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Comment by google234123 | Hacker News Reader

This is so ridiculous, the science points to the fact that the claim that it causes cancer is not true... I really don't like the american justice system. We literally live next to coal plants that put chemicals in the air 24/7 that are certainly certainly causing cancer for people later...

You can find studies showing certain meats are correlated with cancer, can we sue the grocery stores?

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As im my comment above, alcohol is the big one to compare to. There are statistics like "alcohol consumption accounts for approximately 6% of all cancers diagnosed in the US" [1], and absolutely no serious scientist or doctor doubts that it's a strong carcinogen. I really wonder why the lawyers that orchestrated the roudup cases never go after the breweries etc. I guess because most people like alcohol and ignore the health effects, there's just no chance to win a jury trial? And that's with alcohol's addiction and host of other health problems, too. Or is there some law that does not allow companies for causing health damage due to alcohol?

[1] https://www.cancer.org/cancer/risk-prevention/diet-physical-...

> You can find studies showing certain meats are correlated with cancer, can we sue the grocery stores?

When a grocery store starts to take over the production chain for both the meat and the process and chemicals involved and pushing their products globally as a solution, and being litigious to a stupid degree, and ... Then yeah, I hope we can sue the grocery store involved. (As long as the studies actually hold up and that specific store is causing health problems others aren't)

> This is so ridiculous, the science points to the fact that the claim that it causes cancer is not true.

I just Kagi'd it and UW says non-hodgkins up by 40% with roundup exposure. I guess the question would be "whose science".

I don’t understand why this comment is downvoted. The studies do show a link between non Hodgkin’s lymphoma and roundup.

And if you want to dispute the studies, fine. But Monsanto settled for $10B on the round up lawsuits. That should tell you something.

you don't suspect monsanto would pay to have negative comments downvoted in every corner of the internet?

We already know for a fact that the pharmaceutical companies have teams to manipulate social media through bot accounts. I don’t know why Beyer/Monsanto would be any different.

How do we know this?

Receipts, mostly.

Companies settle all the time without being guilty.

If it’s cheaper to just settle than fight it out, you settle.

exactly, in the court rooms you have scientists on each side of the case. They've all graduated from the same Ivy Leagues, just are getting paid by different teams.

"up by 40%" only on a study of people living on or near farms where glyphosate is sprayed.

Actual probability you will get NHL from roundup if the figures are accurate (again, limited study results, no causation found), in the worst case, goes from 2% chance to 2.8% chance.

Amazingly, none of this considers the additives to roundup that aren't glyphosate, which everyone agrees are much more likely to hurt you. The case seems to hinge on the least harmful part of Roundup.

This whole case is a great example of a lack of scientific literacy and a whole lot of fear, combined with a dislike for large corporations, resulting in a whole lot of disinformation. Roundup might be bad for you, but we still don't actually know, because we have no causative proof.

I agree, we really don't know what the effects are, or even how to establish a set of criteria that we would look for in an empirical investigation that determined what its effects on human health are. That's why I say we should just keep spraying the fucking shit on all of our food, and wait for the science to come out before clutching at our pearls here folks!

My understanding is what complicates the science hears that we don't actually have a causal story, all of the evidence is correlative.

And broad correlative analysis of the link between non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and glyphosate is difficult to tease out because the leading cause of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is HIV. The HIV numbers muddy up the wideband statistics a lot (for many reasons, including patients not being willing to disclose they have an STD), so depending on how the question was asked different research projects get different answers.

I mean I would also support levying multi-billion dollar fines against coal plants. Frankly in terms of the negative externalities they have caused they probably owe that many times over.

The American coal industry employs less than 50,000 people. For $5B, you could close every coal plant, give every single person a $100,000 severance package and tell them to go find a job elsewhere.

This should probably be done.

> put chemicals in the air 24/7

That is super funny to me. That people obsess so much about food while they are living in the city and various poisons have direct contact with their blood on their every breath.

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