" It's my prediction that glyphosate is destined to become the next poster-child chemical that falls victim to the belief that all things chemical are bad and must be banned. In those emotional rants, no amount of objective facts to the contrary will suffice to win the day- it will require a ritual sacrifice to restore the purity of those Elysian wheat fields before the masses are appeased"

That is the way it has always been.  Take DDT as an example.  DDT had three environmental or toxicity charges against it:
1.  It was killing raptors and  caused egg shell thinning in birds.  The administrative law judge in charge of the hearings to ban DDT concluded  this was totally false as the Audobon Society data showed most raptor population hit minimum either before or at the start of public use of DDT and most were recovering nicely by the time of the hearings.  In addition feeding tests done by USDA on both raptors and ducks after the ban showed no bird or egg shell issues even at doses far higher then those in the environment.
2.  It accumulated in the environment and had a half life of 50 years or more.  As analytical capabilities evolved and improved during the 70s and 80s it was shown that most of what had been thought to be DDT or DDT metabolites in fact had nothing at all to do with DDT.  The ban has been in effect now for almost 50 years and the amount of DDT in the environment according to today's much more accurate analyses is just about zero which is why you never hear about it any more.
3.  It was claimed to cause cancer.  Tests done since the ban show no evidence that it ever caused any cancers in humans.

The real reason DDT was banned is two fold.  First the brand new EPA needed to show the agency had teeth.  Second, no DDT supplier  could make any money as it was too easy to make.  You hardly needed more than a bathtub in the garage and a wooden paddle to make the stuff but everybody in the Ag business felt they had to sell the product even if they made no money on it.  As no one made any money on the product no one in industry was willing to defend it during the EPA hearings.  The DDT ban put the garage operators out of business and allowed the Ag industry to bring organo phosphates to market that would make them money.  Of  course a great many bees were killed by those OPs.  Way more than DDT ever killed.  Remember Pencap-M?

Dick

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