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

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

#331

Post by elago » Sat, May 12, 2018, 4:47 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #327

elago wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"* the parts of our food supply that are heavily dependent on pollinating agents rely entirely on commercial pollination services, not native ambient pollinating species." So the orchards that cultivate a healthy ecosystem through a diversity of species, and care given to soil health, which grow, produce, and sell fruit for only slightly above factory farming rates aren't part of the food supply? If you only define f…

And an argument for the importance of this pesticide issue that would be persuasive for people who aren't generally inclined to entertain restructuring all of modern agriculture would be...?

I don't have one. The pesticide issue and species collapse is one of many entry points to get people to entertain (or better participate) in restructuring all of modern agriculture.

There are other reasons too (resilience, independence, better economics for small communities) and the common response of "bigger must be better because thats what the free market has produced" is invalid when there has been so much government intervention that has given and continues to give much advantage to the existing system.

So basically I implore you to entertain the idea of restructuring agriculture even though you implied you aren't inclined to :)

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

#332

Post by tptacek » Sat, May 12, 2018, 6:20 PM UTC

elago wrote: post #331

tptacek wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And an argument for the importance of this pesticide issue that would be persuasive for people who aren't generally inclined to entertain restructuring all of modern agriculture would be...?

I don't have one. The pesticide issue and species collapse is one of many entry points to get people to entertain (or better participate) in restructuring all of modern agriculture. There are other reasons too (resilience, independence, better economics for small communities) and the common response of "bigger must be better because thats what the free market has produced" is invalid when there has been so much gover…

I'm fine listening to the arguments of people who believe we need to restructure all of commercial agriculture. That's a coherent perspective.

What I'm not fine with are people pretending that a bee-pocalypse threatens commercial agriculture as it exists today as a stalking horse argument. I'm not saying that's what you were doing.

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

#333

Post by swiley » Sat, May 12, 2018, 7:43 PM UTC

bradfa wrote: post #297

swiley wrote: 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…

Depending on what rules apply to your particular transmitter and if you're not just doing FCC but also testing for other countries' standards, sometimes you cannot run the production software in order to actually test the radio as required. Granted, you're right, it's the honor system that what ships to customers works like the test subject did, but it's not always entirely due to malice.

Oh no, I wasn't saying it's malicious, just that many government tests work on good faith when you wouldn't necessarily expect it.

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

#334

Post by elago » Sat, May 12, 2018, 9:02 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #332

elago wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have one. The pesticide issue and species collapse is one of many entry points to get people to entertain (or better participate) in restructuring all of modern agriculture. There are other reasons too (resilience, independence, better economics for small communities) and the common response of "bigger must be better because thats what the free market has produced" is invalid when there has been so much gover…

I'm fine listening to the arguments of people who believe we need to restructure all of commercial agriculture. That's a coherent perspective. What I'm not fine with are people pretending that a bee-pocalypse threatens commercial agriculture as it exists today as a stalking horse argument. I'm not saying that's what you were doing.

Well I hope we meet again on a thread that's a more appropriate platform to spread my lunatic gardener beliefs.

I enjoyed the discussion and learned something new about the honey bee.

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

#335

Post by parineum » Sat, May 12, 2018, 10:57 PM UTC

ItsMe000001 wrote: post #252

parineum wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like it would be really simple to know what's in your food by simply testing for it right? If you're telling me that X substance is in some good that is freely available then it should be easy to prove it. You can catch the EPA/FDA red handed by simply doing some independent testing. The only reason I trust the EPA/FDA over the PhD you refer to is that the barrier of entry to testing something that I can buy…

> Am I mistaken about how difficult it should be to test for glyphosate? Read the article? The "official" samples contained nothing. "Testing" is not just the process of testing the sample in the lab, it takes place in a context. That context matters a lot , as this example shows. Even if your lab process is reliable, you can do a lot to influence the result before you have a sample on the plate of the technician. It…

My point is that anybody who knows how to test for glyphosate can go to the grocery store, buy a box of ritz crackers, an ear of corn and some canned soup and test them.

The food I eat is easily testable by an independent lab. If you make an accusation about a product you could easily test because it's freely available I am suspicious why you didn't.

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

#336

Post by jjoonathan » Sun, May 13, 2018, 1:33 PM UTC

mmjaa wrote: post #230

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." 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…

> The OP is clearly NOT suggesting "blind opposition" to industrial progress

Yes they are.

> "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."

OP is literally saying that from the moment the waters become slightly murky you can reasonably assume that the big vested interest is in the wrong. FUD stirring past this threshold is inevitable, so this amounts to blind opposition to >billion dollar vested interests, which are a reasonable proxy for industrial progress.

As for the inevitably of FUD-stirring, I'll again hold up Greenpeace as my example. Monsanto does many evil things, but instead of focusing on those, Greenpeace decided to engage in Fox-news level truth wrangling so that they could milk the juicy "terminator gene" soundbite. They did it again as the Seralini scandal developed -- but since I had my own "ground truth" opinion (which agrees with the scientific consensus supporting retraction) I saw their claims of suppression/censorship in a very different light. From that day forward I stopped assuming good intentions from environmental groups and adopted a "read both sides" policy. It was eye-opening.

> You've skilfully managed to turn the argument away from the facts

Right back atcha.

> So, what exactly is your intention here?

Self-styled environmentalists turned back the clock on clean energy by fifty years when they sank nuclear power. I don't want them to do the same to my food supply, but they're half way there. I don't want them to do the same to my cell phone, but I hear war drums beating in the distance.

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

#337

Post by [deleted] » Sun, May 13, 2018, 8:59 PM 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…

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