How To: Dealing with an unusual toilet; sealing and polishing concrete

How To: Dealing with an unusual toilet; sealing and polishing concrete
By Jeanne Huber


Q. When a home improvement company renovated my front porch several years ago, it was in a hurry to finish and painted the concrete when it was too cold. So now the paint is peeling. I could strip the peeling paint and apply a fresh coat, but I’m wondering whether it’s possible to seal and polish the concrete to make it look similar to the concrete floors at Ikea, the Home Depot, Costco and other warehouse-type places. My porch has a roof but is exposed to the weather. If sealing and polishing the bare concrete is an option, can you give me any advice on how to do this?

A. Sealing and polishing the concrete is certainly an option. There are a couple of approaches. A company with the right tools can simply polish the surface and apply a penetrating sealer. Or the crew can color the concrete by applying a stain before the sealer goes on. A third option is to sand deeper, enough to expose some of the aggregate, or small stones, within the concrete mix. This leaves the floor looking similar to terrazzo.

Mid-Atlantic Floor Care (www.midatlanticfloorcare.com; 877-745-4705) charges $5 to $7 a square foot for the treatments, with a minimum job price of $2,000. Based in Richmond, the company tackles jobs throughout the Washington area. Find other companies that polish concrete through listings atwww.concretenetwork.com.

Tool rental companies carry diamond-grit grinders suitable for polishing concrete. At Sunbelt Rentals (202-529-4667; www.sunbeltrentals.com) an electric grinder rents for $92 a day. So polishing the concrete yourself may seem like a great way to save money, since the process is basically like sanding wood. But to use the machine, you need to buy a kit with the different grinding pads from the manufacturer — and that costs about $600. Steve Howe, the manager at Sunbelt Rentals, says that in six years, he’s rented only to pros except for once, to a homeowner who had ordered the kit. “He got the machine on a Thursday,” Howe said, “and it took him through the whole weekend to complete his project. But he did it.”

When wet, polished concrete is more slippery than broom-finished concrete — the kind you’re probably used to — but less slick than polished marble or waxed concrete. “It has the best slip-resistance of any polished flooring,” says Jeremy Wilkerson of Mid-Atlantic. To keep people from slipping in rainy weather, you can add a mat where people walk. If the mat traps moisture underneath for long periods, it might make the sealer on the concrete look cloudy, but that should disappear once the concrete dries out, Wilkerson said.

Sweeping and damp-mopping usually keep polished concrete looking good. Periodically, you might want to have the surface rebuffed. And after several years, you might need to reapply a penetrating sealer.



Q.I live in a 30-year-old house. One of the toilets is working okay now, but it has leaked in the past and is cracked at the base. A plumber looked at it and discovered it has an 81 / 2-inch rough-in. We have been unable to locate a replacement toilet with such a short rough-in. It’s an American Standard, but the company doesn’t remember ever making such a unit! The plumber said the easiest fix might be to cut away the drywall and create a setback, but it turns out my walls are not thick enough to make much difference there. I hate to be forced into an expensive remodel because of this. Any suggestions?

—Silver Spring

A.There are commercial toilets with eight-inch offsets, but to install one in your house, you’d have to rework the plumbing behind the walls — not a practical option. However, a simple part called an offset flange might be the answer. It fits over or into the drain pipe under the floor and works like an angle fitting, effectively moving the top opening by up to 11 / 2 inches. That would give you enough room to install a modern toilet designed for a 10-inch offset. Models with this offset aren’t as common as ones designed for today’s standard 12-inch offset, but they exist.

Offset flanges used to be prohibited by the plumbing code in effect in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, but they are now allowed provided they are smooth on the inside and don’t create a ledge or shoulder that might impede flow. Ted Podles, who supervises plumbing code reviews for Prince George’s County, which also handles plumbing code issues for Montgomery County, said the main thing is to avoid an offset that is just an inch or so tall. This type tends to clog — not the fix you want. Home centers carry PVC offsets (about $8 each) that work with plastic drain pipes. If your house has cast-iron drain pipes, you or your plumber might need to shop at a specialty company for a cast-iron fitting; it’s about $65 at Ferguson (www.fergusonenterprises.com; 301-589-6662 for the Silver Spring store).

Before you commit to the job, you might want to double-check what the plumber told you. Measure straight back from the center of the bolts holding the tank to the floor. The distance to the wall is the dimension you need. If there is a baseboard, ignore that when you measure.

How to get your home a TV makeover

How to get your home a TV makeover
Hint: It’s less about your house, more about your personality
By Amy Hoak

It’s easy to get drawn into watching a home makeover program. Invest a couple of minutes in getting to know a homeowner and her drab living room, and it’s hard to look away before the big reveal at the end.

And from time to time, while trying to anticipate what improvements the designers will make, it’s easy to glance around your own house and wonder what they’d make of your home’s look.

If you’ve ever wanted your home to be featured on one of these programs, read on. Below is a cheat sheet on what producers are looking for in a home — and, more importantly, a homeowner — when they make their casting decisions.

HGTV

HGTV’s lineup relies heavily on homeowners willingness to let cameras into their homes, so it depends on a stream of applications received from viewers. Casting calls on HGTV.com look for people ranging from families needing help getting organized to empty nesters who want to transform their space.

View HGTV’s casting calls here.

Each program has different instructions on how to apply, but many applicants have been submitting videos to campaign for a makeover, said Kathleen Finch, senior vice president and general manager of HGTV. That’s where they get the first look at your personality, so make it count.

“The first thing you look at is not the home in need of a makeover, but the homeowners. The most important thing is someone who really wants to be on television,” Finch said. “We need the stories to be relatable to many people. We’re looking for people who have the dark, dank basement but really need a family room or the young couple expecting twins as a surprise and need to put on an addition.”

But, when applying, it’s important to remember that not all programming has the same ground rules, she said. Budgets range by show, and not all involve a free makeover. Some require input or help from the homeowner, while others require that they cede complete control to the designer — or, as in a new show, control is given to HGTV’s online community.

Makeover shows typically receive the most applications, Finch said.

One show doesn’t require any application at all. Those picked to be on “Room Crashers” are simply in the right place at the right time — they’re found shopping for home items in stores, and the host convinces them to bring him back to the house for a makeover.

But, even then, fans are being resourceful in their efforts to get picked: “What we keep reading on our Facebook page and Twitter is people trying to figure out where Todd is going to show up next,” she said.

‘Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’

The application for “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” will take awhile to complete. It asks for information about your family, house and background. You’re expected to submit photos or video of your home to make the case for why you — or a family you’re nominating — should be selected.

View the “Extreme Makeover” online application here.

After turning the application in, you’ll play a waiting game for a few months to a couple of years before finding out if you’re on the shortlist. “We receive hundreds and hundreds of letters a week,” said George Verschoor, executive producer for the show. “We look at them, and ABC looks at them.”

Promising entries go to the next level, which includes extensive background checks, meetings with the family and people in the community, as well as finding a potential builder. Finding the right local builder is crucial because the builder has to agree to donate all work, he said.

Anyone who has watched the show knows that producers like to feature people who have an inspiring story or have faced a challenge they’ve worked to rise above. Their story must also be related to their homes in some way; in one episode, a family with a special-needs child had home improvements made to incorporate design and architecture that would enhance the child’s — and the family’s — quality of life.

“Many people watch the show and shoot a home tape that looks like what they see on the show,” Verschoor said. Instead of trying to mimic the show, tell the producers how your story is unique and special — as well as why you’re deserving of the makeover.

“The most important thing is authenticity, and be real and be yourself and tell your story,” Verschoor said. “How does the home affect your life story and how would a new home help you transform and change to move beyond [an event or circumstance]?”

‘This Old House’

“This Old House” was renovating homes on television before it became popular. The show’s roots go back to 1979, said senior series producer Deborah Hood.

Click to Play

Home schooling?

Once a school, this historic structure in the Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, D.C., has been returned to use as a single-family home. The property includes a 7,000-square-foot main house plus a carriage house.

There’s less financial gain for the homeowners featured on this show because they pay for their own projects, though they do occasionally get discounted goods and services. When the idea for the show was hatched, the goal was to follow a real renovation that viewers could learn from, she said.

“It’s a different crowd. They don’t call us because they want free things,” Hood said. “They are preservation-minded,” she said, and homeowners who apply want to have access to the show’s “brain trust,” the skilled people who will help make their home renovation a success.

To apply, people can email pickmyhouse@thisoldhouse.com with their story. When writing, it’s important to be clear: “People who can communicate in a clear and concise way will be easy to work with,” Hood said.

If you catch the eye of the producer, expect a couple more rounds of scouting before you’re chosen. The show looks for interesting neighborhoods, good family stories and compelling home styles indicative of the area they’re filming in.

Here’s the biggest catch: “This Old House” works on two houses every year, and one is in the Boston area so that general contractor Tom Silva has easy access. A year’s second house is located elsewhere in the country.

A&E

Producers of A&E’s “Sell This House” find their featured houses in a couple of ways: from viewers who write in to them via the show’s website and by scouring local home listings, said the show’s executive producer, Lee Christofferson. 

View the “Sell This House” online application here.

“We look at the pictures, find the ugly-looking houses, call their agents, and then they let the homeowners know,” Christofferson said.

The premise of the program is to fix up a house on a budget of about $1,000 or less, with the goal of getting it ready to sell. Designers focus on drawing a potential buyer’s eyes to the things that are great about the house, and ask homeowners to roll up their sleeves and work with the crew.

Other A&E home programs include “Fix This Kitchen” and “Fix This Yard.” Visit the casting site for all A&E shows here.

Most important to getting picked: Be charming in your interactions, Christofferson said. In fact, your personality may be even more important than the condition of your home.

“We want to be invested in the homeowners,” she said. “An audience needs to be able to watch them for 30 minutes to an hour.”

Her advice to those who make it past the initial screening: Invite your funniest friend when a show scout arrives with a video camera.

And don’t make your house look too nice when the crew comes over for a look. You can tidy up a little bit, she said, but don’t put flowers out, either.

An eco-friendly lawn you don't have to mow

By Jennifer Alsever

It's hard to imagine anything more innocuous than a lush suburban lawn. That's what 63-year-old entrepreneur Jackson Madnick used to think -- until a golf course killed his cat.

His cat, Kitty, sickened and died 14 years ago. A groundskeeper at the nearby links told Madnick that many local animals had been dying off from chemicals used to treat the grass there.

That set Madnick off on a mission to find a grass seed that grew easily without toxic chemicals. He spent nearly a decade potting and growing more than 70 different grasses on the deck behind his home in Wayland, Mass. Finally, he got results: a slow-growing, drought-resistant blend of seven grasses that needs no chemical fertilizers, little mowing and relatively no water. He named the blend Pearl's Premium, in honor of his environmentalist mother.

"At first I wondered if I had done something wrong when the grass was growing slower," he says. But when he dug into the soil and found the roots extending to the bottom of the pot, he was ecstatic.

Pearl's Premium arrived on the market in 2009. The seed is now available at Home Depot's (HD, Fortune 500) website and at 60 brick-and-mortar stores, including garden centers and Whole Foods branches on the East Coast. Madnick expects his six-employee company to hit $1 million in sales this year.

So where's the splendor in this grass? The roots. According to Madnick, Pearl's Premium's roots grow up to a foot long, reaching deeper for nutrients and water than the two-inch roots of common bluegrass. This means it gets plenty of access to nitrogen and may stay greener in the fall and winter. It also means that homeowners in the northern U.S. will seldom or never need to water it; in the drier South, it requires watering once or twice a week. (Newly planted grass requires a month of daily watering to get it established.)

Because Pearl's Premium grows slowly, it requires mowing only about once a month in sunny areas and every six weeks in the shade.

"This lets people have great lawns with far less impact to the environment," Madnick says.

Most lawns, after all, are anything but green. In California alone, homeowners water 10 million acres of residential grass, consuming enough water to supply the drinking needs of 40 million households, says Brett Lorenzen, a researcher at the non-profit Environmental Working Group.

Americans put 70 million pounds of pesticides and herbicides on their lawns each year, he adds. Those chemicals get washed into drainage systems and flow into lakes and rivers, where the resulting high levels of phosphorous create algae blooms that suck up oxygen, killing fish and native plant life.

"Lawns are devastating to our waterways," Lorenzen says. "The impacts are huge."

But does Pearl's Premium work? Ed Lyon, a realtor in Newton, Mass., met Madnick at a local green expo and liked the idea of saving water. So last year he de-thatched the existing lawn on his half-acre property and seeded it with Pearl's Premium. He says the fine-blade grass that grew in looks nice. It's softer and more resilient than his old grass, he adds, and greener, too.

"We don't really water the lawn anymore and basically it's fine," Lyon says. "Jackson Madnick is a bit of an evangelist, a salesman, but there's some truth to what he says."

Pearl's Premium is the only grass seed sold in Whole Foods' (WFMI,Fortune 500) North Atlantic region, which includes 27 stores, says Bill McGowan, the grocer's regional produce and floral coordinator.

"We're pretty selective about the items we put in the garden center," says McGowan. "So far, it's selling quite briskly. I haven't gotten a single piece of negative feedback."

But Pearl's Premium faces challenges. First off, it doesn't have the market to itself. No-Mow Lawn Seed has been around for years. Other eco-friendly grass seeds, including EcoLawn and Pennington Smart Seed, also promise less water and slow-growing grass.

And not everyone buys into Madnick's sales pitch.

"It's not new grass," says Frank Rossi, a Cornell University turf expert. "They put grass that's been out there forever and put it into a package and they called it something fancy. It's marketing."

Rossi notes that Pearl's Premium may not thrive in Texas, Southern California and the Deep South. Homeowners are best off ensuring they have decent soil and a grass that suits their climate, he says -- and by mowing the grass high, they can cut back on water bills.

While Madnick's efforts are noble, changing consumers' minds will be difficult, says Lorenzen of the Environmental Working Group. He questions whether people will take the time to reseed their lawn and water it each day for a month, up-front, to cut back on mowing and watering in the future. Plus, the seed is pricey: a five-pound bag that covers 1,000 square feet costs $34. The same amount of bluegrass may cost $8 to $27.

"Pearl's Premium isn't going to clean the water of the U.S.," Lorenzen says. "Changing people is hard, and I don't think most people will make the time and money to put it in, unless they really hate to mow." 

Construction spending falls, manufacturing recovers in May

Construction spending falls, manufacturing recovers in May

By Derek Kravitz

WASHINGTON — Builders began work on fewer projects in May, but U.S. manufacturing activity recovered somewhat in June from a sharp slowdown in May.
The Commerce Department says construction spending declined 0.6% in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $757.9 billion. It is barely above an 11-year low hit in February and roughly half the $1.5 trillion pace considered healthy by most economists. Analysts say it could be another four years before construction returns to healthier levels.

Home construction fell 2.1%. But much of the decline was because an equal decline in apartment building, which can be volatile.

Government projects fell 0.8% to a seasonally adjusted $276 billion annual rate. It was the eighth consecutive monthly decline and it dropped government spending to its lowest level since April 2007.

State and local governments accounted for all the declines. They fell 1.2% to $246.6 billion. Activity at this level is at the lowest point since December 2006. State and local governments have been cutting back on building projects as they deal with large budget deficits.

Spending at the federal level rose 2.1% to $29.6 billion.

Building on private projects fell 0.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $477 billion in May.

Residential spending fell 2.1%. Construction of single-family homes dropped 0.3% in May and spending on apartment construction fell 2.1%.

Homeowners are renovating their houses rather than moving. Builders are struggling to compete with a wave of foreclosures that are forcing down prices of previously occupied homes.

Older, re-sold homes are a comparative bargain and in great supply.

The median price for a previously occupied home in May was $166,500. New homes are about $56,100 higher, or nearly 31%. The gap is largely due to the flood of foreclosures and short sales, when lenders accept less than what's owed on mortgages.

The factory sector has had a small recovery, growing now for 23 straight months.

The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing executives, says that its index of manufacturing activity rose to 55.3 in June from 53.5 in May, the slowest growth in 20 months.

A reading above 50 indicates that the manufacturing sector is expanding.

In June, new orders for goods and employment picked up again.

Growth had slowed sharply in May. High gas prices cut into consumer spending and an auto parts shortage stemming from Japan's March 11 earthquake.

5 strategies for keeping you out of remodeling hell

By Sarah Welch and Alicia Rockmore, getbuttonedup.com

Who doesn't salivate at the thought of a sparkling new kitchen or a luxurious new bathroom? But let's get real about home improvements.

Committing to and then living through a renovation is another thing entirely. Taking on a home improvement is no small feat; it requires time, money and organization.

Here are five ways to keep any project, big or small, under control.

1. Prioritize: Clarity on priorities means that, when the inevitable budget-busting options are presented, you'll know how to choose.

2. No "cookies": There's a marvelous children's book called "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie," which is about a boy who gives a cookie to a mouse, who in turn keeps asking for additional things.

If you give a contractor (or a spouse or a decorator) the OK to expand the scope of the project once, he or she will likely keep asking to do more and more things as part of the project.

Before hiring anyone write down exactly what you want done. Give copies to everyone involved. This will save money and time. You'll be able to cut short discussions related to work that is outside the scope of your project.

3. Make a Gantt chart: It's a bar chart that shows the general flow of a project, from left to right. Create one by hand, or use an application like Excel or PowerPoint.

Going down the left side, generate a list of tasks required to get the job done, estimate how long each will take and whether any one is dependent on another being completed first. Then put dates across the top of the page. Then simply map out when each task can be done.

Pay close attention to any and all dependencies as the job progresses. You might ask a contractor or outside expert to complete a Gantt chart as part of the bidding process.

4. Make selections in bulk: Designate a few hours on one day to make all of the decisions regarding knobs, light fixtures, door handles, paint finishes, fabric selections and the like, rather than making decisions piecemeal,

5. Project folder: From estimates to swatches, keep it all together in one binder and you'll likely save yourself hours, not to mention blood-pressure points.

Scientists Say World's Top-Selling Weedkiller Causes Birth Defects

Roundup: Birth Defects Caused By World's Top-Selling Weedkiller, Scientists Say

By Lucia Graves

WASHINGTON -- The chemical at the heart of the planet’s most widely used herbicide -- Roundup weedkiller, used in farms and gardens across the U.S. -- is coming under more intense scrutiny following the release of a new report calling for a heightened regulatory response around its use.

Critics have argued for decades that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and other herbicides used around the globe, poses a serious threat to public health. Industry regulators, however, appear to have consistently overlooked their concerns.

A comprehensive review of existing data released this month by Earth Open Source, an organization that uses open-source collaboration to advance sustainable food production, suggests that industry regulators in Europe have known for years that glyphosate, originally introduced by American agricultural biotechnology giant Monsanto in 1976, causes birth defects in the embryos of laboratory animals.

Founded in 2009, Earth Open Source is a non-profit organisation incorporated in the U.K. but international in scope. Its three directors, specializing in business, technology and genetic engineering, work pro-bono along with a handful of young volunteers. Partnering with half a dozen international scientists and researchers, the group drew its conclusions in part from studies conducted in a number of locations, including Argentina, Brazil, France and the United States.

Earth Open Source’s study is only the latest report to question the safety of glyphosate, which is the top-ranked herbicide used in the United States. Exact figures are hard to come by because the U.S. Department of Agriculture stopped updating its pesticide use database in 2008. The EPA estimates that the agricultural market used 180 to 185 million pounds of glyphosate between 2006 and 2007, while the non-agricultural market used 8 to 11 million pounds between 2005 and 2007, according to its Pesticide Industry Sales & Usage Report for 2006-2007 published in February, 2011.

The Earth Open Source study also reports that by 1993 the herbicide industry, including Monsanto, knew that visceral anomalies such as dilation of the heart could occur in rabbits at low and medium-sized doses. The report further suggests that since 2002, regulators with the European Commission have known that glyphosate causes developmental malformations in lab animals.

Even so, the commission’s health and consumer division published a final review report of glyphosate in 2002 that approved its use in Europe for the next 10 years.

As recently as last year, the German Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BLV), a government agency conducting a review of glyphosate, told the European Commission that there was no evidence the compound causes birth defects, according to the report.

The agency reached that conclusion despite almost half a dozen industry studies that found glyphosate produced fetal malformations in lab animals, as well as an independent study from 2007 that found that Roundup induces adverse reproductive effects in the male offspring of a certain kind of rats.

German regulators declined to respond in detail for this story because they say they only learned of the Earth Open Source report last week. The regulators emphasized that their findings were based on public research and literature.

Although the European Commission originally planned to review glyphosate in 2012, it decided late last year not to do so until 2015. And it won’t review the chemical under more stringent, up-to-date standards until 2030, according to the report.

The European Commission told HuffPost that it wouldn’t comment on whether it was already aware of studies demonstrating the toxicity of glyphosate in 2002. But it said the commission was aware of the Earth Open Source study and had discussed it with member states.

“Germany concluded that study does not change the current safety assessment of gylphosate,” a commission official told HuffPost in an email. “This view is shared by all other member states.”

John Fagan, a doctor of molecular and cell biology and biochemistry and one of the founders of Earth Open Source, acknowledged his group’s report offers no new laboratory research. Rather, he said the objective was for scientists to compile and evaluate the existing evidence and critique the regulatory response.

“We did not do the actual basic research ourselves,” said Fagan. “The purpose of this paper was to bring together and to critically evaluate all the evidence around the safety of glyphosate and we also considered how the regulators, particularly in Europe, have looked at that.”

For its part, Earth Open Source said that government approval of the ubiquitous herbicide has been rash and problematic.

"Our examination of the evidence leads us to the conclusion that the current approval of glyphosate and Roundup is deeply flawed and unreliable," wrote the report’s authors. "What is more, we have learned from experts familiar with pesticide assessments and approvals that the case of glyphosate is not unusual.

"They say that the approvals of numerous pesticides rest on data and risk assessments that are just as scientifically flawed, if not more so," the authors added. "This is all the more reason why the Commission must urgently review glyphosate and other pesticides according to the most rigorous and up-to-date standards."

Monsanto spokeswoman Janice Person said in a statement that the Earth Open Source report presents no new findings.

"Based on our initial review, the Earth Open Source report does not appear to contain any new health or toxicological evidence regarding glyphosate,” Person said.

“Regulatory authorities and independent experts around the world agree that glyphosate does not cause adverse reproductive effects in adult animals or birth defects in offspring of these adults exposed to glyphosate," she said, "even at doses far higher than relevant environmental or occupational exposures.”

While Roundup has been associated with deformities in a host of laboratory animals, its impact on humans remains unclear. One laboratory study done in France in 2005 found that Roundup and glyphosate caused the death of human placental cells and abnormal embryonic cells. Another study, conducted in 2009, found that Roundup caused total cell death in human umbilical, embryonic and placental cells within 24 hours. Yet researchers have conducted few follow-up studies.

“Obviously there’s a limit to what’s appropriate in terms of testing poison on humans,” said Jeffrey Smith, executive director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, which advocates for genetically modified food. “But if you look at the line of converging evidence, it points to a serious problem. And if you look at the animal feeding studies with genetically modified Roundup ready crops, there’s a consistent theme of reproductive disorders, which we don’t know the cause for because follow-up studies have not been done.”

“More independent research is needed to evaluate the toxicity of Roundup and glyphosate,” he added, “and the evidence that has already accumulated is sufficient to raise a red flag.”

Authorities have criticized Monsanto in the past for soft-peddling Roundup. In 1996 New York State's Attorney General sued Monsanto for describing Roundup as "environmentally friendly" and "safe as table salt." Monsanto, while not admitting any wrongdoing, agreed to stop using the terms for promotional purposes and paid New York state $250,000 to settle the suit.

Regulators in the United States have said they are aware of the concerns surrounding glyphosate. The Environmental Protection Agency, which is required to reassess the safety and effectiveness all pesticides on a 15-year cycle through a process called registration review, is currently examining the compound.

“EPA initiated registration review of glyphosate in July 2009,” the EPA told HuffPost in a written statement. “EPA will determine if our previous assessments of this chemical need to be revised based on the results of this review. EPA issued a notice to the company [Monsanto] to submit human health and ecotoxicity data in September 2010.”

The EPA said it will also review a “wide range of information and data from other independent researchers” including Earth Open Source.

The agency's Office of Pesticide Programs is in charge of the review and has set a deadline of 2015 for determining if registration modifications need to be made or if the herbicide should continue to be sold at all.

Though skirmishes over the regulation of glyphosate are playing out at agencies across the U.S. and around the world, Argentina is at the forefront of the battle.

THE ARGENTINE MODEL

The new report, "Roundup and birth defects: Is the public being kept in the dark?" comes years after Argentine scientists and residents targeted glyphosate, arguing that it caused health problems and environmental damage.

Farmers and others in Argentina used the weedkiller primarily on genetically modified Roundup Ready soy, which covers nearly 50 million acres, or half of the country's cultivated land area. In 2009 farmers sprayed that acreage with an estimated 200 million liters of glyphosate.

The Argentine government helped pull the country out of a recession in the 1990s in part by promoting genetically modified soy. Though it was something of a miracle for poor farmers, several years after the first big harvests residents near where the soy cop grew began reporting health problems, including high rates of birth defects and cancers, as well as the losses of crops and livestock as the herbicide spray drifted across the countryside.

Such reports gained further traction after an Argentine government scientist, Andres Carrasco conducted a study, "Glyphosate-Based Herbicides Produce Teratogenic Effects on Vertebrates by Impairing Retinoic Acid Signaling" in 2009.

The study, published in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology in 2010, found that glyphosate causes malformations in frog and chicken embryos at doses far lower than those used in agricultural spraying. It also found that malformations caused in frog and chicken embryos by Roundup and its active ingredient glyphosate were similar to human birth defects found in genetically modified soy-producing regions.

"The findings in the lab are compatible with malformations observed in humans exposed to glyphosate during pregnancy," wrote Carrasco, director of the Laboratory of Molecular Embryology at the University of Buenos Aires. "I suspect the toxicity classification of glyphosate is too low.”

“In some cases this can be a powerful poison," he concluded.

Argentina has not made any federal reforms based on this research and has not discussed the research publicly, Carrasco told HuffPost, except to mount a "close defense of Monsanto and it partners."

The Ministry of Science and Technology has moved to distance the government from the study,telling media at the time the study was not commissioned by the government and had not been reviewed by scientific peers.

Ignacio Duelo, spokesman for the the Ministry of Science and Technology’s National Council for Scientific and Technical Research [CONICET], told HuffPost in an statement that while Carrasco is one of its researchers, CONICET has not vouched for or assessed his work.

Duelo said that the Ministry of Science is examining Carrasco’s report as part of a study of the possible harmful effects of the glyphosate. Officials, he added, are as yet unable to “reach a definitive conclusion on the effects of glyphosate on human health, though more studies are recommended, as more data is necessary.”

REGIONAL BANS

After Carrasco announced his findings in 2009, the Defense Ministry banned planting of genetically modified glyphosate-resistant soy on lands it rents to farmers, and a group of environmental lawyerspetitioned the Supreme Court of Argentina to implement a national ban on the use of glyphosate, including Monsanto's Roundup product. But the ban was never adopted.

"A ban, if approved, would mean we couldn't do agriculture in Argentina," said Guillermo Cal, executive director of CASAFE, Argentina's association of fertilizer companies, in a statement at the time.

In March 2010, a regional court in Argentina's Santa Fe province banned the spraying of glyphosateand other herbicides near populated areas. A month later, the provincial government of Chaco province issued a report on health statistics from La Leonesa. The report, which was carried in the leftist Argentinian newspaper Página 12, showed that from 2000 to 2009, following the expansion of genetically-modified soy and rice crops in the region, the childhood cancer rate tripled in La Leonesa and the rate of birth defects increased nearly fourfold over the entire province.

MORE QUESTIONS

Back in the United States, Don Huber, an emeritus professor of plant pathology at Purdue University, found that genetically-modified crops used in conjunction with Roundup contain a bacteria that may cause animal miscarriages.

After studying the bacteria, Huber wrote Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in February warning that the "pathogen appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and probably human beings."

The bacteria is particularly prevalent in corn and soybean crops stricken by disease, according to Huber, who asked Vilsack to stop deregulating Roundup Ready crops. Critics such as Huber are particularly wary of those crops because scientists have genetically altered them to be immune to Roundup -- and thus allow farmers to spray the herbicide liberally onto a field, killing weeds but allowing the crop itself to continue growing.

Monsanto is not the only company making glyphosate. China sells glyphosate to Argentina at a very low price, Carrasco said, and there are more than one hundred commercial formulations in the market. But Monsanto’s Roundup has the longest list of critics, in part because it dominates the market.

The growth in adoption of genetically modified crops has exploded since their introduction in 1996. According to Monsanto, an estimated 89 percent of domestic soybean crops were Roundup Ready in 2010, and as of 2010, there were 77.4 million acres of Roundup Ready soybeans planted, according to the Department of Agriculture.

In his letter to the Agriculture Department, Huber also commented on the herbicide, saying that the bacteria that he’s concerned about appears to be connected to use of glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup.

"It is well-documented that glyphosate promotes soil pathogens and is already implicated with the increase of more than 40 plant diseases; it dismantles plant defenses by chelating vital nutrients; and it reduces the bioavailability of nutrients in feed, which in turn can cause animal disorders," he wrote.

Huber said the Agriculture Department wrote him in early May and that he has had several contacts with the agency since then. But there’s little evidence that government officials have any intention of conducting the “multi-agency investigation” Huber requested.

Part of the problem may be that the USDA oversees genetically modified crops while the EPA watches herbicides, creating a potential regulatory loophole for products like Roundup, which relies on both to complete the system. When queried, USDA officials emphasized that they do not regulate pesticides or herbicides and declined to comment publicly on Huber's letter.

A spokesman eventually conceded their scientists do study glyphosate. "USDA’s Agricultural Research Service’s research with glyphosate began shortly after the discovery of its herbicidal activity in the mid 1970s," said the USDA in a statement. "All of our research has been made public and much has gone through the traditional peer review process.”

While Huber acknowledged his research is far from conclusive, he said regulatory agencies must seek answers now. “There is much research that needs to be done yet,” he said. “But we can't afford to wait the three to five years for peer-reviewed papers.”

While Huber’s claims have roiled the agricultural world and the blogosphere alike, he has fueled skeptics by refusing to make his research public or identify his fellow researchers, who he claimscould suffer substantial professional backlash from academic employers who received research funding from the biotechnology industry.

At Purdue University, six of Huber’s former colleagues pointedly distanced themselves from his findings, encouraging crop producers and agribusiness personnel “to speak with University Extension personnel before making changes in crop production practices that are based on sensationalist claims.”

Since it first introduced the chemical to the world in the 1970s, Monsanto has netted billions on its best-selling herbicide, though the company has faced stiffer competition since its patent expired in 2000 and it is reportedly working to revamp its strategy.

In a lengthy email, Person, the Monsanto spokeswoman, responded to critics, suggesting that the economic and environmental benefits of Roundup were being overlooked:

The authors of the report create an account of glyphosate toxicity from a selected set of scientific studies, while they ignored much of the comprehensive data establishing the safety of the product. Regulatory agencies around the world have concluded that glyphosate is not a reproductive toxin or teratogen (cause of birth defects) based on in-depth review of the comprehensive data sets available.

Earth Open Source authors take issue with the decision by the European Commission to place higher priority on reviewing other pesticide ingredients first under the new EU regulations, citing again the flawed studies as the rationale. While glyphosate and all other pesticide ingredients will be reviewed, the Commission has decided that glyphosate appropriately falls in a category that doesn’t warrant immediate attention.

“The data was there but the regulators were glossing over it," said John Fagan of Earth Open Source, "and as a result it was accepted in ways that we consider really questionable.”

CORNERING THE INDUSTRY?

Although the EPA has said it wants to evaluate more evidence of glyphosate's human health risk as part of a registration review program, the agency is not doing any studies of its own and is instead relying on outside data -- much of which comes from the agricultural chemicals industry it seeks to regulate.

"EPA ensures that each registered pesticide continues to meet the highest standards of safety to protect human health and the environment," the agency told HuffPost in a statement. "These standards have become stricter over the years as our ability to evaluate the potential effects of pesticides has increased. The Agency placed glyphosphate into registration review. Registration review makes sure that as the ability to assess risks and as new information becomes available, the Agency carefully considers the new information to ensure pesticides do not pose risks of concern to people or the environment."

Agribusiness giants, including Monsanto, Dow Chemical, Syngenta and BASF, will generate much of the data the EPA is seeking as part of a 19-member task force. But the EPA has emphasized that the task force is only “one of numerous varied third-party sources that EPA will rely on for use in its registration review.”

The EPA is hardly the only industry regulator that relies heavily on data supplied by the agrochemical industry itself.

“The regulation of pesticides has been significantly skewed towards the manufacturers interests where state-of-the-art testing is not done and adverse findings are typically distorted or denied,” said Jeffrey Smith, of the Institute for Responsible Technology. “The regulators tend to use the company data rather than independent sources, and the company data we have found to be inappropriately rigged to force the conclusion of safety.”

“We have documented time and time again scientists who have been fired, stripped of responsibilities, denied funding, threatened, gagged and transferred as a result of the pressure put on them by the biotech industry,” he added.

Such suppression has sometimes grown violent, Smith noted. Last August, when Carrasco and his team of researchers went to give a talk in La Leonesa they were intercepted by a mob of about a hundred people. The attack landed two people in the hospital and left Carrasco and a colleague cowering inside a locked car. Witnesses said the angry crowd had ties to powerful economic interests behind the local agro-industry and that police made little effort to interfere with the beating,according to the human rights group Amnesty International.

Fagan told HuffPost that among developmental biologists who are not beholden to the chemical industry or the biotechnology industry, there is strong recognition that Carrasco’s research is credible.

"For me as a scientist, one of the reasons I made the effort to do this research into the literature was to really satisfy the question myself as to where the reality of the situation lies,” he added. “Having thoroughly reviewed the literature on this, I feel very comfortable in standing behind the conclusions Professor Carrasco came to and the broader conclusions that we come to in our paper

“We can’t figure out how regulators could have come to the conclusions that they did if they were taking a balanced look at the science, even the science that was done by the chemical industry itself.”