Glyphosate is also used as a dessicant…off label use.
Brilliant 2018 article from nautilus https://nautil.us/herbicide-is-whats-for-dinner-237256/
Roundup herbicide ingredient connected to epidemic chronic kidney disease
221–230 of 302 posts
Re: Roundup herbicide ingredient connected to epidemic chronic kidney disease
#222Re: Roundup herbicide ingredient connected to epidemic chronic kidney disease
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It sounds like they evaluated the chemical itself but didn't evaluate what could happen to the chemical once it was in the environment. I bet that's most of evaluations and it's probably not even required to take into consideration the environment and how it can change the response...
And I would hazard a guess that this "mountain of evidence" was bought and paid-for by Monsanto.
I would hazard to guess that it’s been on the market for over half a century and has been controversial for eons and mountains of independent research has been done on it by this point notably by national health orgs.
Of course Monsanto is putting its finger on the scales of both the research that is done and the research that is seen but they are not some sort of omnipotent evil.
Re: Roundup herbicide ingredient connected to epidemic chronic kidney disease
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you think that people saying that glyphosate is safe are arguing in bad faith I can see why you'd think there's a lot of disingenuousness around here. I can't speak for other people but I've defended glyphosate in plenty of threads simply because I've seen no compelling evidence of any significant danger from it in general and the specific stories we're discussing are often even weaker, with the comments sections…
> If you think that people saying that glyphosate is safe are arguing in bad faith I can see why you'd think there's a lot of disingenuousness around here. Some people can’t detect astroturf - that’s why it works. Consider that you may be one of them. > I've defended glyphosate in plenty of threads Can I see an example? Google couldn't find your name + glyphosate, or + roundup together anywhere. > I've seen no compel…
I think we're talking past each other a bit. In this moment I'm not trying to persuade you of anything about glyphosate though I obviously disagree with you, just saying that there are plenty of us out here who do argue in good faith and asking you to consider that what may look like astroturfing is just honestly held opinions by people who disagree with you. In this case, I read the article, the paper, skimmed a couple of citations from the paper, the Wikipedia article, and a paper cited in Wikipedia on contaminants, especially fluorine, and kidney disease in Sri Lanka. I found it all quite interesting and didn't do it out of a desire to blow off a link (blowing off work on the other hand...).
Sure, if you find a comment section spammed by new accounts with thin histories that look synthetic, call that out. I'm not even trying to persuade you that it doesn't happen (though to me it would feel like a misallocation of resources to do it to HN if you were going to do it). Maybe I'm bad at detecting it as you say.
As for examples, I've mixed up message boards a bit as well as glyphosate/Monsanto, but here's me from 2017 implicitly arguing that controversy over Monsanto suing farmers is a bit overblown (no pun intended): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14794627
From around the same time here's me saying that Monsanto's editing of a paper related to roundup safety was dumb but didn't concern me as far as glyphosate safety: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14974180
In that second link in the wider comments Dang replied to a flagged comment: 'Someone holding a different view than you do is not evidence of bad faith, and the internet trope of you-must-be-a-shill is poison'. I agree with him and it's part of why I enjoy the HN community where this isn't the typical mode of reply.
Re: Roundup herbicide ingredient connected to epidemic chronic kidney disease
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tell me you've never had trouble affording enough calories to survive without telling me you've never had trouble affording enough calories to survive. "Cheap calories" are what keeps the world from starving to death, and incidentally what allows some of us to be software engineers, novelists, and YouTube "influencers", rather than 95% of us being either agricultural serfs or foot soldiers.
Sort of, but you portray a false dichotomy. See my other lengthy comment.
It's not a "false dichotomy" at all.
Cheap calories = people don't starve to death.
"Organic", "free-range", etc. stuff is a luxury for the wealthy.
Re: Roundup herbicide ingredient connected to epidemic chronic kidney disease
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there no possibility that you're misinformed? No room for self reflection?
I supposed you could prove me wrong: Try to find a HN thread about glyphosate where no one gaslights, deflects, toxifies or baits. Any time, in the whole history of HN. One single story , where no one tries to pretend or insinuate that Roundup / glyphosate is perfectly safe, or attack people / studies / lawsuits that suggest otherwise. The only rule is that it must have at least a dozen comments - there's no need to…
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Re: Roundup herbicide ingredient connected to epidemic chronic kidney disease
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. It's a weedkiller. Putting it ON the fruits would be expensive and useless. In conventional/industrial agriculture, its used after harvest and before seeding. In intelligent agriculture , it's used a day before seeding.
> No. It's a weedkiller. Putting it ON the fruits would be expensive and useless. So, why Monsanto went all the trouble of developing GMO crops resistant to it, if it is intended just for the weeds?
There is roundup-ready Cotton, Soybeans, Corn and Canola, that I am aware of. My family grows Roundup-ready cotton. The other 2 are used for animal feed; in no case is any farmer going to be spraying it when it is fruiting, because once the weeds have got to that point you've already lost all the benefit of it being 'roundup ready' - where the purpose is for weeds to be killed so they don't take the moisture which is now conserved for the crop.
There are no roundup-ready vegetables that I am aware of, or fruits.
Re: Roundup herbicide ingredient connected to epidemic chronic kidney disease
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you think that people saying that glyphosate is safe are arguing in bad faith I can see why you'd think there's a lot of disingenuousness around here. I can't speak for other people but I've defended glyphosate in plenty of threads simply because I've seen no compelling evidence of any significant danger from it in general and the specific stories we're discussing are often even weaker, with the comments sections…
> If you think that people saying that glyphosate is safe are arguing in bad faith I can see why you'd think there's a lot of disingenuousness around here. Some people can’t detect astroturf - that’s why it works. Consider that you may be one of them. > I've defended glyphosate in plenty of threads Can I see an example? Google couldn't find your name + glyphosate, or + roundup together anywhere. > I've seen no compel…
I have heard rants about Monsanto’s shill army for over a decade now, not just on HN but on every mid-sized or larger internet community I have ever been on, and not once have I actually seen a single person produce a shred of hard evidence substantiating it. I also notice right, if shills are so common every company ought to be sending their shills to influence HN, but I only ever hear Monsanto, no other big company, and no other big ag company accused of this. It’s not exactly easy to keep a massive long-term shilling operation secret when journalists would be chomping at the bit for a “Monsanto shill army proven” story and be willing to pay for proof.
At this point I’m utterly convinced that Monsanto doesn’t hire any shills and instead just does straightforwards propaganda work where they just convince people with slanted studied that they push to the top of Google search that sway people with reasonable sounding arguments (roundup makes food cheap!) and just wait for them to parrot these arguments and then for them to be accused of shilling making Monsanto’s opponents look unhinged. As evidenced by the plenty of actual evidence that they promote pro-roundup research and the plenty of actual evidence that they advertise stores that make roundup sound more safe.
Do you realize how self-sustaining contrarianism is when people consistently feed the contrarians ego by consistently, and wrongly, accusing them of being shills? Irrespective of who is right or wrong on the broader issue, the people accused of being shills are right that they aren’t shills so it’s basically a dopamine slam dunk to just side with Monsanto and have people line up to give a blatantly wrong opinion (that you are a shill). Which only causes a feedback loop because as the number of people seeking this dopamine hit grows, so does the EVIDENCE of SHILLS EVERYWHERE! Monsanto is best off just sitting back and eating popcorn and not spending a dime on shills.
Re: Roundup herbicide ingredient connected to epidemic chronic kidney disease
#229If you discuss this on the internet, shills come out of the woodwork immediately to promote glyphosate. I've never seen such astroturfing for any other topic. For example, there are a handful of super user accounts on reddit that pop up at all hours and only discuss this topic and use extremely well researched talking points and citations.
Which accounts
Re: Roundup herbicide ingredient connected to epidemic chronic kidney disease
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you think that people saying that glyphosate is safe are arguing in bad faith I can see why you'd think there's a lot of disingenuousness around here. Some people can’t detect astroturf - that’s why it works. Consider that you may be one of them. > I've defended glyphosate in plenty of threads Can I see an example? Google couldn't find your name + glyphosate, or + roundup together anywhere. > I've seen no compel…
I think we're talking past each other a bit. In this moment I'm not trying to persuade you of anything about glyphosate though I obviously disagree with you, just saying that there are plenty of us out here who do argue in good faith and asking you to consider that what may look like astroturfing is just honestly held opinions by people who disagree with you. In this case, I read the article, the paper, skimmed a cou…
Your linked comment is a good example of something I'd perceive as either written by a shill, or someone convinced by shilling. You say:
> All of the science still says glyphosate is safe in the concentrations we encounter it in.
What makes you qualified to say that? "Skimming a few papers"?
The kindest thing I could say about that is that it's a dangerous oversimplification, on a thread where Monsanto have been caught red handed doing something "stupid" and immoral.
The interactions between chemicals in Roundup can do much worse than glyphosate on its own - synergistic effects, increased bioavailability, etc. Then there's buildup from constant exposure. Then there's unexpected interactions with minerals in the environment, as suggested in the linked study, etc. And so on.
There's WAY too much smoke to declare a total lack of fire, speaking on behalf of "all of the science", even if you were the head of the IARC (who call out a link to cancer, btw).
> Someone holding a different view than you do is not evidence of bad faith
I don't go around here accusing people with different views of acting in bad faith. But every time - every single time - the topic of glyphosate comes up, I see evidence of shenanigans. Fucky voting, misrepresentations, toxicity, distraction, FUD, outright lies, smears, etc etc. Look for it, and you might start to see it.