Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media • Hacker News Board

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#171

Post by tresqotheq » Tue, May 10, 2022, 2:45 AM UTC

throw0101a wrote: post #149

tresqotheq wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> "Antivax" is just a derogatory name to people who are demanding safer vaccines. Safer than what? How are current vaccines not safe? > I don't think literally anyone from the so-called anti-vax crowd are opposed to the general idea of vaccines. A 2016 article entitled "Exploring the Reasons Behind Parental Refusal of Vaccines": * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4869767/ Have we forgotten the 'vaccine au…

>Safer than what? How are current vaccines not safe?

Generally we consider medicines (and other things) to be "unsafe" until they are shown to be safe in studies. So a vaccine is "unsafe" if it contains stuff that has not been shown to be safe, in the way it is being used in the vaccine, in studies, or the studies that show something is safe are flawed in some ways. Like for example, vaccine uses it in one form, but the studies look at another variant and cites the results for safety of the vaccine.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#172

Post by mike00632 » Tue, May 10, 2022, 2:47 AM UTC

gcheong wrote: post #169

mike00632 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RoundUp-ready crops allows for farmers to spray herbicide directly onto food. That means we are now eating the chemical in much higher than trace amounts. This is new, untested and seemingly bad (if you go by the non-Monsanto-funded studies).

My comment was in regards to Bt crops but regardless I think your perception of how much glyphosate actually gets used is rather blown out of proportion - most likely due to all the anti-gmo propaganda that’s out there. It’s certainly not “new” as roundup ready crops have been around for quite some time at this point and we likely would have seen obvious health problems directly attributable to it by now if there are…

> ...glyphosate...

RoundUp. We are talking about RoundUp being sprayed onto foods. Not glyphosate. That is a tactic to avoid talking about the tests involving RoundUp.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#173

Post by gcheong » Tue, May 10, 2022, 3:05 AM UTC

mike00632 wrote: post #172

gcheong wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment was in regards to Bt crops but regardless I think your perception of how much glyphosate actually gets used is rather blown out of proportion - most likely due to all the anti-gmo propaganda that’s out there. It’s certainly not “new” as roundup ready crops have been around for quite some time at this point and we likely would have seen obvious health problems directly attributable to it by now if there are…

> ...glyphosate... RoundUp. We are talking about RoundUp being sprayed onto foods. Not glyphosate. That is a tactic to avoid talking about the tests involving RoundUp.

The whole “Roundup not glyphosate” reframing was just a convenient shifting of the goalposts after their initial claims about glyphosate were debunked. But I still contend that your assertion that we are eating non-trace amounts of Roundup or glyphosate or whatever your demon dou jour is is quite false.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#174

Post by mike00632 » Tue, May 10, 2022, 3:07 AM UTC

gcheong wrote: post #173

mike00632 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...glyphosate... RoundUp. We are talking about RoundUp being sprayed onto foods. Not glyphosate. That is a tactic to avoid talking about the tests involving RoundUp.

The whole “Roundup not glyphosate” reframing was just a convenient shifting of the goalposts after their initial claims about glyphosate were debunked. But I still contend that your assertion that we are eating non-trace amounts of Roundup or glyphosate or whatever your demon dou jour is is quite false.

>The whole “Roundup not glyphosate” reframing was just a convenient shifting of the goalposts...

Yes, you and Monsanto are shifting the goalposts. RoundUp is sprayed onto foods. Studies show that RoundUp is toxic. Monsanto funded a bunch of studies on glysophate in isolation to try and show that RoundUp is not toxic. RoundUp has chemicals that make it possible for Glysophate to permeate the cells.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#175

Post by mike00632 » Tue, May 10, 2022, 3:24 AM UTC

gcheong wrote: post #169

mike00632 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RoundUp-ready crops allows for farmers to spray herbicide directly onto food. That means we are now eating the chemical in much higher than trace amounts. This is new, untested and seemingly bad (if you go by the non-Monsanto-funded studies).

My comment was in regards to Bt crops but regardless I think your perception of how much glyphosate actually gets used is rather blown out of proportion - most likely due to all the anti-gmo propaganda that’s out there. It’s certainly not “new” as roundup ready crops have been around for quite some time at this point and we likely would have seen obvious health problems directly attributable to it by now if there are…

>...and we likely would have seen obvious health problems directly attributable to it by now...

By the way, we did see health problems. Farmers and farmhands successfully sued Monsanto for health problems caused by RoundUp.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#176

Post by gcheong » Tue, May 10, 2022, 4:23 AM UTC

mike00632 wrote: post #175

gcheong wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment was in regards to Bt crops but regardless I think your perception of how much glyphosate actually gets used is rather blown out of proportion - most likely due to all the anti-gmo propaganda that’s out there. It’s certainly not “new” as roundup ready crops have been around for quite some time at this point and we likely would have seen obvious health problems directly attributable to it by now if there are…

>...and we likely would have seen obvious health problems directly attributable to it by now... By the way, we did see health problems. Farmers and farmhands successfully sued Monsanto for health problems caused by RoundUp.

If you understand how these court cases are brought you would see that it’s problematic at best to rely on them as a determination of truth: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-science-behind-the-roun...

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#177

Post by smolder » Tue, May 10, 2022, 8:47 AM UTC

seattle_spring wrote: post #83

Cadwhisker wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

It's sad that the "well you're just a paid shill" retort is used to heavily nowadays. Not just for GMO related discussions either. It's got to be the laziest, empty non-argument out there and I wish more people would call it out for what it is.

Personally, I blame the rise of paid shills for the rise of accusations of being a paid shill.

It's hard work imagining what mental gymnastics people do to rationalize a career spreading lies. Not so much the people who desperately take the job of repeating them, but the people who strategize around what they can get the public to believe.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#178

Post by epgui » Tue, May 10, 2022, 9:57 AM UTC

eurasiantiger wrote: post #162

epgui wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have spent 12 years considering all aspects of the question (and for what it's worth, I will never be done learning), but thank you for checking. You have a very strange idea of what it's like to study and do science/research.

Am I wrong in saying there are plenty of academics who pursue a career primarily in acquiring grants and funding? What is the ratio of those people to those who are in it for the truth? Truth often doesn’t pay the bills.

Uh... In many countries, almost all academics spend a significant portion of their time applying for funding, but I'm not clear on why you think these scientists don't have a genuine interest in the "truth" lol.

Lay down your tinfoil hat.

Scientists who discover new things, disprove some other thing, reshape human knowledge or otherwise change the status quo... these are rockstar-scientists, and everyone wants to be them and do exactly that. You can't just be a contrarian though: you have to be right.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#179

Post by user3939382 » Tue, May 10, 2022, 11:25 AM UTC

kuhewa wrote: post #95

user3939382 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn’t there a school groundskeeper who won a lawsuit whose decision was based on it being carcinogenic? If memory serves, he had a lawyer vs a huge team of high priced attorneys who, after a long lawsuit, failed to convince the court. I’m not an expert but courts are designed to adjudicate technical issues like this: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bayer-glyphosate-lawsuit-...

> courts are designed to adjudicate technical issues like this Since adjudicate just means to decide something judicially, that is tautological but technically correct. Beyond that narrow definition though, a jury trial is not the mechanism to decide a scientific and probabalistic question like whether spraying weed killer caused a particular case of lymphoma.

It's not tautological because of the end of the phrase "technical issues like this". In other words, courts in this case aren't a bunch of laymen sitting around guessing whether this chemical is harmful. They're reviewing the research straight out of the mouths of the most qualified experts both sides can bring to the table. The court's decision on this was the product of the science.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#180

Post by user3939382 » Tue, May 10, 2022, 11:27 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #52

user3939382 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn’t there a school groundskeeper who won a lawsuit whose decision was based on it being carcinogenic? If memory serves, he had a lawyer vs a huge team of high priced attorneys who, after a long lawsuit, failed to convince the court. I’m not an expert but courts are designed to adjudicate technical issues like this: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bayer-glyphosate-lawsuit-...

Courts are not designed to adjudicate technical issues like this; the conventional wisdom in our separation of powers is that they're uniquely bad at it, which is part of why controversies in upper courts so often devolve to the question of whether fact-finding should be deferred to legislatures instead of court cases.

> controversies in upper courts so often devolve to the question of whether fact-finding should be deferred to legislatures instead of court cases

You might be right but not what I typically have observed. Usually if things are fuzzy higher courts kick it back to lower courts to work on it more. Deferring to the legislature is what I see when what the public seems to want is at odds with what the court can do based on the law as it's written, which is a different dynamic completely.