EPA Official Accused of Helping Monsanto ‘Kill’ Cancer Study
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
And the worst one of all: https://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/2016/Glyphosate_V_glycin...
So yeah, not only does it cause cancer, it causes a wide range of diseases: literally any one that can be caused by protein misassembly in ways that the body can't easily clear the protein (or if it does, the glyphosate can end up being reused instead of flushed out of your body) can be linked to this.
So, in around 5 years, if they come out with a study that Autism is caused by, or greatly enhanced by, glyphosate exposure in utero or during nursing (glyphosate concentrations are extremely high in breast milk in mothers exposed to the chemical), I will not be surprised whatsoever.
(Sorry don't have the full text for the others)
And your 'worst one of all' is a joke of a paper. Its a review and begs the question that glycophosphate is substituting an amino acid.
Its presupposition that ” Glyphosate is a glycine molecule with a methyl-phosphonyl group bound to the nitrogen atom. As an analogue of glycine, it can be expected to displace glycine at random points in the protein synthesis process, with unknown consequences.
Demonstrates a clear lack of understanding of the specificity of the ribosomes and enzymes/proteins in general.
Of course they have no actual evidence - say isolating glycophosphate substituted proteins? Fairly easy to do as normal proteins do not contain phosphorous, or it could be via C13 labeling of the what would be the glycine residue.
To say nothing that its quoting studies dosing the equivalent (10mg+/kg) of having a person do literal shots of herbicide.
Everything (except e-caprolactam, go figure) causes cancer, and most everything will kill you if you have enough of it. Hell the IARC has glycophosphate in the same category as red meat and drinking beverages warmer than 65C. They've also classified cell phones as 'possibly carcinogenic to humans'. http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2011/pdfs/pr208_E.pdf
There isn't a single piece of evidence in that paper, the authors simply assume that glyphosate can subvert one of the most important mechanisms in the cell and change any protein that contains glycine.
What kills this hypothesis entirely is that glyphosate is a glycine with a modification on the amino group. That is the part of the amino acid that is used to make the connection to the previous one in a protein. This kind of modification makes it impossible for it to be incorporated into a protein by a peptide bond.
The journal also does not seem trustworthy, it doesn't seem to be indexed in Pubmed, which is a very, very bad sign. Why would a scientist publish in a journal that none of their colleagues could easily find? In this area of science, every journal worth reading (and some more) are indexed in Pubmed. It also seems to only publish ~3 papers per issue.
I remember getting training a long time ago from my employer. If you're discussing anything remotely controversial, pick up the phone or walk to the person's office. Don't put it in an email
Why? Because lawyers will find it and twist it however they want to make you look bad. Had a colleague annoy the hell out of you asking for something that didn't need to be done? Don't put "I deserve a medal for killing this study" in an email.
"Should" is an interesting word choice here. It seems to me that someone doing evil "should" stop doing it and report his guilt to the proper authorities. Not change his behavior to more effectively cover it up.
It'd be nice if someone could pull up an actual copy of the legal filings so we could all read about it, as we are hearing this fourth hand. We have an article referencing a legal filing referencing an email about what someone heard someone else say.
“If I can kill this I should get a medal,” Rowland told a Monsanto regulatory affairs manager who recounted the conversation in an email to his colleagues, according to a court filing made public Tuesday
"We have enough to sustain our conclusions" - I read that as, we have enough data, why are we doing yet another study?
"No coordination is going on, he wants to establish some" - again, people are asking for an additional study without considering all the details
"I doubt Jess and EPA can kill this" - the desire to kill the study is broader than just Jess, it's the EPA in general
The waters around this company are so murky, that it's less a question of whether the company operates an unregulated extrajudicial campaign against public awareness of their wares and activity, but rather, what's their spend on it, and how deep do they go?
Food security is frighteningly politicized, to the point of bald militarization (see: Canada's maple syrup). Almost nothing would surprise me.
If they're running an "unregulated extrajudicial campaign against public awareness", it is a spectacular failure, considering Monsanto is among the most-hated companies on the planet. Can we somehow get them hired by Syria's government?
I'm not saying it is good, but that's how things work. That's e.g. why boycotts generally don't work.
> “If I can kill this I should get a medal,” Rowland told a Monsanto regulatory affairs manager who recounted the conversation in an email to his colleagues, according to a court filing made public Tuesday
> The case is In re: Roundup Products Liability Litigation, MDL 2741, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).
mikeyouse found the email here: http://i.imgur.com/iSjBfztr.jpg
His comment saying that got autokilled for duplicating his other comment linking to it.
Here's a quick transcription I made of the email:
===
Hey- cc'ing Jen
So...Jess called me out of the blue this morning:
"We have enough to sustain our conclusions. Don't need gene tox or epi. The only thing is the cheminova study with the sarcoma in mice- we have that study now and its conclusions are irrelevant (bc at limit dose...?) I am the chair of the CARC and my folks are running this process for glyphosate in reg review. I have called a CARC meeting in June..."
Also, Jess called to ask for a contact name at ATSDR. I passed on Jesslyn's email. He told me no coordination is going on and he wanted to establish some saying "If I can kill this I should get a medal". However, don't get your hopes up, I doubt EPA and Jess can kill this; but it's good to know they are going to actually make the effort now to coordinate due to our pressing and their shared concern that ATSDR is consistent in its conclusions w EPA.
Dan Jenkins
U.S. Agency Lead
Regulatory Affairs
Monsasnto Company
1300 I St., NW
Suite 450 East
Washington, DC 20005
Office: 202-383-2851
Cell: 571-732-6575I didn't want your info to get lost because getting the original source is far more interesting to me than a 4th hand account of what happened.
https://usrtk.org/pesticides/mdl-monsanto-glyphosate-cancer-...
Makes sense that I couldn't find them on PACER too, turns out that discovery docs aren't posted publicly unless provided by one of the parties (in this case the plaintiffs supplied them).
The email series in question starts at page 99 of this PDF:
https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/JessRowlandseri...
I threat the stuff as a nasty poison but had no idea that it might be carcinogenic.
http://i.imgur.com/8iiuuCd.jpg
https://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_74...
They are in the same IARC group than the glyphosate
Use common sense and don't say silly things.
The ones saying silly things are the one saying things like the oine you said disregarding any evidence.
If you're so afraid that glysophate might be carcinogen, you should be very afraid of roasted potatoes or red meat because they are in the same exactly group.
And please, can you tell me where I have said anything of eating glysophate?
Try this argument on for size: Both water and hydrochloric acid have a 0 flammability rating on the NFPA 704 scale, thus if you're willing to drink water you should be willing to drink hydrochloric acid.
Do you see where this falls down?
Yes, the only agency that has stated that it might be carcinogenic, the thing you have talked about. Perhaps the irrationally focusing and changing goalposts is you, not me.
> and there are many other ways in which pesticides are more harmful to eat than normal food in addition to one potential classification of carcinogenicity.
And? You have talked about carcinogenic effects, not other things
> You are also completely ignoring issues of dosage.
Me? Tell that to the IARC, they are the ones that doesn't talk about dosages.
By the way, do you know the dosage?
> Do you see where this falls down?
Yes, talking about carcinogenic effects like you did, it is silly
The first post, remember, the one talking about carcinogenic effects was you, not me.
> What were you spraying Roundup for? Given that it might be carcinogenic, unless you're using it for something extremely important (a use case I'm struggling to come up with), it may be worth discontinuing usage.
And if you talk about toxicity, do you know the relative toxicity of Roundup versus other pesticides?
Perhaps you're advocating for substituting it by toher things more toxic
"Given that it might be carcinogenic" - didn't know that until reading about that here - the main point of my earlier comment.
"it may be worth discontinuing usage" - no shit 8)
This is almost as bad as Monsanto guy offered to drink glyphosate and then refused to drink it. https://youtu.be/ovKw6YjqSfM
PS to anyone in the know: How does RoundUp use compare to the US in Scandinavian countries where there are much stricter chemical residue and registers chemical controls?
"How much can you safely drink?" depends heavily on the concentration. A cup of pure, or even the most concentrated form the sell in stores, might do it. Or might not. Once you dilute it for application - usually gallons of water to the tablespoon of concentrate - a cup becomes significantly less threatening.
Further it ignores interactions with other chemicals that are also in use, something that we know is pretty common from medications.
Especially with endocrine disruptors there is also the effect that several chemicals might work in the same direction, where a safe dose of one chemical might be harmless but safe doses of 10 chemicals combined might not be safe anymore.
(It's ambiguous whether reporter means "glyphosate" to mean "RoundUp" product as to avoid advertising a brand name or the compound by itself.)
You probably shouldn't drink a quart[1] of glyphosate, but you definitely should not drink a quart of roundup.
[1] what the fuck is a quart?
WD40? Drano? Household bleach? By your logic one should either drink them and thrown them out with prejudice.
Household bleach is mostly sodium hypochlorite.
Edit: here is an article explaining why more studies are needed: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4756530/
Just to be accurate, glyphosate is an herbicide, not a pesticide.
Just like California's labeling everything as a known carcinogen has nothing to do with protecting consumers but only serves the purposes of making corporations more immune from liability because they have duly warned you in compliance with the law that their products are harmful.