Bayer Bought Monsanto?

Lexicus said:
Typo?
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What? No. Try to keep up. Whether glyphosate contributed to the cancer of someone whose job entails spraying lots of it and who twice doused himself in it by accident, is a completely different question from whether glyphosate residue on food increases the likelihood of people developing cancer.

Two entirely different scientific questions. Who knows, maybe the jury got the science of that question wrong, I don't know what all evidence they saw at trial. But it's common sense that toxic chemicals applied directly to the skin are bad, right? The science is almost beside the point. Virtually any industrial solvent or poison is going to do bad things to you if you pour it on yourself or inhale it.
 
metalhead said:
What? No. Try to keep up.
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The condescension is highly ironic given that the answer to the question is clearly yes.

metalhead said:
Two entirely different scientific questions.
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I dunno, to me this is kind of like saying that firsthand and secondhand smoke are "entirely different scientific questions," but okay.
 
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If there is evidence for carcinogenity based on accidental spills / inhalation - then having safety data sheets that all claim that there is no indication of adverse effects after accidental exposure (apart from physical ones common to all inhalation of liquids or dust) - most of the literature deals with environmental contact not accidental spills, so that is truly different from the question at hand (unfortunately it is the only take-away reported by most reports I find though).
 
Lexicus said:
I dunno, to me this is kind of like saying that firsthand and secondhand smoke are "entirely different scientific questions," but okay.
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They are. Secondhand smoke is far less concentrated and has been (mostly) filtered through a smoker's lungs before being released into the environment. They are different compounds existing at different typical concentrations.

There are studies which have found that secondhand smoke does not increase cancer risk in adults at most exposure levels. Here is one that finds statistically significant increased cancer risks only in women who shared a house with a smoker for 30+ years. In every other group, the cancer risk was statistically insignificant or non-existent. This study comports with findings of other studies. It's not a perfect study and its findings are not the final word on the matter by any means, but it's quite obvious that the cancer risk from passive smoking is drastically lower than that from active smoking.

So, I mean, yeah. It's a different thing. The science says it is significantly different.
 
A different thing, sure. But not so different that "hey, this thing is dangerous under these circumstances, maybe it might be dangerous under these other circumstances" can't apply.

The cancer risk of secondhand smoke is, as you concede, a difference of degree from the cancer risk of firsthand smoke rather than an "entirely separate" question.
 
Well sure, I'm not trying to say for absolute certain that glyphosate residue on food is benign, but admitting that repeated direct contact and inhalation of glyphosate solution is almost certainly really bad for a person doesn't really inform that conclusion either way.

Glyphosate residue could be benign. Amount of exposure and the concentration of the chemical one is exposed to can be the difference between benign or harmful. Or can even be the difference between helpful and harmful, in the case of drugs or even some vitamins.

We need to keep studying glyphosate, for sure, but we also need to think about the repercussions of our policy. How harmful glyphosate is, is only the beginning. If we banned it, how harmful would the replacements be? Would it affect the global food supply which, for better or worse, is dependent on glyphosate for its increased yields? These are the questions that matter, that never get discussed when this topic comes up.

If you find out glyphosate residue is, in fact, harmful - then what? Is it possible that glyphosate is nevertheless the best option from a menu of bad ones, as awful as that might sound?
 
Part of this is just that we approached the question from different perspective. To me an "entirely separate" scientific question from the effects of environmental glyphosate exposure would be, like, the precise orbital mechanics of Sednoids.

metalhead said:
If you find out glyphosate residue is, in fact, harmful - then what? Is it possible that glyphosate is nevertheless the best option from a menu of bad ones, as awful as that might sound?
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Then at the very least Monsanto should not be allowed to externalize the costs of its use.
 
Even if substance X is harmful/toxic in high concentration/amounts it does not follow that low amounts are also harmful/toxic. Take retinoic acid a Vitamin A derived compund - found in many supplements and cosmetic products, really does not have any problematic effects in typical dosages yet, the safety data sheet of the pure compound will inform you that
H315: Causes skin irritation.
H360: May damage fertility or the unborn child.
H400: Very toxic to aquatic life.
H410: Very toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects.
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None of which is an effect of the concentrations found in cosmetics or food supplements*.

As such merely stating that substance X in amounts not assumed by normal usage is toxic does not allow the assumption that normal usage has toxic effects.

*long term abnormal usage of supplements and some cosmetics can actually get you into trouble though...
 
ori said:
Even if substance X is harmful/toxic in high concentration/amounts it does not follow that low amounts are also harmful/toxic. Take retinoic acid a Vitamin A derived compund - found in many supplements and cosmetic products, really does not have any problematic effects in typical dosages yet, the safety data sheet of the pure compound will inform you that


None of which is an effect of the concentrations found in cosmetics or food supplements.

As such merely stating that substance X in amounts not assumed by normal usage is toxic does not allow the assumption that normal usage has toxic effects.
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I agree with all this, my issue was not with the factual assertions made - I certainly don't have the expertise to determine which of the studies on this subject are the best ones - I simply thought it was kind of disingenuous to claim that the two different questions about glyphosate are "totally separate" from each other.
 
They are from a purely legal point of view most cerainly and also from a scientific point of view, frankly. For every single substance it is possible to define a toxic concentration/amount and for most substances those will actually be concentrations/amounts that possible to expose oneself to (albeit difficult maybe). This in itself does not allow the assumption that typical exposures are harmful and even if they are that the harm exceeds that of alternative actions. So settling one question does not allow us to assume anything about the second question.
With regards to Gylphosphate even the argued harms are different. While in the case here there was a ruling that it is carcinogenic in very high exposures, the main argument against Glyphophate in agricultural usage actually stems from its assumed toxicity to insects (in political discourse really only bees are argued about) - the one does not at all follow from the other and certainly is a separate topic. Now arguing about a potential carcinogenic effect of small residues on food is a whole other story, here atleast you would have the same mechanism and would need to merely look into whether the low concentrations are in fact also acting as carcinogens and increase the risk of cancerous lesions - this again does not necessarily have to be the case, but atleast it is covering a similar question.
 
ori said:
(in political discourse really only bees are argued about)
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That's neonicitinoids, and the evidence there is pretty sketch, but research continues. Gylphosphate only comes up because it's so effective at killing undesirable plants that it creates monocultures*. But that's a use argument, not a toxicity one.

*If you kill all the milkweed, then you aren't going to have Monarch butterflies, for example, even if what you sprayed to kill the milkweed is otherwise harmless to the butterfly.
 
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Farm Boy said:
That's neonicitinoids, and the evidence there is pretty sketch, but research continues. Gylphosphate only comes up because it's so effective at killing undesirable plants that it creates monocultures*. But that's a use argument, not a toxicity one.

*If you kill all the milkweed, then you aren't going to have Monarch butterflies, for example, even if what you sprayed to kill the milkweed is otherwise harmless to the butterfly.
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Frankly political discourse here in Germany atleast does lump everything together - and it specifically goes after Glyphosphate for killing all the bees (that be the headlines, the actual argument put forward is something akin to modern agricultural practice is poisoning the insects, glyphosphate is part of modern agricultural practice so it follows that glyphosphate is poisoning the insects).

Edit: and now it is since the Californian court awarded punitive damages for carcinogenity it follows that glyphosphate is proven to poisoning all insects and needs to be pulled from the market immediately.
 
I'm pretty sure I remember reading quite recently that the whole bee die-off thing is not even true anyway.
My concern is mostly that I think Monsanto has a lot of unethical business practices, not that I'm trying to prove we need to return to some kind of rural idyll because modern agriculture is fundamentally evil or whatever. But "company uses chemical and tries to cover up adverse health/environmental effects" is not, to my mind, a hugely sensational or world-shattering idea.
 
ori said:
Frankly political discourse here in Germany atleast does lump everything together
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Go figure. Beekeeping by order breeds the genes too thin, people blame neonicitinoids which don't drift in wind pollinated fields(no flowering plants for bees), unrelated case to unrelated chemical, next stop vaccines.
 
Lexicus said:
Part of this is just that we approached the question from different perspective. To me an "entirely separate" scientific question from the effects of environmental glyphosate exposure would be, like, the precise orbital mechanics of Sednoids.
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I just meant that conclusions about one thing have no bearing on the conclusions we can reach about the other, even though they concern the same substance. Each needs to be judged entirely on it's own merits, through scientific inquiry.

Meaning in this particular circumstance that the results of the trial finding Monsanto liable have nothing to do with the broader question of the effects of environmental exposure to glyphosate. That's all I was trying to say.

Lexicus said:
My concern is mostly that I think Monsanto has a lot of unethical business practices, not that I'm trying to prove we need to return to some kind of rural idyll because modern agriculture is fundamentally evil or whatever. But "company uses chemical and tries to cover up adverse health/environmental effects" is not, to my mind, a hugely sensational or world-shattering idea.
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Well here I agree, and this plaintiff and the thousands of other similarly injured plaintiffs are going to hopefully collect billions of dollars from them as a result.
 
Farm Boy said:
Go figure. Beekeeping by order breeds the genes too thin, people blame neonicitinoids which don't drift in wind pollinated fields(no flowering plants for bees), unrelated case to unrelated chemical, next stop vaccines.
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The US isnt looking so great with its 30% loss rate and the US bumble bee is an endangered species.
If its genetics is the problem then the US better get a move on.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-...fter-crisis-what-is-happening-to-bees/8507408
 
Millions of tiny drone pollinators seems like the obvious solution if all bees really do go belly up.

It has been a while since I read up on hive collapse, but my recollection is that they don't really know why hive collapse is happening. Neonics have been suspected but the evidence is weak.
 
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Metal, that would probably be those monocultures at work, which I'm constantly fretting and swearing about when I mention mowing ditches, or draining wetlands, or discontinuing set aside programs. But the illiterate will continue to pat themselves about banning safe chemicals from hicks while not funding the effective programs or stopping mosquito fogging thier neighborhoods for west nile, oh boy. MOOOONSAAATAAAN.....

Hell, it might even be the neonicitinoids. And if it is, the solution is still almost certainly stopping mowing the ditches* and reintroducing set aside programs. Imagine that. Bugs need undisturbed nests and flowers to feed on.

*More expensive than it sounds. If you just stop mowing you get trees, not natural grass and prarie. You have to reintroduce with seeding, then you have to burn in the spring instead of shredding. Then people have to be willing to put up with tall cover alongside the roads, and people don't hunt deer like they used to.
 
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The bee life cycle is fast enough that hives dying off doesn't really portend extinction.
 
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