22 ms·

Emails Show FDA Chemists Have Been Finding Glyphosate in Food

691 points by clumsysmurf 8y ago

RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago
>Shortly thereafter, a string of studies and reviews indicated that glyphosate should probably be further studied, and in March of 2015, the cancer research arm of the World Health Organization declared glyphosate a “probable carcinogen.” That is outdated. In 2016, the Joint WHO/FAO "Meeting concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet." http://www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf?ua=1 http://www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf?ua=1
- phs318u 8y ago
  > "Meeting concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet." > "...through the diet" Because official food sample testing showed no/low levels of glyphosate? As opposed to the unofficial samples tested? Hmmm...
- aguyaguy 8y ago
  That is also outdated. Turns out, glyphosate by itself is not as carcinogenic as Roundup, the actual product used. The chemicals used with glyphosate, like POEA, make it more harmful.
  - everybodyknows 8y ago
    Is POEA chemically stable -- or is it likely to break down before the food is eventually consumed?
- adrr 8y ago
  Also the probable carcinogen lists contains hot beverages(Tea and Coffee), red meat, shift work, and frying food as probable carcinogens to give some context of what is on the list.
- pluma 8y ago
  Also, "probable carcinogen" doesn't mean what most people think it means[1]: > Group 2A: "Probably carcinogenic to humans" There is strong evidence that it can cause cancer in humans, but at present it is not conclusive. > Group 2A: "The agent (mixture) is probably carcinogenic to humans . The exposure circumstance entails exposures that are probably carcinogenic to humans." > "This category is used when there is limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans and sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals. In some cases, an agent (mixture) may be classified in this category when there is inadequate evidence of carcinogenicity in humans and sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals and strong evidence that the carcinogenesis is mediated by a mechanism that also operates in humans. Exceptionally, an agent, mixture or exposure circumstance may be classified in this category solely on the basis of limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans." Here's other stuff classified as 2A[2]: * acrylamide * indoor emissions from household combustion of wood * occupational exposure as a hairdresser or barber * consumption of red meat * drinking very hot beverages at above 65°C Note that even category 1 contains agents ranging from asbestos and plutonium to "alcoholic beverages" and "the consumption of processed meat". The categories merely indicate the confidence level that an agent is carcinogenic at all, not "how" carcinogenic it is. The phrase "probable carcinogen" doesn't indicate anything about how likely you are to get cancer from it, just that there is a certain level of confidence that the agent can cause cancer under certain conditions and in certain quantities. [1]: http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/opinions_layman/en/electromagnetic-fields/glossary/ghi/iarc-classification.htm http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/opinions_la... [2]: http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Classification/ClassificationsGroupOrder.pdf http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Classification/Classifications...
- curlypaul924 8y ago
  I don't think the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) report necessarily rescinds the report from IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer)? The Guardian ran an interesting article when the IARC report came out exploring how two reasonable groups looking at the same data could both come to different conclusions: https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2015/may/13/chemical-reactions-glyphosate-and-the-politics-of-chemical-safety https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2015/m...
TaylorAlexander 8y ago
From the article: “All of the official samples passed the test and were within the legal limits of glyphosate residue. But those off-the-record, unofficial samples, though done with the same equipment and tested by the same chemists, showed glyphosate. That’s right. The chemists found glyphosate residue on just about everything: crackers, granola, cornmeal, honey, oatmeal, baby food, and even corn. Their surreptitious corn test—one of the four items the FDA is actually testing—found glyphosate significantly over the legal limit set by the EPA. The chemists emailed their bosses to ask what to do. The FDA’s response (which was also captured in the FOIA documents): That corn was not an “official sample” and will thus be ignored.” I remember watching a lecture from Vandana Shiva who claimed that glyphosate was harmful and making it in to our food. She cited some European studies that found glyphosate in a wide variety of products. She claimed that there were shady things going on in the US government that seemed to obscure these facts. At the time, I saw people writing her off as a nut, or claiming that her masters degree in physics and PhD in philosophy meant that she didn’t have the expertise to evaluate the biological effects of glyphosate. And yet, I feel as though this article, if the claims are verified, does seem to back up her claims that glyphosate is more prevalent than our government would like to admit, and that there could really be official cover ups going on. I’d really like to know what’s in our food.
- dfxm12 8y ago
  I remember watching a lecture from Vandana Shiva who claimed that glyphosate was harmful and making it in to our food. She cited some European studies that found glyphosate in a wide variety of products. She claimed that there were shady things going on in the US government that seemed to obscure these facts. While this might prove her true that the US government is trying to hide the glyphosate levels in food, does it prove her claim true that it is harmful? It seems like the jury is out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate#Humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate#Humans
  - random4369 8y ago
    Every time the jury is out on a topic where one side has a vested interest and a billion dollar budget to protect it, you can be reasonably sure what the outcome will be. See: pesticides and bees, fossil fuels and climate change, food packaging plastics and cancer, pain treatment meds and addiction. The answer in all those cases is the harmful effects eventually became known, but the jury was out long enough for the vested interests to make a ton of profit and cause a ton of damage which they'll never pay for repairing. All made possible with a series of comparatively small investments to buy scientific research to keep the jury out. The Wikipedia section that the parent post links to straight up says that the only research that found no links was sponsored by Monsanto. Edit: to be really clear, 'jury being out' refers to scientific consensus. We are not talking about issues where public opinion is uncertain despite scientific consensus, such as vaccines+autism. We are talking about issues where scientific evaluation of some phenomenon is actively prolonged or hindered by vested interests to delay regulatory action.
heston88 8y ago
Just another form of eugenics
fncypants 8y ago
I've noticed that Monsanto appears to be on an astroturfing campaign. Half of the ads appearing in my Reddit front page are promoted posts that are pro-glyphosate. They point to legitimate news articles, for example, that report on a study finding that glyphosate is not a carginogen. Of course, these studies contradict other studies that glyphosate is a carcinogen or otherwise a concern. In truth, I was ready to believe the pro-glypsophate studies until a contrary consensus formed. Because of this astroturfing campaign, I now have doubts.
- exp1orer 8y ago
  I recently read the great line: "Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance." http://blog.danieldavies.com/2004/05/d-squared-digest-one-minute-mba.html http://blog.danieldavies.com/2004/05/d-squared-digest-one-mi...
  - Gibbon1 8y ago
    I think this is the guy that gave me the gem. If a source is known to lie then the proper weight to place on information from that source is zero. AKA: You don't try and second guess anything that say, you ignore everything they say.
    - perl4ever 8y ago
      But it's tempting to assume the information is false, and if you do that, you could be making a big mistake. I assume by "zero weight" you mean you don't assume it's true or false, which is quite distinct. One way to look at it is that every statement is true, given sufficient context. The question is, how should it be interpreted, and what is it a true statement about? Generally, when a liar says something, it is intended to either make you believe it is true, or make you believe it is false, or confuse you. So there is true information being provided, it's just not the face value of the statement.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
acidburnNSA 8y ago
Measurement techniques are getting better and better and we'll find more and more articles finding x in y. I have not analyzed this case but did just finish reading a highly relevant piece on measures of toxicity that included glyphosate. Highly recommended for your mental models. https://thoughtscapism.com/2018/05/07/measures-of-toxicity/ https://thoughtscapism.com/2018/05/07/measures-of-toxicity/
- pmoriarty 8y ago
  That's a very interesting and informative article. However, after reading it I came away more confused than I was before -- especially when looking at their "Acute toxicity" and "Chronic toxicity" tables. According to the acute toxicity tables, caffeine is only slightly more toxic than lead, and Vitamin D3 is 5 more times toxic. According to the chronic toxicity tables, both caffeine and Vitamin D3 are about 3 times more toxic than lead. The dangers of lead exposure are widely appreciated, so I suppose the main difference must be that lead accumulates in body tissue while caffeine and D3 don't, and that's what makes lead so much more dangerous? I wish there were some more tables that showed us the more relevant dangers of these substances, with issues such as accumulation in body tissue, route of administration, and other relevant factors taken in to account.
  - jcranmer 8y ago
    LD50 is a crude measure of toxicity. Salt has a very high LD50--about 3.3 g/kg. Vitamin D is less than 1% that LD50, about 33 mg/kg. However, the loads you're going to see in food are very different: you accumulate vitamin D on the order of 10 µg or so a day, but salt around 5g or so a day. As a consequence, it takes only around 40× normal salt consumption to kill you, but around 200,000× normal vitamin D consumption. Killing yourself by eating too much salt is ridiculously easy (drink a jug of soy sauce), killing yourself with vitamin D is much harder.
  - macawfish 8y ago
    Don't forget that lead is quite a dense material.
exp1orer 8y ago
So this suggests that the samples submitted to the FDA for testing were not representative of ordinary food. This reminds me of the ongoing Tetra Tech/Hunter's Point scandal [1], where the US Navy paid $300M to a contractor to clean up a development site. The contractor was required to submit samples from the site to prove they had cleaned it up. Instead, they just pulled soil from known clean places and submitted for testing. How much of the ongoing monitoring activity that our government does relies on good faith from companies? Is this the tip of the iceberg, or do the fact that these cases get caught prove that the meta-monitoring is working well? How can we improve this state of affairs? [1] https://sf.curbed.com/2018/1/26/16916742/hunters-point-shipyard-toxic-cleanup https://sf.curbed.com/2018/1/26/16916742/hunters-point-shipy...
- jopsen 8y ago
  Most of the world runs of on good faith and best intentions, without it everything would break down. This goes for taxes, healthcare, insurance, checks, postal mail, traffic code, currency, etc. This also holds for an alarming number of electronic systems such as the phone network, and many ISP network configurations. While it's tempting to say no trust should be required, that's very expensive, like bitcoin. For system to be cost effective, trust is necessary. Requiring self-control is cheap and often effective, because people want to abide by the law. Requiring submission of soil samples is rather expensive, and fairly strong control, because cheating is a very deliberate act. We probably have to ask, how can we improve the trust? Higher morals and more transparency could be one answer.
  - alexandercrohde 8y ago
    I feel like that is an unreasonable generalization. It's not remotely hard at all for the FDA to buy products off the shelf and test them for glyphosate. They need not and should not trust samples obtained any other way.
    - PantaloonFlames 8y ago
      That seems reasonable to me. Real world test.
bickfordb 8y ago
I would prefer to eat most weeds than glyphosate. Also, what do this imply politically? Testing for Round-Up in our food supply is now a states rights issue?
- hetman 8y ago
  That's not how it works. Weeds don't somehow get into grains when they're collected. What they do is reduce yields of the crops we're actually interested in collecting. Lower yields for the same farming effort means higher prices. So what ultimately happens when the consumer sees two identical loaves of bread on the supermarket shelf and one is $2.50 while the other is $3.50?
  - gowld 8y ago
    The cost of grain input is essentially 0 (as a fraction of finished product sticker price). The cost is in baking and transportation. Corn is the cheapest product in USA.
    - rockinghigh 8y ago
      If productivity goes down you need more land to produce the same output.
    - mustacheemperor 8y ago
      Agriculture has a relatively fixed supply and demand every cycle because of nature and basic human needs. It's not a matter of defects affecting the bottom line, it's a reduction of invaluable output. Because natural forces flex and largely define the output for a given season, anything that can increase it is critical. Efficient agriculture technology is the only reason the world didn't collapse a la Malthus. The best concept to replace chemicals in food production that I've seen is the use of UAVs or other robots to mechanically remove weeds and pests. Those tasks were done by humans for a long time, but we switched to chemical alternatives because human labor isn't practical for the scale of food production humanity demands.
- briandear 8y ago
himom 8y ago
Another reason to go organic.
- a_bonobo 8y ago
  Most forms of organic farming still use pesticies, just different ones, with similar or worse health risks. >In head-to-head comparisons, natural pesticides don't fare any better than synthetic ones. When I compared the organic chemicals copper sulfate and pyrethrum to the top synthetics, chlorpyrifos and chlorothalonil, I found that not only were the organic ones more acutely toxic, studies have found that they are more chronically toxic as well, and have higher negative impacts on non-target species. My results match with other scientific comparisons. In their recommendations to Parliament in 1999, the Committee on European Communities noted that copper sulfate, in particular, was far more dangerous than the synthetic alternative. A review of their findings can be seen in the table on the right (from a recent review paper). Similarly, head to head comparisons have found that organic pesticides aren't better for the environment, either. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/pesticides-food-fears/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/pesticide...
  - GW150914 8y ago
    Glyphosate is an herbicide, not a pesticide.
    - usaname 8y ago
      No herbicides, fungicides and insecticides are all pesticides.
      - GW150914 8y ago
        Sounds good, but the example given chlorpyrifos, is an insecticide. In context it was very clear that a mistake was made, and not by me.
- adrr 8y ago
  Organic pesticides are nasty stuff as well. "In 2010, a study was published detailing the progression of Parkinson's-like symptoms in mice following chronic intragastric ingestion of low doses of rotenone. The concentrations in the central nervous system were below detectable limits, yet still induced PD pathology.[31] In 2011, a US National Institutes of Health study showed a link between rotenone use and Parkinson's disease in farm workers." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotenone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotenone
Bud 8y ago
I hate articles like this. Zero useful data. Zero useful sources. And zero information about the levels of glyphosate which were found.
- exp1orer 8y ago
  That's fair, if a bit strong - this one has more [1]. "Separately, FDA chemist Narong Chamkasem found “over-the-tolerance” levels of glyphosate in corn, detected at 6.5 parts per million, an FDA email states. The legal limit is 5.0 ppm." Here[2] are the FOIA documents they're citing. The original article does link directly to an email with the 6.5 ppm figure[3]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/30/fda-weedkiller-glyphosate-in-food-internal-emails https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/30/fda-weedkill... [2] https://usrtk.org/pesticides/fda-foia-documents-regarding-glyphosate-residue-testing/ https://usrtk.org/pesticides/fda-foia-documents-regarding-gl... [3] https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Over-the-tolerance-finding-in-corn.pdf https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Over-the-tolera...
- dandare 8y ago
  This is part of the reason why people believe in conspiracy theories. This issue should be absolutely clear - either there is a harmful level of pesticides in our food or not. Any ambiguity should be investigated by the police as a public endangerment crime. There should be zero room four doubt in cases like this.
  - ItsMe000001 8y ago
    > either there is a harmful level of pesticides in our food or not That is an impossible standard even if we had far better methods. One, "damage" is a continuum. Two, who is affected is a wide range. Three, we only test chemicals individually, and set threshold levels individually, but in reality mixing chemicals very often leads to vastly different effects. For example, when lead and mercury were tested together (LD testing) it was found toxicity increased a thousandfold compared to each one alone. But there is no way to test a meaningful number of combinations, and that would still leave out what happens in the extremely complex biochemical environment of a human body in any case. For the foreseeable future, maybe forever even in 10,000 years of solid scientific progress (because complex stuff remains complex), will be be able to do more than do guesstimates - and they will all be on a population level, don't even try to say anything definite about an individual. That means calling for "solid proof of damage" before anything gets banned is a sure way to stall any action almost indefinitely. I recommend a look at the history of lead (which has not yet ended at all). The most "solid proof" I can think of is a large scale and long-term human experiment, unthinkable. Even then you could raise doubts about the context/environment, methods, selected participants, etc. "Solid proof" is a lot less solid than a lot of people think, the text book examples of easy primitive physics experiments make it seem as if it's easy to find out things "for certain".
pmoriarty 8y ago
This reminds me of all the news reports of tests showing arsenic presence in rice (often due to rice being grown on soil where arsenic had been used as a pesticide for non-food crops such as cotton in the past). But what (if any) health effects did the detected amounts of arsenic in rice have? How how much arsenic in rice would be safe? The FDA investigated these questions and finally came out with a report: [1][2] Among their findings: "In the general population, limiting levels of inorganic arsenic to 200 ppb or higher would not change the cancer risk significantly. Setting a limit below 200 ppb of inorganic arsenic in rice and rice products would decrease the risk. Setting a limit of 150 ppb of inorganic arsenic in rice and rice products would decrease the risk between 0% and 23%. The risk reduction is between 2% and 47% at a limit of 100 ppb of inorganic arsenic in rice and rice products. Finally setting a limit at 75 ppb of inorganic arsenic in rice and rice products would decrease the risk between 17% and 79%. The percentage of risk reduction is dependent on the product (see Table 5.6)." "Setting a maximum level for inorganic arsenic in rice and rice products could affect availability in the U.S. market. For example, were we to set a maximum level of 100 ppb in these foods, the availability in the marketplace might decrease by 4% to 93%, depending on the type of rice." "In the general population, the cancer risk would decrease in proportion to decreases in serving size and frequency of consumption of rice and rice products. Conversely, the risk would double over a lifetime if the consumption frequency were increased from 1 serving per day to 2 servings per day during that entire period (see Table 5.9)." "Eliminating rice and rice products from the diets of infants and of children up to 6 years old could reduce the lifetime cancer risk from inorganic arsenic in rice and rice products by 6% and 23%, respectively. In other words, the risk model predicts that an infant not fed any rice or rice products has an approximately 6% lower chance of developing lung or bladder cancer from arsenic contamination of these foods, over the lifetime, compared with an infant who is fed these products (see Table 5.7)." Based on their research, the FDA proposed a limit of 100 parts per billion for inorganic arsenic in infant rice cereal.[3] Unfortunately, they did not propose any limits on arsenic in rice or rice products apart from infant rice cereal, so how much rice is safe to eat is still an open question. Still, their research and report are quite helpful in understanding the risk of arsenic exposure in rice, so consumers can now make informed decisions in regards to their own rice consumption. I hope the FDA will do something like that for glyphosate in food. Also, such research and limits are prime examples of good work done by a government agency to keep us all healthy in the face of a food industry and "free market" which are clearly not able or willing to effectively regulate themselves. [1] - https://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodborneIllnessContaminants/Metals/ucm319870.htm https://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodborneIllnessContaminants/Metals... [2] - https://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodScienceResearch/RiskSafetyAssessment/ucm485278.htm https://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodScienceResearch/RiskSafetyAsses... [3] - https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm493740.htm https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/u...
aldoushuxley001 8y ago
The Monsanto astroturfing crew is working hard in this thread. Really astonishing to see people claiming that glyphosafe has been shown to safe.
- tptacek 8y ago
  You're looking for some other forum, where this dumb debate about glyphosate (a-t-e) hasn't been rehashed ad nauseam 50 times before (quelle surprise, not everyone agrees with you!), and where you're actually allowed to accuse people who disagree with you of being "astroturfers". Here, on HN, if you believe someone is astroturfing, you quietly mail hn@ycombinator.com about and don't post it to the threads, where it is one of the very few arguments actually called out and forbidden by the site guidelines.
  - aldoushuxley001 8y ago
    I guess that's why HN has limited success.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - tomhoward 8y ago
      The more successful forums where members delight in having their discussions degenerate into paranoid conspiracy mongering are eagerly awaiting your arrival.
      - aldoushuxley001 8y ago
        Oh it's conspiracy mongering to question the science behind a popular weedkiller? Wow, didn't realize! My apologies. I know HN is anti science sometimes but this is taking it to another level.
        tomhoward 8y ago
imhelpingu 8y ago
Monsanto SMMs rot in hell imo.
ggm 8y ago
I'd like somebody in the space to explain why the FDA samples are more representative of the overall food supply than the random samples from food stores. There may be a good reason. There may be reasons why in some locations, food has higher traces than the FDA sees. How about (for instance) if its imported? Not that its good, but it would help explain I rather think that even though the FDA samples test ok, There is a moment where somebody should be regularly testing product the other side of the supply chain, for residues of pesticides and other things, and if we find them, it should be actionable if they exceed some threshold. So.. given these people found traces in the over-the-counter food chain, is nobody now legally obligated to do .. anything?
- kaycebasques 8y ago
  I think the article is implying that the “official” samples were probably supplied by people who are colluding with Monsanto. Well, it’s not fair of me to say that the article is implying that... it’s not. But that’s the conclusion I drew.
  - ggm 8y ago
    Sure. It's the conclusion I'm tempted to draw too. But I'm trying to avoid walking into the grand conspiracy, too soon. I think the influence of Monsanto and others on the actions of the FDA are way out of whack, but there are many moments of innocent misunderstanding in this kind of report. I think it's most likely the classic incompetence/malice thing, or a misunderstanding of some kind. Like, FDA testing US farm produce, the shops selling unlabelled, imported, 'US origin' but actually sourced from somewhere else, and re-bagged...
    - kaycebasques 8y ago
      Fair enough, thanks for being healthily skeptical
- bluGill 8y ago
  Are those grocery store samples random? Getting truly random samples is hard.
torgoguys 8y ago
Here is the money quote that these articles seem to be based off of. From an email detailing progress on developing testing methods: >"I spiked a batch of broccoli at 0.002 ug/g and could detect the glyphosate pretty well but I did need to manually integrate some of the peaks. I used broccoli because it’s the only thing I have on hand that does not have glyphosate in it. I have brought wheat crackers, granola cereal, and corn meal from home and there’s a fair amount in all of them.” There is another email talking about the one corn sample being 6.5ppm, above the 5.0 threshold, also in the context of testing methods. So the corn sample could be an issue, but the headlines about it being everywhere, in implied high concentrations, seems premature unless I missed something in these emails. The tester used the broccoli because it had none and he could test detection down to 0.002 ppm, FAR below the 5.0 threshold. When he says there was a fair amount in everything else he had, we still don't know what that means. Was it .02ppm, .2ppm, 2.0ppm or what? The tone of the email and it's reply (not quoted above) doesn't suggest worry about a high rate to me.
hamparawa 8y ago
Although not scientifically proven(?), it is believed that the chronic kidney disease (CKD) is caused by Glyphosate. CKD is largely present in North Central, North Western, Uva and Eastern Provinces in Sri Lanka. https://www.news.lk/news/political-current-affairs/item/8198-govt-issues-gazette-notification-banning-glyphosate https://www.news.lk/news/political-current-affairs/item/8198...
- Deestan 8y ago
  It is also believed that the world is flat, and that magic crystals will protect your computer from viruses.
sabujp 8y ago
serious question so why doesn't everyone have cancer?
- whatshisface 8y ago
  A radioactive source could be distributed to the pockets of every living person, and while tons of people would get cancer there would still be some people who didn't. Carcinogens raise your risk of cancer.
ausjke 8y ago
Not surprised, what goes around comes around, sigh. This might change evolution gradually, in a bad sense.
Avshalom 8y ago
As a note: the throwing out of samples might not necessarily be sinister (on the FDA's end) so much as a result of the FDA's general hamstrungedness. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/02/bug-system https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/02/bug-system Key quote in there is that before the FDA is even allowed to ask for a recall they have to prove a DNA match between whatever caused food poisoning and the specific bag of whatever. If the FDA has extremely rigid chain of custody rules for what samples/test they're allowed to talk about in public and you had a billion dollars riding in them only reporting the best samples it might not be that hard to fuck with that chain of custody and disqualify anything you knew about.
ryanpcmcquen 8y ago
Welcome to America.
geggam 8y ago
When the FDA and Monsanto have a revolving door of executives why is anyone surprised at this ?
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davidclara4 8y ago
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deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
TwoBit 8y ago
It seems to me that any sufficiently equipped lab can run these tests. How about Consumer Reports? Well Consumer Reports sucks these days so maybe somebody else...
- vertexFarm 8y ago
  That's a really good point. Are there independent tests corroborating this? If so, why hasn't the alarm been sounded before now? Or was it and nobody paid attention after the next news cycle?
ljk 8y ago
how could someone run these tests at home? does it require expensive equipment?
- sndean 8y ago
  I'm not aware of cheaper assays that may have been developed. So, yeah, it'd likely require buying a GC-MS (>$50,000), plus a gas source, whatever MS software, and some training. Alternatively, for ~$50 there are many core facilities at universities and elsewhere that'll happily run whatever sample you send them and email you back the results.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
Some interesting factoids here. - The US legal limit of glyphosate are vastly higher than the EU, ranging up to 10000% in some cases (cattle). (EU) [1] (US) [2] - Glyphosate has been declared a probably carcinogen by the World Health Organization. - Monsanto is the developer of glyphosate. The former head of the FDA, appointed by the last administration to a newly created position tongue in cheek referred to as 'The Czar of Foods', officially "Deputy Commissioner of Foods the FDA", was Michael Taylor. [3]. Michael Taylor was a Monsanto VP whose career was in large part started by legally arguing that companies ought be allowed to knowingly allow at least some percent of carcinogens into processed foods. - US regulatory agencies test thousands of products for hundreds of different chemical residues. Even though glyphosate is, by far, the most widely used chemical herbicide, it was never tested for until after the WHO declared it a probable carcinogen and private tests showed extremely high levels of glyphosate even in products where it should not be present in, such as honey. [4]. - Regulatory capture sucks. [1] - http://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/pesticides/eu-pesticides-database/public/?event=pesticide.residue.CurrentMRL&language=EN http://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/pesticides/eu-pesticides-data... [2] - https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/retrieveECFR?gp=1&ty=HTML&h=L&mc=true&r=SECTION&n=se40.26.180_1364 https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/retrieveECFR?gp=1&ty=HTML&h=L&m... [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_R._Taylor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_R._Taylor [4] - https://www.huffingtonpost.com/carey-gillam/fda-suspends-glyphosate-r_b_12913458.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/carey-gillam/fda-suspends-gly... (I am reluctant to link to a Huffington Post article, but this is far above their normal standards of quality, and provides a clear and factual overview. Searching for 'US glyphosate testing' turns up countless other sources if one would prefer not rely on Huffington.)
sebleon 8y ago
Whether you believe glysophate is carcinogenic or not, this scandal demonstrates how the FDA works for industry, not the people. If they had the taxpayers best interests at heart, they would not be concealing or halting research around a widespread potential carcinogen in our food supply.
kokey 8y ago
I bet you they also detect dihydrogen monoxide at near lethal dose levels in food samples, due to farmers spraying it on the crops. Some of that stuff even makes it into the rivers and flows into the ocean and can be detected in the fish in the sea.
- dandare 8y ago
  HN is not Reddit.
  - kokey 8y ago
    Sorry, the point I was trying to make, immaturely, is that detecting contamination with potentially toxic substances doesn't necessarily mean it's dangerous. There's a lot of variables at play here and sometimes it spreading widely could mean it's because it's actually harmless or could even be necessary. With regards to glyphosate we have data of people who attempted to commit suicide by drinking quantities large enough to spray on 4000 sqft of cropland, or multiple times more of that.
shbm 8y ago
What food products do FDA chemists consume from the market is a question that would give us a lot of insight.
aembleton 8y ago
Many farmers routinely use Roundup and other herbicides to clear their fields of weeds before crops emerge in the spring. But what's more alarming is they’re also using glyphosate on crops shortly before they are harvested, in order to desiccate (dry out) the plants and make them easier to harvest. Glyphosate kills parts of the crop that haven’t ripened evenly, and dries the crop. This allows Combine harvesters to move more quickly and cover more ground during harvest, and may reduce drying costs. But applying glyphosate so close to harvest makes the likelihood of finding residues in food even higher. From https://www.soilassociation.org/our-campaigns/not-in-our-bread/what-is-glyphosate/ https://www.soilassociation.org/our-campaigns/not-in-our-bre...
notjtrig 8y ago
What I think people are missing is the relationship between GMO and Glyphosate. The first round of GMO seed available in America was Monsanto's 'RoundUp Ready' brand engineered to be sprayed with a unholey amount of RoundUp. In 2014 83% of GMO crop planted was modified to be resistant to herbisides, mostly RoundUp. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genetically_modified_crops https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genetically_modified...
brookhaven_dude 8y ago
And Dr Oz panned for railing against GMO and favoring organic food... And to the commenters saying "there is no evidence that GMO foods are harmful" or "non-USDA organic food is causing harm", you have to wonder at where does the burden of proof really lie in case of things that I am ingesting?
- Truestuff 8y ago
  The thing about science is that it's fairly easy to prove something is harmful. It's darn near impossible to prove something is safe. Organic food isn't 100% safe, and is more likely than conventional to be contaminated with pathogens such as e coli. But after 25 years of use with no proof otherwise, I'd say GMOs have met the burden of proof.
chriscappuccio 8y ago
If we make fun of homeopaths, we should make fun of the people worrying about 6.5ppm glyphosate exposure too!

691 points by clumsysmurf 8y ago

>Shortly thereafter, a string of studies and reviews indicated that glyphosate should probably be further studied, and in March of 2015, the cancer research arm of the World Health Organization declared glyphosate a “probable carcinogen.” That is outdated. In 2016, the Joint WHO/FAO "Meeting concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet." http://www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf?ua=1 http://www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf?ua=1

phs318u 8y ago
> "Meeting concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet." > "...through the diet" Because official food sample testing showed no/low levels of glyphosate? As opposed to the unofficial samples tested? Hmmm...
aguyaguy 8y ago
That is also outdated. Turns out, glyphosate by itself is not as carcinogenic as Roundup, the actual product used. The chemicals used with glyphosate, like POEA, make it more harmful.
- everybodyknows 8y ago
  Is POEA chemically stable -- or is it likely to break down before the food is eventually consumed?
adrr 8y ago
Also the probable carcinogen lists contains hot beverages(Tea and Coffee), red meat, shift work, and frying food as probable carcinogens to give some context of what is on the list.
pluma 8y ago
Also, "probable carcinogen" doesn't mean what most people think it means[1]: > Group 2A: "Probably carcinogenic to humans" There is strong evidence that it can cause cancer in humans, but at present it is not conclusive. > Group 2A: "The agent (mixture) is probably carcinogenic to humans . The exposure circumstance entails exposures that are probably carcinogenic to humans." > "This category is used when there is limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans and sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals. In some cases, an agent (mixture) may be classified in this category when there is inadequate evidence of carcinogenicity in humans and sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals and strong evidence that the carcinogenesis is mediated by a mechanism that also operates in humans. Exceptionally, an agent, mixture or exposure circumstance may be classified in this category solely on the basis of limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans." Here's other stuff classified as 2A[2]: * acrylamide * indoor emissions from household combustion of wood * occupational exposure as a hairdresser or barber * consumption of red meat * drinking very hot beverages at above 65°C Note that even category 1 contains agents ranging from asbestos and plutonium to "alcoholic beverages" and "the consumption of processed meat". The categories merely indicate the confidence level that an agent is carcinogenic at all, not "how" carcinogenic it is. The phrase "probable carcinogen" doesn't indicate anything about how likely you are to get cancer from it, just that there is a certain level of confidence that the agent can cause cancer under certain conditions and in certain quantities. [1]: http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/opinions_layman/en/electromagnetic-fields/glossary/ghi/iarc-classification.htm http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/opinions_la... [2]: http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Classification/ClassificationsGroupOrder.pdf http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Classification/Classifications...
curlypaul924 8y ago
I don't think the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) report necessarily rescinds the report from IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer)? The Guardian ran an interesting article when the IARC report came out exploring how two reasonable groups looking at the same data could both come to different conclusions: https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2015/may/13/chemical-reactions-glyphosate-and-the-politics-of-chemical-safety https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2015/m...

TaylorAlexander 8y ago

From the article: “All of the official samples passed the test and were within the legal limits of glyphosate residue. But those off-the-record, unofficial samples, though done with the same equipment and tested by the same chemists, showed glyphosate. That’s right. The chemists found glyphosate residue on just about everything: crackers, granola, cornmeal, honey, oatmeal, baby food, and even corn. Their surreptitious corn test—one of the four items the FDA is actually testing—found glyphosate significantly over the legal limit set by the EPA. The chemists emailed their bosses to ask what to do. The FDA’s response (which was also captured in the FOIA documents): That corn was not an “official sample” and will thus be ignored.” I remember watching a lecture from Vandana Shiva who claimed that glyphosate was harmful and making it in to our food. She cited some European studies that found glyphosate in a wide variety of products. She claimed that there were shady things going on in the US government that seemed to obscure these facts. At the time, I saw people writing her off as a nut, or claiming that her masters degree in physics and PhD in philosophy meant that she didn’t have the expertise to evaluate the biological effects of glyphosate. And yet, I feel as though this article, if the claims are verified, does seem to back up her claims that glyphosate is more prevalent than our government would like to admit, and that there could really be official cover ups going on. I’d really like to know what’s in our food.

dfxm12 8y ago
I remember watching a lecture from Vandana Shiva who claimed that glyphosate was harmful and making it in to our food. She cited some European studies that found glyphosate in a wide variety of products. She claimed that there were shady things going on in the US government that seemed to obscure these facts. While this might prove her true that the US government is trying to hide the glyphosate levels in food, does it prove her claim true that it is harmful? It seems like the jury is out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate#Humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate#Humans
- random4369 8y ago
  Every time the jury is out on a topic where one side has a vested interest and a billion dollar budget to protect it, you can be reasonably sure what the outcome will be. See: pesticides and bees, fossil fuels and climate change, food packaging plastics and cancer, pain treatment meds and addiction. The answer in all those cases is the harmful effects eventually became known, but the jury was out long enough for the vested interests to make a ton of profit and cause a ton of damage which they'll never pay for repairing. All made possible with a series of comparatively small investments to buy scientific research to keep the jury out. The Wikipedia section that the parent post links to straight up says that the only research that found no links was sponsored by Monsanto. Edit: to be really clear, 'jury being out' refers to scientific consensus. We are not talking about issues where public opinion is uncertain despite scientific consensus, such as vaccines+autism. We are talking about issues where scientific evaluation of some phenomenon is actively prolonged or hindered by vested interests to delay regulatory action.

heston88 8y ago

Just another form of eugenics

fncypants 8y ago

I've noticed that Monsanto appears to be on an astroturfing campaign. Half of the ads appearing in my Reddit front page are promoted posts that are pro-glyphosate. They point to legitimate news articles, for example, that report on a study finding that glyphosate is not a carginogen. Of course, these studies contradict other studies that glyphosate is a carcinogen or otherwise a concern. In truth, I was ready to believe the pro-glypsophate studies until a contrary consensus formed. Because of this astroturfing campaign, I now have doubts.

exp1orer 8y ago
I recently read the great line: "Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance." http://blog.danieldavies.com/2004/05/d-squared-digest-one-minute-mba.html http://blog.danieldavies.com/2004/05/d-squared-digest-one-mi...
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  I think this is the guy that gave me the gem. If a source is known to lie then the proper weight to place on information from that source is zero. AKA: You don't try and second guess anything that say, you ignore everything they say.
  - perl4ever 8y ago
    But it's tempting to assume the information is false, and if you do that, you could be making a big mistake. I assume by "zero weight" you mean you don't assume it's true or false, which is quite distinct. One way to look at it is that every statement is true, given sufficient context. The question is, how should it be interpreted, and what is it a true statement about? Generally, when a liar says something, it is intended to either make you believe it is true, or make you believe it is false, or confuse you. So there is true information being provided, it's just not the face value of the statement.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]

acidburnNSA 8y ago

Measurement techniques are getting better and better and we'll find more and more articles finding x in y. I have not analyzed this case but did just finish reading a highly relevant piece on measures of toxicity that included glyphosate. Highly recommended for your mental models. https://thoughtscapism.com/2018/05/07/measures-of-toxicity/ https://thoughtscapism.com/2018/05/07/measures-of-toxicity/

pmoriarty 8y ago
That's a very interesting and informative article. However, after reading it I came away more confused than I was before -- especially when looking at their "Acute toxicity" and "Chronic toxicity" tables. According to the acute toxicity tables, caffeine is only slightly more toxic than lead, and Vitamin D3 is 5 more times toxic. According to the chronic toxicity tables, both caffeine and Vitamin D3 are about 3 times more toxic than lead. The dangers of lead exposure are widely appreciated, so I suppose the main difference must be that lead accumulates in body tissue while caffeine and D3 don't, and that's what makes lead so much more dangerous? I wish there were some more tables that showed us the more relevant dangers of these substances, with issues such as accumulation in body tissue, route of administration, and other relevant factors taken in to account.
- jcranmer 8y ago
  LD50 is a crude measure of toxicity. Salt has a very high LD50--about 3.3 g/kg. Vitamin D is less than 1% that LD50, about 33 mg/kg. However, the loads you're going to see in food are very different: you accumulate vitamin D on the order of 10 µg or so a day, but salt around 5g or so a day. As a consequence, it takes only around 40× normal salt consumption to kill you, but around 200,000× normal vitamin D consumption. Killing yourself by eating too much salt is ridiculously easy (drink a jug of soy sauce), killing yourself with vitamin D is much harder.
- macawfish 8y ago
  Don't forget that lead is quite a dense material.

exp1orer 8y ago

So this suggests that the samples submitted to the FDA for testing were not representative of ordinary food. This reminds me of the ongoing Tetra Tech/Hunter's Point scandal [1], where the US Navy paid $300M to a contractor to clean up a development site. The contractor was required to submit samples from the site to prove they had cleaned it up. Instead, they just pulled soil from known clean places and submitted for testing. How much of the ongoing monitoring activity that our government does relies on good faith from companies? Is this the tip of the iceberg, or do the fact that these cases get caught prove that the meta-monitoring is working well? How can we improve this state of affairs? [1] https://sf.curbed.com/2018/1/26/16916742/hunters-point-shipyard-toxic-cleanup https://sf.curbed.com/2018/1/26/16916742/hunters-point-shipy...

jopsen 8y ago
Most of the world runs of on good faith and best intentions, without it everything would break down. This goes for taxes, healthcare, insurance, checks, postal mail, traffic code, currency, etc. This also holds for an alarming number of electronic systems such as the phone network, and many ISP network configurations. While it's tempting to say no trust should be required, that's very expensive, like bitcoin. For system to be cost effective, trust is necessary. Requiring self-control is cheap and often effective, because people want to abide by the law. Requiring submission of soil samples is rather expensive, and fairly strong control, because cheating is a very deliberate act. We probably have to ask, how can we improve the trust? Higher morals and more transparency could be one answer.
- alexandercrohde 8y ago
  I feel like that is an unreasonable generalization. It's not remotely hard at all for the FDA to buy products off the shelf and test them for glyphosate. They need not and should not trust samples obtained any other way.
  - PantaloonFlames 8y ago
    That seems reasonable to me. Real world test.

bickfordb 8y ago

I would prefer to eat most weeds than glyphosate. Also, what do this imply politically? Testing for Round-Up in our food supply is now a states rights issue?

hetman 8y ago
That's not how it works. Weeds don't somehow get into grains when they're collected. What they do is reduce yields of the crops we're actually interested in collecting. Lower yields for the same farming effort means higher prices. So what ultimately happens when the consumer sees two identical loaves of bread on the supermarket shelf and one is $2.50 while the other is $3.50?
- gowld 8y ago
  The cost of grain input is essentially 0 (as a fraction of finished product sticker price). The cost is in baking and transportation. Corn is the cheapest product in USA.
  - rockinghigh 8y ago
    If productivity goes down you need more land to produce the same output.
  - mustacheemperor 8y ago
    Agriculture has a relatively fixed supply and demand every cycle because of nature and basic human needs. It's not a matter of defects affecting the bottom line, it's a reduction of invaluable output. Because natural forces flex and largely define the output for a given season, anything that can increase it is critical. Efficient agriculture technology is the only reason the world didn't collapse a la Malthus. The best concept to replace chemicals in food production that I've seen is the use of UAVs or other robots to mechanically remove weeds and pests. Those tasks were done by humans for a long time, but we switched to chemical alternatives because human labor isn't practical for the scale of food production humanity demands.
briandear 8y ago

himom 8y ago

Another reason to go organic.

a_bonobo 8y ago
Most forms of organic farming still use pesticies, just different ones, with similar or worse health risks. >In head-to-head comparisons, natural pesticides don't fare any better than synthetic ones. When I compared the organic chemicals copper sulfate and pyrethrum to the top synthetics, chlorpyrifos and chlorothalonil, I found that not only were the organic ones more acutely toxic, studies have found that they are more chronically toxic as well, and have higher negative impacts on non-target species. My results match with other scientific comparisons. In their recommendations to Parliament in 1999, the Committee on European Communities noted that copper sulfate, in particular, was far more dangerous than the synthetic alternative. A review of their findings can be seen in the table on the right (from a recent review paper). Similarly, head to head comparisons have found that organic pesticides aren't better for the environment, either. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/pesticides-food-fears/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/pesticide...
- GW150914 8y ago
  Glyphosate is an herbicide, not a pesticide.
  - usaname 8y ago
    No herbicides, fungicides and insecticides are all pesticides.
    - GW150914 8y ago
      Sounds good, but the example given chlorpyrifos, is an insecticide. In context it was very clear that a mistake was made, and not by me.
adrr 8y ago
Organic pesticides are nasty stuff as well. "In 2010, a study was published detailing the progression of Parkinson's-like symptoms in mice following chronic intragastric ingestion of low doses of rotenone. The concentrations in the central nervous system were below detectable limits, yet still induced PD pathology.[31] In 2011, a US National Institutes of Health study showed a link between rotenone use and Parkinson's disease in farm workers." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotenone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotenone

Bud 8y ago

I hate articles like this. Zero useful data. Zero useful sources. And zero information about the levels of glyphosate which were found.

exp1orer 8y ago
That's fair, if a bit strong - this one has more [1]. "Separately, FDA chemist Narong Chamkasem found “over-the-tolerance” levels of glyphosate in corn, detected at 6.5 parts per million, an FDA email states. The legal limit is 5.0 ppm." Here[2] are the FOIA documents they're citing. The original article does link directly to an email with the 6.5 ppm figure[3]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/30/fda-weedkiller-glyphosate-in-food-internal-emails https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/30/fda-weedkill... [2] https://usrtk.org/pesticides/fda-foia-documents-regarding-glyphosate-residue-testing/ https://usrtk.org/pesticides/fda-foia-documents-regarding-gl... [3] https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Over-the-tolerance-finding-in-corn.pdf https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Over-the-tolera...
dandare 8y ago
This is part of the reason why people believe in conspiracy theories. This issue should be absolutely clear - either there is a harmful level of pesticides in our food or not. Any ambiguity should be investigated by the police as a public endangerment crime. There should be zero room four doubt in cases like this.
- ItsMe000001 8y ago
  > either there is a harmful level of pesticides in our food or not That is an impossible standard even if we had far better methods. One, "damage" is a continuum. Two, who is affected is a wide range. Three, we only test chemicals individually, and set threshold levels individually, but in reality mixing chemicals very often leads to vastly different effects. For example, when lead and mercury were tested together (LD testing) it was found toxicity increased a thousandfold compared to each one alone. But there is no way to test a meaningful number of combinations, and that would still leave out what happens in the extremely complex biochemical environment of a human body in any case. For the foreseeable future, maybe forever even in 10,000 years of solid scientific progress (because complex stuff remains complex), will be be able to do more than do guesstimates - and they will all be on a population level, don't even try to say anything definite about an individual. That means calling for "solid proof of damage" before anything gets banned is a sure way to stall any action almost indefinitely. I recommend a look at the history of lead (which has not yet ended at all). The most "solid proof" I can think of is a large scale and long-term human experiment, unthinkable. Even then you could raise doubts about the context/environment, methods, selected participants, etc. "Solid proof" is a lot less solid than a lot of people think, the text book examples of easy primitive physics experiments make it seem as if it's easy to find out things "for certain".

pmoriarty 8y ago

This reminds me of all the news reports of tests showing arsenic presence in rice (often due to rice being grown on soil where arsenic had been used as a pesticide for non-food crops such as cotton in the past). But what (if any) health effects did the detected amounts of arsenic in rice have? How how much arsenic in rice would be safe? The FDA investigated these questions and finally came out with a report: [1][2] Among their findings: "In the general population, limiting levels of inorganic arsenic to 200 ppb or higher would not change the cancer risk significantly. Setting a limit below 200 ppb of inorganic arsenic in rice and rice products would decrease the risk. Setting a limit of 150 ppb of inorganic arsenic in rice and rice products would decrease the risk between 0% and 23%. The risk reduction is between 2% and 47% at a limit of 100 ppb of inorganic arsenic in rice and rice products. Finally setting a limit at 75 ppb of inorganic arsenic in rice and rice products would decrease the risk between 17% and 79%. The percentage of risk reduction is dependent on the product (see Table 5.6)." "Setting a maximum level for inorganic arsenic in rice and rice products could affect availability in the U.S. market. For example, were we to set a maximum level of 100 ppb in these foods, the availability in the marketplace might decrease by 4% to 93%, depending on the type of rice." "In the general population, the cancer risk would decrease in proportion to decreases in serving size and frequency of consumption of rice and rice products. Conversely, the risk would double over a lifetime if the consumption frequency were increased from 1 serving per day to 2 servings per day during that entire period (see Table 5.9)." "Eliminating rice and rice products from the diets of infants and of children up to 6 years old could reduce the lifetime cancer risk from inorganic arsenic in rice and rice products by 6% and 23%, respectively. In other words, the risk model predicts that an infant not fed any rice or rice products has an approximately 6% lower chance of developing lung or bladder cancer from arsenic contamination of these foods, over the lifetime, compared with an infant who is fed these products (see Table 5.7)." Based on their research, the FDA proposed a limit of 100 parts per billion for inorganic arsenic in infant rice cereal.[3] Unfortunately, they did not propose any limits on arsenic in rice or rice products apart from infant rice cereal, so how much rice is safe to eat is still an open question. Still, their research and report are quite helpful in understanding the risk of arsenic exposure in rice, so consumers can now make informed decisions in regards to their own rice consumption. I hope the FDA will do something like that for glyphosate in food. Also, such research and limits are prime examples of good work done by a government agency to keep us all healthy in the face of a food industry and "free market" which are clearly not able or willing to effectively regulate themselves. [1] - https://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodborneIllnessContaminants/Metals/ucm319870.htm https://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodborneIllnessContaminants/Metals... [2] - https://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodScienceResearch/RiskSafetyAssessment/ucm485278.htm https://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodScienceResearch/RiskSafetyAsses... [3] - https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm493740.htm https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/u...

aldoushuxley001 8y ago

The Monsanto astroturfing crew is working hard in this thread. Really astonishing to see people claiming that glyphosafe has been shown to safe.

tptacek 8y ago
You're looking for some other forum, where this dumb debate about glyphosate (a-t-e) hasn't been rehashed ad nauseam 50 times before (quelle surprise, not everyone agrees with you!), and where you're actually allowed to accuse people who disagree with you of being "astroturfers". Here, on HN, if you believe someone is astroturfing, you quietly mail hn@ycombinator.com about and don't post it to the threads, where it is one of the very few arguments actually called out and forbidden by the site guidelines.
- aldoushuxley001 8y ago
  I guess that's why HN has limited success.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - tomhoward 8y ago
    The more successful forums where members delight in having their discussions degenerate into paranoid conspiracy mongering are eagerly awaiting your arrival.
    - aldoushuxley001 8y ago
      Oh it's conspiracy mongering to question the science behind a popular weedkiller? Wow, didn't realize! My apologies. I know HN is anti science sometimes but this is taking it to another level.
      - tomhoward 8y ago

imhelpingu 8y ago

Monsanto SMMs rot in hell imo.

ggm 8y ago

I'd like somebody in the space to explain why the FDA samples are more representative of the overall food supply than the random samples from food stores. There may be a good reason. There may be reasons why in some locations, food has higher traces than the FDA sees. How about (for instance) if its imported? Not that its good, but it would help explain I rather think that even though the FDA samples test ok, There is a moment where somebody should be regularly testing product the other side of the supply chain, for residues of pesticides and other things, and if we find them, it should be actionable if they exceed some threshold. So.. given these people found traces in the over-the-counter food chain, is nobody now legally obligated to do .. anything?

kaycebasques 8y ago
I think the article is implying that the “official” samples were probably supplied by people who are colluding with Monsanto. Well, it’s not fair of me to say that the article is implying that... it’s not. But that’s the conclusion I drew.
- ggm 8y ago
  Sure. It's the conclusion I'm tempted to draw too. But I'm trying to avoid walking into the grand conspiracy, too soon. I think the influence of Monsanto and others on the actions of the FDA are way out of whack, but there are many moments of innocent misunderstanding in this kind of report. I think it's most likely the classic incompetence/malice thing, or a misunderstanding of some kind. Like, FDA testing US farm produce, the shops selling unlabelled, imported, 'US origin' but actually sourced from somewhere else, and re-bagged...
  - kaycebasques 8y ago
    Fair enough, thanks for being healthily skeptical
bluGill 8y ago
Are those grocery store samples random? Getting truly random samples is hard.

torgoguys 8y ago

Here is the money quote that these articles seem to be based off of. From an email detailing progress on developing testing methods: >"I spiked a batch of broccoli at 0.002 ug/g and could detect the glyphosate pretty well but I did need to manually integrate some of the peaks. I used broccoli because it’s the only thing I have on hand that does not have glyphosate in it. I have brought wheat crackers, granola cereal, and corn meal from home and there’s a fair amount in all of them.” There is another email talking about the one corn sample being 6.5ppm, above the 5.0 threshold, also in the context of testing methods. So the corn sample could be an issue, but the headlines about it being everywhere, in implied high concentrations, seems premature unless I missed something in these emails. The tester used the broccoli because it had none and he could test detection down to 0.002 ppm, FAR below the 5.0 threshold. When he says there was a fair amount in everything else he had, we still don't know what that means. Was it .02ppm, .2ppm, 2.0ppm or what? The tone of the email and it's reply (not quoted above) doesn't suggest worry about a high rate to me.

hamparawa 8y ago

Although not scientifically proven(?), it is believed that the chronic kidney disease (CKD) is caused by Glyphosate. CKD is largely present in North Central, North Western, Uva and Eastern Provinces in Sri Lanka. https://www.news.lk/news/political-current-affairs/item/8198-govt-issues-gazette-notification-banning-glyphosate https://www.news.lk/news/political-current-affairs/item/8198...

Deestan 8y ago
It is also believed that the world is flat, and that magic crystals will protect your computer from viruses.

sabujp 8y ago

serious question so why doesn't everyone have cancer?

whatshisface 8y ago
A radioactive source could be distributed to the pockets of every living person, and while tons of people would get cancer there would still be some people who didn't. Carcinogens raise your risk of cancer.

ausjke 8y ago

Not surprised, what goes around comes around, sigh. This might change evolution gradually, in a bad sense.

Avshalom 8y ago

As a note: the throwing out of samples might not necessarily be sinister (on the FDA's end) so much as a result of the FDA's general hamstrungedness. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/02/bug-system https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/02/bug-system Key quote in there is that before the FDA is even allowed to ask for a recall they have to prove a DNA match between whatever caused food poisoning and the specific bag of whatever. If the FDA has extremely rigid chain of custody rules for what samples/test they're allowed to talk about in public and you had a billion dollars riding in them only reporting the best samples it might not be that hard to fuck with that chain of custody and disqualify anything you knew about.

ryanpcmcquen 8y ago

Welcome to America.

geggam 8y ago

When the FDA and Monsanto have a revolving door of executives why is anyone surprised at this ?

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davidclara4 8y ago

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TwoBit 8y ago

It seems to me that any sufficiently equipped lab can run these tests. How about Consumer Reports? Well Consumer Reports sucks these days so maybe somebody else...

vertexFarm 8y ago
That's a really good point. Are there independent tests corroborating this? If so, why hasn't the alarm been sounded before now? Or was it and nobody paid attention after the next news cycle?

ljk 8y ago

how could someone run these tests at home? does it require expensive equipment?

sndean 8y ago
I'm not aware of cheaper assays that may have been developed. So, yeah, it'd likely require buying a GC-MS (>$50,000), plus a gas source, whatever MS software, and some training. Alternatively, for ~$50 there are many core facilities at universities and elsewhere that'll happily run whatever sample you send them and email you back the results.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

Some interesting factoids here. - The US legal limit of glyphosate are vastly higher than the EU, ranging up to 10000% in some cases (cattle). (EU) [1] (US) [2] - Glyphosate has been declared a probably carcinogen by the World Health Organization. - Monsanto is the developer of glyphosate. The former head of the FDA, appointed by the last administration to a newly created position tongue in cheek referred to as 'The Czar of Foods', officially "Deputy Commissioner of Foods the FDA", was Michael Taylor. [3]. Michael Taylor was a Monsanto VP whose career was in large part started by legally arguing that companies ought be allowed to knowingly allow at least some percent of carcinogens into processed foods. - US regulatory agencies test thousands of products for hundreds of different chemical residues. Even though glyphosate is, by far, the most widely used chemical herbicide, it was never tested for until after the WHO declared it a probable carcinogen and private tests showed extremely high levels of glyphosate even in products where it should not be present in, such as honey. [4]. - Regulatory capture sucks. [1] - http://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/pesticides/eu-pesticides-database/public/?event=pesticide.residue.CurrentMRL&language=EN http://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/pesticides/eu-pesticides-data... [2] - https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/retrieveECFR?gp=1&ty=HTML&h=L&mc=true&r=SECTION&n=se40.26.180_1364 https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/retrieveECFR?gp=1&ty=HTML&h=L&m... [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_R._Taylor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_R._Taylor [4] - https://www.huffingtonpost.com/carey-gillam/fda-suspends-glyphosate-r_b_12913458.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/carey-gillam/fda-suspends-gly... (I am reluctant to link to a Huffington Post article, but this is far above their normal standards of quality, and provides a clear and factual overview. Searching for 'US glyphosate testing' turns up countless other sources if one would prefer not rely on Huffington.)

sebleon 8y ago

Whether you believe glysophate is carcinogenic or not, this scandal demonstrates how the FDA works for industry, not the people. If they had the taxpayers best interests at heart, they would not be concealing or halting research around a widespread potential carcinogen in our food supply.

kokey 8y ago

I bet you they also detect dihydrogen monoxide at near lethal dose levels in food samples, due to farmers spraying it on the crops. Some of that stuff even makes it into the rivers and flows into the ocean and can be detected in the fish in the sea.

dandare 8y ago
HN is not Reddit.
- kokey 8y ago
  Sorry, the point I was trying to make, immaturely, is that detecting contamination with potentially toxic substances doesn't necessarily mean it's dangerous. There's a lot of variables at play here and sometimes it spreading widely could mean it's because it's actually harmless or could even be necessary. With regards to glyphosate we have data of people who attempted to commit suicide by drinking quantities large enough to spray on 4000 sqft of cropland, or multiple times more of that.

shbm 8y ago

What food products do FDA chemists consume from the market is a question that would give us a lot of insight.

aembleton 8y ago

Many farmers routinely use Roundup and other herbicides to clear their fields of weeds before crops emerge in the spring. But what's more alarming is they’re also using glyphosate on crops shortly before they are harvested, in order to desiccate (dry out) the plants and make them easier to harvest. Glyphosate kills parts of the crop that haven’t ripened evenly, and dries the crop. This allows Combine harvesters to move more quickly and cover more ground during harvest, and may reduce drying costs. But applying glyphosate so close to harvest makes the likelihood of finding residues in food even higher. From https://www.soilassociation.org/our-campaigns/not-in-our-bread/what-is-glyphosate/ https://www.soilassociation.org/our-campaigns/not-in-our-bre...

notjtrig 8y ago

What I think people are missing is the relationship between GMO and Glyphosate. The first round of GMO seed available in America was Monsanto's 'RoundUp Ready' brand engineered to be sprayed with a unholey amount of RoundUp. In 2014 83% of GMO crop planted was modified to be resistant to herbisides, mostly RoundUp. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genetically_modified_crops https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genetically_modified...

brookhaven_dude 8y ago

And Dr Oz panned for railing against GMO and favoring organic food... And to the commenters saying "there is no evidence that GMO foods are harmful" or "non-USDA organic food is causing harm", you have to wonder at where does the burden of proof really lie in case of things that I am ingesting?

Truestuff 8y ago
The thing about science is that it's fairly easy to prove something is harmful. It's darn near impossible to prove something is safe. Organic food isn't 100% safe, and is more likely than conventional to be contaminated with pathogens such as e coli. But after 25 years of use with no proof otherwise, I'd say GMOs have met the burden of proof.

chriscappuccio 8y ago

If we make fun of homeopaths, we should make fun of the people worrying about 6.5ppm glyphosate exposure too!