Common pesticides in food reducing sperm count worldwide, study says
cnn.com
cnn.com
most promising of returns to investors?
Being able to then selectively breed our own plants with fertile GMO plants so we get whatever benefits we need. Roundup resistance is hot button these days but I'm sure there are plenty of genes that should be public for the good of humanity.
Would not be surprised to find this fear was astroturfed. It makes literally no sense.
But if you listen to people actually in the know, they will tell you its more about market manipulation than the genetics themselves. The genetics are often begin, and include many beneficial things like blight resistance.
But it goes bad when you are locked into using specific chemicals bought from the the only company that also sells seeds. Or when a multinational company sues a farmer because of accidental hybridization with their propriety genetics. Or when a few companies have such a lock on crops with superior output, that you have no choice but to buy them, because it would mean bankruptcy otherwise.
There is no open source-like alternative for seeds.
Maybe there should be. Interesting idea.
Going back to pesticides for a second, you seem to accept that pesticides affect insects and humans. So why are you so sure Bt corn only affects insects?
Some people want to paint it as 'irrational fear' against science. But issue with GMO is mostly about contamination of nature with proprietary seeds.
Also if you think that GMO is solution against pesticides then why use of pesticides is higher in US than in EU? There are no GMOs in EU while there is less pesticides than in US.
You can probably create GMO plants that are resistant to pests. Unfortunately companies selling those seeds also sell pesticides. So pest resistant seeds would hurt business. There are probably other companies who are developing just pest resistant seeds but they are not dominant yet and that is not because of 'GMO fear'.
Rational people are not generally concerned with the modifications themselves[1], but the results of the practices they allow, which is exactly what this article is about.
And it’s not like the actual pest-resistant strains are actually reducing pesticide usage. What incentive does a farmer have to do that? Likely the pesticide resistance is part of the package.
Perhaps there is an opportunity to flip this around and make a GMO crop that will not grow at all in the presence of pesticide or herbicide.
[1] Yes, there is growing rational concern for GMOs that are not just resistant to chemicals, but actually produce novel compounds that may affect humans.
> the pooled effect [...] remained negative in direction across all meta-analyses
> the strength of evidence of an association between higher adult [organophosphates] and [N-methyl carbamates] insecticide exposure and lower sperm concentration is sufficient enough to warrant concern
But from what I understand, reduced sperm counts have very little impact on reproduction until it falls under a certain threshold. It probably depends on the individual baseline if a 50% reduction is enough to cause problems or not
Actual infertility has to have quite a few markers before it's likely - according to this[2] one measure was a count lower then 13.5 million/mL, motility less then 32 percent and less then 9 percent normal morphology.
Cutting a low sperm count by 50%, but with no degradation of motility or morphology for example, is quite likely not to make you infertile at all (remembering too: people who don't have trouble conceiving don't seek sperm analysis).
[1] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323736#outlook
[2] https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues/2002/0315/p1189.html
The term you're looking for is biopesticides.
> currently, there are 299 registered biopesticide active ingredients and 1401 active biopesticide product registrations
And they have limitations, typically they work more slowly, only in very specific applications, and the surviving pests can acquire tolerance to them; meaning stronger pesticides are needed in such cases.
https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-products/what...
most mordern pesicides and herbicides (including glycophosphate) are tecnically biodegradable. the real question is under what conditions?
And we are still super OK with it today, mostly.
If this isn't a rhetorical question, farmers didn't want to lose their crops to bugs. Honestly, it's a pretty reasonable request.
> And we are still super OK with it today, mostly.
The problem of course is the farmer doesn't care about your or the worldwide sperm count, at least not yet. So we desperately need gov to step in and raise the bar.
Food security is key for a stable government. So governments push for policies that maximize food output like fertilizers and pesticides. You can blame farmers all you want but national policies heavily shape farmer behavior.
Look at Sri Lanka. They banned fertilizer and they have partially collapsed.
It's both about money and about keeping a couple of billion people from starving to death.
lol indeed.
Maintaining food security, availability and price stability involves handling the complexities of weather, farming businesses, a global network of every kind of transport service, technology, politics and finance, and comes before military security.
Any change in practice that hampers food production will face an uphill battle, given the significant downsides to any food instability or price expansion.
Of all the things my kids and i have looked at under the microscope, sperm is some of the most entertaining to watch.
While it's obviously not a definitive measure of fertility, you can tell a lot by just observing them, and seeing at seemingly millions of sperm going crazy took the stress out of trying and we became pregnant soon after.
Nothing like the wholesome family activity of looking at your father's sperm. Maybe you should print a picture for over the fireplace or get t-shirts made?
Or maybe an educational “how to” video for the rest of the world. Though you’d probably have to pick a different site than YouTube to host it.