> For years, Monsanto declared that their product Roundup, the world's most widely used weed killer, was safe. But that all changed in 2015, when the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) analyzed data from scientific studies and concluded that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is probably carcinogenic. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) disagreed, other regulatory agencies got involved, and scientists clamored to understand the link between glyphosate and cancer.
> Toxic Exposure tells the true story of numerous patients who developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a form of cancer, after using Roundup and their ensuing trials against Monsanto (now owned by Bayer, one of the largest agrochemical companies in the world). Written by Chadi Nabhan, MD, MBA, a cancer specialist, this is the only book written by an expert physician witness who testified in the first three trials against Monsanto.
> Dr. Nabhan takes the reader behind the scenes of these pivotal trials, explaining key features of the cases, including how Monsanto downplayed the IARC's scientific conclusions, may have worked to change how the EPA classified glyphosate, and conducted extensive PR campaigns designed to minimize the public's perception of the negative health effects of its product. He also provides details about the other expert witnesses who reviewed the evidence, analyzed the science, and stood up to this agricultural behemoth in the courtroom.
> Dr. Nabhan tells the inside story of corporate influence, courtroom drama, legal discourse, monumental verdicts, and the ensuing media frenzy surrounding this massive uncovering of the truth and the years of scientific and legal work that led up to it.
For comparison, hot beverages(eg: Coffee), red meat and working the night shift are also probable carcinogens. Known carcinogens include alcohol, fried food, bbq/grilling.
Roundup hasn't been shown to be carcinogen in any animal model testing and only one observational study has shown an up lift in a cancer. Hence the designation of potential.
Hot beverages significantly increases risk of Esophageal cancer in multiple observational studies.
That seems like a ridiculous gotcha type exchange. I can be both true that glyphosate is safer than alternative herbicides and something you shouldn't drink.
Does it? It really just shows that he wasn't serious when he said he'd literally dirk it. I wouldn't assume that was a serious statement. A more careful person would have said something like "you could hypothetically drink the stuff and based on everything we know right now you'd be just fine."
The comments on HN are usually very informative, and this article is no exception. Here we have this comment:
> The IARC is the odd one out here and their results are based mainly on discredited experiments on rats that are known to be prone to getting cancer (meaning they aren't a good model for humans in this case).
It depends on how you define consensus, I guess. But the data is clear: one organisation out of many, and they drew their conclusions not from humans but from rats prone to cancer.
> It's dangerous to the workers who work on the fields, not to the consumers at the end of the chain, or both?
I don't know. But one of Glyphosate charms is it breaks down very rapidly. It means it doesn't do damage to surrounding plants that weren't directly exposed (unlike say 75-D). So my wild guess is you would have to be a field worker exposed to it directly. IIRC the people who won law suits against Monsanto were field workers who got regularly drenched in the stuff.
Not just EU, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans” back in 2015.
“The strongest evidence shows that glyphosate causes hemangiosarcomas, kidney tumors and malignant lymphomas in male CD-1 mice, hemangiomas and malignant lymphomas in female CD-1 mice, hemangiomas in female Swiss albino mice, kidney adenomas, liver adenomas, skin keratoacanthomas and skin basal cell tumors in male Sprague-Dawley rats, adrenal cortical carcinomas in female Sprague-Dawley rats and hepatocellular adenomas and skin keratocanthomas in male Wistar rats.”
By Christopher J Portier, the same Christopher Portier that served as a special advisor for IARC while at the same time secretly accepting money from law firms involved in glyphosate litigation. The IARC study was edited to remove evidence to the contrary to its findings.
"Closer scrutiny of the IARC process reveals that it was advised by an “invited specialist,” Christopher Portier, in its work on glyphosate. At the same time Mr. Portier was working for the agency, he was being paid by the Environmental Defense Fund, an anti-pesticide group. Moreover, Mr. Portier received $160,000 from law firms suing over glyphosate. When asked about this potential conflict of interest, Mr. Portier initially claimed to be advising firms on other IARC-related lawsuits and not glyphosate litigation. He later acknowledged that his statement was wrong. It is also worth noting that Mr. Portier had no experience with glyphosate prior to his work on it for IARC.
Following Mr. Portier’s arrival at IARC, the final glyphosate study was altered in at least 10 ways to remove or reverse conclusions finding no evidence of carcinogenicity. The agency removed multiple scientists’ conclusions that studies found no link between glyphosate and cancer in lab animals and statistical analyses of studies with negative findings were turned into positive ones. The determination that glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic” was based on “limited evidence” of carcinogenicity in humans and “sufficient evidence” in experimental animals."
Negative results on cancer studies don’t mean there isn’t a cancer link.
They at best suggest a limitation on how dangerous a substance may be. Aka plenty of 2 pay a day smokers never get lung cancer. The usual approach is to have a reasonably large number of animals and increase their exposure, but that only works if the risks are linear and the animal model maps well to humans.
The damage is still being done. I am a non-producing farmer in EEU. I know for a fact many local farmers still use Roundup on crops, even though its illegal. There are no checks done when they sell the grain. All the bees in the area have already died.
>I quit a good job in the agriculture business once I found out the idiot "daddys money got squandered" business owner got his new injection in cash in a backroom deal w/ Monsanto.
Curious about this. Did Monsanto give the farmer an advance or something, in return for agreeing to use/switch to their seed?
> pernicious and devious sockpuppetry cough persona management disinfo campaigns
Yeah I've gotten super weird responses when I discuss them on forums where randos are like verbatim repeating their PR talking points, and with a bizarre level of passion.
Of course I don't have the information to prove/disprove these things and, insofar as I also see it on HN, these accusations are against the rules, so I don't say anything but it's highly suspicious to say the least.
Because it is almost certainly confusing Glyphosate, a herbicide, whose only demonstrated effect in animals is to cause cancer in cancer prone rats when administered in large doses, to Neonicotinoids which are a pesticide targeting insects that has had a devastating effect on bees. Most countries ban Neonicotinoids nowadays.
Why don't you report this anonymously to authorities AND media, since we know this leads to horrible deaths? Its low-energy effort, heck few envelopes to medias around the Europe and I guarantee you they would be on it like wasps on sweet food. You shouldn't be protecting people killing (also) children due to their greed or ignorance.
You can save many lives and actually trigger the (necessary) change in legislation!
But if the news makes into other EU countries, wouldn't the EU then be able to use it's "powers" to prevent the sale of that grain into the rest of the EU?
what else am I supposed to infer from that than the EU regulating over countries "around the Europe"? another poster stated they specifically by grains from Europe under the notion that EU regulations were protecting them from this type of stuff. so, how is this hard to figure out how these are related?
I am in EU, it was my mistake to shorten Eastern EU to EEU.
As to why not report this, sadly the systemic problems in this particular area are pretty deep. I'm not saying 'it won't do anything', but the results may be, at best, insignificant, and at worst quite bad for me.
What is needed is farmland consolidation. It's easier to control one big, invested farmer than 100 semi-literate drunks holding the same amount collectively, each working their tiny little 10 acre bit. Unfortunately it is a common populist policy to slow down or reverse this process, to "stop foreigners buying out our homeland" or something.
I am not a career farmer, nor a bee inspector. Are they all dead? Probably not. But I know some beekeepers in the area and all of theirs died, and I'm not seeing hives around while they used to be common. Also, you should know bees are not the only pollinators.
Yep, I know there are other pollinators- but there are definitely plants that are only pollinated by bees (see "Pollinator impact: 4- essential" on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crop_plants_pollinated...) and that's why I wrote. my comment that way.
Now you've gone from "are they all dead" to "I have an anecdote and some local people reported all their bees died". I, too have seen local anecdotes about that... and then verified that they weren't true, and areas near me have huge and healthy bee populations.
Root systems are not necessarily just about being able to hold soil or not getting knocked over.
I don’t know what the parent comment meant by that, but I do know the root zone is vital for plants. Plants do not directly mine minerals. Instead, they produce complex sugars which they exchange with bacteria and fungi, who in turn, trade minerals that the plant needs. Some plants with also trade nutrients with each other (usually within the same species).
It’s in this way that soil itself is alive, whereas dirt is dead. Glysophates messes with soil in such a way that farmers attempt to compensate with fertilizer as an input. It becomes a degenerate process. Our current commercial agricultural has been slowly killing our soil.
The idea here is to look at the whole ecosystem, even at the local level at the level of the farm.
- How does Roundup contribute to the health of the farm?
- How is the manufacturing process of Roundup harmonized with ecosystem where it is manufactured? What about further up the supply chain? What about transport, marketing, and finance?
- How is the manufacture and use of Roundup caring for land, caring for people, and distributing fair share?
Chances are, the “weeds” that Roundup were killing contributes more to the soil health than Roundup does. The point of “no till” is not just to no-till, but rather, a comprehensive and holistic way of working with the soil. It takes at least five years to get it going.
> Chances are, the “weeds” that Roundup were killing contributes more to the soil health than Roundup does.
I mean, sure, if you take the cropland out of production and let weeds do their thing, that will be great for soil health. That isn't farming though. The alternative to sedbed preparation with herbicide isn't just leaving the weeds. Typically, it is tillage. Are there no till practices that scale that dont involve Roundup? Yeah, sometimes. But thus far it's use has fostered the proliferation of no-till farming, now on 1/5th of US cropland, and has been a net benefit for soil conservation
Unless you really want to argue tilling was better.
"Organizations such as the Joint FAO/WHO Meeting on Pesticide Residues and the European Commission, Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency, and the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment[30] have concluded that there is no evidence that glyphosate poses a carcinogenic or genotoxic risk to humans. The final assessment of the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority in 2017 was that "glyphosate does not pose a carcinogenic risk to humans".[31] The EPA has evaluated the carcinogenic potential of glyphosate multiple times since 1986. In 1986, glyphosate was initially classified as Group C: "Possible Human Carcinogen", but later recommended as Group D: "Not Classifiable as to Human Carcinogenicity" due to lack of statistical significance in previously examined rat tumor studies. In 1991, it was classified as Group E: "Evidence of Non-Carcinogenicity for Humans", and in 2015 and 2017, "Not Likely to be Carcinogenic to Humans".[32][33]"
Absence of evidence != Evidence of absence. This mistake is especially pernicious when facing the choice of repeated trials, and something inherent to this topic since constantly eating food that at some point was subject to this chemical is by definition a repeated trial.
Yes, absence of evidence is evidence of absence, under the right evidence-gathering circumstances.
Would you say that perhaps there are pigs which can fly, because absence of the evidence of the existence of flying pigs isn't evidence of their absence?
> under the right evidence-gathering circumstances.
1.) Would you say that perhaps the Parachute is not working?
"Conclusions: Parachute use did not reduce death or major traumatic injury when jumping from aircraft in the first randomized evaluation of this intervention."
People used to think there were no black swans until they found them.
Re. flying pigs, we have total and complete observation of pigs for thousands of years, as well as a physical and biological understanding of why they can’t fly.
If you have that, then it’s pretty safe to draw conclusions.
If we randomly sample, say, 10,000 swans and find all of them to be white, then we can state that a certain percentage of swans are white, with a confidence interval around it. That percentage won't be 100% and the interval won't be +/- zero. There are multiple techniques for this:
If we plug in 10,000 white swans out of 10,000 observations, and a confidence of 0.99 (we want to be 99% sure that the probability we calculate is within the range we calculate) the Clopper-Pearson exact result gives us a range [0.9995. 1]. Based on a observing a properly randomized, unbiased sample of 10,000 swans and finding them all to be white, we can be 99% confident that the probability of a swan being white could be as low as 99.95%, or as high as 100% (all swans are white).
If we want to be 99.99% certain of our range, it drops down to [0.999, 1]: 99.9% to 100% of swans are white, with a confidence of 99.99%.
There are lots of substances that can cause cancer, including ones that occur in nature, including in foods. The relevant question is whether the substance under consideration causes cancer above the noise floor, not in some mathematically pure sense like "No molecule of the substance could ever interact with something in a cell in order to trigger cancerous behavior."
E.g. roughly speaking, if you give megadoses of the stuff to a large number of rats and they don't have any more tumors than a control group, that's might be good evidence of absence, especially if repeated with large numbers of rats by different researchers in different countries and organizations.
Personally, I would take it a step further. Even if there is a non-zero statistical chance that it causes cancer, I think there has to be some room to ask whether the benefits outweigh the costs. To some, low food prices in a world of food shortages may very well merit some non-zero chance of cancer. Grown-up societies make these kinds of trade-offs all the time. A speed limit of 10 miles an hour would result in fewer dead than 55 mph. As a society, we are willing to sacrifice some non-zero number of people given the increase in time and convenience associated with the higher speed limit. This is, to most people, an acceptable trade-off. On the other hand, you have the hand-wringers arguing "even one life" is too many, and then driving home at 55 mph.
Also, every nonzero statistical chance has to be compared to the noise floor. Say that something is found to be capable of causing cancer, but at the environmental exposure levels, the risk is lower than from having one beer every three months.
Does it? You can harm those deeply inbreed and sickly lab mice with almost anything, and these types of results often don't generalize to animals outside of the lab setting. The few I skimmed don't indicate dose, generalize out form some tentative stuff from past studies, and some are making wild claims about things like autism which seem to be out of line with meta-analysis[1] of the links between dysbiotic bacteria with respect to ASD. And this analysis points to the effects only being on rat pups[2] where it was administered in drinking water. And digging a little further it seems that the evidence on actual levels in food being dangerous to humans or other mammals is lacking[3] so I don't think it refutes the claim at all.
"Gut microbiota and neurological effects of glyphosate" ( 2019, NeuroToxicology )
"Abstract
There are currently various concerns regarding certain environmental toxins and the possible impact they can have on developmental diseases. Glyphosate (Gly) is the most utilised herbicide in agriculture, although its widespread use is generating controversy in the scientific world because of its probable carcinogenic effect on human cells. Gly performs as an inhibitor of 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phospate synthase (EPSP synthase), not only in plants, but also in bacteria. An inhibiting effect on EPSP synthase from intestinal microbiota has been reported, affecting mainly beneficial bacteria. To the contrary, Clostridium spp. and Salmonella strains are shown to be resistant to Gly. Consequently, researchers have suggested that Gly can cause dysbiosis, a phenomenon which is characterised by an imbalance between beneficial and pathogenic microorganisms. The overgrowth of bacteria such as clostridia generates high levels of noxious metabolites in the brain, which can contribute to the development of neurological deviations. This work reviews the impact of Gly-induced intestinal dysbiosis on the central nervous system, focusing on emotional, neurological and neurodegenerative disorders. A wide variety of factors were investigated in relation to brain-related changes, including highlighting genetic abnormalities, pregnancy-associated problems, diet, infections, vaccines and heavy metals. However, more studies are required to determine the implication of the most internationally used herbicide, Gly, in behavioural disorders."
That's right- the IARC is the odd one out here and their results are based mainly on discredited experiments on rats that are known to be prone to getting cancer (meaning they aren't a good model for humans in this case).
Next up:
"The will say anything for money: The true story of how expert witnesses made up all kinds of bullshit over the years and got paid handsomely for it."
Expert witnesses caused all sorts of suffering by giving misleading or plainly false testimony and forced the first lyme disease vaccine of the market (https://time.com/6073576/lyme-disease-vaccine/). Just one example.
The lyme vaccine went off the market due to a lack of adoption as well as factors related to it's utility (80% effectiveness seems high, but can provide false confidence and doesn't negate any of the normal prophylactic steps. But it can lead to difficulty in diagnostics given they test for antibody levels).
Sure, the law suit didn't help anything, but it wasn't the main reason. Expert witnesses on many cases can provide opposing opinions and interpretations of the case. It's up to the court and jury to decide. There are a number of errors even in the more rigorous criminal courts where an incorrect judgement has been rendered. This speaks more about the flaws in the system around determining truth or believability than can be attributed to any one party.
As a counterpoint, here's a relevant part of an interview with the lawyer who won 2 billion dollars in damages from Monsanto addressing skeptics of the trial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw5H36B1tJE&t=2842s
No, I watched it, I'm a little surprised that one imprecise statement is compelling to you regarding a matter of scientific facts. I mean rather than taking it second hand from a lawyer that an unknown portion or a jury were 'scientists', you could actually take it from scientists and advisory and investigatory bodies comprised of scientists the cite specific sources.
I suppose it's my Bayesian priors coming to light - I'm so distrustful of one side of this debate in general that simply having 'science' in a website title gives me a reaction similar to a lot of people who see 'truth' or 'infowards' in a headline. I'd probably be much more receptive to the same studies if you were linking to google scholar or scihub.
You had just been linked scientific sources in the parent of the comment I replied to right? And your counterpoint was that a lawyer said 'scientists' were on the jury.
I disagree. If science means anything it means the same to a trained professional as a literate layperson.
The idea that twelve ordinarily competent people sequestered and doing nothing but studying the science for months would be more likely to come to the wrong conclusion than people whose careers depend on a specific outcome is not science. If science is an impenetrable language available only to a designated elite, then it's just religion with weirder cosmology.
"Glyphosate is one of the least toxic herbicides used. It inhibits the enzyme 5-enolpyruvylshikimic acid-3-phosphate synthase which interferes with the shikimic pathway in plants, resulting in the accumulation of shikimic acid in plant tissues and ultimately plant death. The enzyme and pathway do not exist in animals, which is why toxicity is so low."
"The shikimate pathway (shikimic acid pathway) is a seven-step metabolic pathway used by bacteria, archaea, fungi, algae, some protozoans, and plants for the biosynthesis of folates and aromatic amino acids ..."
Even if there is no biaccumulation of glyphosphate in animals (maybe), can we be sure that there are no negative effects on digestive systems of humans (and wild animals)? What about water and soil biomes?
AFAIK there hasn't really been a clear link between roundup and certain rare blood cancers. Just a correlation between them in certain geographical areas. Some studies have found the correlation and others haven't. I believe even the doctors who treat these diseases know this to be true.
Though, it would be really easy to write a book citing only the evidence in support of the link. At this point I'm not sure what to believe, but I have no need for roundup so I avoid its use.
Just FYI... Monsanto is now owned by Bayer. So the Monsanto arm of the company now has even larger international regulatory influence via the Bayer parent.
The "Monsanto" trademark was too toxic to keep using after the merger, so they've continued using this other trademark, which is somehow apparently less toxic.
Sure is lovely when a bunch of non-experts decide to chime in on a nuanced subject. Imagine a bunch of plant biologists congregated on a discussion board to make sweeping claims about SaaS or whatever your area of expertise is. Hilarious.
Even appealing to literature is limited by your knowledge background. Spend a few years in the field and you will realize that some studies are good and some are bad. Some indicate negative effects under incomparable conditions. Some are good. Some are just plain kooky.
When experts do chime in, they're blasted as shills. Have fun finding someone who is truly an expert yet has no connection to the industry that uses the technology.
It's tricky because you can be well informed without being biased. In the case of glyphosate, it just so happens that being well informed comes off as shilling because the genpop conjecture is void of nuance
One of the fascinating aspects that allows this to continue is that legal liability for a destructive product is essentially voided when a company is sold (look at the arguments Dow chemical made in Bhopal).
This has created a system where nations effectively allow corporate actors to transfer the harm they cause onto the government and also let's companies skimp on doing effective due diligence when seeking a merger. It's an extremely fascinating case of regulatory capture, and I hope future alien historians laugh at how wildly incompetent our governments were at dealing with corporate entities.
> I hope future alien historians laugh at how wildly incompetent our governments were at dealing with corporate entities
Yup, it is astounding how much harm a handful of greedy people can do without ever being held financially or criminally accountable. As long as the harm is sufficiently spread out and stochastic they are in the clear
> I hope future alien historians laugh at how wildly incompetent our governments were at dealing with corporate entities.
Future historians will understand, I suspect, as do many modern ones (and political scientists, etc.) that governments are creations of the ruling classes to potect their interests, and corporations (in turn, a creation of governments) serve to advance that purpose, and it is by choice and design (both immediate and structural), not incompetence, that governments do not constrain them in their pursuit of that goal, even when they try to convince the non-ruling classes that they are attempting to do so.
"Sins of the father are sins of the son", basically if you buy a company who did some super sketchy human life harming activity, you are now 100% responsible for that activity.
This would also have the interesting knock on effect of promoting many small/medium sized companies, because you never really know when a mega corp with a massive history is gonna get held liable for something.
It does to some extent, but only those who truly learn it. In the current conversation, there are people who have seen this patern of recurring failure and are increasingly skeptical of new stuff. You'd be surprised how many doctors choose the older tried and true treatments for themselves rather than the newest stuff. They have personal experience that says "new" is more synonymous with "untested" than it is to "better".
I would be pleasantly surprised if there were many doctors. I know that there are a few hundred online judging by what I see online, but I thought that they were a minuscule minority. What figure would you put to this many, in terms of proportion of doctors?
thanks, definitely. It would be an interesting project to compile a list of this stuff. Opioides probably deserve a special mention outside of regular drugs and J&J baby powder would also make the list.
> Science eventually overwhelms any counterargument
That’s how science is supposed to work, unfortunately: the answer being right takes priority over it being prompt or cheap, in order to allow for unexpected possibilities or unforeseen sources of confusion to be exposed. That’s not a bad thing, but suggests science even in its ideal form may be the wrong tool here. (What’s the right one? I don’t know.)
I don't know anything about this but this topic (environmental law) is something my wife really enjoys. I was going to order the ebook for her but pricing it the same as the hard cover makes no sense. $30 for an ebook is prohibitively expensive.
As the end user, I know the formulation of roundup has changed over the years, in particular the wetter and other additional ingredients used along with the active ingredient.
"Probably" is a weasel word and does not belong when claiming to have made decisions based on hard science, especially since at least one type of wetter used and mixed in with the final roundup product is (sources I've read) carcinogenic ... sadly the same stuff is used in ... some beauty products ... so no surprise that isn't being waved around.
On the list of herbicides used in my parts, looking at break down products and the LD50 rates, life time in soil, Glyphosate is nowhere near the top of concerning herbicides used. If coincidences is considered acceptable, I've noted the sharp decline in bandicoot population where part of their diet is earthworms and one of the more popular weed killers finding wide use the last few years, has a secondary breakdown product which in high enough concentrations lethal to earthworms.
Disclaimer: I've worked on farms spraying various herbicides on and off for near 30 years. I've always been suspicious of what's been recommended as safe ever since witnessing first hand the genetic damage old 245T formulations (used in our parts N.Q. Aust for ring barking trees) could inflict. This means I usually like to know just how bad something is if I'm using it, use sparingly if there are flags, and personally I won't use half the herbicides used that are considered safe, but roundup I consider moderately safe for the environment since the target weed doesn't need to be saturated to the point of run off for it to work and the work on testing it in the 1950s and 60s prior to Monsanto didn't raise any flags.
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 181 ms ] thread> For years, Monsanto declared that their product Roundup, the world's most widely used weed killer, was safe. But that all changed in 2015, when the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) analyzed data from scientific studies and concluded that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is probably carcinogenic. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) disagreed, other regulatory agencies got involved, and scientists clamored to understand the link between glyphosate and cancer.
> Toxic Exposure tells the true story of numerous patients who developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a form of cancer, after using Roundup and their ensuing trials against Monsanto (now owned by Bayer, one of the largest agrochemical companies in the world). Written by Chadi Nabhan, MD, MBA, a cancer specialist, this is the only book written by an expert physician witness who testified in the first three trials against Monsanto.
> Dr. Nabhan takes the reader behind the scenes of these pivotal trials, explaining key features of the cases, including how Monsanto downplayed the IARC's scientific conclusions, may have worked to change how the EPA classified glyphosate, and conducted extensive PR campaigns designed to minimize the public's perception of the negative health effects of its product. He also provides details about the other expert witnesses who reviewed the evidence, analyzed the science, and stood up to this agricultural behemoth in the courtroom.
> Dr. Nabhan tells the inside story of corporate influence, courtroom drama, legal discourse, monumental verdicts, and the ensuing media frenzy surrounding this massive uncovering of the truth and the years of scientific and legal work that led up to it.
Hot beverages significantly increases risk of Esophageal cancer in multiple observational studies.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9035825/
Glyphosate in normal use is vastly more dangerous than anything you mentioned.
It's dangerous to the workers who work on the fields, not to the consumers at the end of the chain, or both?
The comments on HN are usually very informative, and this article is no exception. Here we have this comment:
> The IARC is the odd one out here and their results are based mainly on discredited experiments on rats that are known to be prone to getting cancer (meaning they aren't a good model for humans in this case).
It depends on how you define consensus, I guess. But the data is clear: one organisation out of many, and they drew their conclusions not from humans but from rats prone to cancer.
> It's dangerous to the workers who work on the fields, not to the consumers at the end of the chain, or both?
I don't know. But one of Glyphosate charms is it breaks down very rapidly. It means it doesn't do damage to surrounding plants that weren't directly exposed (unlike say 75-D). So my wild guess is you would have to be a field worker exposed to it directly. IIRC the people who won law suits against Monsanto were field workers who got regularly drenched in the stuff.
Here’s a systemic review showing glyphosate causes cancer in multiple animal studies: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32050978/
“The strongest evidence shows that glyphosate causes hemangiosarcomas, kidney tumors and malignant lymphomas in male CD-1 mice, hemangiomas and malignant lymphomas in female CD-1 mice, hemangiomas in female Swiss albino mice, kidney adenomas, liver adenomas, skin keratoacanthomas and skin basal cell tumors in male Sprague-Dawley rats, adrenal cortical carcinomas in female Sprague-Dawley rats and hepatocellular adenomas and skin keratocanthomas in male Wistar rats.”
https://www.judicialhellholes.org/2019/05/14/california-cour...
"Closer scrutiny of the IARC process reveals that it was advised by an “invited specialist,” Christopher Portier, in its work on glyphosate. At the same time Mr. Portier was working for the agency, he was being paid by the Environmental Defense Fund, an anti-pesticide group. Moreover, Mr. Portier received $160,000 from law firms suing over glyphosate. When asked about this potential conflict of interest, Mr. Portier initially claimed to be advising firms on other IARC-related lawsuits and not glyphosate litigation. He later acknowledged that his statement was wrong. It is also worth noting that Mr. Portier had no experience with glyphosate prior to his work on it for IARC.
Following Mr. Portier’s arrival at IARC, the final glyphosate study was altered in at least 10 ways to remove or reverse conclusions finding no evidence of carcinogenicity. The agency removed multiple scientists’ conclusions that studies found no link between glyphosate and cancer in lab animals and statistical analyses of studies with negative findings were turned into positive ones. The determination that glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic” was based on “limited evidence” of carcinogenicity in humans and “sufficient evidence” in experimental animals."
They at best suggest a limitation on how dangerous a substance may be. Aka plenty of 2 pay a day smokers never get lung cancer. The usual approach is to have a reasonably large number of animals and increase their exposure, but that only works if the risks are linear and the animal model maps well to humans.
In other words, he's paid litigation consultant. Of course his book is going to be in alignment with those that pay him.
Curious about this. Did Monsanto give the farmer an advance or something, in return for agreeing to use/switch to their seed?
Yeah I've gotten super weird responses when I discuss them on forums where randos are like verbatim repeating their PR talking points, and with a bizarre level of passion.
Of course I don't have the information to prove/disprove these things and, insofar as I also see it on HN, these accusations are against the rules, so I don't say anything but it's highly suspicious to say the least.
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/nicotinebased-pesticides...
You can save many lives and actually trigger the (necessary) change in legislation!
OP mentioned being in the EEU, which would mean the media and authorities of one of the following: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia.
Yeah I doubt it'd make any difference whatsoever. Best case scenario they ignore the story and he doesn't end up falling from a third story window.
the EU could blacklist grain imports from the EEU.
what else am I supposed to infer from that than the EU regulating over countries "around the Europe"? another poster stated they specifically by grains from Europe under the notion that EU regulations were protecting them from this type of stuff. so, how is this hard to figure out how these are related?
As to why not report this, sadly the systemic problems in this particular area are pretty deep. I'm not saying 'it won't do anything', but the results may be, at best, insignificant, and at worst quite bad for me.
What is needed is farmland consolidation. It's easier to control one big, invested farmer than 100 semi-literate drunks holding the same amount collectively, each working their tiny little 10 acre bit. Unfortunately it is a common populist policy to slow down or reverse this process, to "stop foreigners buying out our homeland" or something.
Now you've gone from "are they all dead" to "I have an anecdote and some local people reported all their bees died". I, too have seen local anecdotes about that... and then verified that they weren't true, and areas near me have huge and healthy bee populations.
I don’t know what the parent comment meant by that, but I do know the root zone is vital for plants. Plants do not directly mine minerals. Instead, they produce complex sugars which they exchange with bacteria and fungi, who in turn, trade minerals that the plant needs. Some plants with also trade nutrients with each other (usually within the same species).
It’s in this way that soil itself is alive, whereas dirt is dead. Glysophates messes with soil in such a way that farmers attempt to compensate with fertilizer as an input. It becomes a degenerate process. Our current commercial agricultural has been slowly killing our soil.
- How does Roundup contribute to the health of the farm?
- How is the manufacturing process of Roundup harmonized with ecosystem where it is manufactured? What about further up the supply chain? What about transport, marketing, and finance?
- How is the manufacture and use of Roundup caring for land, caring for people, and distributing fair share?
Chances are, the “weeds” that Roundup were killing contributes more to the soil health than Roundup does. The point of “no till” is not just to no-till, but rather, a comprehensive and holistic way of working with the soil. It takes at least five years to get it going.
I mean, sure, if you take the cropland out of production and let weeds do their thing, that will be great for soil health. That isn't farming though. The alternative to sedbed preparation with herbicide isn't just leaving the weeds. Typically, it is tillage. Are there no till practices that scale that dont involve Roundup? Yeah, sometimes. But thus far it's use has fostered the proliferation of no-till farming, now on 1/5th of US cropland, and has been a net benefit for soil conservation Unless you really want to argue tilling was better.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundup_(herbicide)
The referenced Wikipedia page, which you can easily find without help from a green HN account, wasn't created minutes ago.
Would you say that perhaps there are pigs which can fly, because absence of the evidence of the existence of flying pigs isn't evidence of their absence?
1.) Would you say that perhaps the Parachute is not working?
"Conclusions: Parachute use did not reduce death or major traumatic injury when jumping from aircraft in the first randomized evaluation of this intervention."
https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094
2.) Would you say that perhaps the Mask is not working?
"Yes, masks reduce the risk of spreading COVID, despite a review saying they don’t" ( February 6 )
https://theconversation.com/yes-masks-reduce-the-risk-of-spr...
Re. flying pigs, we have total and complete observation of pigs for thousands of years, as well as a physical and biological understanding of why they can’t fly.
If you have that, then it’s pretty safe to draw conclusions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_proportion_confidence...
Here is an online calculator:
https://www.statskingdom.com/proportion-confidence-interval-...
If we plug in 10,000 white swans out of 10,000 observations, and a confidence of 0.99 (we want to be 99% sure that the probability we calculate is within the range we calculate) the Clopper-Pearson exact result gives us a range [0.9995. 1]. Based on a observing a properly randomized, unbiased sample of 10,000 swans and finding them all to be white, we can be 99% confident that the probability of a swan being white could be as low as 99.95%, or as high as 100% (all swans are white).
If we want to be 99.99% certain of our range, it drops down to [0.999, 1]: 99.9% to 100% of swans are white, with a confidence of 99.99%.
There are lots of substances that can cause cancer, including ones that occur in nature, including in foods. The relevant question is whether the substance under consideration causes cancer above the noise floor, not in some mathematically pure sense like "No molecule of the substance could ever interact with something in a cell in order to trigger cancerous behavior."
E.g. roughly speaking, if you give megadoses of the stuff to a large number of rats and they don't have any more tumors than a control group, that's might be good evidence of absence, especially if repeated with large numbers of rats by different researchers in different countries and organizations.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=glyphosate+gut-brain+ax...
"... glyphosate has been considered to be generally safe to animal health .."
[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-021-05002-y
[2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12940-018-0394-x
[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00139...
"Abstract There are currently various concerns regarding certain environmental toxins and the possible impact they can have on developmental diseases. Glyphosate (Gly) is the most utilised herbicide in agriculture, although its widespread use is generating controversy in the scientific world because of its probable carcinogenic effect on human cells. Gly performs as an inhibitor of 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phospate synthase (EPSP synthase), not only in plants, but also in bacteria. An inhibiting effect on EPSP synthase from intestinal microbiota has been reported, affecting mainly beneficial bacteria. To the contrary, Clostridium spp. and Salmonella strains are shown to be resistant to Gly. Consequently, researchers have suggested that Gly can cause dysbiosis, a phenomenon which is characterised by an imbalance between beneficial and pathogenic microorganisms. The overgrowth of bacteria such as clostridia generates high levels of noxious metabolites in the brain, which can contribute to the development of neurological deviations. This work reviews the impact of Gly-induced intestinal dysbiosis on the central nervous system, focusing on emotional, neurological and neurodegenerative disorders. A wide variety of factors were investigated in relation to brain-related changes, including highlighting genetic abnormalities, pregnancy-associated problems, diet, infections, vaccines and heavy metals. However, more studies are required to determine the implication of the most internationally used herbicide, Gly, in behavioural disorders."
read more: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01618...
Expert witnesses caused all sorts of suffering by giving misleading or plainly false testimony and forced the first lyme disease vaccine of the market (https://time.com/6073576/lyme-disease-vaccine/). Just one example.
The lyme vaccine went off the market due to a lack of adoption as well as factors related to it's utility (80% effectiveness seems high, but can provide false confidence and doesn't negate any of the normal prophylactic steps. But it can lead to difficulty in diagnostics given they test for antibody levels).
Sure, the law suit didn't help anything, but it wasn't the main reason. Expert witnesses on many cases can provide opposing opinions and interpretations of the case. It's up to the court and jury to decide. There are a number of errors even in the more rigorous criminal courts where an incorrect judgement has been rendered. This speaks more about the flaws in the system around determining truth or believability than can be attributed to any one party.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/glyphosate-the-new-bogeyman...
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-science-behind-the-roun...
The idea that twelve ordinarily competent people sequestered and doing nothing but studying the science for months would be more likely to come to the wrong conclusion than people whose careers depend on a specific outcome is not science. If science is an impenetrable language available only to a designated elite, then it's just religion with weirder cosmology.
> https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/glyphosate-the-new-bogeyman...
"Glyphosate is one of the least toxic herbicides used. It inhibits the enzyme 5-enolpyruvylshikimic acid-3-phosphate synthase which interferes with the shikimic pathway in plants, resulting in the accumulation of shikimic acid in plant tissues and ultimately plant death. The enzyme and pathway do not exist in animals, which is why toxicity is so low."
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikimate_pathway
"The shikimate pathway (shikimic acid pathway) is a seven-step metabolic pathway used by bacteria, archaea, fungi, algae, some protozoans, and plants for the biosynthesis of folates and aromatic amino acids ..."
Even if there is no biaccumulation of glyphosphate in animals (maybe), can we be sure that there are no negative effects on digestive systems of humans (and wild animals)? What about water and soil biomes?
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_propaganda
Is is really wise to base food production on (overuse of) poisons? Especially when reasonable alternatives exists?
The idea that current industrial agriculture practices are the only viable method of farming is just another form of propaganda.
Though, it would be really easy to write a book citing only the evidence in support of the link. At this point I'm not sure what to believe, but I have no need for roundup so I avoid its use.
Forgive me if that humor is too dark, so is the topic of roundup and corporate manipulation of scientific studies
(Hrr Hrr Hrr)
Even appealing to literature is limited by your knowledge background. Spend a few years in the field and you will realize that some studies are good and some are bad. Some indicate negative effects under incomparable conditions. Some are good. Some are just plain kooky.
On this topic, I highly recommend Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. It's a brilliant read.
1. Develop some profitable product
2. years later people report horrible effects
3. Big co denies and stalls for years/decades
4. Hundreds of thousands /millions of people are negatively effected
5. Science eventually overwhelms any counter argument and product in taken off market
6. Go back to step 1 with different product
Some other examples:
1. Big tobacco
2. Teflon(PFOAs) [1]
3. Generic drugs [2]
4. Regular drugs [3]
5. Leaded gasoline [4]
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Exposure-Poisoned-Corporate-Lawyers-T...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Bottle-Lies-Inside-Story-Generic/dp/0...
[3]https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/8963867/Green.ht...
[4] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/leaded-gas-poison-...
This has created a system where nations effectively allow corporate actors to transfer the harm they cause onto the government and also let's companies skimp on doing effective due diligence when seeking a merger. It's an extremely fascinating case of regulatory capture, and I hope future alien historians laugh at how wildly incompetent our governments were at dealing with corporate entities.
Yup, it is astounding how much harm a handful of greedy people can do without ever being held financially or criminally accountable. As long as the harm is sufficiently spread out and stochastic they are in the clear
The untold secret is Governments were built for supporting corporations, not citizens. So this is by design.
Future historians will understand, I suspect, as do many modern ones (and political scientists, etc.) that governments are creations of the ruling classes to potect their interests, and corporations (in turn, a creation of governments) serve to advance that purpose, and it is by choice and design (both immediate and structural), not incompetence, that governments do not constrain them in their pursuit of that goal, even when they try to convince the non-ruling classes that they are attempting to do so.
This would also have the interesting knock on effect of promoting many small/medium sized companies, because you never really know when a mega corp with a massive history is gonna get held liable for something.
It does to some extent, but only those who truly learn it. In the current conversation, there are people who have seen this patern of recurring failure and are increasingly skeptical of new stuff. You'd be surprised how many doctors choose the older tried and true treatments for themselves rather than the newest stuff. They have personal experience that says "new" is more synonymous with "untested" than it is to "better".
https://ceh.org/high-fructose-corn-syrup/
[7] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/meat/politics...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX1KUPZC3Ck (0:00 / 52:26 The Meat Lobby: How the Meat Industry Hides the Truth)
That’s how science is supposed to work, unfortunately: the answer being right takes priority over it being prompt or cheap, in order to allow for unexpected possibilities or unforeseen sources of confusion to be exposed. That’s not a bad thing, but suggests science even in its ideal form may be the wrong tool here. (What’s the right one? I don’t know.)
"Probably" is a weasel word and does not belong when claiming to have made decisions based on hard science, especially since at least one type of wetter used and mixed in with the final roundup product is (sources I've read) carcinogenic ... sadly the same stuff is used in ... some beauty products ... so no surprise that isn't being waved around.
On the list of herbicides used in my parts, looking at break down products and the LD50 rates, life time in soil, Glyphosate is nowhere near the top of concerning herbicides used. If coincidences is considered acceptable, I've noted the sharp decline in bandicoot population where part of their diet is earthworms and one of the more popular weed killers finding wide use the last few years, has a secondary breakdown product which in high enough concentrations lethal to earthworms.
Disclaimer: I've worked on farms spraying various herbicides on and off for near 30 years. I've always been suspicious of what's been recommended as safe ever since witnessing first hand the genetic damage old 245T formulations (used in our parts N.Q. Aust for ring barking trees) could inflict. This means I usually like to know just how bad something is if I'm using it, use sparingly if there are flags, and personally I won't use half the herbicides used that are considered safe, but roundup I consider moderately safe for the environment since the target weed doesn't need to be saturated to the point of run off for it to work and the work on testing it in the 1950s and 60s prior to Monsanto didn't raise any flags.