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Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

disinformationchronicle.substack.com

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Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#61

Post by stillbourne »

user3939382 wrote: post #41
throwaway042722 wrote: post #27

Please, before you comment how evil Monsanto is, read the Cochrane review of glyphosate. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4866614/ This is produced by the Cochran which "is a British international charitable organisation formed to organise medical research findings to facilitate evidence-based choices about health interventions involving health professionals, patients and policy makers. It includes 53 rev…

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-...

A court of law is not a court of fact.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#62

Post by tptacek »

nickpeterson wrote: post #45
throwaway042722 wrote: post #27

Please, before you comment how evil Monsanto is, read the Cochrane review of glyphosate. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4866614/ This is produced by the Cochran which "is a British international charitable organisation formed to organise medical research findings to facilitate evidence-based choices about health interventions involving health professionals, patients and policy makers. It includes 53 rev…

Quoted post unavailable.

You can't write comments like this here.

Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#63

Post by fny »

0fcb88 wrote: post #56
throwaway042722 wrote: post #27

Please, before you comment how evil Monsanto is, read the Cochrane review of glyphosate. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4866614/ This is produced by the Cochran which "is a British international charitable organisation formed to organise medical research findings to facilitate evidence-based choices about health interventions involving health professionals, patients and policy makers. It includes 53 rev…

this is not a "true" Cochrane Review https://www.cochrane.org/search/site/glyphosate your link just used the method ( ~ aggregation of Ghostwriting researches) EDIT: check the https://www.cochrane.org/search/site/vaccine

Both authors appear squeaky clean though from prestigious institutions. They've published about several other carcinogens throughout their careers and have appear to have no trouble with funding. I'm not sure why they'd be incentivized to ruin their careers over a single publication.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#64

Post by 0fcb88 »

tptacek wrote: post #59
0fcb88 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is not a "true" Cochrane Review https://www.cochrane.org/search/site/glyphosate your link just used the method ( ~ aggregation of Ghostwriting researches) EDIT: check the https://www.cochrane.org/search/site/vaccine

This is an interesting point. Can you say more? How do we determine whether this is a "true" Cochrane Review? Thanks!

https://www.cochrane.org/about-us

"Cochrane is an international network with headquarters in the UK, a registered not-for-profit organization, and a member of the UK National Council for Voluntary Organizations."

Search

1. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/search

2. type "glyphosate"

3. see the results.

Cochrane Reviews : 0 Cochrane Protocols : 0

Trials : 14

Editorials : 0

Special Collections :0

Clinical Answers : 0

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#65

Post by tptacek »

nickpeterson wrote: post #43
geoffeg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Monsanto for a few years. I won't get into the ethics of the company on this forum, but as a software engineer it was a pretty great place to work. Good engineering culture, lots of very dedicated and smart people and some really fun challenges to work on.

I think you just summarized the problem pretty well.

Could you maybe summarize it further, for those of us who don't know what you mean by this?

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#66

Post by charcircuit »

nickpeterson wrote: post #20
charcircuit wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any kind that it sees.

I’m sorry are you arguing that this is a reasonable course for Monsanto to take? How about they just disclose when products are shown to cause cancer and try to make ones that don’t?

I'm just saying in general if it were to happen. Should they just let everyone dog pile onto their company and do nothing?

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#67

Post by epgui »

calibas wrote: post #51
throwaway042722 wrote: post #27

Please, before you comment how evil Monsanto is, read the Cochrane review of glyphosate. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4866614/ This is produced by the Cochran which "is a British international charitable organisation formed to organise medical research findings to facilitate evidence-based choices about health interventions involving health professionals, patients and policy makers. It includes 53 rev…

In response to an article about how Monsanto has undue influence on scientific studies, you posted a review paid for by Monsanto... > This work was supported by Monsanto Company, the original producer and marketer of glyphosate formulations.

Supported or not, I don’t think you understand the weight and quality of Cochrane reviews.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#68

Post by tptacek »

0fcb88 wrote: post #64
tptacek wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting point. Can you say more? How do we determine whether this is a "true" Cochrane Review? Thanks!

https://www.cochrane.org/about-us "Cochrane is an international network with headquarters in the UK, a registered not-for-profit organization, and a member of the UK National Council for Voluntary Organizations." Search 1. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/search 2. type "glyphosate" 3. see the results. Cochrane Reviews : 0 Cochrane Protocols : 0 Trials : 14 Editorials : 0 Special Collections :0 Clinical Answers : 0

Ah, duh, I should have looked at the link posted upthread, too. Thanks!

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#69

Post by tptacek »

epgui wrote: post #67
calibas wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In response to an article about how Monsanto has undue influence on scientific studies, you posted a review paid for by Monsanto... > This work was supported by Monsanto Company, the original producer and marketer of glyphosate formulations.

Supported or not, I don’t think you understand the weight and quality of Cochrane reviews.

... can you find one covering Glyphosate? A sibling comment notes that what's linked upthread isn't one.

Re: Monsanto’s ghostwriting to influence science and media

#70

Post by epgui »

stillbourne wrote: post #61
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-...

A court of law is not a court of fact.

Well, in common law countries, it is the literal job of a first instance court or judge to play the role of “trier of fact”. These are however “legal facts”, and not necessarily “scientific facts” (I absolutely hate to call something a fact that is not a fact, but it is what it is: the law treats “facts” differently than science).

Due to courts being very poorly equipped to deal with science, and due to rules of evidence making it very difficult to introduce science into the courtroom, court decisions are very often wrong on the science, and sometimes ignore relevant science entirely. Science in the courtroom is a pretty important and difficult problem to solve.

Edit/addendum: counter-intuitively, there are also good reasons why courts will deliberately avoid getting into the weeds with science. Basically it all comes down to the fact that the court system recognizes that it is poorly equipped to deal with scientific evidence. Barriers exist to make the courts more time-efficient and also in an effort to make it harder for the court to be misled by legal advocates on either side. It’s very easy to find someone with a PhD to support either side, or to find seemingly contradictory papers to support either side, and it basically takes an expert in science to recognize a real subject matter expert… Anyway, it’s a mess of a problem.

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