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Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

modernfarmer.com

281–290 of 337 posts

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

#281
post #230

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." The OP is clearly NOT suggesting "blind opposition" to industrial progress - in fact, what is wanted, is absolutely transparent, non-blinded research. But, this is not what is on the table. You've skilfully…

We could flip the original sentence as: "Blind faith in industrial progress..carried by the tide of public policy..is causing and will continue to cause a ton of damage in the century to come, and the damage will never be repaid."

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

#282
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering what motivates someone can often be useful. People can behave and make drastically different choices based solely on motivation. People will often pick and choose what information they choose to share or choose to hide based largely on the motivations that are driving their project. Motivation can drastically alter the way an idea is presented to the audience in which it is being presented. Obviously we w…

Our information about the benefits of GMO is pretty thorough and persuasive, so in this case, we don't need to care about motivations.

A lot of this information comes from studies affiliated with industry:

A 2011 analysis by Diels et al., reviewed 94 peer-reviewed studies pertaining to GMO safety to assess whether conflicts of interest correlated with outcomes that cast GMOs in a favorable light. They found that financial conflict of interest was not associated with study outcome (p = 0.631) while author affiliation to industry (i.e., a professional conflict of interest) was strongly associated with study outcome (p

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

This is one very good reason why the motivation of industry should be examined carefully. If their motivation is profit and they are allowed to optimise for that alone without any oversight or regulation AND on top of that they are the keepers and dispensers of information about their product, what chance does the general public have to make an accurate assessment of their product's safety?

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

#284
post #180

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…

>The EU has mostly banned them and it doesn't look to be suffering any damage. It's also the region of the world least susceptible to food shortages.

[deleted]

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

#285
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…

>> See: pesticides and bees, fossil fuels and climate change, food packaging plastics and cancer, pain treatment meds and addiction.

Also, Asbestos, DDT, Thalidomide, etc.

I find that in discussions like this people often automatically adopt a defensive stance For Science, Technology and Progress, but they're missing the point that it is not science (i.e. scientists, or the scientific method) that is responsible for disasters like that- it's corporations. And they care not one jot about science, technology or progress, let alone feeding the poor or curing the ailing, or anything humantiarian and compassionate like that. It's the industry that destroys the environment and causes public health disasters, then tries its best to keep it all under wraps while people die.

Bottom line- defending big financial interests is not defending science. It's just defending someone else's money.

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

#286
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tot…

Huawei does this with their phones during rf emissions testing don't they? And the same is said about cars during crash tests.

> cars during crash tests

The IIHS at least buys its cars from dealers like any consumer would, rather than getting them direct from manufacturers, to prevent them from sending specially modified cars for testing.

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

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glyphosate is an herbicide, not a pesticide.

No herbicides, fungicides and insecticides are all pesticides.

Sounds good, but the example given chlorpyrifos, is an insecticide. In context it was very clear that a mistake was made, and not by me.

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

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to repeat myself, but it bears repeating: glyphosate is an herbicide and not a pesticide. It’s significant, because pesticides organic or otherwise are something designed to kill animals, not plants. We’re animals, not plants, so herbicides are generally far less toxic than pesticides to us. While we’re quite different in many ways to insects, we share a lot of metabolic machinery; the same is not true of us a…

Google pesticide please.

Google Rotenone, the example used. It’s... wait for it... an insecticide!

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

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Furthermore, currently, world-wide more people die from the "side effects" of too much food; not enough is not the challenge. We have the food. It's just "unevenly distributed." Furthermore, my sense is, the argument for the world needing GMOs is based on the animal protein heavy diet. Such animals are resource / feed intensive. Shift the diet to less meats and more plants and the fact is you feed more. I'm not here…

I think as the developing world grows economically we will continue to see higher demand for meat. Eventually the only thing stopping higher meat consumption will be the fact that the price has been pushed higher and higher by limited worldwide production capacity intersecting with high demand.

I don't disagree. But the "need" for so much meat is a myth. The level of. First World meat consumption is bad for the planet, and bad for those who consume it.

Health, ethic, eco and moral downsides. Yet we're sooo blinded and confused.

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

#290

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.)

Tobacco is definitely not a counter example; the industry managed to cover up / confuse the evidence for years.
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