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Monsanto Was Its Own Ghostwriter for Some Safety Reviews

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Re: Monsanto Was Its Own Ghostwriter for Some Safety Reviews

#31

Post by [deleted] »

tnorthcutt wrote: post #27
rubatuga wrote: post #13

You should realize how important money is in research today. The main job nowadays of principal investigators (PI) for research labs is to write applications for grants and fundings. These labs are usually underfunded and will accept any private funding if necessary. For example, the PI for my nutrition lab received funding from a Canadian agricultural company for a study on Canola oil. When the test results of the s…

The PI therefore "voluntarily" decided not to publish the results. I asked her why, and she said that if she published the results she would not be likely to ever receive funding from the company again. This isn't the first time I've heard of something like this, but holy shit . Those actions should produce a reaction of alarm and outrage, but I'm sure many of us read that and shake our heads, thinking "that's terrib…

[deleted]

Re: Monsanto Was Its Own Ghostwriter for Some Safety Reviews

#32

Post by 7sigma »

rubatuga wrote: post #13

You should realize how important money is in research today. The main job nowadays of principal investigators (PI) for research labs is to write applications for grants and fundings. These labs are usually underfunded and will accept any private funding if necessary. For example, the PI for my nutrition lab received funding from a Canadian agricultural company for a study on Canola oil. When the test results of the s…

"The days of pure/basic research are dead, especially with funding from the public sector drying up."

I take issue with that statement, there is still a lot of basic research done that is publicly funded or funded via organisations like the Wellcome trust. My wife is in cancer research and there is no way anyone can influence her results. I also know her colleagues and two of them are also members of the Royal Society, and same thing goes for them.

With regards to privately funded research and applied science, yeah i do agree that there are serious issues but I think it also depends on the regulatory environment. As a counterexample, look at the recent study done in Europe that showed that neonics did have some harmful effects on bees in the wild. The research was paid for by Bayer and Syngenta and those results where published (Although Bayer and Syngenta disagreed with the conclusions, as one would expect).

Forgot to say: I also agree with you that funding situation is still not great but we're not yet at the point where there is NO public funded research

Re: Monsanto Was Its Own Ghostwriter for Some Safety Reviews

#33

Post by tptacek »

denzil_correa wrote: post #9
shapiromatron wrote: post #8

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408444.2016.12... > The Expert Panel Members recruitment and evaluation of the data was organized and conducted by Intertek Scientific & Regulatory Consultancy (Intertek). The Expert Panelists were engaged by, and acted as consultants to, Intertek, and were not directly contacted by the Monsanto Company. Funding for this evaluation was provided to Intertek by the Monsanto…

What exactly is misleading? The next line explains further > Monsanto’s internal emails tell a different story. The correspondence shows the company’s chief of regulatory science, William Heydens, and other Monsanto scientists were heavily involved in organizing, reviewing, and editing drafts submitted by the outside experts. At one point, Heydens even vetoed explicit requests by some of the panelists to tone down wh…

It's worth bearing in mind, whatever the process failures here may have been, that IARC is not above criticism. Their assessment of glyphosate as a human carcinogen is not well established by the literature, and was made in passing in a report (which covered tens of other herbicides and pesticides) that the WHO, their parent organization, has effectively disavowed.

The same source made hay out of Monsanto's efforts to push back against a study trying to establish a link between cancer and glyphosate. They neglect to mention that the study was Séralini's, and that it was famously criticized and eventually retracted.

Re: Monsanto Was Its Own Ghostwriter for Some Safety Reviews

#34

Post by wnevets »

rubatuga wrote: post #13

You should realize how important money is in research today. The main job nowadays of principal investigators (PI) for research labs is to write applications for grants and fundings. These labs are usually underfunded and will accept any private funding if necessary. For example, the PI for my nutrition lab received funding from a Canadian agricultural company for a study on Canola oil. When the test results of the s…

>The PI therefore "voluntarily" decided not to publish the results. I asked her why, and she said that if she published the results she would not be likely to ever receive funding from the company again.

That just sounds awful. Why must we privatize everything?

Re: Monsanto Was Its Own Ghostwriter for Some Safety Reviews

#36

Post by terravion »

tptacek wrote: post #33
denzil_correa wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is misleading? The next line explains further > Monsanto’s internal emails tell a different story. The correspondence shows the company’s chief of regulatory science, William Heydens, and other Monsanto scientists were heavily involved in organizing, reviewing, and editing drafts submitted by the outside experts. At one point, Heydens even vetoed explicit requests by some of the panelists to tone down wh…

It's worth bearing in mind, whatever the process failures here may have been, that IARC is not above criticism. Their assessment of glyphosate as a human carcinogen is not well established by the literature, and was made in passing in a report (which covered tens of other herbicides and pesticides) that the WHO, their parent organization, has effectively disavowed. The same source made hay out of Monsanto's efforts t…

I think that's exactly the point that's missing in the thread. Monsanto has money, but nobody has a monopoly on science--scientific proof is reproducible. There is plenty of stuff funded by people against Monsanto's interests (including competing chemical companies). So while this certainly does raise some questions, it doesn't seem to change any conclusions. I tried to read this as though the issue was climate change and see what I thought. I don't think this changes the scientific consensus even if indicates need for better disclosure practices.

Re: Monsanto Was Its Own Ghostwriter for Some Safety Reviews

#37

Post by mmirate »

lomnakkus wrote: post #29
rubatuga wrote: post #13

You should realize how important money is in research today. The main job nowadays of principal investigators (PI) for research labs is to write applications for grants and fundings. These labs are usually underfunded and will accept any private funding if necessary. For example, the PI for my nutrition lab received funding from a Canadian agricultural company for a study on Canola oil. When the test results of the s…

> I asked her why, and she said that if she published the results she would not be likely to ever receive funding from the company again. Yeah, this is why is absolutely paramount that we should push for all research studies[1] to be disclosed to the public before actually conducting the research. For example, in the medical realm see http://policyaudit.alltrials.net/ [1] Or, rather, not take studies that haven't bee…

What is to ensure that a study which is being "pre-disclosed" has not, in fact, already had the data collected and simply being withheld for the same amount of time that it took to collect?

Re: Monsanto Was Its Own Ghostwriter for Some Safety Reviews

#38

Post by kirrent »

cryoshon wrote: post #35

so, where are the HN commentators who were defending monsanto left right and center during the recent safety debates?

Well, I just woke up. Monsanto has done something pretty screwy here as far as scientific ethics because people within the organisation were angry with the IARC. I can understand being angry with the IARC. Its decision was extremely stupid and a PR nightmare. Pretty dumb of Monsanto to fight stupidity with stupidity. They should know better.

On the other hand, the editing does appear to be cosmetic, with Monsanto wanting to skewer the IARC, and there are plenty of truly independent investigations into the effects of glyphosate. All of the science still says glyphosate is safe in the concentrations we encounter it in.

http://www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf?ua=1

Re: Monsanto Was Its Own Ghostwriter for Some Safety Reviews

#39

Post by cestith »

Clubber wrote: post #21
trophycase wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The saddest part is that there are real live people who willingly do this for a living. Nothing will ever change as long as this behavior is enabled or encouraged.

My question is there any residue on the crops when they come to market in the grocery store?

Well, I'm sure not all of it is in the drinking water downstream from the fields where it's over-applied beyond concentrations even Monsanto recommends. So it has to go somewhere. Still, a largely plant-based diet will help your health more than hurt it.

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/health/natural-health/pe...

It and one of its degradates are found in the majority of drinking water or wastewater samples in some areas (different reports from different studies report 18% and 36% of samples undegraded, 68% and 69% of AMPA). It's typically far below what the EPA considers a safe level. That "safe level", of course, is set based on understanding the body of safety studies about it.

https://toxics.usgs.gov/highlights/glyphosate02.html

I grew up along a major river in the Midwest. I've been reading studies and study summaries about glyphosate for years. I'm less concerned, honestly, at the levels I see reported about it being a carcinogen than as a possible developmental neurotoxin and problem for reproduction.

https://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/pollutio...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24636977

http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roundup-weedkiller-brain-da...

It's also found to be potentially far more toxic as mixed in Roundup than in isolation.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weed-whacking-her...

http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/glyphogen.html

Herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides, including the herbicide glyphosate, have been shown to potentially lead to gut microbe imbalances and other subtle biological changes like immune, endocrine, and neurological symptoms. Depression, autism, ADHD, diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, birth defects, miscarriage, and lupus are among the disorders other than cancers found to be strongly correlated with working in or living near agriculture.

http://chem-tox.com/agriculture/index.htm

Again, a largely plant-based diet will help your health more than hurt it. Be sure to wash your food and maybe have some of it organic.

I'd like more and better studies on these chemicals, but neonicotinoids seem to be a much bigger long-term threat than glyphosate.

Re: Monsanto Was Its Own Ghostwriter for Some Safety Reviews

#40

Post by tstactplsignore »

lomnakkus wrote: post #29
rubatuga wrote: post #13

You should realize how important money is in research today. The main job nowadays of principal investigators (PI) for research labs is to write applications for grants and fundings. These labs are usually underfunded and will accept any private funding if necessary. For example, the PI for my nutrition lab received funding from a Canadian agricultural company for a study on Canola oil. When the test results of the s…

> I asked her why, and she said that if she published the results she would not be likely to ever receive funding from the company again. Yeah, this is why is absolutely paramount that we should push for all research studies[1] to be disclosed to the public before actually conducting the research. For example, in the medical realm see http://policyaudit.alltrials.net/ [1] Or, rather, not take studies that haven't bee…

This just really doesn't make sense for a lot of research. Most science isn't this kind of "Does chemical X do Y?"- these kind of clinical trials and safety reviews are not really what most scientists are engaged in. There could be some centralized system (do you know that clinicaltrials.gov already exists and does this for pharmaceutical research?) for safety and efficacy experiments, but most science goes more like "let's figure out how the heck this thing works!" and are an investigation involving hundreds of constantly changing mini-experiments that'd be impossible and counterproductive to predict beforehand.
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