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Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial

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Re: Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial

#51
post #41

They are running a big campaign in favour of glyphosate in Reddit. in Argentina at least. Subreddit admins have cobtacted Reddit to suspend the campaign because of false claims going against the rules. The campaign also tricks people because they post links to popular media sites. There is more information about this (in Spanish) here: https://www.reddit.com/r/argentina/comments/95m863/followup_...

In fairness, with respect to both this case and the body of research cited in it, glyphosate wasn't the toxic part of Round Up.

Re: Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial

#52
post #2

I vaguely remember watching an interview with an exec from Monsanto saying RoundUp was perfectly safe, safe enough to drink. Then immediately refusing to drink it when offered, because of course it's poison.

Wow, Monsanto is pretty good at SEO. Here's the first result that came up for a search of the video: https://i.imgur.com/JiZjlVL.png

Is that SEO, or them just paying to be there?

Re: Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial

#53
post #42
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember that video as well but frankly it's a silly non-argument. There are plenty of things that are safe to eat and drink that will still be highly unpleasant, especially in concentrated form. I'm sure that drinking a glass of vinegar won't give me cancer but it doesn't mean that I will do it on cue. I also wonder how much table salt you need to eat before it starts having bad side effects but something tells me…

Salt is not safe to drink. Vinegar is to some extend (you can take several gulps) Glyphosate is not. Claim was BS. Good journalists to challenge them on the spot. Bad Monsanto for making that claim. It is clearly not safe to drink. Not one gulp. Microdosing is not the point there, the claim was not made for microdosing, the claim was safe to drink.

The journalist was right to challenge him if the claim was BS but I disagree that asking him to drink a glass of roundup and him refusing is a good argument. I mean take the position of the Monsanto lobbyist, he most likely never attempted such a stunt before, he doesn't know how it tastes, he doesn't know if drinking a whole glass of it at once is going to cause digestive distress etc... Of course he's going to refuse even if he's honestly convinced that he's telling the truth.

Good journalism would've been to show how his claim is bullshit by citing sources disagreeing with the statement. But that doesn't make for good TV.

Also I disagree that the claim was that glyphosate was "safe to drink" like a soda or something, rather he said that it wasn't going to hurt you which is IMO not exactly the same thing, especially in the context which was that glyphosate was accused to cause cancer. I'm sure you could eat few spoonfuls of salt and it won't hurt you, I still don't advise doing it.

At this point I might sound a bit like a Monsanto lobbyist myself and I assure you I'm not, I'm just a bit annoyed that these types of stunts seem somehow more important than rational discussion and scientific studies. This guy is not even a Monsanto exec like claimed by the parent. I guess they revised their scripts after that.

Re: Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial

#54
post #51
post #41

They are running a big campaign in favour of glyphosate in Reddit. in Argentina at least. Subreddit admins have cobtacted Reddit to suspend the campaign because of false claims going against the rules. The campaign also tricks people because they post links to popular media sites. There is more information about this (in Spanish) here: https://www.reddit.com/r/argentina/comments/95m863/followup_...

In fairness, with respect to both this case and the body of research cited in it, glyphosate wasn't the toxic part of Round Up.

I dont have the knowledge about the Round Up and glyphosate details but what I know is that in Argentina there are probed cases of cancer related to Round Up and making a promotional campaign in favour of glyphosate is misleading because people think Round Up is equal to glyphosate.

Re: Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial

#55
post #20
post #2

I vaguely remember watching an interview with an exec from Monsanto saying RoundUp was perfectly safe, safe enough to drink. Then immediately refusing to drink it when offered, because of course it's poison.

Along with all the other explanations on this thread of why that's a silly argument, there is the fact that glyphosate isn't the only thing in commercial RoundUp weed killer solutions.

Who said anything about glyphosate?

Re: Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial

#56
post #26

A useful thing to know about this case is that the plaintiff took pains not to base their case on the carcinogenicity of glyphosate, but rather of Roundup, which is less than half glyphosate. During their opening statement, any time they referenced a study about about glyphosate, they'd say "but remember that study only looked at glyphosate, not Roundup, and as we all know, more than half of Roundup is other stuff".…

I followed that argument a bit, and what I found was a Seralini study (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5756058/). He is known for some really bad studies about GMOs, those were simply terrible science and he obviously has an axe to grind.

The POEA experiments in that paper were about exposing cell cultures to different roundup compositions and components. It is not surprising that POEA kills the cells in this kind of experiment as it is a kind of detergent. Human cell cultures have no defense against having their cell membranes disrupted by detergents. Real humans are not cell cultures and can't be easily killed that mechanism. We have skin and other barriers like mucous membranes that protect the cells.

I didn't look much further, but seeing that paper as the first result does make me very skeptical about the idea.

Re: Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial

#57
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you made an honest effort to understand the parent's point. They are saying that the jurors might have been biased against Monsanto due to the widespread fear of GMO, and glyphosate being a symbol of that fear.

I can't speak to what was in the jurors' minds, but in my opinion that's backwards: it is concern about glyphosate that is primarily driving fear of GMOs. If we got rid of glyphosate, I for one would not have any problem with the other GMOs I am currently aware of, though I would of course reserve the option of objecting to specific GMOs I might learn about in the future.

It’s important to point out that this case is about Roundup as a whole product, of which less than half is glyphosate, not just glyphosate. Some other posts here go over this in more detail.

Re: Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial

#58
post #26

A useful thing to know about this case is that the plaintiff took pains not to base their case on the carcinogenicity of glyphosate, but rather of Roundup, which is less than half glyphosate. During their opening statement, any time they referenced a study about about glyphosate, they'd say "but remember that study only looked at glyphosate, not Roundup, and as we all know, more than half of Roundup is other stuff".…

I followed that argument a bit, and what I found was a Seralini study ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5756058/ ). He is known for some really bad studies about GMOs, those were simply terrible science and he obviously has an axe to grind. The POEA experiments in that paper were about exposing cell cultures to different roundup compositions and components. It is not surprising that POEA kills the cells…

I'm confused, are you arguing that cellular changes cannot impact a larger organism because they have too many cells?

Re: Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial

#59
post #39

Whether the guilty verdict is ultimately upheld will probably be decided in a higher court. But this company sure has a dubious track record with previous hazardous substances that were in their product line: > The company once manufactured controversial products such as the insecticide DDT, PCBs, Agent Orange and recombinant bovine growth hormone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto

A toxic company

Re: Monsanto ordered to pay $289M damages in Roundup cancer trial

#60
post #2

I vaguely remember watching an interview with an exec from Monsanto saying RoundUp was perfectly safe, safe enough to drink. Then immediately refusing to drink it when offered, because of course it's poison.

Wow, Monsanto is pretty good at SEO. Here's the first result that came up for a search of the video: https://i.imgur.com/JiZjlVL.png

That one is seo, since it is not tagged as an ad
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