Ranger Pro Argumentative Analysis

Residents near Kapiolani Park are outraged by the spraying of Ranger Pro, an herbicide containing glyphosate, an active ingredient shown to cause cancer in animals and damage human DNA. The Hawai’i News Now article, published on October 1st, 2016, stated that despite the herbicide being approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the World Health Organization recently designated glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic to humans." In 2014, the community held meetings with park officials to ban the use of Ranger Pro; however, the city continues to use Ranger Pro at parks and facilities around the island. The article was written in favor of the resident’s perspective; therefore, the article did not mention the role of glyphosate in herbicides
Glyphosate is used to inhibit an enzyme in plants and microorganisms, which is essential to the formation of specific amino acids (Ranger Pro®, 2007). Glyphosate was first registered for use in 1974 and is currently one of the most widely used herbicides in the United States (NPIC, 2015). Exposure to glyphosate can occur when Ranger Pro comes into contact with the skin, eyes, or through inhalation from sprays (NPIC, 2015). Although Ranger Pro is known to be relatively nontoxic to dogs and other domestic animals, ingestion of this product or exposure to large amounts of freshly sprayed vegetation may result in irritation of the eyes, skin, and the gastrointestinal tract, resulting in vomiting and diarrhea (Ranger Pro®,
Studies on cancer rates in humans have provided conflicting results on whether the use of products containing glyphosate is associated with cancer (NPIC, 2015). Meanwhile, other studies have associated glyphosate use with an increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NPIC, 2015). Other studies have linked high doses of glyphosate to developmental and reproductive abnormalities in rats, such as skeletal defects and low birth weight in rat fetuses (NPIC, 2015). However, these effects were not observed at lower doses (NPIC, 2015). Additionally, since glyphosate is a non-selective herbicide, application of Ranger Pro will likely affect the growth, condition, and reproduction of other vegetation resulting in an alteration of the ecosystem (NPIC,