> the pooled effect [...] remained negative in direction across all meta-analyses
> the strength of evidence of an association between higher adult [organophosphates] and [N-methyl carbamates] insecticide exposure and lower sperm concentration is sufficient enough to warrant concern
> How did the world get convinced it was OK and normal to spray our foods with poisons?
If this isn't a rhetorical question, farmers didn't want to lose their crops to bugs. Honestly, it's a pretty reasonable request.
> And we are still super OK with it today, mostly.
The problem of course is the farmer doesn't care about your or the worldwide sperm count, at least not yet. So we desperately need gov to step in and raise the bar.
Food security is key for a stable government. So governments push for policies that maximize food output like fertilizers and pesticides. You can blame farmers all you want but national policies heavily shape farmer behavior.
Look at Sri Lanka. They banned fertilizer and they have partially collapsed.
The USA has long concerned itself with the politics of other countries. And it uses food exports as a tool of financial influence. Money is always a key part of influence, but it’s not the only. Food and weapons are also high on that list.
Companies like Cargill (the biggest) that manage food supply chains across the world are deeply intertwined with governments and food production businesses, with a level of seriousness only matched by how quiet they aim to be.
Maintaining food security, availability and price stability involves handling the complexities of weather, farming businesses, a global network of every kind of transport service, technology, politics and finance, and comes before military security.
Any change in practice that hampers food production will face an uphill battle, given the significant downsides to any food instability or price expansion.
The most promising way to reduce the use of pesticides is development of gene drive to eliminate common pest species, and precise genetic editing of crops transplanting existing pest resistance features from one variety to others. Sadly both are slowed down due to irrational fear of GMOs and overregulation.
We really need to do something about Monsanto/whoever owns their stuff now. Maybe change patent law for grown food modifications. Imagine if they were forced to research and reverse the sterilization of the seed crop, and 15 years after patented the science becomes public information.
Being able to then selectively breed our own plants with fertile GMO plants so we get whatever benefits we need. Roundup resistance is hot button these days but I'm sure there are plenty of genes that should be public for the good of humanity.
GMO crops are not sterile because terminator technology was never commercialized. However there maybe contractual agreements that many prevent replanting. Also many farmers choose not to replant seeds because the next generation may of plants may not be uniform in desired characteristics. I think the situation is worse for the seeds of hybrid plants.
I remember reading about Monsanto aggressively suing seed cleaning businesses off the face of the earth because "they encouraged farmers to save and replant seeds they are not allowed to use in such a way" because of contractual obligations, as you said.
The fear has never been the GMOs themselves, it what GMOs enable. Roundup works so well because they also sell seeds resistant to it. The engineering doesn’t necessarily make a better food but it always makes a better product.
That is because some people are scared of words like genetics, and its hard to explain secondary effects to the general public.
But if you listen to people actually in the know, they will tell you its more about market manipulation than the genetics themselves. The genetics are often begin, and include many beneficial things like blight resistance.
But it goes bad when you are locked into using specific chemicals bought from the the only company that also sells seeds. Or when a multinational company sues a farmer because of accidental hybridization with their propriety genetics. Or when a few companies have such a lock on crops with superior output, that you have no choice but to buy them, because it would mean bankruptcy otherwise.
There is no open source-like alternative for seeds.
Generally, any type of GMO pest resistance is done via some change in the plant, and that change can also affect the consumer. It seems naive to believe that no unintended side effects are possible. Take Bt corn as an example. It uses a protein to target caterpillars. The proteins we consume affect us. It’s conceivable that consuming Bt corn, or some other GMO, could have a side effect. How are you so confident to exclude this possibility entirely?
Going back to pesticides for a second, you seem to accept that pesticides affect insects and humans. So why are you so sure Bt corn only affects insects?
"Irrational fear of GMO" is basically a meme. Smart people have confidence in GMO, dumb people are paranoid about GMO. I am smart, therefore I believe in GMO.
> Sadly both are slowed down due to irrational fear of GMOs and overregulation.
Some people want to paint it as 'irrational fear' against science. But issue with GMO is mostly about contamination of nature with proprietary seeds.
Also if you think that GMO is solution against pesticides then why use of pesticides is higher in US than in EU?
There are no GMOs in EU while there is less pesticides than in US.
You can probably create GMO plants that are resistant to pests. Unfortunately companies selling those seeds also sell pesticides. So pest resistant seeds would hurt business. There are probably other companies who are developing just pest resistant seeds but they are not dominant yet and that is not because of 'GMO fear'.
The most common form of GMO is for tolerance of extremely high levels of pesticide and herbicide usage. This is mostly because engineering chemical resistance is a vastly simpler process than pest resistance.
Rational people are not generally concerned with the modifications themselves[1], but the results of the practices they allow, which is exactly what this article is about.
And it’s not like the actual pest-resistant strains are actually reducing pesticide usage. What incentive does a farmer have to do that? Likely the pesticide resistance is part of the package.
Perhaps there is an opportunity to flip this around and make a GMO crop that will not grow at all in the presence of pesticide or herbicide.
[1] Yes, there is growing rational concern for GMOs that are not just resistant to chemicals, but actually produce novel compounds that may affect humans.
How does reducing sperm by 50% affect chance to have kids? If it can be compensated by having 2 times as many attempts, then it won't be a major problem for stable families trying for a kid in most cases. Seems like a good tradeoff for having modern agriculture — being able to feed whole 8 billion of people with just about 1% of them working on food production is a true modern marvel.
I am not an expert on this so if someone informed replies disregard me.
But from what I understand, reduced sperm counts have very little impact on reproduction until it falls under a certain threshold. It probably depends on the individual baseline if a 50% reduction is enough to cause problems or not
That's completely correct. The average ranges from 40 million per mL to 300 million per mL[1].
Actual infertility has to have quite a few markers before it's likely - according to this[2] one measure was a count lower then 13.5 million/mL, motility less then 32 percent and less then 9 percent normal morphology.
Cutting a low sperm count by 50%, but with no degradation of motility or morphology for example, is quite likely not to make you infertile at all (remembering too: people who don't have trouble conceiving don't seek sperm analysis).
As an aside, my wife and i were having trouble conceiving, so i bought a cheap microscope just to sanity check that my sperm were alive and kicking.
Of all the things my kids and i have looked at under the microscope, sperm is some of the most entertaining to watch.
While it's obviously not a definitive measure of fertility, you can tell a lot by just observing them, and seeing at seemingly millions of sperm going crazy took the stress out of trying and we became pregnant soon after.
> Of all the things my kids and i have looked at under the microscope, sperm is some of the most entertaining to watch.
Nothing like the wholesome family activity of looking at your father's sperm. Maybe you should print a picture for over the fireplace or get t-shirts made?
It's not that simple, glyphosate is biodegradable, dependent heavily on conditions.
The term you're looking for is biopesticides.
> currently, there are 299 registered biopesticide active ingredients and 1401 active biopesticide product registrations
And they have limitations, typically they work more slowly, only in very specific applications, and the surviving pests can acquire tolerance to them; meaning stronger pesticides are needed in such cases.
Even the headline itself is rather gaslighting. Those of us who have kept up with the progress in the GMO agriculture field have been stumbling on reports like this for over 2 decades. The lower spermcount, lower testosterone and lower fertility were in fact noticed in science beginning in the 1950s, but since then we have found its even worst than simply "GMOs", rather these are effects of numerous endocrine disrupting chemicals which we are exposed to from purified tap water, and contact with BPT(?) containing plastic, which is just recently beginning a slow phase-out process that will take years. GMOs mostly only exist due to patent law, which is used as a monopoly instrument, by denaturing the plant genes synthetically, it becomes non natural, patentable product. So to keep bugs off, they are embedding genes of ...insects into plant? Wait... Seem a bit fishy, wonder why they would do something so absurd? Lastly, if plants become products after gene therapy, it raises an important bioethical question regarding the billions of ppl who received gene therapies the last 3 years. Could that be related to the Human Genome Project? Are you a human or a product? Thought for food.
48 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 103 ms ] thread> the pooled effect [...] remained negative in direction across all meta-analyses
> the strength of evidence of an association between higher adult [organophosphates] and [N-methyl carbamates] insecticide exposure and lower sperm concentration is sufficient enough to warrant concern
And we are still super OK with it today, mostly.
If this isn't a rhetorical question, farmers didn't want to lose their crops to bugs. Honestly, it's a pretty reasonable request.
> And we are still super OK with it today, mostly.
The problem of course is the farmer doesn't care about your or the worldwide sperm count, at least not yet. So we desperately need gov to step in and raise the bar.
Food security is key for a stable government. So governments push for policies that maximize food output like fertilizers and pesticides. You can blame farmers all you want but national policies heavily shape farmer behavior.
Look at Sri Lanka. They banned fertilizer and they have partially collapsed.
It's both about money and about keeping a couple of billion people from starving to death.
lol indeed.
Maintaining food security, availability and price stability involves handling the complexities of weather, farming businesses, a global network of every kind of transport service, technology, politics and finance, and comes before military security.
Any change in practice that hampers food production will face an uphill battle, given the significant downsides to any food instability or price expansion.
most promising of returns to investors?
Being able to then selectively breed our own plants with fertile GMO plants so we get whatever benefits we need. Roundup resistance is hot button these days but I'm sure there are plenty of genes that should be public for the good of humanity.
Would not be surprised to find this fear was astroturfed. It makes literally no sense.
But if you listen to people actually in the know, they will tell you its more about market manipulation than the genetics themselves. The genetics are often begin, and include many beneficial things like blight resistance.
But it goes bad when you are locked into using specific chemicals bought from the the only company that also sells seeds. Or when a multinational company sues a farmer because of accidental hybridization with their propriety genetics. Or when a few companies have such a lock on crops with superior output, that you have no choice but to buy them, because it would mean bankruptcy otherwise.
There is no open source-like alternative for seeds.
Maybe there should be. Interesting idea.
Going back to pesticides for a second, you seem to accept that pesticides affect insects and humans. So why are you so sure Bt corn only affects insects?
Some people want to paint it as 'irrational fear' against science. But issue with GMO is mostly about contamination of nature with proprietary seeds.
Also if you think that GMO is solution against pesticides then why use of pesticides is higher in US than in EU? There are no GMOs in EU while there is less pesticides than in US.
You can probably create GMO plants that are resistant to pests. Unfortunately companies selling those seeds also sell pesticides. So pest resistant seeds would hurt business. There are probably other companies who are developing just pest resistant seeds but they are not dominant yet and that is not because of 'GMO fear'.
Rational people are not generally concerned with the modifications themselves[1], but the results of the practices they allow, which is exactly what this article is about.
And it’s not like the actual pest-resistant strains are actually reducing pesticide usage. What incentive does a farmer have to do that? Likely the pesticide resistance is part of the package.
Perhaps there is an opportunity to flip this around and make a GMO crop that will not grow at all in the presence of pesticide or herbicide.
[1] Yes, there is growing rational concern for GMOs that are not just resistant to chemicals, but actually produce novel compounds that may affect humans.
But from what I understand, reduced sperm counts have very little impact on reproduction until it falls under a certain threshold. It probably depends on the individual baseline if a 50% reduction is enough to cause problems or not
Actual infertility has to have quite a few markers before it's likely - according to this[2] one measure was a count lower then 13.5 million/mL, motility less then 32 percent and less then 9 percent normal morphology.
Cutting a low sperm count by 50%, but with no degradation of motility or morphology for example, is quite likely not to make you infertile at all (remembering too: people who don't have trouble conceiving don't seek sperm analysis).
[1] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323736#outlook
[2] https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues/2002/0315/p1189.html
Of all the things my kids and i have looked at under the microscope, sperm is some of the most entertaining to watch.
While it's obviously not a definitive measure of fertility, you can tell a lot by just observing them, and seeing at seemingly millions of sperm going crazy took the stress out of trying and we became pregnant soon after.
Nothing like the wholesome family activity of looking at your father's sperm. Maybe you should print a picture for over the fireplace or get t-shirts made?
Or maybe an educational “how to” video for the rest of the world. Though you’d probably have to pick a different site than YouTube to host it.
The term you're looking for is biopesticides.
> currently, there are 299 registered biopesticide active ingredients and 1401 active biopesticide product registrations
And they have limitations, typically they work more slowly, only in very specific applications, and the surviving pests can acquire tolerance to them; meaning stronger pesticides are needed in such cases.
https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-products/what...
most mordern pesicides and herbicides (including glycophosphate) are tecnically biodegradable. the real question is under what conditions?