Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food • Hacker News Board

Re: Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

#21

Post by asfasgasg » Fri, May 11, 2018, 12:11 AM UTC

random4369 wrote: post #14

dfxm12 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember watching a lecture from Vandana Shiva who claimed that glyphosate was harmful and making it in to our food. She cited some European studies that found glyphosate in a wide variety of products. She claimed that there were shady things going on in the US government that seemed to obscure these facts. While this might prove her true that the US government is trying to hide the glyphosate levels in food, does…

Every time the jury is out on a topic where one side has a vested interest and a billion dollar budget to protect it, you can be reasonably sure what the outcome will be. See: pesticides and bees, fossil fuels and climate change, food packaging plastics and cancer, pain treatment meds and addiction. The answer in all those cases is the harmful effects eventually became known, but the jury was out long enough for the…

Counterexamples: asbestos, tobacco, alcohol, fossil fuels, climate change.

(On the latter two, the studies mostly have the correct outcome. What is difficult is convincing half of the American population that that matters.)

Re: Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

#22

Post by vkou » Fri, May 11, 2018, 12:12 AM UTC

random4369 wrote: post #14

dfxm12 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember watching a lecture from Vandana Shiva who claimed that glyphosate was harmful and making it in to our food. She cited some European studies that found glyphosate in a wide variety of products. She claimed that there were shady things going on in the US government that seemed to obscure these facts. While this might prove her true that the US government is trying to hide the glyphosate levels in food, does…

Every time the jury is out on a topic where one side has a vested interest and a billion dollar budget to protect it, you can be reasonably sure what the outcome will be. See: pesticides and bees, fossil fuels and climate change, food packaging plastics and cancer, pain treatment meds and addiction. The answer in all those cases is the harmful effects eventually became known, but the jury was out long enough for the…

Also see: Aircraft contrails and mind control, water flouridation and turning our children into Communists, cell phone towers and cancer, vaccination and autism. [1]

[1] None of these associations are actually true, but much ink and some research funding was spilled on the subject.

Re: Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

#23

Post by dbasedweeb » Fri, May 11, 2018, 12:12 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #11

fncypants wrote: post #6

I've noticed that Monsanto appears to be on an astroturfing campaign. Half of the ads appearing in my Reddit front page are promoted posts that are pro-glyphosate. They point to legitimate news articles, for example, that report on a study finding that glyphosate is not a carginogen. Of course, these studies contradict other studies that glyphosate is a carcinogen or otherwise a concern. In truth, I was ready to beli…

There are no credible studies indicating that glyphosate is a carcinogen, and it would be a little bit surprising it if was, since it targets a metabolic pathway not present in animals. Meanwhile, many of the herbicides that glyphosate displace, plenty of which remain in use, are known human carcinogens. The most widely reported declaration of glyphosate's carcinogenicity, by IARC, was disavowed by the WHO, IARC's pa…

My concern is best summed up by this comment from above:

Every time the jury is out on a topic where one side has a vested interest and a billion dollar budget to protect it, you can be reasonably sure what the outcome will be. See: pesticides and bees, fossil fuels and climate change, food packaging plastics and cancer, pain treatment meds and addiction. The answer in all those cases is the harmful effects eventually became known, but the jury was out long enough for the vested interests to make a ton of profit and cause a ton of damage which they'll never pay for repairing. All made possible with a series of comparatively small investments to buy scientific research to keep the jury out.

Even in non-borderline cases like tobacco, lots of money and power can really confuse the issue. This is definitely not as clear cut as tobacco, and I’d like the option to opt out of the lengthy, massive “trial period” in which the public gets to play guinea pig. The problem with this is that it’s very difficult to do that when the compound in question is unexpectedly ubiquitous.

Re: Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

#24

Post by jopsen » Fri, May 11, 2018, 12:15 AM UTC

exp1orer wrote: post #9

So this suggests that the samples submitted to the FDA for testing were not representative of ordinary food. This reminds me of the ongoing Tetra Tech/Hunter's Point scandal [1], where the US Navy paid $300M to a contractor to clean up a development site. The contractor was required to submit samples from the site to prove they had cleaned it up. Instead, they just pulled soil from known clean places and submitted fo…

Most of the world runs of on good faith and best intentions, without it everything would break down. This goes for taxes, healthcare, insurance, checks, postal mail, traffic code, currency, etc.

This also holds for an alarming number of electronic systems such as the phone network, and many ISP network configurations. While it's tempting to say no trust should be required, that's very expensive, like bitcoin.

For system to be cost effective, trust is necessary. Requiring self-control is cheap and often effective, because people want to abide by the law. Requiring submission of soil samples is rather expensive, and fairly strong control, because cheating is a very deliberate act.

We probably have to ask, how can we improve the trust? Higher morals and more transparency could be one answer.

Re: Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

#25

Post by dbasedweeb » Fri, May 11, 2018, 12:15 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #22

random4369 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time the jury is out on a topic where one side has a vested interest and a billion dollar budget to protect it, you can be reasonably sure what the outcome will be. See: pesticides and bees, fossil fuels and climate change, food packaging plastics and cancer, pain treatment meds and addiction. The answer in all those cases is the harmful effects eventually became known, but the jury was out long enough for the…

Also see: Aircraft contrails and mind control, water flouridation and turning our children into Communists, cell phone towers and cancer, vaccination and autism. [1] [1] None of these associations are actually true, but much ink and some research funding was spilled on the subject.

None of those are what an honest/sane individual would call borderline either, so why bring them up?

Re: Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

#26

Post by a_bonobo » Fri, May 11, 2018, 12:15 AM UTC

himom wrote: post #15

Another reason to go organic.

Most forms of organic farming still use pesticies, just different ones, with similar or worse health risks.

>In head-to-head comparisons, natural pesticides don't fare any better than synthetic ones. When I compared the organic chemicals copper sulfate and pyrethrum to the top synthetics, chlorpyrifos and chlorothalonil, I found that not only were the organic ones more acutely toxic, studies have found that they are more chronically toxic as well, and have higher negative impacts on non-target species. My results match with other scientific comparisons. In their recommendations to Parliament in 1999, the Committee on European Communities noted that copper sulfate, in particular, was far more dangerous than the synthetic alternative. A review of their findings can be seen in the table on the right (from a recent review paper). Similarly, head to head comparisons have found that organic pesticides aren't better for the environment, either.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/pesticide...

Re: Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

#27

Post by tptacek » Fri, May 11, 2018, 12:17 AM UTC

dbasedweeb wrote: post #23

tptacek wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no credible studies indicating that glyphosate is a carcinogen, and it would be a little bit surprising it if was, since it targets a metabolic pathway not present in animals. Meanwhile, many of the herbicides that glyphosate displace, plenty of which remain in use, are known human carcinogens. The most widely reported declaration of glyphosate's carcinogenicity, by IARC, was disavowed by the WHO, IARC's pa…

My concern is best summed up by this comment from above: Every time the jury is out on a topic where one side has a vested interest and a billion dollar budget to protect it, you can be reasonably sure what the outcome will be. See: pesticides and bees, fossil fuels and climate change, food packaging plastics and cancer, pain treatment meds and addiction. The answer in all those cases is the harmful effects eventuall…

This isn't so much an argument as it is innuendo. If you get glyphosate carcinogenicity wrong, you increase carcinogenic agriculture, because that's what the market alternatives to it are: clearly known human carcinogens.

Re: Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

#28

Post by swiley » Fri, May 11, 2018, 12:17 AM UTC

exp1orer wrote: post #9

So this suggests that the samples submitted to the FDA for testing were not representative of ordinary food. This reminds me of the ongoing Tetra Tech/Hunter's Point scandal [1], where the US Navy paid $300M to a contractor to clean up a development site. The contractor was required to submit samples from the site to prove they had cleaned it up. Instead, they just pulled soil from known clean places and submitted fo…

I helped get a device through part15 testing during an internship and was shocked to find that you don’t need the same firmware (like at all. You can run totally different oses and everything, they don’t have to share a single line of code.) As long as you say “this is pretty much the same as what we’re shipping to users” you’re fine. They don’t really have anyway to double check it and to be honest I wouldn’t be totally surprised if a lot of devices used different power levels and generally behaved differently in the field just by mistake.

After doing that, when ever I hear about things being “tested” to standards from some arm of a government I instinctively think of that. I don’t know how you could practically improve on it either.

Re: Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

#29

Post by briandear » Fri, May 11, 2018, 12:19 AM UTC

random4369 wrote: post #14

dfxm12 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember watching a lecture from Vandana Shiva who claimed that glyphosate was harmful and making it in to our food. She cited some European studies that found glyphosate in a wide variety of products. She claimed that there were shady things going on in the US government that seemed to obscure these facts. While this might prove her true that the US government is trying to hide the glyphosate levels in food, does…

Every time the jury is out on a topic where one side has a vested interest and a billion dollar budget to protect it, you can be reasonably sure what the outcome will be. See: pesticides and bees, fossil fuels and climate change, food packaging plastics and cancer, pain treatment meds and addiction. The answer in all those cases is the harmful effects eventually became known, but the jury was out long enough for the…

So every single time a “vested interest” cares about something, they are wrong? Environmental groups have a vested interest in promoting catastrophe as it increases fundraising and their influence and power. I am not saying that all environmental groups are “bad” or “wrong” but they have equal incentive to trumpet their view of the world.

You don’t think billion dollar alternative energy companies don’t have incentive to overstate the case against fossil fuels? Guys like George Soros, often seen as charitable, have made billions of dollars by sowing discord and destabilization. His massive profit in shorting the pound is legendary. Could it be at least a little possible that everyone has a vested interest in something and facts don’t necessary matter?

The Sierra Club CEO makes over $600,000 per year at a non-profit! You don’t thing the Sierra Club has any vested interests tied to promoting specific agendas?

There are multiple sides to every story and it’s folly to assume that any side is acting benevolently.

Re: Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

#30

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 11, 2018, 12:19 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #22

random4369 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time the jury is out on a topic where one side has a vested interest and a billion dollar budget to protect it, you can be reasonably sure what the outcome will be. See: pesticides and bees, fossil fuels and climate change, food packaging plastics and cancer, pain treatment meds and addiction. The answer in all those cases is the harmful effects eventually became known, but the jury was out long enough for the…

Also see: Aircraft contrails and mind control, water flouridation and turning our children into Communists, cell phone towers and cancer, vaccination and autism. [1] [1] None of these associations are actually true, but much ink and some research funding was spilled on the subject.

[deleted]