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Comment by searine | Hacker News Reader

Bunk.

> But mounting evidence, including one study published in February

The article boldly cites a paper by Gilles-Eric Séralini for "evidence" of roundup causing cancer. Seralini is a known fraud who has had multiple papers retracted.

The only reason this paper they cited was published at all is because it is published in a predatory journal that will accept anything as long as you pay the fee.

>World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) declared glyphosate a probable human carcinogen

Their definition of "probable human carcinogen" is laughably broad.

>Meanwhile, in November the European Food Safety Authority issued a report concluding that the active ingredient in Roundup was “unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans.”

The EFSA is order of magnitude more reliable than a fraud like Seralini, so I am puzzled why it took so long for the article to mention this?

This position is mirrored by the EPA, Royal Society, and National Academy of Sciences.

The article then goes in depth to ride Seralini's dick and give attention to this quack. This is a shameful piece of "science" reporting, I expected better from The Intercept instead of this ignorant garbage.

Edit by request :

EFSA : http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/4302

EPA [PDF] : https://www3.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/reg_actions/rere...

NAS : http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/national-academy-of-s...

Safety of POEA : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15862083

View on HN

Really odd how articles criticizing a weed killer rile up such emotion.

Your response is a good part ad hominem and emotional attacks. Do you have any facts to back up your claims? Seralini is a fraud according to who? He is well respected and has won awards from the German Federation of Scientists. He has actually won court cases against special interests that have attempted to libel him. Seems that you were influenced by this libel.

And why should I trust your judgement over WHO on carcinogenicity?

Talking about "riding dicks" doesn't help your cause either. You come off as immature and it hurts your credibility. I'm surprised you've been voted to the top.

> Talking about "riding dicks" doesn't help your cause either.

Yeah, whatever else is true in his comment (and I think most of it is), I didn't care for that at all.

I think people get riled up about this stuff because Monsanto is a particular bête noire of some leftish anti-science people.

BTW, the guy in question is very definitely controversial and has an Agenda with a capital A.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9ralini_affair

> I think people get riled up about this stuff because Monsanto is a particular bête noire of some leftish anti-science people.

The reverse is true as well. Monsanto/GMO debates seem to be mostly about posturing/signaling, with the two sides throwing pseudoscience and FUD at each other and absolutely no chance of either side reconsidering their stances or taking a close look at the facts. It's more akin to the argument between different religious fanatics, and agnostics or non-believers don't have much to gain by getting in the middle of it.

A lot of it seems to be the anti-science folks who are against GMO's and the like, and Monsanto is a convenient bad guy. Most of the actual science and law doesn't seem to look that bad for them once you get past the "outrage!" articles.

Of course, like many a large company, they do have some ugly history in their past, and I'm sure they're not perfect, so I guess that makes it more convenient. However, yeah, it does make discussing specific things kind of difficult.

No one commenting here are part of the anti-science folks and you're unlikely to find them on HC. Meanwhile /u/searine is a well-known reddit mod for /r/GMO and his argumentative style of writing isn't new either. IMHO it's people like him who give the industry a bad name.

HN is pretty big these days. There are plenty of anti-science folks of various kinds.

> Meanwhile /u/searine is a well-known reddit mod for /r/GMO

You flatter me.

But seriously. Stop by https://www.reddit.com/r/gmo . We actually try to be very inclusive of all opinions. So few people are interested in this topic that we really love to have everyone there. Usually its just kids asking for help on school projects...

>his argumentative style of writing isn't new either. IMHO it's people like him who give the industry a bad name.

See here's the thing. I know I won't ever change the mind of anti-science true believers. As a scientist, I've had to deal with climate change deniers, creationists, anti-vaxxers, and anti-gmo kooks. To me they are a lost cause.

However, I can impact how the audience views them. I may be crass, but I cite my sources, and I expose poor arguments. Deal with it.

> I may be crass

One of the guidelines we have on HN that works well is: pretend like you're saying something to someone in person. You could certainly state a strong opinion that way, but it's less likely that most people would be outright rude and vulgar about it.

I think your're on firm enough ground, scientifically, that you can state things strongly without being crass.

I'm glad you're here and, as an expert in the field, able and willing to explain why an article has poor scientific reporting. But, I agree with davidw: we take the guidelines seriously. Please consider them when responding: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

These kinds of arguments may have force on Reddit, but they're verboten on HN. You need to engage the argument itself and not try to dredge things up about the arguer.

The "anti-science" epithet that tends to get thrown at the people who are against GMOs is a good example of this. We don't see people who are against the use of other technology labeled as such, even if they are on similar weak footing (IE, the AI-apocalypse folks). It's somewhat arbitrary which technology it's OK to be against when your reasons are weak, and which technology it's anti-scientific to be against when your reasons are weak.

It's not arbitrary, it's about arguing against a working and beneficial thing because of fear instead of any reasonable argument. That's why peope who are anti-vaccination also get labeled anti-science, as well as those freaking out about nuclear energy or cellphone radiation.

AI apocalypse, while plausible-sounding (at least to me), is still in the future. GMOs are useful here and now.

AI and automation (here and now) are probably a lot more beneficial to me than GMOs are (looking at Spain and Frances respective cereal yields, I'm not seeing a pressing need for GMOs). Yet I don't think it would benefit the discussion to start calling you anti-science just because you think the AI apocalypse is a threat while I think there's little evidence to show that it is.

What purpose would calling you anti-science serve, other than throwing an ad hominem attack at someone who I disagree with?

Because the main talking points against GMOs ignore the science around them, and are often antithetical to science itself. It's an accurate label. Regarding AI and automation, no one has made specific arguments, so it's possible the specific arguments could be anti-science.

It really depends on the talking points. There are certainly talking points that go against evidence on all sides - anti-GMO types ("GMOs cause tumors"), pro-GMO types ("Without GMOs a lot of the population would have starved to death by now"), people concerned about automation ("automation is occurring faster now that it's ever occurred before"), people concerned about AI ("Once we reach human level AI, AI development will grow exponentially"). If you decide to label anyone who's supportive of/concerned about/uninterested in GMOs/AI/automation/whatever anti-science simply because someone who is nominally on the same side with them is a crank, then you're going to end up throwing that insult at a lot of people who don't deserve it.

And I probably still wouldn't call any of the people in the examples above anti-science, even if their arguments fly in the face of available evidence. It doesn't further the conversation, it only insults the person you're arguing with.

I think your objection is that a person is being given a label, which I agree, that's usually not fruitful. But the sentiment must still come across: some objections go against not just the body of knowledge we have accumulated through the scientific process, but the basic philosophy of science itself. I'm also talking about specific positions or arguments, so I'm not concerned with your concern about over-labeling people.

Which is fine, but the posts I was responding to were labeling people critical of GMOs in general as anti-science, rather than labeling a particular argument as anti-science.

But even if you limit yourself to particular arguments that are contradicted to available evidence, the "anti-science" epithet will gets applied to the anti-GMO bunk ("GMOs cause tumors"), but not pro-GMO bunk ("without GMOs billions would have starved to death") or bunk about automation ("automation is happening faster than ever before").

It doesn't tend to be used to generally describe people who are making claims that are contrary to available evidence. It tends to only be used to attack people who disagree with the user on certain specific issues. It's more posturing and veiled insult than legitimate argument.

Then again, even if it was used in a intellectually honest and consistent way (which, again, it almost always isn't), it wouldn't be particularly useful. If someone is doing something that flies in the face of the underlying philosophy of science, address it directly ("How can we verify your claims?" "What evidence would you deem sufficient to decide that this is incorrect?"). Saying something is anti-science isn't useful; it only tells us that the speaker disagrees.

One problem with these discussions is that even questioning GMOs (whether you generally accept them or not) will get you labeled as "anti-science". Stifling inquiry is the real "anti-science" stance.

There are extremely powerful and moneyed interests that put a lot of effort into PR campaigns for their products and against anyone who finds fault with them, regardless of how sound the science is. Just because there may be subtle problems with a real scientific study on GMO safety done by a real scientist doesn't make the whole thing "anti-science". It's such a stupid label. Most scientific studies will reveal flaws with enough scrutiny.

"GMOs" is such a broad category that any real inquiry is not talking about it as a whole, but some particular aspect.

Agreed. "anti-science" has become the scientific communities "racism" term. Generally applied to shutdown an argument without any real discussion.

Edit: consider any topic should have valid opposition. Does any valid opposition exist for GMO's? or is being critical automatically equate with anti-science? If you can't name a single valid opponent, then there is a problem. Either no one is challenging the science or anyone who is challenging the science is attacked. Either case would not be positive for scientific progress.

All fields and subjects should have identifiable opposition. Health studies, genetics have many scientist on opposing sides without anyone being labeled anti-science. Physics string theory, gravitational theory the same. However, introduce private companies with lots of money into the mix with some politics and all of a sudden all opposition is anti-science. What is truly anti-science is that there can't exist opposition.

You're committing the balance fallacy. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Balance_fallacy

I think that it's only in a few tech circles that being anti-GMO is immediately dismissed as anti-science. Living in Seattle, I run into a ton of anti-GMO people who don't have their false beliefs challenged. (And really, I can only do so much before I grow weary.)

The anti-GMO crowd takes a strong and extreme stance. They are against all lab-modified organisms! As someone with a biochemistry degree, I see that GM is a tool. Yes, it would be a bad idea to put proteins for peanut allergens into soybeans. Yes, the overuse of pesticides are a problem. (Although, GMOs probably use fewer pesticides: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/nature/fewer-pesticides-fa... )

From my perspective, it's the progressives that are hysterically lying about GMOs. So I punch back firmly! Most of these people don't have a solid understanding of the central dogma of biochemistry.

If we were more rational beings, we would observe that whether we should use GMOs or not is simply an engineering problem.

I think you are speaking of anti-gmo as a culture vs. anti-gmo as science. It is like vegan's who adopt the diet for spiritual reasons vs. health reasons. The fact that some adopt a position or practice based on non scientific reasoning doesn't negate that scientific reasoning does exist for other facets of the subject.

IMHO, the "punch back firmly" attitude leads to reciprocation on both sides and a death spiral for any real dialogue.

Right, I am definitely talking about the culture. There are some valid arguments not to use GMO, and I never hear them. You should check this out: http://acsh.org/news/2016/05/17/pinterest-a-sewer-pipe-of-an...

As a culture, I believe that we are "punching back firmly" when it comes to vaccinations. California passed a law requiring vaccinations or a valid reason not to have one. Late-night comedy talk shows are mocking them. It sure as hell isn't polite, but measles isn't polite either.

I guess that I try to educate when I meet people in-person who are anti-GMO. The last anti-GMO person was a friend of the family at an engagement party-- I wasn't going to be mean about it. But I was firm and explained what kind of genes are moved over, and how it only changes a few things. And how that it's really cool that we're harnessing one piece of nature to help another piece of nature! I'll be aware to try persuasion over mocking.

This is a tangent, and I'm not a vegan, but you should be careful about conflating moral reasons with spiritual reasons. "I don't want to kill or cause the death of animals" is not a spiritual statement.

Just consider that some individuals who have concerns with GMO's are not scientist themselves, but are referring to information that they have identified as a vetted scientific source. Which may or may not be true.

So, from their perspective, it is a science argument. Labeling their argument as anti-science is condescending in that it is received as a statement they are either not educated, have phobias of technology or their position comes from some religious or philosophical belief.

We also have to recognize that we often get things wrong and that's why in a free society people are free to choose what they consume and should have knowledge of what is in a product. http://www.investors.com/politics/capital-hill/how-settled-s...

The elephant in the room with vaccines is a credibility problem within the industry. Until that is addressed, doubt the dialog is going to improve. Whether the following are all true or not is irrelevant, these articles represent the lost of public trust which I believe is at the root of the problem that is never discussed.

https://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/vioxx/vioxx-p...

At 6:30, mentions over 132,000 lawsuits filed against industry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch5OuzB9L48&feature=youtu.be...

Vaccines protected from lawsuits http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/March-2011/No-Pharma-L...

> They are against all lab-modified organisms!

No, they are against all transgenic organisms. They are often quite fine with all the other existing lab-modified organisms.

Of course, this may be an awareness problem.

Sorry, semantics. I know they're are okay with corn that was bred using advanced breeding techniques. And bananas. But to hit you back with some semantics-- they're okay with certain transgenic organisms, like the yeast & mammalian cells we use for drug testing & production. I also bet they're okay with the glow-in-the-dark GFP kittens.

So to be more perfectly exact, let's go with: Transgenic crops.

> I think people get riled up about this stuff because Monsanto is a particular bête noire of some leftish anti-science people.

Monsanto is also a particular bête noire of lots of pro-science people working in the same industry.

For a tech-industry comparison, think of the worst views of Microsoft at the height of its monopoly.

Unfortunately, some people use (sometimes legitimate, sometimes not) issues with Monsanto to attack the idea of GMOs generally.

>Do you have any facts to back up your claims?

Because it is the widely publicized scientific consensus. But if you insist.

EFSA : http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/4302

EPA: https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-products/glyp...

NAS : http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/national-academy-of-s...

> Seralini is a fraud according to who?

Every scientist I've ever talked to.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9ralini_affair

>And why should I trust your judgement over WHO on carcinogenicity?

Because they don't have proof glyphosate is a carcinogen, just general harm classifications. Glyphosate is in a class of carcinogens similar to dietary meat, and other everyday minor exposures.

>You come off as immature and it hurts your credibility

Sometimes you have to be crass to put a spotlight on bullshit.

Another good reference for the current lack of a connection between cancer (specifically Hodgkin lymphoma referenced in the article) and glyphosate:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27015139

Just published, meta-reviews are generally best, and the authors are pretty well-regarded.

Read the article, it is not pointing the finger at Roundup's main ingredient "glyphosate". But they are putting toxic chemicals in their products without listing it anywhere on the label:

"POEA — officially an “inert” ingredient — was between 1,200 and 2,000 times more toxic to cells than glyphosate, officially the “active” ingredient."

See the following review :

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15862083 "There is insufficient evidence to conclude that glyphosate preparations containing POEA are more toxic than those containing alternative surfactants"

Surfactants, in general, are toxic. There is nothing special about POEA. Used properly, surfactants can be of good use and result in safe improvement of agriculture.

oh, well then. Good I guess since I use weed killers around my house...

> Sometimes you have to be crass to put a spotlight on bullshit.

The issue isn't being crass in the sense of profane, but of calling names and using uncivil rhetoric in arguments. You can't do that here. This holds regardless of how right one is, or believes one is, or how wrong someone else is.

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

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

Your comment history unfortunately includes a great deal of incivility, though not usually as egregious as in this thread. Please edit all that kind of thing out when commenting here. If you want, you can set the 'delay' property in your profile to give yourself up to 10 minutes to edit your comments before they appear to other users. (That's what I do.)

The WHO is _super_ broad about how they define things that _might_ cause cancer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOVBOwbqcT8

> And why should I trust your judgement over WHO on carcinogenicity?

Glyphosate is in the same list as drinking hot mate or red meat.

The IARC list doesn't asses risk, just states that some substance is potentially carcinogen.

You have to understand that for many scientists, work like this is darn near akin to climate change denial. You can only repeat yourself so many times debunking this garbage before you start trying to be creative. And you can only be so creative before you go crazy.

*It's not exactly like climate change denial. There's still a small chance that glyphosates have serious dangers and there are always other chemicals, and combinations of chemicals to research. But that doesn't excuse the shoddy science and hysteria that swarms around these issues like flies on turds.

On WHO carcinogenicity---note that their "probable human carcinogens" include Red meat, Hot mate, Emission from household combustion of wood, etc. That doesn't mean the list is meaningless. They just say those are "probable" carcinogens in the literal sense, based on limited evidence on humans and sufficient evidence on experimental animals. It may be wise to avoid exposure to them more than necessary, but you don't want to take the list as if they're deadly chemicals or something.

Regarding Seralini:

RetractionWatch, who are well-respected in the scientific community, has seven posts discussing his work (http://retractionwatch.com/category/by-author/gilles-seralin...). I won't go into the detail of the retracted article, its subsequent republishing without peer review, or his various conflicts of interest around his books or the funding of his group by 'pharma' companies selling plant-based homeopathic products claiming to be able to 'detoxify' Roundup residues (there's some detail on this in his Wikipedia entry - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles-%C3%89ric_S%C3%A9ralini)

With respect to his 'court cases' - he won a defamation case against a journalist writing for a French magazine that had accused him of fraud and forgery. Incredibly few critics of Seralini have accused him of fraud; the court decision makes no statement as to the merit of what is the serious criticism of Seralini's work (in terms of the statistics, methods and analysis employed).

Regarding the German Federation of Scientists - he was awarded a 'whistleblower' award, not one for scientific merit. The jury/committee that awarded him this had a CRIIGEN board member (his host institution) and public supporter of Seralini as a member; there is not, as far as I can see, any information to suggest that she recused herself for this decision. The other scientist on the jury is a well-respected metrologist; all other members of the jury are legal professionals. For the sake of balance, the full decision of that jury is listed here - http://neu.vdw-ev.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Full-Reasoni...

On a personal note though - Seralini has several anti-GMO and anti-glyphosate books, releases papers in concert with documentaries, and appears to believe in 'detoxification' and homeopathic plant-based treatments in order to 'detoxify' Roundup residues. This behaviour and these views place him quite outside the usual behaviour of a scientist - it's simply not done that you write a paper and time it for an accompanying book launch and documentary release.

Regardless, Roundup is not safe.

Glyphosate probably is safe, by itself.

After college I did landscaping. Once I cleared brush that had been treated with Roundup, and broke into an itchy rash from head to toe. After that experience, I quite landscaping forever.

The biggest lie is that Roundup IS glyphosate. This false. Roundup is a chemical slurry of byproducts that happens to contain some glyphosate. Otherwise it would not be so cheap.

>Regardless, Roundup is not safe.

PROVE IT.

All studies thus far point to roundup/glyphosate being incredibly safe. Far safer than any alternative, including many "natural" ones. The LD50 for glyphosate is like a fucking kilogram for humans.

>After college I did landscaping

After college I did a Phd in genetics.

I was a biology major.

If Roundup was only glyphosate, it would be safe. It is made from recycled chemicals. That is all I know.

> It is made from recycled chemicals

Is this a joke? So are apples, people and cats.

Industrial chemistry doesn't have to be that clean. Especially if you are just spraying it on the ground and selling it cheap. Makes sense to me.

No, I don't have any links to back it up.

Really ?!?! Your biology degree is NOT ENOUGH ! You have NO training, NO education, and NO expertise on matters concerning pest control products. Your assertion is possibly the STUPIDEST we have ever heard ! That is all you know ?!?! You know NOTHING !

According to this[1], 51% of one of their roundup products is "Other Chemicals", so less than half is Glyphosate. It says to try and keep it off skin etc. Wouldn't surprise me if most formulations have... other ingredients.

[1] http://www.monsanto.ca/products/Documents/roundup_transorb_m...

It also says:

Skin irritation Rabbit, 3 animals, OECD 404 test: Days to heal: 14 Primary Irritation Index (PII): 2.2/8.0 Moderate irritation. FIFRA category III.

I agree. The primary component of that "Other Chemicals" are surfactants.

Surfactants, such as (POEA used in roundup) are known skin irritants. They are used to help absorption of glyphosate in plants.

Skin irritation is a very well characterized reaction to contact with any kind of surfactant.

You appear to be making a false equivocation, stating that Monsanto's Roundup is safe because glyphosate is safe. On the other hand there are lots of studies showing that Roundup appears to cause health problems, which are likely to be based on the additives. The study from the University of Caen:

>POEA was recognized as a common inert ingredient in herbicides in the 1980s, when researchers linked it to a group of poisonings in Japan. Doctors there examined patients who drank Roundup, either intentionally or accidentally, and determined that their sicknesses and deaths were due to POEA, not glyphosate. (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weed-whacking-herb...; cf http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/tx800218n, http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/tx200072k) //

So presumably you consider POEA to be completely safe as you said Roundup is safe and that, what, the medical authorities reported of here are either misreported or mistaken?

See the following review :

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15862083 "There is insufficient evidence to conclude that glyphosate preparations containing POEA are more toxic than those containing alternative surfactants"

Surfactants, in general, are toxic. There is nothing special about POEA. Used properly, surfactants can be of good use and result in safe improvement of agriculture.

>Surfactants, in general, are toxic. //

But you said, did you not, that Roundup - which is about 50% surfactants - was safe, safe to drink even. You compared it to drinking coffee IIRC. How is Roundup not toxic then?

The trace amounts of roundup left on food crops is below any measured harm level.

People who work with it in fields should be careful. Consumers have a thousand other things more dangerous to worry about.

>surfactants were safe,

Safe when used properly.

>safe to drink even.

Never said that.

>"All studies thus far point to roundup/glyphosate being incredibly safe." (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11715481, searine)

FWIW the context was ability to harm humans in any way; you were responding to a person saying they'd been given a rash after using Roundup.

>>"A good portion of which can do serious harm to life. Therefore "unknown" is the issue." (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11715508, goda90)

>"Your daily coffee is probably an order of magnitude more carcinogenic than any glyphosate/roundup exposure." (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11715557, searine)

Which I'll accept was not quite what I thought you'd said.

Will you admit that you've claimed roundup to be "incredibly safe"?

Also that in response to someone claiming it was harmful that your response, in context, suggested that coffee was more harmful?

> Also that in response to someone claiming it was harmful that your response, in context, suggested that coffee was more harmful?

He didn't say "more harmful", he said "more carcinogenic". That is a very specific form of harm.

My point is it's a politicians response - the questioner asked about harm and the answer was a shift to a specific form of harm so that drinking Roundup could be compared to drinking coffee.

It's perhaps strictly true, buy the manner is dishonest. Such an answer discredits the writer. The intent is to sow the idea that 'Roundup is less harmful to drink than coffee' even if the explicit expression was different.

It's safe enough to be used in hand-degreaser, hair coloring and toilet bowl cleaners.

Throwing around the term "safe" is not really helpful. Safe to handle is different than safe to drink and the truth is much more complicated than that. Nearly everything is "safe" or "toxic" the difference is in the quantity that makes it into our body.

Skin irritant != causing cancer.

Poison Ivy is a skin irritant but that doesn't make it a cancer agent.

I did not suggest it caused cancer, I merely provided a spec sheet to back up the earlier claims about a rash.

This doesn't seem to prove it's unsafe unless you consider irritated skin a safety issue. In that case don't go outside as there are many things more irritating like say the sun (which actually causes cancer).

I don't know why one would consider skin irritation not to be a safety issue, you wear gloves when using such chemicals. Just claiming it is "safe" means people don't know they need to wear gloves.

The sun is cancer causing, but knowing that means we can take precautions. Claiming exposure to UV rays in the sun is not harmful would be foolishly misleading. Just because there are greater harms doesn't mean something is "safe", yes people have different cut-offs, so comparatives are good (which toxicologists seem quite capable of using; median lethal dose, etc.).

I consider sandpaper safe, yet it's also a skin irritant and I would not eat it.

"Safe" does not convey anything about wearing gloves or not, and the term should not be thrown around without understanding what is meant by it.

I think most people would say going outside in the sun is "safe", but most also know there is more to that than a binary "good" or "bad", "safe" or "toxic". You however seem to be using the term in binary form.

Cool story bro. And a PhD in genetics proves roundup is not a toxic and carcinogenic how?

I agree, it's an argument to authority. I provide links elsewhere in the thread though.

> PROVE IT.

Actually, you need to prove that Roundup is safe.

The burden of proof should be on those introducing new agents into the ecosystem; not on those who are affected by the chemical agent.

See https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Iatrogenesis

Sarcasm? Handling brush can give you a nasty rash regardless. Some types can literally cause your skin to fall off if you're strongly allergic.

I doubt it was from the brush alone.

It could be possible that more than Roundup was sprayed. No one told me. I should have guessed why the bushes were brown!

Why do you doubt it? There are many plants that can cause skin irritation: http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/2414#b

I've gotten rashes all over my arms clearing brush that wasn't treated with anything.

"causes a rash" (which is in the data sheets for the product - you did read those before you started working with it, right) is different to "kills you on skin contact" or "kills you if you drink it".

Worldwide very many deaths by suicide are caused by people drinking weedkiller, so moving to glyphosate should stop some of those.

Did your employer provide the MSDS for glyphosate before having you work with it?

https://www.lakerestoration.com/pdf/GlyphosateMSDS.pdf

There are risks when working with it in large quantities. That is much different than having any risk in food.

Thanks but I'll pass on the side order of unknown chemicals.

Bad news buddy. Everything is made of chemicals.

A good portion of which can do serious harm to life. Therefore "unknown" is the issue.

I agree, so why be concerned with ppb of rigorously studied chemicals shown time and again to be safe (quack-science excluded)?

Your daily coffee is probably an order of magnitude more carcinogenic than any glyphosate/roundup exposure.

>(IARC) declared glyphosate a probable human carcinogen //

You consider IARC to be "quack-science"?

They don't have evidence that glyphosate is a carcinogen.

They are using general classifications to infer potential harm. Glyphosate is in the same class as cooked meat.

This is also likely political posturing to appease anti-gmo sentiments.

Cooked meats are carcinogenic though (eg http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/di...) aren't they? So ... are you saying glyphosate is known to be mutagenic and likely to cause cancers or that the common understanding on cooked meats is wrong.

I'm not clear how the mutagenic properties reported in cooked meats appease "anti-gmo sentiments" as 'organic' meats are as likely to be cooked as others.

You're being very vociferous in your arguing perhaps you got carried away in your claims for Monsanto products?

>So ... are you saying glyphosate is known to be mutagenic and likely to cause cancers or that the common understanding on cooked meats is wrong.

I'm saying that glyphosate is probably less carcinogenic considering it has less evidence of mutagenesis than meat.

And despite millions of tons of meat being consumed by the kilogram per week, we see relatively low levels of colon cancer.

We eat several dozen orders of magnitude less glyphosate/POEA. The conclusion then, is obvious.

> we see relatively low levels of colon cancer.

"Of cancers that affect both men and women, colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States and the third most common cancer in men and in women."

http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/colorectal/statistics/index.htm

Relative.

People are eating kilograms of meat a week, and colon cancer is far from the leading cause of death.

Remember dosage is important!

It is one of the leading causes of death, but I guess compared to heart disease, you could say every other cause of death is relatively rare and can be dismissed.

The IARC calls _many_ things "probable human carcinogens".

I assume you drink alcohol (and if you don't it's likely not because the IARC classifies it as a "probable human carcinogen")?

Here's a quote that I think sums it up well:

"To take an analogy, think of banana skins. They definitely can cause accidents – but in practice this doesn’t happen very often (unless you work in a banana factory). And the sort of harm you can come to from slipping on a banana skin isn’t generally as severe as, say, being in a car accident.

But under a hazard identification system like IARC’s, ‘banana skins’ and ‘cars’ would come under the same category – they both definitely do cause accidents."

http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2012/06/14/diesel-fu...

Of course, but you wouldn't say "banana skins don't cause accidents" if you wanted to tell the truth. You'd say "banana skins do cause a few accidents" and list the accident reports involving them per head of population using a reputable source independent of the banana industry (and give a comparison figure).

So, in this case one might say: [made up example] "the 'inactive' ingredient of Roundup has been shown as likely to cause cancer at the same levels as eating cooked meats".

Some people do/have reduced their intake of cooked meats in order to reduce their [perceived if not actual] cancer risk.

Cool, so you have the mug of tasty roundup to drink. I'll have the coffee - bottoms up.

You're being very disingenuous throughout this entire thread. Your posts (specifically the "glyphosate/roundup" pairing) indicate to a layman like me that roundup is synonymous with gylphosate, yet through further reading I discovered that approximately half of it is glyphosate, and the rest is a combination of surfactants and whatever else.

>roundup is synonymous with glyphosate

For all intents and purposes, it is.

> yet through further reading I discovered that approximately half of it is glyphosate, and the rest is a combination of surfactants and whatever else.

This is a recent development in the literature. The case for glyphosate being carcinogenic has been so widely tested and proven false that Seralini's group has had to shift focus to save face.

They then turned to POEA as a potential carcinogen, a widely used chemical present in commercial roundup (and many many other products).

They did this because surfactants are irritants, so their physiological effect can easily confound sloppy studies.

The result is a protracted grasping at straws so Seralini can prove his predefined conclusion that "roundup causes cancer". Bad papers published in crap journals to get media attention so Seralini can sell his book.

Well, it's a bit odd to call something like this which has been isolated and studied extensively "unknown" while giving a pass to the myriad uncharacterized things found in our food naturally.

It's not like being natural imbues anything with any guarantee of safety and wholesomeness, despite what advertising would have us believe. I mean, at this point, poison ivy is a lot more 'natural' in some sense than the average carrot and I know which one I'd rather eat.

And with my level of education, they're pretty much all unknown.

"They" don't want you to know about it, but farmers regularly use large quantities of dihydrogen monooxide on their crops.

It's less dangerous if you hire mortality guards to keep an eye on people using it.

You mean like from the toilet?

Change one molecule or take enough of it and.. IT'S POISON

You think that if farmers eschew Roundup you're going to have a better idea of what chemicals are on the crops you consume? Roundup is popular because it's potent, and it's potent because glyphosate is an elegant and powerful weed control solution. Most farmers who don't use glyphosate will use something less biochemically elegant, and those things are more likely to be harmful to humans, not less.

It's like everybody missed the part of the article where it's not just glyphosate and we're not allowed to know what the other additives are.

No, I read that part too, and I understand the concern --- but how is it less of a concern for other pesticides? The safety record on conventional weed control is... not great.

Bunk

Maybe, but your post is overly emotional in a bunch of ways -- and worse, uses language that's really quite a turn-off, viscerally, in a technical forum -- and as such, doesn't exactly inspire me to follow up on any of your links. If anything, it leaves the impression that even if the Intercept article was sloppy (or worse), then most likely your analysis is engaging in some form of cherry picking or other rhetorical manipulation, as well... so why should I bother?

I'm downvoting you (pretty much everywhere here) because you haven't provided any links to substantiate your dismissals and further you've come off rather uncivilly.

> you haven't provided any links to substantiate your dismissals

Because it is the widely publicized scientific consensus. But if you insist.

EFSA : http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/4302

EPA [PDF] : https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-06/documents...

NAS : http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/national-academy-of-s...

Safety of POEA : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15862083

I would suggest that you attach these to your top comment with an "EDIT" flag since primary source info substantiates your comment.

It's trivial to google the guy's name and confirm he's a self-identified anti-GMO crank with paper retractions. It's not reasonable to ask for citations on things you can easily confirm or deny yourself.

It is polite to provide them, though.

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