Tangled in Honeysuckle

We have a overgrowth of honeysuckle in our new backyard in Vermont. I mean a HUGE amount of it, the kind that grows like trees and are over 8ft tall. Yes it smells nice, but has choked out several nice trees, has spread like wildfire! And it is not even native to Vermont! So, we are working to cut some of it down. We know it will grow right back, but we hope it will become more manageable. So, I call my mom and she recommends using Roundup. Of course my response is a strong "no", but I wanted to do more research on this particular product at any rate.

Well, we all the see the commercials for Roundup...the man spraying it like a gun at the weeds coming up through the cracks in his driveway, with the cowboy music playing in the background. Well, do you know what it actually is?

Roundup is an herbicide, made by the U.S. company Monsanto. The main ingredient is called Glyphosate, and is the most widely used herbicide since the 1980's. Have you seen the movie Food, Inc? It talks about the company Monsanto and Roundup. Here is some information from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundup. Some studies are showing links to reproductive damage, liver/kidney damage, endocrine disruption, and various cancers. It is also being linked to cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, nerve, and respiratory damage. It is interesting because my mother told me today that this is the safest product that you can use in your yard on weeds, honeysuckle, etc. I believe her viewpoint stems from the false advertising on the labels from the 1990's. Here is the quote from wikipedia regarding the new york state lawsuit:

"In 1996, Monsanto was accused of false and misleading advertising of glyphosate products, prompting a law suit by the New York State attorney general.[42] Monsanto had made claims that its spray-on glyphosate based herbicides, including Roundup, were safer than table salt and "practically non-toxic" to mammals, birds, and fish.[43]"

If the labels declare that a product is safe, any product, then people will believe it and buy it. It is that simple, and it is that scary. Here is more information: http://www.holisticmed.com/ge/roundup.html. And this one: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_4574.cfm Last one: http://www.mitra.biz/blog/archives/2005/07/roundup_toxic_a.html.

From now on when receiving "organic" green beans from a friend's garden you can be certain I will be asking the question "by any chance, do you own any Roundup?" :-)