Talk about curious timing.

Just last week I wrote about some disturbing allegations arising out lawsuits that have been filed against Monsanto the manufacturer of Roundup, the popular pesticide. The lawsuits started not long after the International Agency for Research on Cancer[IARC] released its findings in 2015 stating that glyphosate, a key ingredient in Roundup, is likely carcinogenic to humans. And as the lawsuits wind their way through the courts, there have been some head-scratching allegations made by plaintiffs’ lawyers about how Jim Rowland, a former EPA bigshot, indicated to Monsanto that he could be helpful in with the “….ongoing glyphosate defense” shortly before leaving the EPA.

And just yesterday, I saw this Roundup commercial. A “precision gel” where a gardener can simply touch the offending weed with some clear Roundup goop and not do any damage to soil or other plants. What the commercial doesn’t state is that the gel eliminates the need to spray. And the elimination of a spray would of course eliminate any sort of incidental exposure on the user as he or she applies Roundup in the garden. And the elimination of that exposure would probably be very helpful if that IARC report turns out to be accurate and glyphosate is a carcinogenic agent. Or the release of a non-spray Roundup product shortly after the IARC study could just be a big, crazy coincidence. Gosh, who knows.