The great glyphosate in German beer scare & radioactive isotopes in your body

Even Bloomberg has picked up the story about traces of Monsanto's weed killer Round Up (glyphosate) found in German beer: German Beer Purity Under the Microscope as Weedkiller Found.

Bloomberg makes the point that glyphosate has been found in 14 of the most popular German brands of beer and highlights the German pride in its "purity laws" for beer. Manufacturer Monsanto felt obligated to come up with a statement.

Other big scare headlines read, for example, German Beer Industry in Shock over Glyphosate Contamination.

While German media ran with the story, too, they soon began to chastise their brethren for overblown language and stated that you would have to drink about 250 gallons a day to ingest an amount of the pesticide equal to the maximum allowed dose.

Pit the fact that traces of glyphosate can be found almost everywhere against the claim by the World Health Organization that the pesticide was "probably carcinogenic", and you have all the ingredients for a fight.

The really interesting aspect of the Munich study would appear to be the tremendous spread of measured values, from 0.46 (µg/l) to 29.74 microgramms. 

While well within the legal limits, the obvious issue is that some farmers are better stewards of their crops than others. This is true not only for glyphosate but for other pesticides, and if you want to worry, insecticides should be on your radar because they are generally more dangerous to humans.

Then there are the tens of thousands of chemicals that have not undergone any testing at all. Unlike glyphosate, reports on this subject are rare, though you might have seen this piece in The Guardian or come across another discussion.

And, finally, the US Center for Disease Control states all people who were born since 1951 have received some exposure to radiation from weapons testing-related fallout.

The fallout built into your body is ticking away, so to speak, and it is measurable with some pretty expensive equipment. People who have worked in the nuclear industry can describe the output chart to you.

So, the best thing you can do?

Stay away from stuff. And - well - don't drink beer, nobody needs it anyway.