Toxic Exposure: The True Story Behind the Monsanto Trials
press.jhu.edu
press.jhu.edu
1. Develop some profitable product
2. years later people report horrible effects
3. Big co denies and stalls for years/decades
4. Hundreds of thousands /millions of people are negatively effected
5. Science eventually overwhelms any counter argument and product in taken off market
6. Go back to step 1 with different product
Some other examples:
1. Big tobacco
2. Teflon(PFOAs) [1]
3. Generic drugs [2]
4. Regular drugs [3]
5. Leaded gasoline [4]
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Exposure-Poisoned-Corporate-Lawyers-T...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Bottle-Lies-Inside-Story-Generic/dp/0...
[3]https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/8963867/Green.ht...
[4] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/leaded-gas-poison-...
This has created a system where nations effectively allow corporate actors to transfer the harm they cause onto the government and also let's companies skimp on doing effective due diligence when seeking a merger. It's an extremely fascinating case of regulatory capture, and I hope future alien historians laugh at how wildly incompetent our governments were at dealing with corporate entities.
Yup, it is astounding how much harm a handful of greedy people can do without ever being held financially or criminally accountable. As long as the harm is sufficiently spread out and stochastic they are in the clear
Future historians will understand, I suspect, as do many modern ones (and political scientists, etc.) that governments are creations of the ruling classes to potect their interests, and corporations (in turn, a creation of governments) serve to advance that purpose, and it is by choice and design (both immediate and structural), not incompetence, that governments do not constrain them in their pursuit of that goal, even when they try to convince the non-ruling classes that they are attempting to do so.
The untold secret is Governments were built for supporting corporations, not citizens. So this is by design.
This would also have the interesting knock on effect of promoting many small/medium sized companies, because you never really know when a mega corp with a massive history is gonna get held liable for something.
That’s how science is supposed to work, unfortunately: the answer being right takes priority over it being prompt or cheap, in order to allow for unexpected possibilities or unforeseen sources of confusion to be exposed. That’s not a bad thing, but suggests science even in its ideal form may be the wrong tool here. (What’s the right one? I don’t know.)
6. Sugar (all forms, but especially high fructose corn syrup)
7. Processed Meat (nitrites)
https://ceh.org/high-fructose-corn-syrup/
[7] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/meat/politics...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX1KUPZC3Ck (0:00 / 52:26 The Meat Lobby: How the Meat Industry Hides the Truth)
It does to some extent, but only those who truly learn it. In the current conversation, there are people who have seen this patern of recurring failure and are increasingly skeptical of new stuff. You'd be surprised how many doctors choose the older tried and true treatments for themselves rather than the newest stuff. They have personal experience that says "new" is more synonymous with "untested" than it is to "better".
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/nicotinebased-pesticides...
You can save many lives and actually trigger the (necessary) change in legislation!
OP mentioned being in the EEU, which would mean the media and authorities of one of the following: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia.
Yeah I doubt it'd make any difference whatsoever. Best case scenario they ignore the story and he doesn't end up falling from a third story window.
the EU could blacklist grain imports from the EEU.
As to why not report this, sadly the systemic problems in this particular area are pretty deep. I'm not saying 'it won't do anything', but the results may be, at best, insignificant, and at worst quite bad for me.
What is needed is farmland consolidation. It's easier to control one big, invested farmer than 100 semi-literate drunks holding the same amount collectively, each working their tiny little 10 acre bit. Unfortunately it is a common populist policy to slow down or reverse this process, to "stop foreigners buying out our homeland" or something.
what else am I supposed to infer from that than the EU regulating over countries "around the Europe"? another poster stated they specifically by grains from Europe under the notion that EU regulations were protecting them from this type of stuff. so, how is this hard to figure out how these are related?
Now you've gone from "are they all dead" to "I have an anecdote and some local people reported all their bees died". I, too have seen local anecdotes about that... and then verified that they weren't true, and areas near me have huge and healthy bee populations.
Would you say that perhaps there are pigs which can fly, because absence of the evidence of the existence of flying pigs isn't evidence of their absence?
1.) Would you say that perhaps the Parachute is not working?
"Conclusions: Parachute use did not reduce death or major traumatic injury when jumping from aircraft in the first randomized evaluation of this intervention."
https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094
2.) Would you say that perhaps the Mask is not working?
"Yes, masks reduce the risk of spreading COVID, despite a review saying they don’t" ( February 6 )
https://theconversation.com/yes-masks-reduce-the-risk-of-spr...
Re. flying pigs, we have total and complete observation of pigs for thousands of years, as well as a physical and biological understanding of why they can’t fly.
If you have that, then it’s pretty safe to draw conclusions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_proportion_confidence...
Here is an online calculator:
https://www.statskingdom.com/proportion-confidence-interval-...
If we plug in 10,000 white swans out of 10,000 observations, and a confidence of 0.99 (we want to be 99% sure that the probability we calculate is within the range we calculate) the Clopper-Pearson exact result gives us a range [0.9995. 1]. Based on a observing a properly randomized, unbiased sample of 10,000 swans and finding them all to be white, we can be 99% confident that the probability of a swan being white could be as low as 99.95%, or as high as 100% (all swans are white).
If we want to be 99.99% certain of our range, it drops down to [0.999, 1]: 99.9% to 100% of swans are white, with a confidence of 99.99%.
There are lots of substances that can cause cancer, including ones that occur in nature, including in foods. The relevant question is whether the substance under consideration causes cancer above the noise floor, not in some mathematically pure sense like "No molecule of the substance could ever interact with something in a cell in order to trigger cancerous behavior."
E.g. roughly speaking, if you give megadoses of the stuff to a large number of rats and they don't have any more tumors than a control group, that's might be good evidence of absence, especially if repeated with large numbers of rats by different researchers in different countries and organizations.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=glyphosate+gut-brain+ax...
"... glyphosate has been considered to be generally safe to animal health .."
[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-021-05002-y
[2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12940-018-0394-x
[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00139...
"Abstract There are currently various concerns regarding certain environmental toxins and the possible impact they can have on developmental diseases. Glyphosate (Gly) is the most utilised herbicide in agriculture, although its widespread use is generating controversy in the scientific world because of its probable carcinogenic effect on human cells. Gly performs as an inhibitor of 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phospate synthase (EPSP synthase), not only in plants, but also in bacteria. An inhibiting effect on EPSP synthase from intestinal microbiota has been reported, affecting mainly beneficial bacteria. To the contrary, Clostridium spp. and Salmonella strains are shown to be resistant to Gly. Consequently, researchers have suggested that Gly can cause dysbiosis, a phenomenon which is characterised by an imbalance between beneficial and pathogenic microorganisms. The overgrowth of bacteria such as clostridia generates high levels of noxious metabolites in the brain, which can contribute to the development of neurological deviations. This work reviews the impact of Gly-induced intestinal dysbiosis on the central nervous system, focusing on emotional, neurological and neurodegenerative disorders. A wide variety of factors were investigated in relation to brain-related changes, including highlighting genetic abnormalities, pregnancy-associated problems, diet, infections, vaccines and heavy metals. However, more studies are required to determine the implication of the most internationally used herbicide, Gly, in behavioural disorders."
read more: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01618...
> For years, Monsanto declared that their product Roundup, the world's most widely used weed killer, was safe. But that all changed in 2015, when the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) analyzed data from scientific studies and concluded that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is probably carcinogenic. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) disagreed, other regulatory agencies got involved, and scientists clamored to understand the link between glyphosate and cancer.
> Toxic Exposure tells the true story of numerous patients who developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a form of cancer, after using Roundup and their ensuing trials against Monsanto (now owned by Bayer, one of the largest agrochemical companies in the world). Written by Chadi Nabhan, MD, MBA, a cancer specialist, this is the only book written by an expert physician witness who testified in the first three trials against Monsanto.
> Dr. Nabhan takes the reader behind the scenes of these pivotal trials, explaining key features of the cases, including how Monsanto downplayed the IARC's scientific conclusions, may have worked to change how the EPA classified glyphosate, and conducted extensive PR campaigns designed to minimize the public's perception of the negative health effects of its product. He also provides details about the other expert witnesses who reviewed the evidence, analyzed the science, and stood up to this agricultural behemoth in the courtroom.
> Dr. Nabhan tells the inside story of corporate influence, courtroom drama, legal discourse, monumental verdicts, and the ensuing media frenzy surrounding this massive uncovering of the truth and the years of scientific and legal work that led up to it.
In other words, he's paid litigation consultant. Of course his book is going to be in alignment with those that pay him.
Glyphosate in normal use is vastly more dangerous than anything you mentioned.
Here’s a systemic review showing glyphosate causes cancer in multiple animal studies: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32050978/
“The strongest evidence shows that glyphosate causes hemangiosarcomas, kidney tumors and malignant lymphomas in male CD-1 mice, hemangiomas and malignant lymphomas in female CD-1 mice, hemangiomas in female Swiss albino mice, kidney adenomas, liver adenomas, skin keratoacanthomas and skin basal cell tumors in male Sprague-Dawley rats, adrenal cortical carcinomas in female Sprague-Dawley rats and hepatocellular adenomas and skin keratocanthomas in male Wistar rats.”
https://www.judicialhellholes.org/2019/05/14/california-cour...
"Closer scrutiny of the IARC process reveals that it was advised by an “invited specialist,” Christopher Portier, in its work on glyphosate. At the same time Mr. Portier was working for the agency, he was being paid by the Environmental Defense Fund, an anti-pesticide group. Moreover, Mr. Portier received $160,000 from law firms suing over glyphosate. When asked about this potential conflict of interest, Mr. Portier initially claimed to be advising firms on other IARC-related lawsuits and not glyphosate litigation. He later acknowledged that his statement was wrong. It is also worth noting that Mr. Portier had no experience with glyphosate prior to his work on it for IARC.
Following Mr. Portier’s arrival at IARC, the final glyphosate study was altered in at least 10 ways to remove or reverse conclusions finding no evidence of carcinogenicity. The agency removed multiple scientists’ conclusions that studies found no link between glyphosate and cancer in lab animals and statistical analyses of studies with negative findings were turned into positive ones. The determination that glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic” was based on “limited evidence” of carcinogenicity in humans and “sufficient evidence” in experimental animals."
They at best suggest a limitation on how dangerous a substance may be. Aka plenty of 2 pay a day smokers never get lung cancer. The usual approach is to have a reasonably large number of animals and increase their exposure, but that only works if the risks are linear and the animal model maps well to humans.
It's dangerous to the workers who work on the fields, not to the consumers at the end of the chain, or both?
The comments on HN are usually very informative, and this article is no exception. Here we have this comment:
> The IARC is the odd one out here and their results are based mainly on discredited experiments on rats that are known to be prone to getting cancer (meaning they aren't a good model for humans in this case).
It depends on how you define consensus, I guess. But the data is clear: one organisation out of many, and they drew their conclusions not from humans but from rats prone to cancer.
> It's dangerous to the workers who work on the fields, not to the consumers at the end of the chain, or both?
I don't know. But one of Glyphosate charms is it breaks down very rapidly. It means it doesn't do damage to surrounding plants that weren't directly exposed (unlike say 75-D). So my wild guess is you would have to be a field worker exposed to it directly. IIRC the people who won law suits against Monsanto were field workers who got regularly drenched in the stuff.
Hot beverages significantly increases risk of Esophageal cancer in multiple observational studies.
"Probably" is a weasel word and does not belong when claiming to have made decisions based on hard science, especially since at least one type of wetter used and mixed in with the final roundup product is (sources I've read) carcinogenic ... sadly the same stuff is used in ... some beauty products ... so no surprise that isn't being waved around.
On the list of herbicides used in my parts, looking at break down products and the LD50 rates, life time in soil, Glyphosate is nowhere near the top of concerning herbicides used. If coincidences is considered acceptable, I've noted the sharp decline in bandicoot population where part of their diet is earthworms and one of the more popular weed killers finding wide use the last few years, has a secondary breakdown product which in high enough concentrations lethal to earthworms.
Disclaimer: I've worked on farms spraying various herbicides on and off for near 30 years. I've always been suspicious of what's been recommended as safe ever since witnessing first hand the genetic damage old 245T formulations (used in our parts N.Q. Aust for ring barking trees) could inflict. This means I usually like to know just how bad something is if I'm using it, use sparingly if there are flags, and personally I won't use half the herbicides used that are considered safe, but roundup I consider moderately safe for the environment since the target weed doesn't need to be saturated to the point of run off for it to work and the work on testing it in the 1950s and 60s prior to Monsanto didn't raise any flags.
Forgive me if that humor is too dark, so is the topic of roundup and corporate manipulation of scientific studies
Even appealing to literature is limited by your knowledge background. Spend a few years in the field and you will realize that some studies are good and some are bad. Some indicate negative effects under incomparable conditions. Some are good. Some are just plain kooky.
On this topic, I highly recommend Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. It's a brilliant read.
Expert witnesses caused all sorts of suffering by giving misleading or plainly false testimony and forced the first lyme disease vaccine of the market (https://time.com/6073576/lyme-disease-vaccine/). Just one example.
The lyme vaccine went off the market due to a lack of adoption as well as factors related to it's utility (80% effectiveness seems high, but can provide false confidence and doesn't negate any of the normal prophylactic steps. But it can lead to difficulty in diagnostics given they test for antibody levels).
Sure, the law suit didn't help anything, but it wasn't the main reason. Expert witnesses on many cases can provide opposing opinions and interpretations of the case. It's up to the court and jury to decide. There are a number of errors even in the more rigorous criminal courts where an incorrect judgement has been rendered. This speaks more about the flaws in the system around determining truth or believability than can be attributed to any one party.
(Hrr Hrr Hrr)
I don’t know what the parent comment meant by that, but I do know the root zone is vital for plants. Plants do not directly mine minerals. Instead, they produce complex sugars which they exchange with bacteria and fungi, who in turn, trade minerals that the plant needs. Some plants with also trade nutrients with each other (usually within the same species).
It’s in this way that soil itself is alive, whereas dirt is dead. Glysophates messes with soil in such a way that farmers attempt to compensate with fertilizer as an input. It becomes a degenerate process. Our current commercial agricultural has been slowly killing our soil.
- How does Roundup contribute to the health of the farm?
- How is the manufacturing process of Roundup harmonized with ecosystem where it is manufactured? What about further up the supply chain? What about transport, marketing, and finance?
- How is the manufacture and use of Roundup caring for land, caring for people, and distributing fair share?
Chances are, the “weeds” that Roundup were killing contributes more to the soil health than Roundup does. The point of “no till” is not just to no-till, but rather, a comprehensive and holistic way of working with the soil. It takes at least five years to get it going.
I mean, sure, if you take the cropland out of production and let weeds do their thing, that will be great for soil health. That isn't farming though. The alternative to sedbed preparation with herbicide isn't just leaving the weeds. Typically, it is tillage. Are there no till practices that scale that dont involve Roundup? Yeah, sometimes. But thus far it's use has fostered the proliferation of no-till farming, now on 1/5th of US cropland, and has been a net benefit for soil conservation Unless you really want to argue tilling was better.
Though, it would be really easy to write a book citing only the evidence in support of the link. At this point I'm not sure what to believe, but I have no need for roundup so I avoid its use.
The idea that twelve ordinarily competent people sequestered and doing nothing but studying the science for months would be more likely to come to the wrong conclusion than people whose careers depend on a specific outcome is not science. If science is an impenetrable language available only to a designated elite, then it's just religion with weirder cosmology.
> https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/glyphosate-the-new-bogeyman...
"Glyphosate is one of the least toxic herbicides used. It inhibits the enzyme 5-enolpyruvylshikimic acid-3-phosphate synthase which interferes with the shikimic pathway in plants, resulting in the accumulation of shikimic acid in plant tissues and ultimately plant death. The enzyme and pathway do not exist in animals, which is why toxicity is so low."
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikimate_pathway
"The shikimate pathway (shikimic acid pathway) is a seven-step metabolic pathway used by bacteria, archaea, fungi, algae, some protozoans, and plants for the biosynthesis of folates and aromatic amino acids ..."
Even if there is no biaccumulation of glyphosphate in animals (maybe), can we be sure that there are no negative effects on digestive systems of humans (and wild animals)? What about water and soil biomes?
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_propaganda
Is is really wise to base food production on (overuse of) poisons? Especially when reasonable alternatives exists?
The idea that current industrial agriculture practices are the only viable method of farming is just another form of propaganda.