
is smaller for children and for crops that are used a lot by children, (spinach for one) then that further reduces the amount of
residue that would be leg

The other thing is residue and toxicity is an ongoing project, every so many years products are reassessed so there is definite
a moving document for all products.

Finally, if you think that organic products are not being sprayed, you are very mistaken. Organic crops are hit with the same
insect, disease and weed problems that conventional crops are hit with. They have fewer tools to use to control these pests
but products like copper and sulphur are routinely used to control diseases.

Fertilization in may cases comes from animal and human sources, such as treated waste from sewage plants can be used
in organic farming. Simply put, the crop needs certain nutrients and a lot of it is not available in the soil in the amounts needed
to grow viable crops.

There is no easy answer to any of this, but condemning something with incorrect information is further added to the confusion.

Garry Gibson wrote:  In simple terms products are tested for what would be considered the NOEL. The No effect level in some cases
is astronomically small. 

In recent years, we have also had wide use of the NOAEL (A for adverse) which is more meaningful than the NOEL but a harder to determine as adversity is hard to define. It acknowledges that toxicity is not a black and white concept but one with large areas of greyness. 

See also https://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfp/publications/00011/2-dost-pesticidetoxicity.pdf - the summary reads thus:

[font=TimesNewRoman]The registrant of a pesticide must present a broad array of required data to the government before the product can be registered. This paper discusses the types of toxicology and related testing that is necessary. The requirements include (i) toxicity data from acute, subacute, subchronic and chronic studies using test organisms (e.g., rabbits, rats, and mice), (ii) fate of the pesticide in the organism including the metabolic conversions and derivatives, excretion, possible storage, and the rates at which these processes take place, (iii) impact of the product on wildlife, fish and invertebrates, and (iv) the environmental residues of the pesticide (e.g., in plants and animals, drinking water and soils) and bioaccumulation. The paper also discusses the role of epidemiological studies in the registration process and evaluation of possible effects in humans[/font][font=TimesNewRoman,Bold]. [/font]

While it may be true that carcinogenicity and teratology testing is always a requirement for registration it is a fact that these tests are widely performed by the manufacturers. I know that from professional experience in the field.