[HN Gopher] Controversial pesticide research all but vanished fr...
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Controversial pesticide research all but vanished from a major
conference
Author : stareatgoats
Score : 82 points
Date : 2024-06-10 20:16 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (usrtk.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (usrtk.org)
| tmaly wrote:
| My local garden place use to tell me roundup was safe to drink.
|
| A few years later the that big cancer lawsuit hit the news.
| hammock wrote:
| Not to take away from your comment, but for those who clicked
| comments before reading, this article is about neonics not
| roundup
| google234123 wrote:
| A lawsuit != scientific evidence... which points the otherway
| memkit wrote:
| Sure... but Roundup definitely causes cancer in humans. It's
| well established at this point.
|
| "One international scientific organization, the International
| Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), classified glyphosate
| in Group 2A, "probably carcinogenic to humans" in 2015. In
| 2017, California environmental regulators listed glyphosate
| as "known to the state to cause cancer.""
|
| That's not to mention the strong-arming, harassment, and
| threats towards researchers publishing papers that paint
| Monsanto and Bayer in a negative light. [1]
|
| 1. https://usrtk.org/monsanto/attacks-on-scientists-
| journalists...
| bpodgursky wrote:
| It's really not.
| memkit wrote:
| I mean what do you make of the threats towards
| researchers? Surely that has limited the amount of
| scientific evidence published against the safety of
| Bayer's products, no?
|
| It's also a damning piece of evidence in and of itself,
| at least stochastically speaking.
| gruez wrote:
| >I mean what do you make of the threats towards
| researchers?
|
| source?
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| I can't help but think of the movie Erin Brockovich:
|
| Erin Brockovich: By the way, we had that water brought in
| specially for you folks. Came from a well in Hinkley. Ms.
| Sanchez: [Puts down the glass, without drinking] I think
| this meeting is over. Ed Masry: Damn right it is.
|
| Would you personally spray Roundup directly on your skin?
|
| Because if you've ever treated a large area of your plot
| with weed killer with a spray indicator, it's clear as
| day that stuff is getting all over you with the slightest
| breeze.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| I've used roundup on weeds around my house and not been
| especially fussed when it gets on my skin.
| justatdotin wrote:
| sure: hand-held household application is different to
| indiscriminate spraying from a pumped tank on the back of
| a truck
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I have a friend that suffered the exact type of lymph
| cancer that Roundup is supposed to cause. He used Roundup
| in his properties for years.
|
| When I was a bench tech, back in the early eighties, we
| had gallon jugs of trichlor, all over the building. Each
| tech had a bottle at their bench.
|
| We were explicitly told, by management, that it was
| completely harmless.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Yep. I don't buy it.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Then why is Monsanto presenting pre-written papers and
| "high quality drafts" to scientists and journalists to
| "edit" and put their names on?
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/business/monsantos-
| sway-o...
|
| Then why has Monsanto settled _one hundred thousand_
| claims and paid _ten billion dollars_ in judgements
| against them and settlements?
|
| Then why was a top official at the EPA emailing Monsanto
| executives saying he should "get a medal" if he was able
| to kill the CDC's study?
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/03/15/520250505
| /em...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Because glyphosphate is almost certainly toxic. We have
| evidence for that. That doesn't mean it's carcinogenic--
| we don't have evidence for that, again, beyond the
| carcinogenic capacity of commonly-eaten foods.
| infecto wrote:
| Is there anything in CA that is not known to cause cancer?
| erik_seaberg wrote:
| There's actually a list, but it's _really_ big and
| includes possible exposure to toast (acrylamide) and beer
| (ethanol). There 's also no compensation or incentive for
| doing any work to prove that a warning isn't justified,
| so everyone errs on the side of spamming them everywhere.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC),
| classified glyphosate in Group 2A, "probably carcinogenic
| to humans"_
|
| Group 2A includes red meat and hot coffee [1].
|
| To the extent glyphosphate is problematic, it's in being
| toxic [2], not carcinogenic. (Though again, we can speak
| similarly of barbecue [3].)
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IARC_group_2A
|
| [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9101768/
|
| [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4993204/
| memkit wrote:
| > To the extent glyphosphate is problematic, it's in
| being toxi [2], not carcinogenic.
|
| This is a fair assessment based on the published
| scientific literature. But you have to take into account
| the fact that the owners of glyphosate have
|
| 1) surveilled, harassed, defamed, and threatened
| individual scientists and
|
| 2) paid millions of dollars to ethically dubious
| scientists to publish articles in favor of the safety of
| glyphosate
|
| 3) paid billions of dollars to victims of glyphosate
| exposure because they were found liable (or thought they
| would be) of causing them harm
|
| Given those facts, I think it's reasonable to assume that
| glyphosate is pretty f*cking bad for you and it's truly
| mind boggling that people feel the need to defend it.
|
| It feels like everyone you talk to on the topic is a
| bureaucrat in the Soviet Union engaging in doublespeak.
| Clearly, the people harassing, threatening, surveilling,
| defaming, and bribing are the baddies. Clearly, they have
| something to hide.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _you have to take into account the fact that the owners
| of glyphosate have..._
|
| Monsanto was absolutely shady. That doesn't change the
| biochemistry of glyphosphate.
|
| > _it 's reasonable to assume that glyphosate is pretty
| f-cking bad for you_
|
| Almost every industry has _someone_ being shady.
| Concluding adversely from that is not reasonable. (It 's
| literally _ad hominem_ , concluding an argument by way of
| the speaker's character and motives.)
|
| You said "Roundup definitely causes cancer in humans" and
| then provided sources. Your sources don't support that
| assertion beyond a very weak definition of causation, at
| which point we're back to it being similarly carcinogenic
| to widely-consumed foodstuffs.
| memkit wrote:
| Sure, there aren't many sources on my side of the
| argument because everyone who tried to publish was either
| threatened, harassed, surveilled, or bribed.
|
| I'll give you that one.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _there aren 't many sources on my side of the argument
| because everyone who tried to publish was either
| threatened, harassed, surveilled, or bribed_
|
| Right, a global conspiracy despite the repeated attempts
| by scientists who were being funded by interests opposite
| to Monsanto's trying to find evidence.
|
| If you want a conspiracy, try this one: focus people on
| the provably-weak claims around carcinogenicity to
| distract from the stronger ones around toxicity.
| memkit wrote:
| > Right, a global conspiracy
|
| It's not up for debate. It happened.
|
| We know the threats, harassment, surveillance, and
| bribery happened. We know the specific people, the
| specific threats, the specific dollar amounts.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| I admittedly get annoyed when people link to video and
| audio, but in this case, the best source I can think of
| for information about how IARC classification works is a
| Stronger By Science podcast episode about Aspartame:
| https://www.strongerbyscience.com/podcast-episode-116/
|
| If you ever have five hours to listen to someone geek out
| over esoteric history and regulatory state stuff, in a
| way that is presumably somewhat tangential to your
| political bents (presuming you have no strong opinions
| about strength training), this is a very good non-
| political source of information. JumpCrissCross gives the
| short version, but IARC's class 2 is probably not what
| you think it is. It's not just that it contains a whole
| lot of stuff I guarantee you ingest regularly without
| thinking about it. It's not meant to be an advisory to
| consumers at all. It's a recommendation to researchers
| about what sorts of compounds are worth putting further
| research into. The way the media reports about it is
| wrong and misleading to the people it scares.
| Modified3019 wrote:
| I work in agriculture as an agronomist, and did some time
| putting out small plots sprays.
|
| I absolutely fucking hate the drinking roundup meme. Yeah sure,
| pure _Glyphosate_ has an _acute_ toxicity similar to that of
| table salt (in rodents). So if you're a rodent you can drink a
| solution of it similar to what you could tolerate with a salt
| water solution. But this says nothing of long term effects and
| is not a realistic situation and is fucking stupid.
|
| Glyphosate on its own is completely ineffective, it requires
| adjuvants in order to do its work, for the same reason you use
| dish soap when washing plates. You will _never_ see pure
| glyphosate used unless you're working in research where you're
| intending to mix it with something. It's like all that research
| that equivocates coffee with caffeine, but even worse.
|
| Roundup is always glyphosate _plus_ surfactants, in fact the
| water /surfactant mix will typically be the majority of the
| bottle. Not only will these surfactants strip the protective
| mucus from your gut, it's help the gylphsate cross barriers it
| would never be able to on its own, where it causes all sorts of
| havoc.
|
| If someone drinks undiluted roundup, they will die in a painful
| way, though that requires managing to get it down, which
| typically only happens in suicide attempts. A fully diluted
| solution intended for spraying is much, much safer, but still
| likely to make you very sick on ingestion or significant skin
| exposure like if you get drenched in it.
|
| Any study on the short or long term safety of pure glyphosate
| is worse than worthless, it's outright misleading because
| Glyphosate is not Roundup.
|
| Bonus: most adjuvants (which often make up the majority of the
| chemicals we actually spray out) are exempted from the types of
| registration and safety trials we typically apply to
| pesticides. Only a few states are starting to make changes to
| that (California and Oregon or Washington I think, been a while
| since I've looked at it).
| yuliyp wrote:
| I gave up reading the article about halfway when they hadn't
| mentioned at all how the program committee of the conference is
| assembled. That corporations sponsor academic conferences is
| natural: there are a lot of reasons it's useful: recruiting,
| networking, cooperating with other researchers, etc. And they're
| the part of those scientific communities that has the spare money
| to be able to provide sponsorships. That the article spent so
| long trying to convince me that this was sinister is bizarre.
| fabian2k wrote:
| I also found the article to be far too verbose and the parts I
| read mostly tried to imply some malfeasance, but there was
| hardly any specific accusations.
|
| Industry sponsorship is entirely normal for scientific
| conferences, they would not really be possible without it. This
| also isn't an issue usually, the sponsors get some advertisment
| on the conference and some space to represent themselves. If
| sponsors actually would affect the talk selection that
| certainly would be a very serious problem, but I didn't see any
| real evidence of that in the article.
| JMiao wrote:
| useful for careers, maybe
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| The article extensively details how insecticide companies, and
| neonic producers in particular, have a huge role in the
| organization leadership, funding, and its conferences. It
| quotes people who describe how industry infiltrates
| professional and academic organizations and influence.
|
| At that "halfway" mark, the author describes employees of these
| companies gish-galloping conference presenters.
|
| Then the author describes a couple of scientists in the ESA
| describing how neonic research isn't selected because it
| doesn't "add anything new." except the author then shows that
| neonic research and citations are both growing - the complete
| opposite of what several ESA people said.
|
| These insecticide companies are getting to keep their cake
| (aggressively challenging neonic research as poorly supported)
| and eat it too (suppress representation of neonic research at
| their conferences because "it doesn't add anything new" and "is
| settled science.")
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the author describes a couple of scientists in the ESA
| describing how neonic research isn 't selected because it
| doesn't "add anything new." except the author then shows that
| neonic research and citations are both growing_
|
| I suppose this needs to be expanded on. It could be that
| neonic research is growing, but that the papers being
| submitted aren't adding anything novel.
|
| OP's point stands. Burying the lede after, essentially, a
| series of paragraphs that filters the readership to a
| particular political bent is bad writing.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _corporations sponsor academic conferences is natural_
|
| There is a vocal minority that treats "corporation" as a dirty
| word. This sort of writing is fodder for them. It doesn't
| actually have to make a point, just point out that corporations
| exist. It's helps campaigns get out the vote and electeds'
| staffers filter out stupid feedback.
| mbostleman wrote:
| Yes, along with capitalism, free markets, anti-union - once
| you have enough positive confirmation bias momentum on words
| already agreed upon as bad, then all you need is a little ad
| hominem implication nudge and you captured a large number of
| readers.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _along with capitalism, free markets, anti-union_
|
| On the other side you have socialism, DEI and cisgender.
| You really don't have to make a point to get that section
| riled up, just mention the term. (One could literally start
| a speech to the respective crowds by repeating a single
| word, _e.g._ corporations or socialism, taking a dramatic
| pause, and get a strong response.)
|
| And again, it's safe to toss out policy feedback that
| obsesses over these terms. (Both the far left and right
| also have a weird obsession with capitalising random words.
| I think it seems evocative of Enlightenment-era English?)
| mbostleman wrote:
| Absolutely. It goes both ways. I just realized I may have
| implied otherwise. I was sticking to the negative words
| that go with corporation.
| swatcoder wrote:
| > That corporations sponsor academic conferences is natural
|
| But of course, not all "natural" things are ideal.
|
| Pervasive corporate influence over scientific communication and
| funding puts a really big thumb on the scale of which programs
| get pursued and which findings get acknowledged and explored.
|
| It doesn't make sense to forbid corporate participation in
| research altogether (that would be bad too), but it's prudent
| to look at real-world examples in real research domains to see
| if important work contrary to moneyed interests is being
| stifled or misrepresented by way of these money+power dynamics.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > That corporations sponsor academic conferences is natural:
| there are a lot of reasons it's useful: recruiting, networking,
| cooperating with other researchers, etc.
|
| And for manipulating the scientific consensus, for rewarding
| scholars that agree with them, etc.
|
| But who actually cares? I don't think anyone was saying that
| sponsoring scientific conferences wasn't useful for
| corporations. It's a straw man. The question is whether it's
| good for science and public health, specifically in the case of
| neonicotinoids.
|
| > And they're the part of those scientific communities that has
| the spare money to be able to provide sponsorships.
|
| The fewer challenges to what is currently profitable to them,
| the more spare money they have.
| wazoox wrote:
| There is no controversy at all among entomologists and biologists
| : pesticides are responsible for the huge destruction of insects,
| birds and biodiversity in general; they're probably very
| dangerous even to us. But money.
| RoyalHenOil wrote:
| Pesticides are a factor in insect loss, but they are VERY far
| from the major cause of lost biodiversity in general. The major
| causes are overwhelmingly environmental destruction (e.g., the
| clearcutting of virtually all old growth forests) and the
| introduction of invasive species and diseases.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I think you're probably right _globally_ and historically.
| However, I think the parent 's point is still valid for many
| localities. Sure, the medium to large animal diversity is
| probably low in our already mostly destroyed habitats
| (cities, suburbs, etc) but the insecticides are likely to be
| destroying what's left for the remaining insects and small
| animals.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| > Pesticides are a factor in insect loss, but they are VERY
| far from the major cause of lost biodiversity in general
|
| Oh hey, look at that - the exact position of the insecticide
| industry...
|
| ...which does not explain why bee die-offs in various
| countries (at different times) have coincided with the
| introduction of neonic pesticides in that country.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| So....this seemingly just reflects a shift in research
| priorities, and there is no evidence provided to the contrary,
| and no reason to remark at all, except that
|
| >Several entomologists who organized panels in bee science for
| the conference said that they were surprised to hear that
| research about the effects of neonicotinoids on bees had all but
| vanished from the program.
|
| but then also:
|
| > they also said that the field has shifted to an approach that
| accounts for multiple stressors on individual bees and hives,
| rather than studies of individual factors, and that the research
| presented at the conference reflects that way of thinking.
|
| This seems like a real nothing-burger of an article. Research
| interests ebb and flow. Science is as subject to fads as almost
| anything else, and conferences more than most things tend to
| reflect these fads.
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