Comment by jMyles | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jMyles | Hacker News Reader

> ...10,000 further cases are pending, worrying Bayer investors as well as farmers who rely on the product as a cheap, effective herbicide.

> Cancer may only be part of the story. Studies over the past decade suggest that glyphosate — the active ingredient in Roundup — pollutes water sources, hangs around in soil far longer than previously suspected, and routinely taints human food supplies.

I mean... yeah. I'm not formally trained in biology, but I think at this point it's a sane default to just suppose that any chemical compound that kills plants so efficiently on contact is likely to also have effects on human tissue, especially when the contact is as frequent and intense as is the case for farm workers.

This style of farming (using genetic modification to increase robustness against a particular chemical, and then dousing the field with that chemical) is best understood as a mistake and completely set aside as immediately as can practically be done.

Until it ceases (and after that), if you can afford organic food, buy it (and I don't just mean USDA Certified Organic, although that's a great start, I mean food you know to be organic from a farmer's market). Even if you don't care to reduce your own exposure, it turns out that life is sucking for thousands of these farm workers who get this shit on their hands and faces and clothes every day.

Glyphosate has been used for over 60 years. It works in a part of the plant that controls photosynthesis. No one is even sure how it would impact humans. Here's a podcast with some more information. They will update if better information comes in it disproves the previous assumptions.

https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4676

> No one is even sure how it would impact humans.

But is that relevant? Isn't it more sane to let our first assumption be that plant killers aren't good for us? Until we have some compelling reason to believe otherwise?

Billions of dollars for giant corporations isn't a compelling reason?

I find this a cynical or maybe a sardonic statement.

Judgment aside, there's a cost for the society which is not borne by owners of these giant corporations. These owners have a selfish interest to propagate dubious means. With "selfish" I mean the good natured selfishness in the sense of Smith's capitalism. So we as a society should strive to charge the owners with these costs, so that products like RoundUp get uneconomical to produce and sell.

Keyword: external costs

It is, indeed, a cynical statement. But it gets to the very reason why we aren't looking closely enough at the potential social costs.

As an aside, I think the conventional wisdom reading of Adam Smith, that somehow selfishness begets virtue, was not the author's intent, and is mostly just a self-serving rationalization. At the very least, it ignores the ways that selfish action can turn toxic - deception, corruption, theft, and of course externalized costs.

You do realize vinegar is a plant killer right? Too much water is a plant killer, too much sun is a plant killer. There are insecticides that kill bugs that don't have an impact on humans. Starvation probably kills far more people than Roundup. I mean I hate Monsanto as a company too but literally you could die drinking too much water. If you cannot even define how something would impact humans wouldn't the appropriate way to determine that be to perform science? Just saying we don't know so it must be bad is literally the opposite of science. People used to think tomatoes were poisonous, they weren't. Tapioca was poisonous unless cooked. You routinely ingest poisonous metals in your food. Your argument has no place in a discussion about whether something is harmful. Evidence does, once we can define the harm, if any, we can determine whether we can mitigate it, whether it's a real risk factor, and whether it's risks outweigh the benefits. You must likely drive around in a vehicle that causes more cancer and harm to the environment than Roundup. Plastic bags don't decay for generations. We have literal known problems that we give less focus than a problem that isn't even proven to exist.

You do realize vinegar (acid) is a human killer right? Too much water is a human killer, too much sun is a human killer. Science typically starts with a hypothesis and tests it. Starting with the hypothesis that roundup is dangerous for humans is logical because we already know it is not safe for other forms of life.

Vinegar is only dangerous if consumed above a safe level, same with the sun, water, etc. Which was the point you seemed to miss. Toxicity is determined not by how it interacts with plants, but the safe level for humans, which is different than plants. Your assumption that everything is automatically dangerous is not founded in anything close to science or even evidence at this point. Prove that it's dangerous, it's been the most common and least toxic herbicide for years. Wouldn't you expect more concrete evidence to turn up similar to smoking, black lung disease, mesthelioma, etc? There hasn't been a huge upsurge in cancer rates, in fact they've gone down since glyphosate has been used. There is literally no concrete evidence currently that this is dangerous to humans at concentrations currently used. Find proof then I'll believe you.

I will try to listen to this later, but until then I don't know if they address this:

One concern I've read is that safety testing is done in isolation, and glyphosate is actually used with a surfactant, designed to make it able to penetrate cell walls.

The whole is different than the sum of its parts.

Those are concerns that should be addressed and taken into consideration. But as of right now, there is no evidence for this level of alarm. If that changes I'll be there first one to change my position.

It's a molecule that did not exist 70 years ago. Nothing on earth evolved to handle it, so its side effects could be N

There are a number of plants that have evolved to handle it though. Roundup resistance weeds are a big problem in some areas.

Many herbicides are harmful in some way, but most are safe if used properly (i.e. respecting the correct dosage for each target, respecting the safety interval, etc).

Buying organic is not safer, though, because one can still use herbicides in organic farming, as long as they aren't synthetic. Sometimes the safer organic option won't be as safe as the synthetic one.

Some herbicides are dangerous, and if safer solutions were available farmers would use them - if only their crops would survive that substance. That is one of the points of glyphosate-resistant varieties.

Be it as it may, the danger will always be greater for farmers than consumers. Integrated Farming accounts for this as well, and the list of available pest management substances is constantly being updated. I don't know how well IF works in the US, but in the EU (Portugal) at least I get updates every now an then.

I still use glyphosate and will keep using it for weed control. In an olive field, I use a shredder for most of the field, and leave herbicides for plantation lines only. This means that only about 30% of the total area is actually sprayed with herbicides in some orchards.

I'd reserve the ban on allegedly dangerous substances for personal use. And I would start with home spray insecticides.

> Buying organic is not safer, though, because one can still use herbicides in organic farming, as long as they aren't synthetic. Sometimes the safer organic option won't be as safe as the synthetic one.

I don't have problems per se with "synthetic" materials, but I do respect that compounds introduced within the past few decades are more likely to have zany side effects than those which plants have evolved alongside for hundreds of thousands of years.

> Be it as it may, the danger will always be greater for farmers than consumers. Integrated Farming accounts for this as well, and the list of available pest management substances is constantly being updated. I don't know how well IF works in the US, but in the EU (Portugal) at least I get updates every now an then.

It seems to me that the disparity in danger can be reduced by backing out of the monoculture / dead soil / carpet bombing style of farming and adopting practices more in keeping with how these plants seem to want to grow.

I understand your heuristics, but let it not drift towards the naturalistic fallacy.

Rotenone, an insecticide produced by some plants, is used in organic farming because it is naturally ocurring. It has been pointed out as a cause for Parkinson disease in farmers.[1]

The likelihood of danger should be approached without any preconceived ideas.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotenone#Toxicity

The problem with the glyphosate-resistant varieties is that they allow for liberal and injudicious use of the chemical. I'm sure it makes economic sense to be able to carpet spray your crop instead of having to spot spray or use careful timing, but over-spray blowing onto trees causes damage in many areas, as well as putting large quantities of glyphosate into water systems.

I understand that worry, but it doesn't make much economic sense.

It is possible that some farmers would abuse it, but that would be expensive and unnecessary, since the target weed would die with a regular dosage.

Abuse of glyphosate spraying is also counter-productive. Low volume sprayings are generally more effective.

And by the way, glyphosate-resistant does not mean glyphosate-impervious. Non-targets can still be harmed.

The risk of over-usage of glyphosate is re-enforcing naturally occurring resistance in target weeds. Glyphosate should always be used at intervals, with different herbicides filling in the gaps.

I mean to say that current levels of application as actually practiced are too high and cause damage. It seemingly hasn't been proven, but many people blame it for oak tatters: https://hortnews.extension.iastate.edu/oak-tatters

Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikimate_pathway

You don't have that. That's why it's different.

You don't need to be trained in biology. Plenty of people have written about the subject and will explain it to you.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com