The U.S. is still using many pesticides that are banned in other countries | Hacker News Reader

The U.S. is still using many pesticides that are banned in other countries

sciencenews.org

77 pointsbookofjoe23 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20132575

This article is a fantastic example of an editorial slant that provides zero evidence to back up their position. You can write the exact same article in reverse and have no idea whether the regulations are warranted or not. If you want to write a good article, provide the rationale for the ban and let the people decide whether one side is too lax or the other is too stringent. What's the evidence? Where's the science? I can't logically come to a conclusion based on what you've written. There's a big difference between a ban on 72, 17, and 11 chemicals alone, so why not pit the EU vs the rest of the world?

I could write the following article: "EU continues to allow use of banned artificial sweeteners in food products" but that wouldn't give you any information on whether sodium cyclamate is worth banning.

And indeed, why not pit the EU versus California? I could write an alarming headline along the lines of "The EU continues to use over 5000 chemicals declared proven by the state of California to cause cancer!" and get my clicks while completely glossing over the fact that the vast majority of California's notices are pretty much nonsensical.

"The EU is still allowing many dangerous toys[1][2] that are banned in U.S." /s

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinder_Surprise

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neodymium_magnet_toys#United_S...

I can choose not to buy magnets and chocolate eggs.

I can’t choose not to buy poison in the US (“organic” foodstuff is an expensive bandaid)

Fair enough but two sovereign countries aren’t expected to agree on everything. Variance is expected. What’s the data say in the pesticides?

Data says big agriculture has more lobbyist money in US Congress than the team behind the Kinder Egg. The FDA is a revolving door. Dangerous toys get banned because they're easy, usually seasonal and low market-penetration targets for politicians campaigning on protecting the children.

Can you share this data?

Opensecrets is a good source: https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?Ind=A

I don't have the details of the contribution amounts of the Ferrero team on Kinder Suprise Eggs.

What’s data have to do with anything?

All I want is a label telling me what I’m buying. My prejudices against chocolate eggs or RoundUp will affect my purchasing decision.

Besides... data??? That’s a laugh! How do you a proper chronic long-term study in biology? Who’d be clean enough for your control group? What chronic conditions are you looking for (I.e are we only looking for yet another thing that causes cancer -yawn-, or are we looking for other ailments which appear to plague us today)?

Sure, everyone claims their study achieves the above, but then who reproduces the work to double check it?

I’ll stick to my luddite prejudices that serve me quite well. Just let me know what you put in my food, and I’ll decide if I want to buy it or not

(btw, guess who are the folks lobbying against labeling laws)

Organically labeled food not only use pesticides but use older pesticides that are more toxic and less effective so they must be used in larger quantities.

I'd like to learn more about this. Got a link?

I learned it long ago so nothing so comprehensive. Compare the LD50 of copper sulfate (organic pesticide) and glyphosate (Roundup).

"The LD50 for copper sulfate is 30 mg/kg in rats"

http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/carbaryl-dicro...

"The acute oral LD50 in the rat is 5,600 mg/kg."

http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/dienochlor-gly...

Nobody is dropping dead from fruit, so it's not the lethal dose that matters - it's the potential for bioaccumulation and the impacts of chronic exposure.

They are not banned in the U.S.:

As of January 2017, many brands of magnet spheres including Zen Magnets have resumed the sale of small neodymium magnet spheres following a successful appeal by Zen Magnets in the Tenth Circuit US Court of Appeals which vacated the 2012 CPSC regulation banning these products and thereby rendered the sale of small neodymium magnets once again legal in the United States. It was the CPSC's first such loss in more than 30 years.

The whole Kinder Surprise ban is insane. They're clearly labeled as containing small parts so are not suitable for toddlers. I'm a parent of a toddler and you have to have eagle eyes - they'll put anything they can find in their mouths.

If it's not toys then it's stones they pick up from the ground outside. Or coins, or nuts, or dried pasta or one of a million other things.

The one design improvement they made was the eggs - with the old design the egg came apart and as a teenager I used to put them in my mouth. In the new design the egg is one unit so that risk is removed.

All pesticides are bad in one way or another, what we need to do is invest more in development of gene drives for elimination of more pests. Doublesex gene used by target malaria is similar in most insects, so the same technique can be used to target most of the pests, and dramatically improve the situation.

Nothing says human safety like a technology that can make a species extinct. The motivations for elimination mosquitoes is noble, but I'm not comfortable about where this technology will go afterwards.

We have had lots of technologies that could make (and made) many species extinct: fire, spears, guns, nets, walls in the right place that helped to trap the whole herd. The difference this time is that we have a technology that can make extinct the species that we want to make extinct, without side effects. What complications do you foresee with this technology?

And pesticides which are banned in the U.S. are often used illegally, such as carbofuran:

https://www.hcn.org/articles/californias-backcountry-drug-wa...

>The imbalance between voluntary cancellations and government regulations creates a bias toward pesticide use in the United States based on economic factors, rather than health and environmental risks

Litigation risk is an economic representation of future health and environmental risks. That's the American way - market pressure is the preferred method of regulation.

Failure of lobbying mainly. Companies need to donate more to politicians to regulate their competitors out of the market!

TL;DR the EU basically uses a whitelist and the US basically uses a blacklist

Of course the EU bans more stuff and the US allows more, those are the default actions of the respective systems!

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