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Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

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

#51

Post by Gibbon1 »

exp1orer wrote: post #10
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…

I recently read the great line: "Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance." http://blog.danieldavies.com/2004/05/d-squared-digest-one-mi...

I think this is the guy that gave me the gem.

    If a source is known to lie then the proper weight to place on information from that source is zero.
AKA: You don't try and second guess anything that say, you ignore everything they say.

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

#52

Post by dvogel »

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.

She didn't do the research. She was trumpeting research done by people with training in the field.

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

#53

Post by zasz »

komali2 wrote: post #31
zasz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There's limited time and a lot of bullshit to wade through, and I'm busy enough staying abreast of my chosen fields. Credentialism is often abused, but it remains a useful heuristic. It's definitely not useful for people who are expert enough to evaluate claims in and of themselves, but that's not most people. I'm not an expert in medicine, biochemistry, or whatever, so I'm not qualified to sift out the genuine autodidacts from the cranks. Whereas, I'm qualified to sift out autodidactic programmers who dropped out of HS.

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

#54

Post by tptacek »

aldoushuxley001 wrote: post #46

The Monsanto astroturfing crew is working hard in this thread. Really astonishing to see people claiming that glyphosafe has been shown to safe.

You're looking for some other forum, where this dumb debate about glyphosate (a-t-e) hasn't been rehashed ad nauseam 50 times before (quelle surprise, not everyone agrees with you!), and where you're actually allowed to accuse people who disagree with you of being "astroturfers". Here, on HN, if you believe someone is astroturfing, you quietly mail hn@ycombinator.com about and don't post it to the threads, where it is one of the very few arguments actually called out and forbidden by the site guidelines.

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

#55

Post by gerbilly »

tptacek wrote: post #33
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…

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.

>American honey bees are livestock, not wildlife.

Then if it's harming European honeybees, which are livestock as you say, do you not think it might be plausible that native pollinators and others insects might also be affected?

The "livestock" line is just a talking point, and the pesticide industry is pleased as punch every time we repeat it for them.

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

#56

Post by adrr »

himom wrote: post #15

Another reason to go organic.

Organic pesticides are nasty stuff as well.

"In 2010, a study was published detailing the progression of Parkinson's-like symptoms in mice following chronic intragastric ingestion of low doses of rotenone. The concentrations in the central nervous system were below detectable limits, yet still induced PD pathology.[31]

In 2011, a US National Institutes of Health study showed a link between rotenone use and Parkinson's disease in farm workers."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotenone

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

#57

Post by zasz »

themarkn wrote: post #18
zasz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's fair to say that, because it's true, but it's not in and of itself a reason to write somebody off as a nut, or assume they have not found any other way to gain expertise on the thing they are talking about. I think OP's point was just that people used her unrelated qualifications as a way to dismiss her without reference to her actual argument.

That's totally fair, and you interpreted what OP was trying to say better than I did.

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

#58

Post by LeifCarrotson »

tptacek wrote: post #33
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…

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.

How does that fact change the narrative? If anything, it makes it worse.

It does take away a bit of the emotional appeal of pristine, natural, innocent public resources that need protection from greedy farmers when the bees are owned by and grown for a different group of greedy farmers instead of being championed by people with purely altruistic motivation. But that they're declining when there are people with expertise and financial incentives trying to make more of them means there's a pretty serious problem.

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

#60

Post by tptacek »

gerbilly wrote: post #55
tptacek wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>American honey bees are livestock, not wildlife. Then if it's harming European honeybees, which are livestock as you say, do you not think it might be plausible that native pollinators and others insects might also be affected? The "livestock" line is just a talking point, and the pesticide industry is pleased as punch every time we repeat it for them.

I think if we were serious about native wildlife we'd address habitat loss instead of fixating on comic book opponents like "the pesticide industry". Either way: reports of the impending bee-pocalypse are extraordinarily overrated.
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