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

bbc.com

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

#81

Post by balfirevic »

eganist wrote: post #72
tangentspace wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how I'd interpret this sentence: "We have skin and other barriers that protect the cells." It sounds to me like the author claims that humans have skin, which is true, and that skin forms a barrier that protects internal cells, which is extremely plausible.

That's a literal interpretation. A contextual interpretation implies that Roundup cannot cause harm through the observed means because it cannot clear the skin, the latter of which is patently false.

No. The contextual interpretation says that the above-mentioned study doesn't prove Roundup is harmful because the same results would be observed with any detergent, to which we are regularly exposed without suffering any harm.

Therefore, Roundup might or might not be harmful, but the study doesn't tell us much about it.

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

#83

Post by refurb »

killbrad wrote: post #58
fabian2k wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The landscape is riddled with data from cell lines that doesn’t extrapolate to whole organisms. There is a massive difference between the two.

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

#84

Post by eganist »

balfirevic wrote: post #81
eganist wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a literal interpretation. A contextual interpretation implies that Roundup cannot cause harm through the observed means because it cannot clear the skin, the latter of which is patently false.

No. The contextual interpretation says that the above-mentioned study doesn't prove Roundup is harmful because the same results would be observed with any detergent, to which we are regularly exposed without suffering any harm. Therefore, Roundup might or might not be harmful, but the study doesn't tell us much about it.

> to which we are regularly exposed without suffering any harm.

Right, because we're instructed not to consume detergents. Following this instruction keeps the detergents outside the body.

We are instructed to consume food grown with herbicides such as Roundup, and Roundup is often (if not always) delivered in a sprayed manner with significant aerosolization.

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

#85

Post by RickJWagner »

joshmn wrote: post #44

My mom is another one of these stories. I wish I was exaggerating. I bet there's still Round-up in the her garage. I've spent the last 4 years or my life have been devoted to working so I can afford her treatments and keep her around and happy. Does anyone have any environmental attorneys they've worked with in the past they can recommend?

Wow, sorry to hear this. Good luck to you and your mother.

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

#86

Post by dionidium »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #78
dionidium wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, no, not the same Monsanto that did any of that. They spun off their chemical division in 1996. [0] More philosophically (and despite what SCOTUS has to say about it), companies aren't people; they are run by people. "Monsanto" can't do anything. The people running Monsanto have agency. And the people who did the things you mention here are dead . [0] https://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/11/business/monsanto-plans-t.…

The people running Monsanto are buffered - if not always protected entirely - by numerous laws from facing the consequences of their actions, precisely because they take those actions in the context of a corporate entity. If I poison my neighbour and I'm caught, I'm going to jail. (In the US I may face the death penalty.) If I'm working inside a corporate and my decisions poison [unknown power of ten] people and caus…

As I implied, the Supreme Court has some unintuitive thoughts about the personhood of corporations. And there may be various other legal constructs that bolster your claims here (I don't actually know).

But, as a philosophy, the notion that the decision to use Agent Orange in Vietnam has anything to with the debate about GMOs or the carcinogenic effects of glyphosate is a position that will only mislead and confuse you.

It's not a useful lens through which to view the world and the regularity with which arguments of this form appear in threads like this one is discouraging.

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

#87

Post by refurb »

killbrad wrote: 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.

Everything is a poison at a high enough enough dose.

You can drink small amounts of acetone (nail polish remover). Your body actually produces acetone in small quantities as a ketone body.

However, I wouldn’t agree to drink it either.

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

#88

Post by refurb »

joshmn wrote: post #44

My mom is another one of these stories. I wish I was exaggerating. I bet there's still Round-up in the her garage. I've spent the last 4 years or my life have been devoted to working so I can afford her treatments and keep her around and happy. Does anyone have any environmental attorneys they've worked with in the past they can recommend?

How do you know Round Up caused her cancer?

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

#89

Post by cryoshon »

fabian2k wrote: post #56
tptacek wrote: 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…

yeah, you have to be careful with the studies that equate stuff in cell culture with stuff in real organisms.

we have metrics for "chemical X probabalistically causes cancer Y in tissue Z".

you can play games with the ROA and the probability. but the type of chemical (detergent, etc) is a non sequitor. if you expose cells to a detergent in high enough concentration, they'll lyse.

lysed cells are an ENTIRELY distinct "type" of cell death than the kind of cell death signature that you would see if the cell were cancerous. the author of that study didn't do any flow cytometry on his 293 T samples by the looks of it, but if he had, the differences would be enlightening. compare someone who has died in a plane crash to someone who died of ebola. you'd know that one was not the other very easily even if you couldn't attribute a cause.

anyhow, i looked at that paper you linked. the other big problem with the monsanto chemical -- which was not even mentioned in the lawsuit (!) was that it is an endocrine disruptor even in situations where it is not toxic. in other words, it's terrible for you and will distort your body's hormone chemistry in ways we probably don't even understand yet. that's just as big of a story as the chemical being legally confirmed as carcinogenic.

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

#90

Post by alangpierce »

conradfr wrote: post #73
killbrad wrote: 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.

Direct video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM

Arguably the main problem here is that he got defensive/hostile rather than refining or articulating his argument. Instead of saying "no, I'm not stupid", he maybe could have said "no, it would taste terrible and I'd probably throw up and and it may make me feel sick for a while, but the studies show that it wouldn't cause lasting damage to my body". (At least, I think that's his claim.) But then, he probably could have been more honest/clear in his original phrasing "you can drink a whole quart and it won't hurt you".
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