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

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

#151

Post by colah3 » Fri, May 11, 2018, 2:32 AM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #138

jjoonathan wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In college, I did a deep dive into GMO safety research for journal club back when the Seralini "GMOs cause cancer in mice" paper hit (2010 or thereabouts) and found quite a counterexample to your rule: bogus (obviously p-hacked) science from Seralini and an aggressive misinformation campaign from Greenpeace to convince people that Monsanto was using terminator genes (bio-DRM) against poor farmers when the truth had b…

>> Blind opposition to industrial progress -- which is what you are suggesting -- carried by the rising tide of public opinion will cause a ton of damage in the century to come, and the damage will never be repaid. What damage will be caused by people using their phones less for fear of getting cancer? What about GMOs? What is the harm in not using them? The EU has mostly banned them and it doesn't look to be sufferi…

With regards to GMOs, the green revolution (as I understand it[1], partly using GMOs to increase food production, especially in developing countries) is often described as saving a billion lives. On a brief glance, I can't find a detailed estimate of the Humanitarian effects, but Borlaug received a Nobel peace prize for it and that scale of impact does seem plausible.

[1] See discussion below about relative importance of engineering disease resistant varieties vs fertilizers and pesticides. I only have a vague familiarity with the green revolution and could be mistaken.

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

#152

Post by patmorgan23 » Fri, May 11, 2018, 2:33 AM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #138

jjoonathan wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In college, I did a deep dive into GMO safety research for journal club back when the Seralini "GMOs cause cancer in mice" paper hit (2010 or thereabouts) and found quite a counterexample to your rule: bogus (obviously p-hacked) science from Seralini and an aggressive misinformation campaign from Greenpeace to convince people that Monsanto was using terminator genes (bio-DRM) against poor farmers when the truth had b…

>> Blind opposition to industrial progress -- which is what you are suggesting -- carried by the rising tide of public opinion will cause a ton of damage in the century to come, and the damage will never be repaid. What damage will be caused by people using their phones less for fear of getting cancer? What about GMOs? What is the harm in not using them? The EU has mostly banned them and it doesn't look to be sufferi…

Their are unseen cost

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

#153

Post by jly » Fri, May 11, 2018, 2:37 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #62

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 expert…

They are in fact not declining. There is no indication at all that a reliable supply of bee-driven pollination service in the US is in any way threatened. You'd be forgiven for not knowing that, though, since the story is presented in the media as if farmers relied on wild honeybees (an invasive species eradicated several decades ago by the Varroa destructor mite) rather than commercially managed bee husbandry.

First, wild honeybees were not eradicated by Varroa. There are many papers written and researchers who have studied substantial wild honeybee populations for decades, and chronicled their decline and resurgence to pre-Varroa numbers. What has happened over the last few decades is that wild North American bees have adapted and are thriving, while 'babied' commercial bees are struggling.

Second, the number of commercial bee colonies for pollination services is not declining because beekeepers can choose to focus on making more when they need to. A reliably-consistent number of colonies can exist whether 5% die out every year or 50% (although at different cost). Having said that, what IS declining is the annual survival rate of colonies, which is linked to many factors, of which pesticides likely play a part. This is a not-so-subtle difference. Just because it doesn't immediately threaten commercial pollination doesn't mean there is no issue.

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

#154

Post by aldoushuxley001 » Fri, May 11, 2018, 2:39 AM UTC

tomhoward wrote: post #129

aldoushuxley001 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that's why HN has limited success.

The more successful forums where members delight in having their discussions degenerate into paranoid conspiracy mongering are eagerly awaiting your arrival.

Oh it's conspiracy mongering to question the science behind a popular weedkiller? Wow, didn't realize! My apologies. I know HN is anti science sometimes but this is taking it to another level.

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

#155

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 11, 2018, 2:46 AM UTC

perl4ever wrote: post #105

Gibbon1 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But it's tempting to assume the information is false, and if you do that, you could be making a big mistake. I assume by "zero weight" you mean you don't assume it's true or false, which is quite distinct. One way to look at it is that every statement is true, given sufficient context. The question is, how should it be interpreted, and what is it a true statement about? Generally, when a liar says something, it is in…

[deleted]

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

#156

Post by everybodyknows » Fri, May 11, 2018, 2:57 AM UTC

aguyaguy wrote: post #8

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #2

>Shortly thereafter, a string of studies and reviews indicated that glyphosate should probably be further studied, and in March of 2015, the cancer research arm of the World Health Organization declared glyphosate a “probable carcinogen.” That is outdated. In 2016, the Joint WHO/FAO "Meeting concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet." http://www.who.int…

That is also outdated. Turns out, glyphosate by itself is not as carcinogenic as Roundup, the actual product used. The chemicals used with glyphosate, like POEA, make it more harmful.

Is POEA chemically stable -- or is it likely to break down before the food is eventually consumed?

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

#157

Post by hawkice » Fri, May 11, 2018, 2:59 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…

Not all ignorance is deliberate. Almost none of it is -- ignorance is the default.

Some things we don't know yet. Others have effect sizes so small distinguishing them from zero is a true and deep challenge, even with tremendous study done. Some things actually do have effect sizes of zero, and no amount of evidence will stop people from demanding more study.

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

#158

Post by tptacek » Fri, May 11, 2018, 3:00 AM UTC

elago wrote: post #133

tptacek wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't have to guess or extrapolate from anecdotes; the price of pollination services are tracked, and have grown low single-digit percentages over the last several years, just like prices in general.

Referring to "price of pollination services" means the natural ecosystem has failed.

There is no natural ecosystem of honey bee pollination in the United States.

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

#159

Post by tptacek » Fri, May 11, 2018, 3:01 AM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #148

tptacek wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea. Why does that matter?

If all the bees keep dying perhaps you'll eventually run out of bees to import.

The argument here being that there is a reserve supply of latent bees not used for commercial pollination, backfilling the commercial supply?

I think robot bees are a more plausible explanation.

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

#160

Post by aetherson » Fri, May 11, 2018, 3:07 AM UTC

colah3 wrote: post #151

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Blind opposition to industrial progress -- which is what you are suggesting -- carried by the rising tide of public opinion will cause a ton of damage in the century to come, and the damage will never be repaid. What damage will be caused by people using their phones less for fear of getting cancer? What about GMOs? What is the harm in not using them? The EU has mostly banned them and it doesn't look to be sufferi…

With regards to GMOs, the green revolution (as I understand it[1], partly using GMOs to increase food production, especially in developing countries) is often described as saving a billion lives. On a brief glance, I can't find a detailed estimate of the Humanitarian effects, but Borlaug received a Nobel peace prize for it and that scale of impact does seem plausible. [1] See discussion below about relative importanc…

That's not what the green revolution was. It was pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers.

While GMOs are not harmful and banning them is overall bad, they don't have nearly the same magnitude of impact on agricultural productivity as herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers.