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Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

theguardian.com

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Re: Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

#311

Post by willcipriano »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #264
telesoft wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>people were defending them. I believe that some company monitors websites like reddit and twitter for talk about Monsanto or Big Oil (fracking) and that company pays shills to defend them.

Someone on reddit claimed he was on a US presidential campaign doing exactly that. Respond to posts with pre-made replies, if things got hairy, distract with humor or memes. Interestingly, they were aware when they were dealing with another paid shill from the opposing side. After all those years on the internet I think I can also feel the impact of systematic forum activity; controversial topics that get swift, well…

Hillary Clinton had a super PAC that did so openly:

"In April 2016, Correct the Record announced that it would be spending $1 million to find and confront social media users who post unflattering messages about Clinton in a "task force" called "Barrier Breakers 2016".[1][5] In addition to this, the task force aimed to encourage Sanders supporters to support Clinton and to thank both "prominent supporters and committed superdelegates".[6] The organization's president, Brad Woodhouse, said they had "about a dozen people engaged in [producing] nothing but positive content on Hillary Clinton" and had a team distributing information "particularly of interest to women".[7]"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correct_the_Record

If you watched r/politics and political humor back that it went from organic looking to the consent manufacturing factories they are today.

Re: Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

#312

Post by slowking2 »

IncRnd wrote: post #116
slowking2 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dose makes the poison. It’s possible for a chemical to be perfectly safe if ingested in low quantities but dangerous in extremely high quantities. The duration of exposure for the same dose matters a lot too. Drinking glyphosate could be a much larger acute exposure so it’s perfectly reasonable to say it’s safe as normally used but not want to drink it. For example, you need trace amounts of copper to live, but v…

> Drinking glyphosate could be a much larger acute exposure so it’s perfectly reasonable to say it’s safe as normally used but not want to drink it. It's a short video. But, you are commenting without even having watched it. The executive said that glyphosate is so safe that it is safe to drink. When the interviewer then said that they have a glass of glyphosate and asked if the exec would like to drink it, the execu…

Did you read the last sentence of my post? I literally said the executive was bullshitting when he said he could drink it…

Re: Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

#313

Post by emodendroket »

pumnikol wrote: post #309

I've been in the field for many years and I see the EU on the forefront of public chemical safety, both in terms of legislation and enforcement. ECHA is transparent about glyphosate [1]. It is not even labelled as CMR on REACH Annex III [2], and that's saying a lot. If you follow the developments, you will find that there is no way to prove a chemical as "safe". All it takes is one bloke on record to develop any heal…

US regulators seemingly subscribe to the "three monkeys" approach where they assume everything being added to your food is safe and don't ask too many questions unless compelled.

Re: Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

#314

Post by slowking2 »

saiya-jin wrote: post #268
slowking2 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dose makes the poison. It’s possible for a chemical to be perfectly safe if ingested in low quantities but dangerous in extremely high quantities. The duration of exposure for the same dose matters a lot too. Drinking glyphosate could be a much larger acute exposure so it’s perfectly reasonable to say it’s safe as normally used but not want to drink it. For example, you need trace amounts of copper to live, but v…

I dare you to ingest small amount of Caesium-137 every day if you truly stand by your reasoning. I can argue with list of names of firemen that didn't die from radiation poisoning while putting off fire in Chernobyl.

Different chemicals have different dangerous doses. What’s your point? I specifically said that I don’t know what the toxic dose of glyphosate is. My point is whether or not you can literally drink a highly concentrated version of it doesn’t tell you much.

Re: Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

#315

Post by omginternets »

dredmorbius wrote: post #290
omginternets wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t prove a product is safe. You fail to prove it isn’t.

In a civil lawsuit, the actual legal standard is "preponderance of evidence". Factor that by cost of defending the case and potential risk of payout in that and future cases as well. A multimillion dollar settlement suggests some doubt on the part of the defendant to establish their case.

I was speaking scientifically.

Re: Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

#316

Post by emodendroket »

marc_abonce wrote: post #233
user3939382 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I’m concerned Bayer and Monsanto are like evil incarnate and last time I brought up this lawsuit on HN I was shocked people were defending them. We’re talking about the company that intentionally sold HIV infected blood to people. If it was legal and they could increase profits by lighting people on fire they would do it. Yet people trust corrupt research that they paid for showing their product is safe. We…

> Bayer [...] intentionally sold HIV infected blood to people. I had no idea about this. For anyone else that's curious: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/may/23/aids.suzannego... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_haemophilia_blood...

Not only impressively cynical but seems pretty reckless.

Re: Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

#317

Post by emodendroket »

gruez wrote: post #299
abe_duarte wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who have been exposed to the chemical got cancer. Internal Monsanto documents show the link and their concern. A man got a court to rule in his favour for 289 million dollars, after the jury saw this evidence: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/10/monsanto-tr...

>A man got a court to rule in his favour for 289 million dollars, after the jury saw this evidence: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/10/monsanto-tr ... You seem to be presenting this fact as some sort of that bayer is guilty, but it's not really convincing. For one, it's a 8 person jury in san francisco. I'd expect them to rule against bayer on ideological grounds (ie. little guy vs multi bililon dollar…

If the jurors all just ruled against Bayer "on ideological grounds" then their counsel was asleep at the wheel.

Re: Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

#318

Post by slowking2 »

mistrial9 wrote: post #101
slowking2 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dose makes the poison. It’s possible for a chemical to be perfectly safe if ingested in low quantities but dangerous in extremely high quantities. The duration of exposure for the same dose matters a lot too. Drinking glyphosate could be a much larger acute exposure so it’s perfectly reasonable to say it’s safe as normally used but not want to drink it. For example, you need trace amounts of copper to live, but v…

this is outdated thinking. LD50 is a measure of poison in testing, but since then it is acknowledged that there are cumulative over a lifetime effects, there are endocrine disrupting effects, and there may be effects from small doses that tip balancing systems in the body significantly.. those are from memory, not a specialist here.

Alcohol has cumulative effects too. The long term effects are still dose dependent. My point is you can’t just eyeball it by being like “well that guy bullshitted then refused to drink it”. You need to do a bunch of hard work taking measurements. You know it’s not super toxic as typically used or huge swathes of people would be keeling over dead. But it could be long term toxic at the doses a farmer or landscaper is exposed too. It could have small absolute effects on everyone that could be detected in mass population statistics although that’s much much harder to untangle.

Re: Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

#319

Post by slowking2 »

IncRnd wrote: post #223
whimsicalism wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

? I don't see how that in any way diminishes what the GP said.

He is refuting what was said in the video but in the process has completely mistated what was said in that same video.

No. I did watch the video before I posted. Thus the last sentence of my first post about drinking it (or not) being bullshitting in both directions. You are the one not reading or understanding.

Re: Weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

#320

Post by emodendroket »

aetherson wrote: post #283
zzzeek wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

right and that's why they just settled instead of proving their product is safe

Companies settle lawsuits all the time for claims they believe are meritlesss, for two reasons: 1. Going through a lawsuit all the way to conclusion, even if you win, is a long, expensive process that potentially exposes you to a considerable amount of negative publicity and causes a degree of internal chaos. 2. Juries are unpredictable and even a small chance of a bad outcome may be worth paying to avoid.

If this is to be believed, they've set aside _billions_ for cancer-related claims and pulled the product from the residential market, and there are still questions about the EPA's ruling that it is safe. Definitive, no, but certainly raises serious questions.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/court-rejects-trump-era-...

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