Weedkiller Ingredient Widely Used In US Can Damage Organs and Gut Bacteria, Research Shows (theguardian.com)
- Reference: 0178306922
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/07/08/0152223/weedkiller-ingredient-widely-used-in-us-can-damage-organs-and-gut-bacteria-research-shows
- Source link: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/06/weedkiller-diquat-organ-damage-study
> The herbicide ingredient used to replace glyphosate in Roundup and other weedkiller products [1]can kill gut bacteria and damage organs in multiple ways , new research shows. The ingredient, diquat, is widely employed in the US as a weedkiller in vineyards and orchards, and is increasingly sprayed elsewhere as the use of controversial herbicide substances such as glyphosate and paraquat drops in the US. But the [2]new piece of data suggests diquat is more toxic than glyphosate, and the substance is banned over its risks in the UK, EU, China and many other countries. Still, the EPA has resisted calls for a ban, and Roundup formulas with the ingredient hit the shelves last year. [...]
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> Diquat is also thought to be a neurotoxin, carcinogen and linked to Parkinson's disease. An October analysis of EPA data by the Friends of the Earth non-profit found it is about 200 times more toxic than glyphosate in terms of chronic exposure. [...] The new review of scientific literature in part focuses on the multiple ways in which diquat damages organs and gut bacteria, including by reducing the level of proteins that are key pieces of the gut lining. The weakening can allow toxins and pathogens to move from the stomach into the bloodstream, and trigger inflammation in the intestines and throughout the body. Meanwhile, diquat can inhibit the production of beneficial bacteria that maintain the gut lining. Damage to the lining also inhibits the absorption of nutrients and energy metabolism, the authors said.
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> The research further scrutinizes how the substance harms the kidneys, lungs and liver. Diquat "causes irreversible structural and functional damage to the kidneys" because it can destroy kidney cells' membranes and interfere with cell signals. The effects on the liver are similar, and the ingredient causes the production of proteins that inflame the organ. Meanwhile, it seems to attack the lungs by triggering inflammation that damages the organ's tissue. More broadly, the inflammation caused by diquat may cause multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, a scenario in which organ systems begin to fail. The authors note that many of the studies are on rodents and more research on low, long-term exposure is needed.
The report notes that the EPA is not reviewing the chemical, "and even non-profits that push for tighter pesticide regulations have largely focused their attention elsewhere."
"[T]hat was in part because U.S. pesticide regulations are so weak that advocates are tied up with battles over ingredients like glyphosate, paraquat and chlorpyrifos -- substances that are banned elsewhere but still widely used here. Diquat is 'overshadowed' by those ingredients."
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/06/weedkiller-diquat-organ-damage-study
[2] https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pharmacology/articles/10.3389/fphar.2025.1562182/full
Not surprising it's more toxic (Score:5, Insightful)
As Glyphosate is not toxic (apart from repeatedly swimming in it and guzzling it by the pints daily) to mammals.
The whole reason it's frowned on is because Lawyers got involved, and because scientists couldn't say "Without a doubt, Glyphosate does not cause cancer" it got marked as a carcinogen. There again, scientists will never say "without a doubt", as there is always room for doubt in anything but the most settled of science, after decades or centuries of analysis. The data shows Glyphosate as being safe, and it being "extremely unlikely" that there is any connection between normal exposure to Glyphosate and cancer. It's one of the safest herbicides around, if not the safest for mammals. So it's no surprise that anything that is used instead is more toxic.
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The overarching concept whizzed past your face. The problem here isn't the specific chemicals being used. This is a social issue. Suburban and rural men are enslaved by ritual of lawn care, lest they be judged harshly by the other lawn-caring men. We have resorted to spraying our living space with hazardous materials so we our neighbor won't see a dandelion.
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I'm actually looking to seed my yard with clover to reduce weeds and reduce maintenance. The HOAs around me are going to throw a fit, but I'm luckily not part of them.
I will always keep my home looking nice, landscaped upkept and weeds pulled. But I'm done with trying to keep a perfect lawn.
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I've never understood why average people bother with lawns.
My yard is a toilet for my dog and a buffer from my neighbors. I don't much care what it looks like.
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Congratulations. You're the reason pests creep into other people's homes or invasive weeds overrun people's properties by forcing out native plants.
If you don't care about your lawn then move to the desert where you don't have to worry about such things. There are those who want a nice green lawn or lots of flowers for pollenators.
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> You're the reason pests creep into other people's homes or invasive weeds overrun people's properties by forcing out native plants.
Why would anybody think not using herbicides is the same thing as not mowing your lawn and not weeding?
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And you are the one killing off monarch butterflies and bees with your obsession vision of a perfect lawn
Pollinators that are attracted to your pesticide laden 'flowers', (probably not local species they are adapted to), take it back to their hive and hurt the entire colony, while monarch butterflies rely on milkweed, something that only appears in untended lawns, and exceeds the weed height allowed by most municipalities
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No man who knows about lawn care is going to use roundup on their green grass to kill a single or any amount of dandelion. Glyphosate kills everything.
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Just get some Round-Up Ready grass!
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What a reidiculous assertion. Those are not the people being harmed in mass by glyphosate and other pesticides/herbicides. It's farm workers and landscapers. As all of these, including glyphosate, have specific label instructions to not touch the wet product (and in pesticides the label is the law: they are approved by the EPA and have the force of regulation). That makes this is a workplace safety issue, not a product issue. Stop buying into the hysteria being manufactured by ambulance/hearse chasing
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I lived in the wrong area of America, when I was there. Northern New Mexico has rock 'n weed patches, not lawns on the whole, so for me the crazy lawn thing was something that happened somewhere else.
The UK is obsessed with gardening, about 150x more so than the USA. We certainly do have lawns in the UK, and some people are very into them, but there doesn't seem to be the same level of obsession with the perfect manicure. If anything a good scattering of daises is considered rather pretty. Even very well ke
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> Even very well kept gardens with full time gardeners won't generally have that astro-turf level of uniformity so highly prized in America.
> What's the deal? Can you explain it to a foreigner?
[1]This article [fortune.com] explains it (mostly). It goes back to the massive growth of suburbs after world war 2. There is more nuance to it than that, but the article does a much better job of explaining it than I can.
[1] https://fortune.com/2023/04/11/painted-lawns-american-grass-yards/
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Lawn care as a 1960s Jewish folk tradition is explored in the Coen Bro's 2009 satire, A Serious Man.
The protagonist ponders the futility of spending his weekend mowing, an activity whose only saving grace is a widow who likes to promiscuously sunbathe.
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As far as I understand the concept of lawns came over from the UK but really took off in the US during the post WW2 housing boom driven by generous home loan conditions offered by the US government to returning veterans that brought home ownership to a huge number of Americans. Lawns made for a fairly simple way to mass landscape new large suburban developments and became emblematic of the suburban middle class life that boomed after the war.
With this lawncare became kind of a proxy for showing one was a pr
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> lawns came over from the UK but really took off in the US during the post WW2 housing boom
I either have grass or mud and weeds. So I reseed any bare spots every Spring.
Do you mean people tolerated slippery mud and thicket all summer before the 50's?
I get that motorized mowers make everything easier but I see plenty of pictures of nice homes and parks from the 19th century with cut grass at the Historical Society.
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I didn't say lawns were invented after WW2, I stated they took off after WW2 in this country and they did [1]https://www.history.com/articl... [history.com] . They most definitely existed before but were not the culture fixture that the above was asking about prior to WW2.
[1] https://www.history.com/articles/lawn-mower-grass-american-dream
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For some reason, Americans seem to be obsessed with the idea of entire neighborhoods having a uniform appearance. I'm not sure why, but they'll actually get very angry if someone has an RV parked in their driveway and start advocating HOAs in that instance (who typically ban RVs and similar vehicles from the entire neighborhoods.)
I... don't understand the mentality. British immigrant here (possibly returning in the next year or two depending on whether things get worse, ironically more to protect my America
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We have resorted to spraying our living space with hazardous materials so we our neighbor won't see a dandelion.
I am in favor of prohibiting consumer access to pesticides completely, or at least limit access to a single 500ml bottle ready-to-use solution per year. They are justified on agricultural operations, but you have to know what you are doing to dispense them safely. Overuse outside of a controlled setting will result in environmental contamination.
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Not everyone can afford $500 for an exterminator to come out, sometimes multiple times, if they have roaches, ants, termites, or wasps infesting their house.
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The reality is just about anything in sufficient concentration causes cancer. Oxygen is likely highly carcinogenic. In fact I suggest we ban it, and require its removal as part of environmental remediation, lets start with buildings use to house state and federal legislative bodies.
Re:Not surprising it's more toxic (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is operating on a blacklist approach...
One chemical gets a bad name and there's a campaign against it, so it gets replaced with something that hasn't attracted so much negative publicity yet. The replacements are often worse, or the side effects are not so well known and once use becomes widespread the side effects are found to be worse.
You've seen this with legislation that pushed vehicles from gasoline to diesel, reducing co2 while increasing other emissions.
You've seen this with food where fat/salt/sugar (that we've been consuming for thousands of years and which are perfectly safe and even needed in moderate quantities) has been demonised, leading to worse replacements where new negative side effects are regularly emerging.
Micro plastics, coolants and various other things are also getting worse.
Good. (Score:1)
Abolish lawns. I hate anyone who engages in lawn care. You are admitting to me and anyone else with a functioning reason center that you're retarded.
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> I hate anyone who engages in lawn care.
What about people who aggressively judge others for inconsequential personal practices?
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They can do whatever they want so long as they are not dumping toxic chemicals in their lawns in any amount whatsoever
It's not an inconsequential personal practice, when they are causing environmental contamination.
Traces of chemicals will inevitably be spread out to neighbors' yards when groundwater flows, and throughout the environment.
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> Abolish lawns. I hate anyone who engages in lawn care. You are admitting to me and anyone else with a functioning reason center that you're retarded.
There are plenty of ways to have a nice lawn and not use any chemicals. If you know what you're doing, you can keep pests away from your home's foundation and keep unwanted weeds to a minimum while never using a single chemical. Hell, we switched to the old human powered blade mower this year and the lawn already looks nicer than before.
Lastly, the homeowners association requires grass lawns, and for those lawns to be kept manicured. It requires minimal effort on our part, so I don't see a problem with law
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Roundup (Diquat or Glyphosate) is not particularly useful for lawn care. It is a broad specturm herbicide, so it kills everything including the grass in you lawn. I use Glyphosate for killing weeds in wooded areas on my property (stilt grass, poison ivy and others).
Darwin. (Score:2)
Darwin is showing up like "hey guys, this is evolution telling you to stop it with the mass manipulation of natural systems". Things like climate change, cancers, epidemics etc - instead we look the other way and spray more round-up on it.
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It's the cost of cheap food. If the food suddenly gets more expensive governments fall.
Bit surprised diquat is used in a consumer product (Score:4, Informative)
I have to admit I was a little surprised to learn diquat is used in a consumer home product. Diquat is a product I use in farming, but I've always considered it to be a bit more dangerous to human health than glyphosate, so I'm very careful to use proper PPE to avoid exposure when mixing and applying.
I guess I can understand why diquat might be useful in a home setting as it wouldn't kill lawns if you sprayed some on a weed in your grass. It's also unlikely to cause herbicide resistance. We use diquat to dry down perennial crops as it does not kill the plant, and is not systemic.
Diquat is also best applied at night. I've never had it work very well when applied during the day, so that's another reason I'm surprised it's in a consumer weed spray.
I've heard of farmers using acetic acid (vinegar) as an alternative to diquat, and it apparently works quite well, but it's quite a bit more dangerous than diquat as it can burn skin and lungs easily, and it's very hard on machines.
Slaps face (Score:2)
Poisons can be harmful outside of an exact category, who knew?
Diquat instead of Paraquat, that should fine .. (Score:2)
Paraquat was toxic as hell, so we'll use an analogous company and think it is safe.
The sad thing here is the logic that by substituting a different toxin you buy time before enough cases are found, And for plaintiffs to get the science takes time and you delay delay delay. So change it up every now and then and restart the clock.
A little bit like tweaking a drug that is running out of patent time
We deserve it (Score:2)
When we, as a nation, decide to let lawyers and politicians set scientific policy, we're gonna get what we deserve.
So pre-market testing was thorough then (Score:2)
"it is about 200 times more toxic than glyphosate in terms of chronic exposure."
And this didn't come up in testing? Seriously?
Re: So pre-market testing was thorough then (Score:2)
What pre-market testing? The US lets chemical companies claim things are safe until proven otherwise.
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We need to put a stop to that. ANY new chemical to be released into the environment even in small amounts should be treated like medications which require FDA approval of each drug before it can be commercially sold at scale.
Mandatory studies establishing safety to humans and risks to the environment. And EPA approval required along with usage guidelines.
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It is already done. The problem is that if you do enough toxicology testing you always find something. It is a statistical certainty that enough trials of any sort will give a positive result, if there is any chance of one even 1 in a trillion. Most toxicology tests are plagued with false positives, because they are intentionally designed to be super sensitive. They use massive doses, far beyond any reasonable exposure, animals that are bred to be sensitive and so forth.
Re: So pre-market testing was thorough then (Score:1)
Why don't they just default to an attitude that if it's banned in other places like the UK and China. Then it should either by default be banned in the US have much more research performed. Especially China, if China is banning some chemical it probably should be banned globally.
Re: So pre-market testing was thorough then (Score:2)
Other countries aren't free of stupidiry, quack science, or cronyism. Sometimes things are banned for good reasons and sometimes they're banned due to Protectionism or junk science.
Re:So pre-market testing was thorough then (Score:5, Insightful)
This has been known for a long time. it is an old product, and its dangers are well established. The injury lawsuits about glyphosate (which in my opinion are essentially baseless) have caused companies to move to this older product, which is much more dangerous, but less well known. No pesticide can ever be completely safe; they are designed to kill things after all, but glyphosate is one of the safest ever produced. The toxicology literature is full of studies designed to create the desired result, often sponsored by the manufacturers of competitive products. The academic toxicology literature is basically useless. Studies which do not find issues are not published and the testing methods used have no relation to reality.
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If the "academic toxicology literature is basically useless" then what are you basing your claims on?
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I would assume they're referring to the way all of the anti-glyphosate research and reporting likes to bury the simple fact that it's not dangerous unless you're getting the wet product on yourself, and doing so is explicity agains the lable instructions. In pesticieds, the labels are approved by the EPA and are considered the law on its usage.
Yes, lots of people got sick using glyphosate. That's going to happen with any pesticide or herbicide when you spend 10 hours a day on an open station tractor sp
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The studies that were carried out using the protocols required by the various government agencies around the world. They are far from perfect, but they are carried out with extreme rigor, and we have a great deal of experience interpreting them. Also, by law all studies have to be reported, whether you like the results or not unlike academic studies, where you can report only the ones that give the results you want.
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Well, maybe 200X bugger all is still bugger all?
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Because these idiots at Monsanto (bought by Bayer Agriculture in 2018) are profiting immensely from it. It isn't just the herbicide. Monsanto is really big into genetically modified plants. It isn't that the genetic modification is dangerous, it's why they are doing it. They make these plants resistant to the various chemicals they're spraying on them, so that they can douse the plants with glyphosate or whatever else. Then this stuff jumps trophic levels and gets more concentrated as it crawls up the food
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It is well known. This is an old product, that has been around far longer than glyphosate. The people using it are simply trying to avoid the bad publicity that glyphosate has received.