Article 5620 (4 more) in rec.gardens:
From: klier@iscsvax.uni.edu
ubject: Re: Killing Ivy
Date: 5 Mar 92 17:14:37 GMT

karen@synopsys.com (Karen Vahtra) writes:
> I have about 1,000 square feet of ivy that needs killing along the back fence  of my 
> property.   

I agree with the folks who suggested Roundup (or Kleenup, or some other
brand of glyphosate).  It is a non-selective herbicide, meaning that it
kills almost anything it touches, but it has VERY low toxicity to anything
that doesn't photosynthesize (like birds, insects, mammals...)

Glyphosate is sprayed on the leaves, but is translocated to the roots,
killing them too.  You'll have to wait until the plants are beginning to
show some new growth (almost any herbicide works better on actively 
growing plants) -- you might even want to fertilize and water your ivy
to get it growing well before you kill it!  Spray the leaves with the
recommended concentration of glyphosate, then wait.  As soon as the leaves
start dying back (maybe 10 days?), you can assume that enough has hit the 
roots that you can cut out the top growth and remove it.  At this point, 
I'd leave the soil bare for about a month and continue to water -- that
way you can spot any new ivy shoots that might have accidentally survived
the first dose, and hit'em again.  After a month you can replant with
whatever.

When I spray with glyphosate, I wear gloves and a long sleeved shirt and
long pants because some of the "inert" ingredients in most formulations
can give you a skin rash.  I wear a mask, too, since I'm asthmatic, and
just about any particulates can set me coughing.  Even a bandana over my
nose is enough.  I also mix up a bucket of water and a shovel full of soil,
and keep it handy.  Why?  Glyphosate binds so tightly to soil particles 
that you can save any plant that gets hit accidentally by throwing some
muddy water on it immediately.

You can replant an area that has been treated with glyphosate immediately,
since it does irreversibly bind to soil particles.  And it breaks down 
to glycine (an amino acid) and phosphate (fertilizer component) in the
soil fairly quickly -- how fast depends on which soil microorganisms you
have in abundance.

Glyphosate can also be applied with a paintbrush or cloth glove over a 
rubber glove if you're worried about spray drift.  Just takes longer.

Kay Klier     Biology Dept  UNI

PS  I'm pretty cautious about herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, etc.
The only herbicides I will use are glyphosate or boiling water (or hoes, 
etc.)  I don't have the toxicity information immediately at hand, but
you can poison yourself with aspirin 5x more easily than with glyphosate. 

Article 5682 (6 more) in rec.gardens:
From: aab@cichlid.com (Andy Burgess)
ubject: Re: Killing Ivy
Date: 7 Mar 92 17:37:31 GMT

In article <1992Mar5.111437.2700@iscsvax.uni.edu> klier@iscsvax.uni.edu writes:
>PS  I'm pretty cautious about herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, etc.
>The only herbicides I will use are glyphosate or boiling water (or hoes, 
>etc.)  I don't have the toxicity information immediately at hand, but
>you can poison yourself with aspirin 5x more easily than with glyphosate. 

Ingesting Roundup has killed people. I seems that the surfactant is more
toxic than the glyphosate itself. There was a lengthy article posted here
many months ago. I'll try to dig it up and repost.
Andy

Article 5683 (5 more) in rec.gardens:
From: aab@cichlid.com (Andy Burgess)
ubject: Roundup Toxicity, was Re: Killing Ivy
Date: 7 Mar 92 17:46:02 GMT
Reply-To: aab@cichlid.com (Andy Burgess)


Here is the previously posted article on Roundup.
Andy
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------
>From: brokaw@flamingo.weeg.uiowa.edu (Pete Brokaw)
>Newsgroups: rec.gardens
>Subject: Re: Is Roundup safe? (LONG reply)
>Message-ID: <5793@ns-mx.uiowa.edu>
>Date: 29 Apr 91 20:58:41 GMT
>References: <2800028@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com> <48034@ut-emx.uucp>
>Sender: news@ns-mx.uiowa.edu
>Organization: Weeg Computing Center, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA
...
I recently asked a friend the same questions and she gave me copies of some 
magazine articles.  One deals primarily with the issue of "inert" ingredients
in chemical concoctions like Roundup.  This was printed in the "Journal of
Pesticide Reform."

A second article was very anti-Roundup but had very little in the way of facts,
relying on anecdotal accounts. (e.g., "A twenty-eight-year-old laborer who had
sprayed weeds with the recommended dosage of Roundup developed an itchy rash,
nausea, and swelling of the limbs and joints."  No evidence was provided to
back up this or the other claims made.)

The third article came from the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to
Pesticides (NCAP).  Written in 1987, it defines Roundup and lists 8 problems
that "warrent concern when [it] is considered for use."

At the time, I was looking for good reasons NOT to use Roundup (my last 
alternative to elminating creeping charlie--I decided to let it grow and start
calling it "ground ivy" :-).  

Here are some excerpts from 2 articles.  If people are interested, I can 
post the complete articles at a later date.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From NCAP's handout entitled "ROUNDUP". Written by Mary H. O'Brien, September
16, 1987.

Roundup is a post-emergence herbicide that kills annual and perennial
broadleaf plants and grasses.  Roundup is widely used on sites where
nonselective vegitation removal is wanted by some people...  Its "active
ingredient," glyphosate, also appears in Rodeo, a formulation designed for
use in aquatic settings.  Produced by Monsanto, glyphosate is a farily new
herbicide, first registered for use in 1974.

Glyphosate is primarily absorbed by plant foliage, but may be taken up by
roots in soils that minimize adsorption to soil particles.  It apparently
kills plants by inhibiting synthesis of an essential amino acid, thereby
resulting in a reduction of protein synthesis and an inhibition of growth.
Glyphosate is readily translocated within the plant, inhibiting sprouting in
perennial species.

The following ... problems warrant concern when Roundup is considered for
use:

 1. PERSISTENCE.  Although the claim is often made that Roundup is
inactivated rapidly in soil, it is more accurate to say that it is usually
absorbed to soil components.  A sandy loam trated with glyphosate at
recommended application rates (e.g., 2, 5, and 10 ug/g soil) was found to
drastically reduce nitrogen fixation, growth, and nodulation of subterranean
clover/Rhizobium trifolium/ planted 120 days after glyphosate treatment.
Glyphosate clearly remains active in soils that do not adsorb it readily.

Damage to vine maple and bigleaf maple was found to increase during the
second year following treatment with glyphosate, indicating that glyphosate
persists for extended periods in plants.

 2. PHYTOTOXICITY.  Because glyphosate is a nonselective herbicide, any
desired vegetation must be completely protected from glyphosate drive, mist,
or drip.  As Monsanto notes in its Rounup label guide, "...minute quantities
of this herbicide can cause severe damage or destruction to the crop, plants,
or other areas on which treatment was not intended."

 3. TOXICITY OF 'INERT' INGREDIENTS.  [see next article -ed]

 4. TESTING. [The article explains that testing on glyphosate by itself is
inadequate since the inert ingredients are very important to making Roundup
work.  Most test results are "unpublished and developed by Monsanto or
laboratories hired by Monsanto."

[  
   Other points are made about lack of cancer testing and links to "human
   damage" including "conjunctivitis (inflammation oft he eyelid and eyeball
   mucous membrane), dermatitis (inflammation of the skin), and severe flu-like
   symptoms following exposure to glyphosate.  Of 143 pesticides reported for
   causing human illness in California in 1986, glyphosate was fourth in the
   number of incidents reported."  No further details on this statistic are
   given. -ed
]

A "Roundup Information Packet" containing a series of articles on Roundup is
available for $10.50 postpaid from NCAP; P.O. Box 1393; Eugene OR 97440.  A
file of these and additional glyphsate/Roundup articles is maintained at
NCAP; these can be copied at 10 cents/page.

[
   These prices may not be current considering the article is nearly four
   years old.  -ed
]
[ five years now -andy ]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From "Roundup, Vision, POEA, and 1,4-Dioxane: Why Full Formulations Are the
Problem." Written by Mary O'Brien--a staff scientist for NCAP.  Vol. 9, No. 4
of the Journal of Pesticide Reform.

When a letter by four Japanese emergency medicine professionals appeared in
the February 6, 1988 issue of the American medical journal, The Lancet, a
Washington toxicology conultant, David Monroe, took note.  The Japanese
authors were noting that an "inert ingredient" in the herbicide Roundup
(rather than the identified "active" ingredient, glyphosate) accounts for the
acute toxicity they had found in patients poisoned (some fatally) by Roundup
(JPR 8(1):30).  Symptoms included gastrointestinal ("GI" -ed) pain and
vomiting, swelling of the lungs and pneumonia, reduction of blood pressure,
clouding of consciousness, and red blood cell destruction.

The so-called "inert ingredient," polyoxyethyleneamine (POEA), actually
refers to a family of chemicals.  It is added to Roundup and Vision herbicide
formulations  as a surfactant, an ingredient that will help evenly spread
the active ingredient, glyphosate, on target plants.

The Japanese researchers noted that the acute lethal dose of POEA is less
than one-third (i.e., POEA is three times as toxic) that of Roundup, and that
POEA belongs to a class of surfactants that have been reported to cause
adverse GI and central nervous system effects and damage to red blood cells.

As POEA does not appear on the Roundup label (supposedly protected, as an
inert, from public disclosure under the U.S. pesticide law...), Monroe first
learned of its presense in Roundup through the Lancet letter. 

Monroe recalled a U.S. EPA memorandum that discussed the presence of
1,4-dioxane in two polyalkoxylated polyamine products ... manufactured by
the Henkel Corporation.  Knowing that POEA is a polyalkoxylated amine, Monroe
suspected that 1,4-dioxane might be present as a contaminant of POEA.

[ the article now describes the side effects of 1,4-dioxane, which include
  liver and kidney damage, and cancer in laboratory animals.  "The liver and
  kidney damage can occur regardless of the route of 1,4-dioxane exposure
  (inhalation, oral ingestion, and/or skin application)."   This section
  concludes with this statement: 'The International Agency for Research on
  Cancer indicates that evidence is "sufficient" to know that 1,4-dioxane
  causes cancer in animals and the U.S EPA regards 1,4-dioxane as a probable
  human carcinogen.' 

  Researchers in British Columbia went on to test Vision (Canada's version of
  Roundup) checking for 1,4-dioxane contamination.  From a 250ml sample, the
  CANTEST lab detected 350 parts per million 1,4-dioxane using a purge and  
  trap method.  That level is equivalent to .35 percent.  

  Now quoting again from the article: ]

A 1982 EPA memo ... also discussed 1,4-dioxane as being present in
dichloroethyl ether.  The 1982 EPA memo ... had been prompted by concern that
1,4-dioxane had been found in dichloroethyl ether at 0.42 percent and 0.55
percent.  Under "comments/recommendations" in the memo, the EPA noted that
the manufacturer of the contaminated dichloroethyl ether "reported that its
employees and cutomers were being notified of the presence of 1,4-dioxane in
dichloroethyl ether.  In addition, the company reported that its current
safety precautions inclue 'body-protective clothing and boots, eye
protection, and monitoring of air levels of dichloroethyl ether.'"

Users of Roundup and Vision are not informed that the formulation contains
either POEA or 1,4-dioxane.  Roundup is widely used by homeowners wearing no
particular protective clothing, and the label merely states, "Avoid contact
with eyes, skin, and clothing because of possible (eye and skin) irritation."

The presence of 1,4-dioxane in Vision (and presumably in Roundup) is a
classic example of the following:

 1. Full formulations, "inert" ingredients, and contaminants, not merely the
so-called "active" ingredient, can cause cancer and other adverse chronic
effects; their exemption from testing for chronic toxicity is indefensible.

 2. The current classification by the EPA of POEA as a "List 3" inert
ingredient  ("inert of unknown toxicity"), subject neither to listing on the
label nor toxicological testing requirements, is indefensible.

 3. Estimating the toxicity of glyphosate alone is meaningless when a full
formulation (e.g., Roundup, Vision) containing POEA, 1,4-dioxane, and other
unlisted ingredients and contaminants is the mixture to which people and the
environment will be exposed.

What you don't know can hurt you.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>Pete Brokaw, Weeg Computing Center, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242
>brokaw@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu  319-335-5453

>Disclaimer: I am not associated with Monsanto, or NCAP. I am merely an
>interested party to this discussion.

-- 
From: klier@iscsvax.uni.edu
ubject: Re: Killing Ivy
Date: 9 Mar 92 00:38:51 GMT
Organization: University of Northern Iowa

aab@cichlid.com (Andy Burgess) writes:
> klier@iscsvax.uni.edu writes:
>>PS  I'm pretty cautious about herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, etc.
>>The only herbicides I will use are glyphosate or boiling water (or hoes, 
>>etc.)  I don't have the toxicity information immediately at hand, but
>>you can poison yourself with aspirin 5x more easily than with glyphosate. 
> 
> Ingesting Roundup has killed people. I seems that the surfactant is more
> toxic than the glyphosate itself. There was a lengthy article posted here
> many months ago. I'll try to dig it up and repost.

True.  The toxicity info I gave was for _glyphosate_, not Roundup.  That's
why I wear gloves when working with the commercial formulations.

Kay

Article 6061 in rec.gardens:
From: klier@iscsvax.uni.edu
Subject: Re: Roundup continued
Date: 23 Mar 92 01:07:59 GMT
Organization: University of Northern Iowa

brianb@sprintcom (Brian Bailey) writes:
> The discussion on round-up was a very interesting thread which just
> seemed to stop without conclusion. If the active ingredient is harmless
> which Kay says she can get, then is it commercially available to us
> phlebes. If not is round-up worth the risk, or are there other viable
> alternatives that are less toxic and still work.

Straight glyphosate is available for investigational use, at about 
$20/gram for 96% purity.  The "pure" stuff I used was part of a 
research study -- and we had some left over, so I got permission
to use it up on a natural area that needed selective weed control.

I don't know of any broad-spectrum herbicide that is any safer than
glyphosate.  The various commercial formulations add adjuvants and
surfactants that increase the herbicidal activity.  These are not
considered to be "active" ingredients, so they do not have to be
on the label.  This is a major problem, IMHO, with current labeling
laws.

I did a quick search of the last five years of the AGRICOLA data base
(National Ag. Library), without turning up any information on human
toxicity of glyphosate or glyphosate preparations -- other than the
mention of skin irritation.   This correlates to the information in the
1990 herbicide handbooks that are on my reference shelf.

I believe someone mentioned the possibility of dioxin contamination -- 
can you please give us a citation, because I'm not turning anything up
on that.  

When dealing with any chemical or mixture of chemicals, you have to 
assess the risk on the basis of knowledge and (more often than not)
on gut feeling.   Any chemical -- including pure water -- is hazardous
when taken in quantity.  The Ames test for probable carcinogens
is OK, but not perfect.  The various animal tests are likewise OK,
but not perfect -- there's just too much variation in toxic threshholds
from one species to another.   

The best we can do is gather all the data we can, then take a deep
breath and try to make a good decision.

Barring startling new data turning up, I believe that the amount of
Roundup or other glyphosate preparations I've used are a negligible
risk to me and the environment, especially when compared to other
risks that I take all the time without thinking about them:
driving a car, eating peanut butter sandwiches, visiting cities,
breathing exhaust fumes, sitting in the sun, drinking tap water....

Yes, I try to be careful in how I handle and apply it.  If I spray,
I use a coarse spray to minimize drift, and wear a mask and long sleeves
and wash up afterwards.  If I'm using a wipe applicator (gloves or
"stamp licker", I've got a couple of pairs of gloves on of different
materials (usually latex and vinyl) to prevent skin contact.
Should I accidentally spill some on my pant legs (and I haven't yet),
I doubt very much if I'd tear my clothes off and run screaming for
the nearest source of water: instead I'd dump some muddy water on the
spot, and change my jeans when I got back to wherever I stashed my 
pack.  

These are choices I've made after evaluating all the information
I have available to me, and weighing the possible risks against the
other choices: an impossible amount of hand labor, or using other
chemicals of possibly greater toxicity.  Each of us must decide
these things for ourselves.  Life is never risk-free.

Kay Klier    Biology Dept   UNI

