Bayer Bought Monsanto?

yung.carl.jung said:
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(a piglet from a danish farmer who claims a major portion of his lifestock has had miscarriages since he switched to feed produced with glyphosate)
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OMG! Alf did bad things to those poor pigs.....
 
Berzerker said:
we have this chemical that kills bugs, spray it on your food, you'll be fine...we promise
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Well. Insecticides are generally significantly more toxic cross species to other animals then are herbicides. As a general rule, yes. It's one of the reasons neonicitinoids and Bt tend to be enormous wins for reducing human exposure to, and environmental residue of toxicity. Again, tend. They reduce the dosage and broacast of general application insecticides.
 
yung.carl.jung said:
however with glyphosate it is not just its potential carcinogenic properties that are dangerous, no?

there have been a few reports of farmers getting sick, showing organ damage, being nauteous (from Germany, that I know are confirmed).. there is no scientific consensus on the matter, so calling glyphosate hysteria "scientific illiteracy" isn't really correct, no?
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Sure it is. Where is the science supporting glyphosate in food being responsible for organ damage or livestock miscarriages? If the mere presence of any amount of glyphosate was that harmful, it would likely be settled science, or at least heavily indicated by the science, and you wouldn't need to rely on anecdotes.

Then of course there is the question of comparative harm. If you ban glyphosate, what is the alternative? Can you be sure won't be worse if applied in the quantities glyphosate currently is? Or do we use our federal job guarantee to guarantee everyone not otherwise employed that they can move to Iowa and go weed farmland for 10 hours a day?
 
metalhead said:
Sure it is. Where is the science supporting glyphosate in food being responsible for organ damage or livestock miscarriages? If the mere presence of any amount of glyphosate was that harmful, it would likely be settled science, or at least heavily indicated by the science, and you wouldn't need to rely on anecdotes.

Then of course there is the question of comparative harm. If you ban glyphosate, what is the alternative? Can you be sure won't be worse if applied in the quantities glyphosate currently is? Or do we use our federal job guarantee to guarantee everyone not otherwise employed that they can move to Iowa and go weed farmland for 10 hours a day?
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here it is:

Monika Krüger: Clostridium botulinum in animal populations from microbiological point of view. In:. 9 Agriculture and veterinary Academy AVA main meeting.2010.

sources from other research teams (I do not want to rely on just one source):

Glyphosate-based herbicides are toxic and endocrine disruptors in human cell lines

(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0300483X09003047)

Glyphosate induces human breast cancer cells growth via estrogen receptors

(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691513003633)

Glyphosate Formulations Induce Apoptosis and Necrosis in Human Umbilical, Embryonic, and Placental Cells

(https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/tx800218n)

Major Pesticides Are More Toxic to Human Cells Than Their Declared Active Principles

(https://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2014/179691/?hc_location=ufi)

Co-Formulants in Glyphosate-Based Herbicides Disrupt Aromatase Activity in Human Cells below Toxic Levels

(http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/3/264)

on the damage it may cause to livestock:

Monika Krüger, Anke Große-Herrenthey , Wieland Schrödl , Achim Gerlach, Arne RodloffVisceral botulism at dairy farms in Schleswig Holstein, Germany e Prevalence of Clostridium botulinum in feces of cows, in animal feeds, in feces of the farmers,and in house dust. doi:10.1016/j.anaerobe.2011.12.013

Monika Krüger, Wieland Schrödl, Jürgen Neuhaus and Awad Ali Shehata. Field Investigations of Glyphosate in Urine of Danish Dairy Cows. http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2161-0525.1000186.

Arwid Daugschies. Necrotic enteritis due to simultaneous infection with Isospora suis and clostridia in newborn piglets and its prevention by early treatment with toltrazuril. Parasitol Res (2012) 110:1347– 1355.

Monika Krüger, Wieland Schrödl, Ib Pedersen, Philipp Schledorn and Awad A Shehata. Detection of Glyphosate in Malformed Piglets. http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2161-0525.1000230.

for one of the sources I even found the text with no paywall:

Prof. Dr. em. Monika Krüger, Veterinary Faculty, University of Leipzig, Institute of Bacteriology and Mycology - Gerichshain, October 6, 2016 Glyphosate detection in urines, organs and muscles of food animal and in urines of humans Introduction Since 2010 epidemiological investigations were done in my formerly institute. In 2010 we finished the scientific project “Botulinom”. This project was done with 8 other scientific institutions to discover the causes of the increasing cases of chronic botulism in Germany. The aim of my institute was to investigate the relationship of gut microbiota to the detection of Clostridium (C.) botulinum and/or botulinum neuro toxin (BoNT) in rumen fluids and feces of cows of diseased (5) and unsuspicious (2) farms . Our results showed that only in cases of microbial dysbiosis of rumen fluids or feces C. botulinum and/or BoNT were detected. The causes of these results were unknown. During a telephone call in 2010 I heard the first time from the herbicide glyphosate. The next time my coworker and I informed us about glyphosate and its activities. It was very interesting that increase of chronic botulism cases of dairy cows in Germany started in the middle of 1990 and was accompanied by feeding of GMO soy contaminated with glyphosate. After studying the glyphosate literature we investigated urines of cows with HPLC (ca. 40 urines, 1 specimen 180.00 €) to get more epidemiological information. Without financial support we had to look for another detection system and we found an ELISA (Enzyme- linked- Immuno- Assay) of an American company (Abraxis). This test had to validate in all investigated materials (urines of different animals and humans, organs, meat) with official recognized tests (gas chromatography and atom adsorption spectroscopy). After this epidemiological investigations started.
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It was very important that in all herds manganese and cobalt were very low. All cows of the eight Danish dairy farms excreted glyphosate in their urine.at significant different amounts between the farms. We found increase blood serum levels of parameters indicative for cytotoxicity like GLDH, GOT, and CK and lipid profile marker cholesterol in cows at all farms and high urea levels in half of the farm animals. Correlations between glyphosate and some of the measured blood serum parameters to CK (R=0.135), Se (R=0.188) Co (R=-0.403) and Zn (R=0.175) demonstrate that glyphosate is toxic to the normal metabolism of dairy cows. This study gives the first documentation to which extent Danish dairy cattle are exposed to glyphosate and its impact on different parameters.
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Funny how you call "the hysterical people" scientifically illiterate while being seemingly unable to even do a cursory google scholar search on the given topic.
 
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And you demonstrate my point nicely. You put up a quote wall of studies - congratulations. None of those proves the anecdotal point you made earlier. More to the point, the feeding studies we have show that glyphosate does not accumulate in cells. That it shows up in urine and feces is a nice, scary-sounding thing but that's actually a good thing.

Glyphosate is a toxic chemical. I don't think many people would argue that environmental exposure at high doses is dangerous. I'm sure you could prove a virtually unlimited number of terrible things glyphosate can do to human cells. But that makes it no different from any number of other herbicides and pesticides, organic or not, that are used in farming.

So yeah, it's scientifically illiterate to take those studies as meaning anything other than "glyphosate is toxic." There is a wide gulf from those findings to findings that glyphosate is any more harmful than any other chemical.
 
metalhead said:
And you demonstrate my point nicely. You put up a quote wall of studies - congratulations. None of those proves the anecdotal point you made earlier. More to the point, the feeding studies we have show that glyphosate does not accumulate in cells. That it shows up in urine and feces is a nice, scary-sounding thing but that's actually a good thing.

Glyphosate is a toxic chemical. I don't think many people would argue that environmental exposure at high doses is dangerous. I'm sure you could prove a virtually unlimited number of terrible things glyphosate can do to human cells. But that makes it no different from any number of other herbicides and pesticides, organic or not, that are used in farming.

So yeah, it's scientifically illiterate to take those studies as meaning anything other than "glyphosate is toxic." There is a wide gulf from those findings to findings that glyphosate is any more harmful than any other chemical.
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How does the fact that glyphosate (in the dosage it was found) is toxic to the normal metabolism of dairy cows not undermine my point about glyphosate feed causing organ damage and possibly miscarriages in animals? Did you conveniently ignore that?

How does the fact that low and environmentally relevant concentrations of glyphosate possess(ed) estrogenic activity and are linked to breast cancer (quote) not prove my point that it is possibly carcinogenic and damaging to human beings?

Did you conveniently ignore the content of these studies? Yes, we are all aware that glyphosate is toxic. What I am proposing is that even glyphosate feed, or meat from animals fed with glyphosate feed carry health risks.

If you have these feeding studies at hand, why not post the sources? After all you made me go through all the effort, but instead of actually posting some research you give me a half butted reply from your high horse :)
 
yung.carl.jung said:
What I am proposing is that even glyphosate feed, or meat from animals fed with glyphosate feed carry health risks.
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Of course it does. If you can't show that it does at any rate, given that we know it's an herbicide, your science sucks. The matter is the relative toxicity. Car exhaust causes cancer. Concrete causes cancer. If the science can't show these links even at environmental doses, the science sucks. Let's say we have a perfect world where there are enough people that want to manually remove weeds and we pay the an honorable living to do so. They're happy living in say the Midwest, and they can comfortably raise families and retire. Given the relative efficiency of their manual labor at removing weeds to the efficiency of glyphosate removal, and the amount of people it will take to make up the difference(it really isn't terrible work, I spent a lot of summers walking beans), do you think that you're going to get less cancer? Even with smart clothing choices and sunscreen it's a very real possiblity, given how cancerous glyphosate is/isn't, that you wind up behind on skin cancer in the workers alone. And that's simply hand waving money entirely.

I guess we're going to find out anyways. Glyphosate has been an amazing reduction in agricultural toxicity for ~30 years. Resistance is rising on its own, more/different controls will be getting weaved in from an operational standpoint regardless. 2-4D and dicamba are the most likely supplements replacements. So start up your engines on those. They're not less toxic. On a brighter note, more accurate technology does pay dividends. The first equipments that fertilize and spray per plant at field pass speed is starting to roll out. Primary gain of that should hopefully be reducing overfertilization if I understand correctly.
 
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yung.carl.jung said:
How does the fact that glyphosate (in the dosage it was found) is toxic to the normal metabolism of dairy cows not undermine my point about glyphosate feed causing organ damage and possibly miscarriages in animals? Did you conveniently ignore that?

How does the fact that low and environmentally relevant concentrations of glyphosate possess(ed) estrogenic activity and are linked to breast cancer (quote) not prove my point that it is possibly carcinogenic and damaging to human beings?

Did you conveniently ignore the content of these studies? Yes, we are all aware that glyphosate is toxic. What I am proposing is that even glyphosate feed, or meat from animals fed with glyphosate feed carry health risks.

If you have these feeding studies at hand, why not post the sources? After all you made me go through all the effort, but instead of actually posting some research you give me a half butted reply from your high horse :)
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Because exhaustive reviews of actual feeding studies have shown almost no increased incidence of cancer in lab animals, even at high doses.

Because EFSA has reviewed lots of glyphosate feeding studies, including ones you've mentioned, on farm animals, and concluded the available science shows that glyphosate ingestion does not carry an increased risk of adverse affects on a wide variety of farm animals.

Lab studies of glyphosate toxicity and modes of action in biological systems are useful, but they give a very incomplete picture of the science behind glyphosate and its potential to harm people/animals. There is much better science out there which specifically assesses how mammals are affected by ingesting glyphosate, and at far higher doses than would occur naturally.

So yes, if you are taking laboratory studies that isolate biological effects of glyphosate as equal to actual animal feeding studies, you are scientifically illiterate.
 
Maybe a few years ago a less cynical me would've just taken anything published by the EFSA for granted, but lots of blunders happened lately and I'm not sure that EFSA or ECHA are the bowls I want to put my eggs in.

In 2017 the EFSA parroted parts of a bought study by monzanto which really hurt credibility

The European food safety authority (Efsa) based a recommendation that a chemical linked to cancer was safe for public use on an EU report that copied and pasted analyses from a Monsanto study, the Guardian can reveal.

Glyphosate is the core ingredient in Monsanto’s $4.75bn (£3.5bn) a year RoundUp weedkiller brand and a battle over its relicensing has split EU countries, with a final decision on its authorisation expected in early November.

That decision will largely be informed by an Efsa opinion, which is based on a 4,300-page renewal assessment report (RAR) published in 2015.

In June, Efsa said that where the RAR was concerned, “every scientific study is scrutinised for relevance and reliability by EU risk assessors based on the evidence contained within the study”.

But dozens of pages of the paper are identical to passages in an application submitted by Monsanto on behalf of the Glyphosate Task Force (GTF), an industry body led by the company.

These sections analyse peer-reviewed studies into links between glyphosate and genotoxicity (how likely it is to cause cell mutations), carcinogenicity and reproductive damage.
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the guardian wasn't the only one printing that story, plenty of German magazines (süddeutsche, focus) did as well. another criticism of the EFSA:

Auch diese müssen von der Behörde geprüft werden. Im Zulassungsverfahren ist vorgesehen, dass die Glyphosat-Hersteller vorab auch diese Studien erfassen und bewerten. Genau diese Ergebnisse wurden von der Behörde über große Strecken einfach übernommen, mit den Argumenten der Industrie, die diese Studien zuvor vielfach als "not reliable", also unbrauchbar, eingestuft hatte.
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What this bit says is that in the peer reviewing process the manufacturers (!) of the herbicides get a saying on whether a study is considered "realible" or "useful" before they're taken into the study. (This was late 2017).

When you value obviously bought studies the same as genuine research, any metastudy can come to any conclusion. The other agency involved in the review process, the German BfR (Bundesinstitut für Risikobewertung, or federal institute of risk assessment for our anglophone friends) has faced similiar criticism.

Of course both sides play dirty tricks. the World Health Organization WHO used the same nitpicking to confirm that glyphosate was indeed "probably carinogenic" (in environmental doses), however anyone with a brain can probably see their bias aswell. what this all leads to is that, no, it is definitely not a black-and-white issue and scientists definitely don't agree on this matter at all - there is no consensus. while your "exhaustive reviews" claim that test on lab animals have revealed there is no increased risk of cancer, the IARC has come to the opposite conclusion. interesting you would trust the EFSA more than the WHO, however.
 
So, essentially, neither the expert, nor the institutional, nor the local, nor the lay opinions are reliable. :lol: Fair enuff man, fair enuff. FDA rolling out another useless report on topic early next year.
 
Farm Boy said:
So, essentially, neither the expert, nor the institutional, nor the local, nor the lay opinions are reliable. :lol: Fair enuff man, fair enuff. FDA rolling out another useless report on topic early next year.
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experts' opinions are split. institutional "opinions" are bought. local and lay opinions are heavily emotional and dictated by confirmation bias and mass media. welcome to the world circa 2018, enjoy your stay.
 
Information is so passe.
 
objectivism has been passé since David Hume. universal truths are out the window and all we are left with is doxa.
 
Just kind of decided to roll with it, eh?
 
Farm Boy said:
Just kind of decided to roll with it, eh?
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What do you do when you find out the cookie is a lie? That there was, in fact, never a cookie and there might not ever be one. That the idea of the cookie is used by diametrically opposed strains of thought to further their agenda and has been for centuries? That the limitations of our own thought and intellect have led us astray and made the pursuit of the cookie a utopian ideal we are likely to never reach? Of course you just roll with it.
 
What I do then is put the pipe down for a while, harden the buck up, take a good look at what other hard men and women are saying about the things they know best, and attempt to make myself useful. But that's an "ought," not an "is," and firmly resides in the realm of aspirational rather than "to do."
 
Nah, the issue there was products liability, and Monsanto being bad actors in the marketplace. Well within the capability of your average jury. Not much to do with the science at all, actually. Few would argue that repeated exposure to concentrations of glyphosate on the skin and in the lungs carries significant risk. Monsanto decided to muddy the waters rather than warn the public of those known and fairly obvious risks.

Not much to do with the science at all, at least not as it pertains to the harm of glyphosate residue on food. It's all about Monsanto taking the extraordinarily stupid tack of insisting glyphosate is completely safe under all circumstances.
 
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