Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

California to list glyphosate as cancer-causing

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 190 posts

Re: California to list glyphosate as cancer-causing

#161

Post by hcurtiss »

notadoc wrote: post #152
hcurtiss wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commonly? 2,4-D is a selective herbicide, and glyphosate is not. In most circumstances, adding 2,4-D to glyphosate would be burning money. And if you're going to target broadleafs, you would not, of course, add glyphosate. They're rarely used together. And even if they were commonly mixed, is your argument really that the carcinogenicity of one should be attributed to the other?

I'm always amazed at the level of specific knowledge people have on random topics on hackernews, it's why this is one of the best discussion communities online. (nevermind) (nevermind) (nevermind)

While Enlist blends the two, 2,4-D resistant GMOs are brand new and still rarely used. I'm not as familiar with the toxicity/carcinogenicity of 2,4-D, but I think it's fair to confine this conversation to the carcinogenicity of glyphosate as that's the focus of the CA proposal.

Re: California to list glyphosate as cancer-causing

#162

Post by Camillo »

stcredzero wrote: post #111
jcranmer wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The proposition was perhaps a good idea that was horribly executed. The idea is to get companies to stop using potentially dangerous chemicals, so the proposition required that companies give a warning if they use any of a set of chemicals on a certain list. Which might be okay, except it has several problems: * Private citizens are able to initiate civil enforcement and collect penalties; it's not limited to regulat…

was perhaps a good idea that was horribly executed. This describes some rather large fraction of laws, period.

It also describes California's entire proposition system!

Re: California to list glyphosate as cancer-causing

#163

Post by MrMember »

jerf wrote: post #80
tptacek wrote: post #6

Here's the current California Prop 65 list. It's... extensive. https://oehha.ca.gov/media/downloads/proposition-65//p65sing... I don't think this means as much as the headline makes it sound like. In the State of California, alcoholic beverages are also carcinogens requiring warnings. California cognitive dissonance: the science suggesting carcinogenicity of acrylamide, which is present --- in significant amounts ---…

I have often thought on my flights into California that as soon as the plane crosses the California state line, the pilot should just come on and announce "The State of California is known by the State of California to contain things known by the State of California to cause cancer."

You are exposed to radiation while flying, I wouldn't be overly surprised if California passed a law mandating that the pilot notify passengers that "flying is known to the state of California to cause cancer."

Re: California to list glyphosate as cancer-causing

#164

Post by hcurtiss »

jly wrote: post #158
hcurtiss wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhm, glyphosate doesn't affect pollinators.[1] It's an herbicide. And drift that reduces "critical forage"? That's not even part of the glyphosate controversy. Glyphosate either works on a plant or it doesn't. Where you're killing your neighbor's plants by drift, you're going to get a citation or sued or both. [1] https://goo.gl/lGpC1k

> Uhm, glyphosate doesn't affect pollinators. It does affect pollinators, show in some examples of recent research [1][2], and effects on other non-insect animal species like frogs [3] and fish [4][5]. We may not know why it does yet, but there is plenty of evidence. This is just a tiny sampling. > And drift that reduces "critical forage"? That's not even part of the glyphosate controversy. This is very much part of…

The milkweed concern isn't over drift. It's over monocultures, which is a different argument entirely. As for studies 1 and 2 below, I'll look into them more, but as cited above, there's also plenty of science indicating the opposite.

Re: California to list glyphosate as cancer-causing

#165

Post by notadoc »

fpgaminer wrote: post #160
notadoc wrote: post #93

Avoiding the various herbicides and pesticides is the reason everyone I know who eats organic and non-GMO food does so. As always you should do your own research, draw your own conclusions. Be aware there is a shocking amount of astroturfing on this topic.

Do they know that organic food uses pesticides? Worse ones, too...

Which pesticides do you refer to? I'd love to read and share exactly that sort of data.

Re: California to list glyphosate as cancer-causing

#166

Post by dragonwriter »

fpgaminer wrote: post #157
dragonwriter wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I switched from using RoundUp to a vinegar/salt/dish soap solution this summer and can't believe how well it works. Yeah, salting the Earth is rather well established as a herbicidal practice known for millenia; increasing soil and runoff salinity has rather negative long-term environmental consequences, though (though, I guess, desertification can be a rather dramatic solution to the “plants I don't like grow here…

How long does salt last in soil? In the formulas I've read, there's very little salt. It's about a gallon of vinegar, a single squirt of dish soap, and a pour or two of salt.

> How long does salt last in soil?

Until it becomes salt in runoff, which is also a problem.

Re: California to list glyphosate as cancer-causing

#168

Post by pera »

tptacek wrote: post #151
pera wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the links. It seems to me that the animal studies made by the EPA returned different results than the one done by the IARC. Citing the article from Reuters: > "IARC reviews published studies to identify potential cancer hazards," the WHO said. "It does not estimate the level of risk to the population associated with exposure to the hazard." I honestly don't know what conclusion, if any, should I have from…

You keep referring to animal studies conducted by IARC. What studies are you talking about? The one that got all the press, published in The Lancet, was a meta-study, covering many herbicides, and the conclusion it true about glyphosate's human cancer risk was based on other studies that also covered many herbicides and showed comparatively weak correlations for glyphosate. The lymphoma study the IARC report actually…

I was not aware that the IARC evaluation was a meta-analysis (my fault, as I just read the results from this monograph: http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/pdf/MonographVol...), but yes I was referring to the one published in The Lancet.

Re: California to list glyphosate as cancer-causing

#169

Post by dang »

notadoc wrote: post #155
bazzert wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

understood, I was responding to your "astroturfing" comment. The shill card gets played pretty frequently in these discussions.

The astroturfing comment is broad about nearly any controversial information online, it's why people must be skeptical, critical, and discerning. It's just an annoying reality of the internet, I suppose.

People are much too quick to conclude that they're observing astroturfing when what they're really observing is the simple fact that not everyone agrees with them. Because of this, we have two problems: real astroturfing (when it's actually going on), and imaginary astroturfing (which people project onto their opponents in arguments). Both are destructive, but since the imaginary variant is more common, it's more destructive. It poisons discussion. Therefore we ask HN commenters not to post insinuations about astroturfing unless they have specific evidence, and to remember that somebody merely stating an opposing view does not count as evidence.

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix=true&page=0&dateR...

Re: California to list glyphosate as cancer-causing

#170

Post by fpgaminer »

notadoc wrote: post #165
fpgaminer wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they know that organic food uses pesticides? Worse ones, too...

Which pesticides do you refer to? I'd love to read and share exactly that sort of data.

A quick Google finds this (I consider NPR to be at least a decent source): http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2011/06/18/13724926...

That seems to cover the basics of the situation.

The TL;DR is that an "organic" label just means the food was grown using only "organic" components. There are plenty of organic pesticides.

Post reply on HN