A push to bury a weedkiller’s link to Parkinson’s disease | Hacker News Reader

A push to bury a weedkiller’s link to Parkinson’s disease

theguardian.com

162 pointscwwc27 comments

The largescale manufacture and dissemination of poison in the biosphere needs to stop. And not only in my back yard - paraquat is banned in most developed countries, so the main story here is that how cheap foodstuffs comes off the backs of the health of poor people in poor countries, where our main concern seems to be if the fruits and vegetables have gone though a sufficient cleaning process before it lands on our dinner tables.

But regardless of paraquat, modern industrial agriculture is a killing field where shortsighted maximization of returns is offloading an enormous cost to the environment, and to farm workers.

At the moment, organic farming is being thrown under the bus in the name of "inflation combatting": people are squeezed to choose the absolute cheapest foodstuffs available in stores (not organic). One way to start could be to give tax relief to all involved in the organic farming supply chain.

But what do I know, that's just off the top of my head. We need the scientists, journalists, politicians, farmers and entrepreneurs with a primary interest in health and wellbeing to come together and showcase how we can change course here.

The main risk is to farmers, and is well known. Paraquat is even used to simulate Parkinson's disease in experimental mice; a quick search on Pubmed for "paraquat" and "mice" would confirm this. It seems odd that Syngenta would try to deny the evidence.

However, with respect to consumer health, the question is whether any paraquat makes it onto consumer's plates. The article doesn't seem to address this.

And it’s not the only weed killer with issues: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/24/health/bayer-monsanto-rou...

Paging Dr. Patrick Moore. You're needed to deploy some favorable PR on behalf of the merchants of doubt monetizing toxic chemicals that cause public harm.

Is there a safe(ish) alternative to RoundUp aside from digging out weeds? Asking because I have a tremendous amount of Henbane [1] I need to get rid of. Deer and horses know not to eat it but it's a risk nonetheless.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyoscyamus_niger

Continually cut it down while it’s in the flowering stage. This is how they deal with giant hogweed in a lot of Europe.

Sorry for the naive question, and I'm truly asking it honestly -- food grown organically (i.e. abiding by the recognized norms to be recognized as organic) would not be affected by this issue, correct? Using a weedkiller such as paraquat specifically makes food grown this way not organic, right?

https://www.ams.usda.gov/grades-standards/organic-standards

Not certain but I remember looking into this and finding out that organic or not doesn’t matter as much because the chemical gets in the soil and water, or in the wind, and eventually contaminated nearby fields not using it.

It’s interesting to note that the chemical is banned in most of the world (EU, UK, Switzerland…) but not in the US because of course.

The organic certification process does include consideration for "Buffer Zones" to help prevent contamination from neighboring farms.

https://tilth.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/BigQAnswered_Bu...

It's a mischaracterization to say "organic doesn't matter" - it's not perfect, but it does work to drive pesticides out of the food supply. It's not just a cynical marketing ploy.

One of the main reasons why CETA (Canada / EU trade agreement) was so heavily contested. In the end though, as you said it's really all just one big eco system of eco systems: same as with climate change, even "us rich people" will always feel the effects of these kinds of systemic issues at least to some extent. Even so, I also mostly buy organic if I can..

So a moral issue then - it's really about time to ban Roundup & co, globally.

Side note: I remember StrangeLoop - of all conferences - at least at one time being sponsored by Monsanto (pre Bayer acquisition). It's a St. Louis company and running a conference is very expensive I get it, but come on what a let down... the science on "Roundup" & co had already been out there for ages at that point.

One sad case of many cases how the corps actually control US (and so is in canada) with little or zero protection from regulators.

Wow. Back in the 1970s, the US government was briefly spraying it on Mexican marijuana fields. I think that there may have been places one could take a sample of marijuana to have it tested. This would have been in 1977 or 1978.

Again and again it happens. This is why the US must adopt the precautionary principle. A substance must be proven safe with data and studies behind it before it is allowed to enter the food supply or applied in such a way that it escapes into the environment via air, water, or soil.

This open beta testing with the lives and health of hundreds of millions / billions of people until harm is conclusively shown is immoral and evil. Lawsuits and money cannot bring back the dead or alleviate needless suffering that should've been avoided by putting caution ahead of profits beforehand.

I wonder what the corruption and coverups look like now. Everyone understands how revealing the paper trail can be and I bet retention policies and data governance are used to make the evidence disappear.

Should companies like Microsoft get scrutinized for building the tech that makes it easier to hide these types of things?

Maybe some of the large pharmaceutical, pesticide, mining, and / or every company over a certain size should be legally obligated to have a lifelong retention policy for their communications.

I'm not saying any of this is alright but can't you just wash this stuff off produce as a consumer? In which case the real health issue is for those interacting with produce before they get to consumers.

Sadly that's still a lot of people. Sadder still is that it includes people already treated as subhuman and not worthy of labor protections.

BTW do you want to accept the risk that everyone who prepares your food takes this step? If you found out post diagnosis, how satisfied would you be with punishing the restaurants/processors/grocers? it's already too late for you. Maybe it's just simplest to regulate environmental toxins so that they cannot get into the food supply.

I totally agree with your point here. I was just curious if I understood this issue properly. From other comments it sounds like an issue that may affect everyone despite our best efforts. Like you said, regulation is probably the only way this can be effectively fixed

Through the process of phytoremediation, plants will absorb the chemicals and pass those onto whatever ingests them (us)

Herbicides are generally absorbed into plants and can't be washed off. This is a non-selective herbicide, so it usually wouldn't intentionally be used on produce, since it would kill the crop. However, sometimes herbicides are used right before harvest as a desiccant to kill and dry crops in the field. You probably wouldn't use this herbicide for that though. It is true that someone working with the pesticide is a lot more likely to get exposed.

Not sure how is it in this case - but I remember when fungicide 'Alginure' was removed from 'bio' category in EU. One reason was that it leaves residues.

There is definitely a much larger health issue for farm workers!

One way to minimize your exposure to this kind of chemical is to buy organic produce.

When is it going to be obvious? There is no chemical you can introduce to the world that does not impact the health of it's inhabitants.

I've been realizing it lately. A fish lives in the water it swims in; it is part of the water, it is just a much more opaque murkiness of the water. All living creatures live within a fluid and as part of a biome. If you produce chemicals they will necessarily interact with the biome. The tests our governments mandate for these chemicals, drugs and the like simply aren't enough, every single one of them will come hack with some unexpected (or secretly expected) impact. We have only succeeded when we know what these impacts will be and decided it was worth it.

This wise old whiskery fish swims up to three young fish and goes, “Morning boys, how’s the water?” and swims away; and the three young fish watch him swim away and look at each other and go, “What the heck is water?”

The executives that put these messures in place all need to face prison time and the company needs to be punished to a degree that all the shareholders feel it.

Additionally the fines collected should go towards Parkinsons research and treatment and not in the pockets of the state.

Claw back the wealth gained from selling the product, even if it ends up being a multigenerational claw back. The families that benefitted should be bankrupted.

Lock them up and throw away the key. Imagine the amount of people desperately trying to figure out why they are sick, and all the time the very food they eat has been poisoned.

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