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Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

modernfarmer.com

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

#31

Post by komali2 »

zasz wrote: post #12
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #3

From the article: “All of the official samples passed the test and were within the legal limits of glyphosate residue. But those off-the-record, unofficial samples, though done with the same equipment and tested by the same chemists, showed glyphosate. That’s right. The chemists found glyphosate residue on just about everything: crackers, granola, cornmeal, honey, oatmeal, baby food, and even corn. Their surreptitiou…

I'm no fan of toxic chemicals in our food and I don't trust the government or corporations to do enough to protect it, but it seems fair to me to say that a PhD in philosophy and a master's in physics are not particularly relevant to claiming expertise in evaluating toxicological claims.

In the same universe where there exists a non-trivial number of highly successful subject matter experts that are college dropouts, why do you believe this?

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

#32

Post by briandear »

asfasgasg wrote: post #21
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…

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.)

Who has supported the asbestos industry? Has there ever been a company that actually promotes asbestos?

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

#33

Post by tptacek »

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…

Much of what's been written about bees and pesticides is also probably bullshit (not to put too fine a point on it). American honey bees are livestock, not wildlife.

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

#34

Post by dbasedweeb »

tptacek wrote: post #27
dbasedweeb wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That isn’t so much an argument as a false dichotomy, predicated on a system of agriculture which allows a near 50% rate of wasteage in the West. The alternatives include less productive, yet still sufficiently productive methods which do not include carcinogenic compounds.

Edit: Your state of being persuaded is immaterial, because what I said isn’t really controversial. One known alternative to herbacides is tilling, hardly a radical new invention and notably not carcinogenic. As I said up front, it would take more effort to produce crops, but simply by reducing waste you can more than make up for that. The use of ground cover, litter, and other established techniques all allow for large scale farming without herbacides.

There are other alternatives, and adjunct techniques as well, for example:

http://plen.ku.dk/english/news/2015/crops/

Stop wasting so much food because it isn’t pretty enough, and you can stop truffing carcinogens. That seems fair.

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

#35

Post by Gibbon1 »

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…

> Tetra Tech/Hunter's Point scandal

Every time I read about that place a little scene plays in my head.

Sergeant Carter: Gomer Pyle! Come here!

Gomer Pyle: Yes Sarge!

Sergeant Carter: This bucket of luminous watch dial paint has gone bad. Take it to the hazardous materials station.

Gomer Pyle: But that's all the way across the base. And you took my motor pool privileges away.

Sergeant Carter: Just do it Pyle!

...

5 minutes later ... Gomer dumps a bucket of black sludge into a hole in the base commanders flower garden. And tosses the bucket in the trash.

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

#36

Post by cabaalis »

zasz wrote: post #12
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #3

From the article: “All of the official samples passed the test and were within the legal limits of glyphosate residue. But those off-the-record, unofficial samples, though done with the same equipment and tested by the same chemists, showed glyphosate. That’s right. The chemists found glyphosate residue on just about everything: crackers, granola, cornmeal, honey, oatmeal, baby food, and even corn. Their surreptitiou…

I'm no fan of toxic chemicals in our food and I don't trust the government or corporations to do enough to protect it, but it seems fair to me to say that a PhD in philosophy and a master's in physics are not particularly relevant to claiming expertise in evaluating toxicological claims.

A person's credentialing does not make facts any less true.

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

#37

Post by exp1orer »

Bud wrote: post #17

I hate articles like this. Zero useful data. Zero useful sources. And zero information about the levels of glyphosate which were found.

That's fair, if a bit strong - this one has more [1].

"Separately, FDA chemist Narong Chamkasem found “over-the-tolerance” levels of glyphosate in corn, detected at 6.5 parts per million, an FDA email states. The legal limit is 5.0 ppm."

Here[2] are the FOIA documents they're citing.

The original article does link directly to an email with the 6.5 ppm figure[3].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/30/fda-weedkill...

[2] https://usrtk.org/pesticides/fda-foia-documents-regarding-gl...

[3] https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Over-the-tolera...

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

#38

Post by hueving »

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…

This conveniently ignores the other side of the coin where interests are aligned and it's the conspiracy theorists that are harmful (e.g. vaccine manufactures and autism).

All functioning economies have vested interests in things good and bad. The only thing a vested interest means is that scrutiny is needed on the actions of the vested parties.

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

#39

Post by the-pigeon »

tptacek wrote: post #27
dbasedweeb wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is actually somewhat common too.

Like chlorine being replaced by other disinfectants in drinking water. https://www.npr.org/2011/01/07/132743638/disinfectant-to-cle...

Basically you have some popular chemical so it gets studied extensively and we learn about the bad things it does. It then starts being replaced by things that have been less studied, so there's less evidence of the bad things they do but could be equally bad, better or worse.

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

#40

Post by notadoc »

dfxm12 wrote: post #5
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #3

From the article: “All of the official samples passed the test and were within the legal limits of glyphosate residue. But those off-the-record, unofficial samples, though done with the same equipment and tested by the same chemists, showed glyphosate. That’s right. The chemists found glyphosate residue on just about everything: crackers, granola, cornmeal, honey, oatmeal, baby food, and even corn. Their surreptitiou…

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…

> It seems like the jury is out

Ah yes, the jury is always out. Better do nothing and instead politicize the issue while pretending to debate the "science" for a few more decades.

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