I'll have a beer, hold the Roundup

[Singlemalt]

Yeah, it's a little depressing.

I lost a lot of friends to cancer over the last 20 years.

Don't have to be an Einstien to figure out why.

I still remember my grandfather using DDT outside his house with Shell no pest strips of hanging nerve gas inside.

'First, do no harm' was never the prime directive I guess. I was hoping we were evolving to a better place.

What I find unconscionable is the development of herbicide resistant food crops because it encourages laziness and over-application of said chemicals; the levels found in the environment are going to skyrocket because of this

 

[cannabineer]

Hope you're feeling better.

Somehow, I think the point of the thread is being missed.

Nobody is arguing that glyphosate is turning up in drinks at the rate of 11 or 29 or 51 ppm.

But they would say that uspirg.org has an agenda. Or that wikipedia is a source that can't be challenged by the credibility of it's 1000's of authors.

What about the chemicals?

Do you feel safe consuming them? Would you feel safe if you were 40 years younger about avoiding cancer in the future?

I don't think either one of us has to worry about it that much at this point but what about the kids who will be around 50 or 60 yrs from now and what will that stuff do to them?

I'm not impugning Wikipedia.

I was indeed pointing out that uspirg.org is a website with a strong editorial bias, and I automatically suspect such outlets of bending the rules of good reporting to favor their agenda. I don't trust the article.

At this point I would and do use glyphosate preparations in my yard. (So some is ending up ingested/inhaled by me.) I need there to be a solidly-done and peer-reviewed study whose entirety is available for public view, and showing a definite hazard from glyphosate - before I change my mind on that. I am already fairly convinced that the Roundup adjuvant (polyethoxylated tallow amine) has been shown to be injurious to wetland fauna. So I'm not wedded to the idea of glyphosate or Roundup being safe.

The context here is that I see Roundup being backhandedly discredited, sort of like the way our media has turned every privately-owned gun in America into a dangerous and anachronistic Assault Weapon. They do it with a whisper campaign remarkably unimpeded by fact or the lack of it. I don't much like the propagation and proliferation of an (in my opinion unfounded) campaign to demonize this stuff. The jury is still out, I say. I reacted to the insinuation in the opening post that glyphosate's toxicity has been established. I am cautioning against propagating this sort of emotion-driven and probably unfair characterization of the substance.

Some info on how toxic we currently think it is, or isn't.

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/how-toxic-is-the-worlds-most-popular-herbicide-roundup-30308

I don't think either one of us has to worry about it that much at this point but what about the kids who will be around 50 or 60 yrs from now and what will that stuff do to them?

This sort of epidemiology is extremely hard to do. Isolating long-term effects of one substance among people living in the real world is so hard that it sounds like a statistician's idea of the Problem from Hell. The hope is that closer-coupled in vitro (not using lab animals and plants) and in vivo (using them) tests can have predictive value going forward. We're systematically taking living systems apart and learning how the pieces fit together. One day we'll have the answers without having to run impossible long-term risk studies. Until then, I won't place glyphosate in the same mental category as tobacco and asbestos - things that we now know to be uncontroversially bad for us.

As for the kids, I do wonder what big health crisis is going on right now but hasn't yet been identified. I sort of suspect the bugbears we see (or think we see) now won't even be on the radar. But I do not know.

Good morning btw

 

[curious2garden]

Yeah, it's a little depressing.

I lost a lot of friends to cancer over the last 20 years.

Don't have to be an Einstien to figure out why.

I still remember my grandfather using DDT outside his house with Shell no pest strips of hanging nerve gas inside.

'First, do no harm' was never the prime directive I guess. I was hoping we were evolving to a better place.

LOL, hey don't bring physicians into this! We outsourced chemistry ages ago, our malpractice premiums were through the roof. We leave the Bhopals to them, union shop and all.

 

[tangerinegreen555]

I'm not impugning Wikipedia.

I was indeed pointing out that uspirg.org is a website with a strong editorial bias, and I automatically suspect such outlets of bending the rules of good reporting to favor their agenda. I don't trust the article.

At this point I would and do use glyphosate preparations in my yard. (So some is ending up ingested/inhaled by me.) I need there to be a solidly-done and peer-reviewed study whose entirety is available for public view, and showing a definite hazard from glyphosate - before I change my mind on that. I am already fairly convinced that the Roundup adjuvant (polyethoxylated tallow amine) has been shown to be injurious to wetland fauna. So I'm not wedded to the idea of glyphosate or Roundup being safe.

The context here is that I see Roundup being backhandedly discredited, sort of like the way our media has turned every privately-owned gun in America into a dangerous and anachronistic Assault Weapon. They do it with a whisper campaign remarkably unimpeded by fact or the lack of it. I don't much like the propagation and proliferation of an (in my opinion unfounded) campaign to demonize this stuff. The jury is still out, I say. I reacted to the insinuation in the opening post that glyphosate's toxicity has been established. I am cautioning against propagating this sort of emotion-driven and probably unfair characterization of the substance.

Some info on how toxic we currently think it is, or isn't.

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/how-toxic-is-the-worlds-most-popular-herbicide-roundup-30308



This sort of epidemiology is extremely hard to do. Isolating long-term effects of one substance among people living in the real world is so hard that it sounds like a statistician's idea of the Problem from Hell. The hope is that closer-coupled in vitro (not using lab animals and plants) and in vivo (using them) tests can have predictive value going forward. We're systematically taking living systems apart and learning how the pieces fit together. One day we'll have the answers without having to run impossible long-term risk studies. Until then, I won't place glyphosate in the same mental category as tobacco and asbestos - things that we now know to be uncontroversially bad for us.

As for the kids, I do wonder what big health crisis is going on right now but hasn't yet been identified. I sort of suspect the bugbears we see (or think we see) now won't even be on the radar. But I do not know.

Good morning btw

Top of the morning to you as well!

My concern about glyphosate turning up in everything brings to mind a freshman public health class we all had to take.

With Rachel Carson's Silent Spring as one of the points of study.

Carson wrote a book about DDT causing an ecological disaster in the early '60's. It was recently banned by the upstart EPA at the time, 10 years later. Originally Carson was called 'hysterical' by some of her peers. Nobody is saying 'hysterical' about banning DDT these days.

Today, 40 yrs later, you can still find traces of DDT and at one point, it could be found in human blood samples. Not to mention in the egg shells of birds that took a nose dive in populations for decades.

It can cost millions to do peer reviewed studies and the once trusted EPA has evolved into political pawn of regulations and deregulations depending on who is in power and who donated to whose campaign.

Thus creating a void filled by consumer advocacy groups.

I can't honestly say if glyphosate is dangerous in drinks or not in various PPM's.

I can say it's common sense that one would prefer it's not in found in drinks and food.

And that's all I have to say about that.

 

[cannabineer]

Top of the morning to you as well!

My concern about glyphosate turning up in everything brings to mind a freshman public health class we all had to take.

With Rachel Carson's Silent Spring as one of the points of study.

Carson wrote a book about DDT causing an ecological disaster in the early '60's. It was recently banned by the upstart EPA at the time, 10 years later. Originally Carson was called 'hysterical' by some of her peers. Nobody is saying 'hysterical' about banning DDT these days.

Today, 40 yrs later, you can still find traces of DDT and at one point, it could be found in human blood samples. Not to mention in the egg shells of birds that took a nose dive in populations for decades.

It can cost millions to do peer reviewed studies and the once trusted EPA has evolved into political pawn of regulations and deregulations depending on who is in power and who donated to whose campaign.

Thus creating a void filled by consumer advocacy groups.

I can't honestly say if glyphosate is dangerous in drinks or not in various PPM's.

I can say it's common sense that one would prefer it's not in found in drinks and food.

And that's all I have to say about that.
View attachment 4300584

Rachel Carson was correct. The issue she brought to our attention turned out to be that serious.

However, there have been other times when the poison bell was rung, and not much came of it.

One example is Alar (daminozide), a compound that helps fruit stay fresh longer. There was concern about it being a possible human carcinogen. The product was disallowed in the USA for food crops. In the meantime, no clear Alar toxicity has emerged, including carcinogenicity.

Another has to do with the supposed link of vaccines to autism. This has been effectively disproven, and the iniquity is that people will associate vaccines with something bad because they heard something once. A substance can have its figurative character assassinated.

With Roundup, a key problem is considering glyphosate (the active herbicide) apart from the other things in the mix, such as the plainly somewhat toxic polyethoxylated tallow amine. Roundup's toxicological profile will be different from that of pure glyphosate and its solutions.

It is also important to distinguish between what we know about a supposed toxin and how we regulate it. Consider Alar: strict regulations are on the books today even though no Alar/cancer link has emerged. The EPA and other agencies have the obligation to regulate compounds about which we don't know enough. They understandably take a conservative stance. So I do not believe that pointing to tougher regulations on glyphosate correlates usefully with whether or not the stuff is dangerous, and how dangerous it is (if so). For example, the World Health Organization classifies glyphosate as "a probable human carcinogen", a category in which they have also placed red meat. I find such classifications to hinder more than they help.

Off to eat some leftover probable human carcinogen ...

 

[neosapien]

That's the crazy cool thing about science. It's always changing with new information. Just think what we knew about the internet 20 years ago. And what we know about the internet today. Think what we'll know about the internet in another 20 years. Thats what I tell myself as I stare at my safe router as it's waves pierce my brain. I still want a memory card preloaded with kung-fu implanted in there too though.

 

[cannabineer]

That's the crazy cool thing about science. It's always changing with new information. Just think what we knew about the internet 20 years ago. And what we know about the internet today. Think what we'll know about the internet in another 20 years. Thats what I tell myself as I stare at my safe router as it's waves pierce my brain. I still want a memory card preloaded with kung-fu implanted in there too though.

Uhm that is technology

 

[neosapien]

Uhm that is technology

Isn't technology advance just the end result of science advance though? No, you know what!!! Fuck off bear, if I can't get a microchip in my brain that instantly tells me how to say i love you and your man fur in German then I'm done with science!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[cannabineer]

Isn't technology advance just the end result of science advance though? No, you know what!!! Fuck off bear, if I can't get a microchip in my brain that instantly tells me how to say i love you and your man fur in German then I'm done with science!!!!!!!!!!!

My man fur will wait for you beyond the end of time.

To me the distinction between science and technology is the goal of the two: science seeks knowledge while technology (and engineering) seek utility. To an engineer, knowledge is utility's chained&collared bitch. And the Internet is the current hot-spot for engineers. Engineers are not shy to use new science to build the new engineers' hog trough. I'm an engineer's son who became a scientist. Draw your conclusions. (A winner would be ... as I am useless, whither glory?)

My man fur rustles softly but with ineffable luxury. And with the indirectly glossy but ardently-presented pulsing promise of science. My man fur is merely the start of this compelling, category-shattering Easter egg hunt.

 

[neosapien]

My man fur will wait for you beyond the end of time.

To me the distinction between science and technology is the goal of the two: science seeks knowledge while technology (and engineering) seek utility. To an engineer, knowledge is utility's chained&collared bitch. And the Internet is the current hot-spot for engineers. Engineers are not shy to use new science to build the new engineers' hog trough. I'm an engineer's son who became a scientist. Draw your conclusions. (A winner would be ... as I am useless, whither glory?)

My man fur rustles softly but with ineffable luxury. And with the indirectly glossy but ardently-presented pulsing promise of science. My man fur is merely the start of this compelling, category-shattering Easter egg hunt.

 

[dandyrandy]

All I know is on the way to town the other day I saw the new and improved way to get rid of those empty 2.5 gal and 5 gal plastic containers preemergence and herbicide and pesticide concentrate containers. Bonfire! I rolled my windows up. These two guys with the front end loader piled with I assume empty containers were tossing them on the fire. MAGA!