Google led me to sites alleging that this 2017 article and others were written to spec on the instructions of Monsanto. [0][1][2]
>Not only did Kelland write a 2017 story that Monsanto asked her to write in exactly the way Monsanto executive Sam Murphey asked her to write it, (without disclosing to readers that Monsanto was the source,) but now we see evidence that a draft of a separate story Kelland did about glyphosate was delivered to Monsanto before it was published, a practice typically frowned on by news outlets.
[0] https://usrtk.org/monsanto-roundup-trial-tacker/new-monsanto...
[1] https://gmwatch.org/en/news/latest-news/18746-monsanto-fed-r...
[2] https://twitter.com/careygillam/status/1121417187531677696
Also there should be a judicial mechanism to lock up the board of Monsanto in a dark dungeon.
I'm not sure exactly how you can be biased on that, you could go read the reports yourself and do the exact same diff.
I worked with the first genetically modified soybeans that could be sprayed with Roundup. One of the biggest selling points was that Roundup was measurably safer than the herbicides it replaced with far better results.
I see all these ads now on late night TV recruiting plaintiffs for new Roundup lawsuits. I seriously think these lawyers think this is like asbestos and they will be proven wrong. Just compare the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) and the LD50 for Roundup compared to other common herbicides.
The fertilizer dealers I know are totally baffled this hasn't been reversed already. They don't understand how Monsanto ever got into this position. Hopefully Monsanto's new owner Bayer will hire better lawyers to protect their investment but it's going to take years before this ever gets rolled back.
One is "i fed it 50 rabbits and they were all fine the next morning";
another is "LD50 (50% died) within 24hrs of consuming X milligrams per kg of rabbit weight, which well above expected levels present in food";
Another is "more tumours in these 500 rats who were fed glyphosphate - exposed crops, than in these other 500 genetically identical rats fed the same but organic version, after 9 months"
The same data probably applies to glyphosate, since the two go hand in hand (which is also why many activists get upset about glyphosate specifically, versus everything else that gets sprayed on crops, because it is associated with GMO glyphosate-resistant crops).
I would also point out that Monsanto is not being held responsible becauseof the toxicity, but because of the fairly clear evidence that Monsanto put a lot of effort into concealing that toxicity from workers, consumers and regulators.
It is possible for adoption of Roundup to be a net positive for society and for Monsanto / Bayer to be liable for concealing the risks that do exist.
I rather doubt that Johnson's case will be reversed, but I would not to see some other cases fail because they aren't able to show such a direct connection and as extreme an exposure.
They smelled blood in the water.
Ex: "The authors firmly believe" and "the authors concluded"; not exactly scientific facts.
"One effect of the changes to the draft, reviewed by Reuters in a comparison with the published report, was the removal of multiple scientists' conclusions that their studies had found no link between glyphosate and cancer in laboratory animals. In one instance, a fresh statistical analysis was inserted - effectively reversing the original finding of a study being reviewed by IARC."
This seems a lot stronger than just editing. Although not perfectly clear, it sounds to me like the report was a composite of multiple distinct studies, and they excised some studies that differed from their desired outcome. That's basically the same thing as dropping experimental evidence that doesn't agree with a study's goals.
If you're not fully acknowledging anything that might contradict your conclusion, then you're sciencing wrong.
- Theory of Evolution
- Big Bang Theory
- General Relativity
- Global Warming/Climate Change
- Cell Theory
- Germ Theory
- etc etc (Just look up "scientific theories" or similar if you want more)
If an existing test was not sensitive enough to detect some effect, any conclusions from that data are effectively worthless. However, the test still provides an upper bound for the magnitude of an effect.
The fact that products can be sold as "cucumber" but actually have a long list of chems on their skin is a very dark practice. See how companies abused their power when ingredient lists where not enforced by law. Or how tobacco comps are still abusing their freedom not to list ingredients. This malpractice disgusts me daily.
I don’t have a fix for this problem and I do have a bias for more info; just saying it isn’t obvious.
A few jobs ago I had a chemist co-worker who’d actually worked on it (manufacturing development, not original synthesis). He was, not surprisingly, a big fan, but we did have Many long discussions as to its chemistry, mechanism, and (lack of?) human impact.
All that being said do note delhanty’s comment which is meta analysis of the posted article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21872497 Just because I don’t understand a particular point (and have some minimal qualifications for such an opinion) doesn’t make me right.
- more tillage would be required causing more soil erosion and a higher consumption of fossil fuels resulting in more CO2 emissions from agriculture.
- yields would decline due to more weed competition, which, combined with higher costs for fuels would increase food prices.
From a social perspective, higher food prices, a healthier farm economy, and less available income for frivolities like vacations and travel that are also CO2 sources might be beneficial overall.
> IARC did not respond to questions about the alterations. It said the draft was “confidential” and “deliberative in nature.” After Reuters asked about the changes, the agency posted a statement on its website advising the scientists who participate in its working groups “not to feel pressured to discuss their deliberations” outside the confines of IARC.
I would like to know which scientists are involved here and putting their name on such work.
If glyposphate is actually bad this will only help Monsanto in denials and help them discredit their adversaries. Which means these manipulations is the report will completely backfire for the activists instead of helping the cause.
Edit: I see this is from 2017, I wonder what has happened since.
Searching around, looks like other people have encountered this as well: https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/8giwc1/why_ar...
That’s some flaggin’
Then I'm sorry that's is not science, science is based on discussion and the possibility to falsify ones conclusion.
Science or not, you shouldn’t even feel forced to discuss what you had at lunch yesterday, no matter how many billions are at stake for corporations.
As you say, this is science, there is absolutely no reason to attack the people, when you can provide independent scientific evidence to support your own conclusion which might be counter to their. Then it becomes a question of evaluating the evidence, not evaluating the people.
If a scientist deliberates to reach a conclusion that they choose not to explain it's fine: we just need to ignore it.
There is no reason to argue that "scientists should be pressured to discuss their deliberations", which seems like the argument you are making.
However, research reports are written for their results, not their conclusion. The conclusions are often less formal and somewhat prone to bias. The scientific method is to consider results in aggregate to successively form a better understanding of an issue, and as such the individual conclusions in an individual report is really the least important part in a meta study or review report.
>> A Working Group of 17 experts from 11 countries met at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) on 3-10 March 2015 to review the available published scientific evidence and evaluate the carcinogenicity of five organophosphate insecticides and herbicides: diazinon, glyphosate, malathion, parathion, and tetrachlorvinphos.
https://www.iarc.fr/featured-news/media-centre-iarc-news-gly...
The article said they added their own statistical analysis that wasn’t supported by the data they originally included:
> In one instance, a fresh statistical analysis was inserted - effectively reversing the original finding of a study being reviewed by IARC.
IARC are bunch of lunatics.
Someone would need to look at the original studies and work done for the WHO report. That'd be a lot of work. And it'd be hard to find anyone that both sides would trust.
Indeed. Which it is why declaring COIs is so important. e.g. From a followup piece on Forbes (emphasis mine):
https://www.forbes.com/sites/geoffreykabat/2017/10/23/iarcs-...
“Portier, an American statistician who worked for the federal government for over thirty years, was the special advisor to the IARC panel that issued the report declaring glyphosate to be “probably carcinogenic.” The transcripts show that during the same week in March 2015 in which IARC published its glyphosate opinion, Portier signed a lucrative contract to act as a litigation consultant for two law firms that were preparing to sue Monsanto on behalf of glyphosate cancer victims. His contract contained a confidentiality clause barring Portier from disclosing his employment to other parties.”
It is easy to view these Glyphosate wars as tiny heroic Davids battling a vast malicious Goliath, and huge multinationals certainly can get up to all sorts of dubious stuff—but so can the “little guys”. And we have been here before: just look at Andrew Wakefield, found balls deep in lawyer money and rival patents, and still causing serious harm (e.g. 79 dead in Samoa) a decade after being busted for the mendacious money-grabbing little shit he really was.
As for the WHO, while it has done a great amount of very good work over the last 70 years, it is a human institution like any other and thus not immune to errors and corruption.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/who-promotes-unscientific-t...
My normal spider-sense of "follow the money" seems to find no obvious path. Internal activists is a fairly novel concept - at least activists with the power to make changes like this. I'd like to know who benefits and why...
There's nothing novel about activism in organisations like the WHO, nor in the media which report on the activities of these organisations. It is actually quite hard to find truly objective studies which are not tainted by people-with-a-cause (political or otherwise) on the one side, people-with-financial-interests on the other.
In the case of being against agrichemicals, there is a readily identifiable commercial industry: organic agriculture. (And, again, don't discount the size of an industry just because it's the "little guy" working against "the man"--the health supplement industry is an example where the "little guy" is actually guilty of everything they accuse of "the man" of, and much worse). In addition, there is a pretty staunch anti-GMO activism running around in Europe as a whole which provides ready funding fuel here.
The entire glyphosate controversy, to me at least, has long been a case of "[the people against it] know it's somehow evil, because big agriculture, we're just trying to figure out something that will actually show it."
I'm sure I could come up with one, though without thinking too deeply, it'd probably end up being a little too contrived, far-fetched or conspiratorial. Not as a way to boast, but more to illustrate that if we accept that money is a huge factor in the things that revolve around us, then we can start seeing patterns previously hidden because we had a bit of a "rosy" world-view.
E.g.:
WHO helps Glyphosate to be banned -> Less food production due to ineffective pesticide alternatives -> More people in the 3rd world countries starving -> More funding for "world Health" due to "poor starving people" -> WHO gets more funding and ensures its survival.
In contrast with:
WHO drives an amazing worldwide initiative to get 50 billion USD in funding -> WHO funds and deploys employees and equipment in starving areas to generate free food -> Solves 3rd world hunger -> Existing WHO mandate no longer exists -> The (Happy) End.
Maybe it allowed some of them to become “expert witnesses” at major multi million dollar trials and compensated well by the law firms, who knows.
Or it could be as insignificant as some people trying to make their job seemingly important and justified sort of thing. An inconclusive report doesn’t get headlines.
Either way the organization owes the world a better explanation.
[1] https://publications.iarc.fr/_publications/media/download/22...
If growers had to disclose everything that makes its way into the product they're selling, insect parts and rat dung would be much higher up the list than Roundup.
It is not a conspiracy, it is not a predetermined plan, it just happens that certain kinds of people get promoted to leadership positions in these organizations. It is a survival phenomenon, an evolutionary principle at work. The organization does its best to ensure the future of the organization.
There's a reason big companies defend hundreds of lawsuits at any given time, and it's simply because they do a lot of bad stuff and society doesn't shut them down for it. I've worked in litigation support, and you know what? Non-profits were not the ones paying us $$$. It may be that the sort of companies (banks, drug companies, chemical companies) people love to hate are still a net benefit to society. But they don't have the all the slings and arrows aimed at them because of a conspiracy of plaintiffs' lawyers and whatnot, but because they do harm on a daily basis.
So I don't think you're making an argument against disclosure, just against bad law or scofflaws.
Everybody seems to have "warnings" these days like "Cancer and reproductive harm". That's not a warning or a description.
It's not obvious to me that you would expect there to be problems that only show up after years but not in young animals with exposure from birth -- young animals are fast-growing, and fast-growing things are very susceptible to poisons of all flavors. (It's the basis of chemotherapy: you give the patient a poison, and the fast-growing cancer dies faster than the rest of the person.) Which is to say, a study of animals fed a substance for only the first tenth of their life is way, way more useful than a study that only looks at the second tenth, because of the rapid development during that time. Whether that makes the full lifespan data "useful incremental data", "vitally important data" or "uselessly redundant" I don't know enough to have an intuition on.
One of the most prevalent genetic modifications to crops is glyphosate resistance[1].
I suppose it's possible that many farmers are buying glyphosate resistant crops but not using glyphosate as a weed control measure. However, that seems... unlikely.
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1. https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2018/december/trends-in...
But given that the allowable limits for glyphosate in animal feeds is an order of magnitude or two higher than for people foods, I really would be surprised if livestock hasn't been eating a lot of it for the last twenty or thirty years.