7 ms·

The Poison Papers: Hidden history of chemical and pesticide hazards in the U.S

204 points by BarrySeal 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Terry_Roll 5y ago
Dose dependent is also worth bearing in mind. Reactive Oxygen Species is also reportedly quite harmful but I guess everything has its place.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  for many (maybe even most) compounds there is no safe low-level dose/exposure. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5736171/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5736171/
  - Terry_Roll 5y ago
    So too low to stimulate an immune system response based on a typical diet is what this appears to be saying? I do find some Vitamin RDA's to be pernicious!
- mistrial9 5y ago
  LD50 casual reading, not very casual. Carcinogens - who can say with all the confounding factors? Endocrine-disruptors ? people are overly sensitive.. right? </s> zero trust in big Ag here, truly
  - Terry_Roll 5y ago
    Big Ag are likely to also be Big Pharma though, they are chemists, and then depending on their skillset/knowledge/money they specialise in producing certain types of chemicals, thats not to say they couldnt diversify either. However when is Big Ag is to plants what medicine is to humans? The only problem with farming is they have got good at growing to a certain point in order to maximise yields for human consumption, and this might not always be good for our health. For example, B5 Pantothenic acid, little in pig feed because little causes fat to build up around organs, lots causes fat to deposit under the skin. Supermarkets dont want an inch or two of fat under the skin. So Farmers do what their customers (supermarkets) want, however supermarkets also like to trump out they are meeting customer demand. Is this genuine demand or manufactured consent from the media? If the media, where do they get their opinions from, the editor, or someone else or Govt Legislation? If Govt Legislation, where do they come up with it? Driven by the public or by some other knowledge perhaps military? Or is the above just a bit of everything in a pseudo chaotic fashion, little more than the blind leading the blind?
    - mistrial9 5y ago
      I worked in computer aided chemistry professionally for almost two years, in California. Both of my managers had PhDs in Chemistry -- they didn't need any help from me on that. I wrote C/C++ code for them. my opinions are my own
      - Terry_Roll 5y ago
        So I remember watching a farming program years ago about what could best be described as the hot potato. So chemicals get sprayed on a field of crops and one of the crops would take up more of the chemicals than those around it. It meant that individual plant would be above "safe" or legal levels but because it was impossible to detect which of the plants was the one above allowed levels, they never got tested. I'm also aware of the glyphosate over use issue and how thats been causing health problems. Glyphosate reduces Testosterone levels in rats according to one study and was intergenerational ie the lowered levels were seen in offspring. I think its some sort of management plan for global population levels. Dont know if thats what you are getting at?
- dieselerator 5y ago
  > Reactive Oxygen Species is also reportedly quite harmful but I guess everything has its place. Yes, I think it does. Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) are generated as part of the metabolic pathway. That is in processes essential for life. Though the details of the biochemistry are beyond me, I recall Cytochrome c oxidase [1] produces H+ used to power ATP generation. Along the way it produces ROS. Of course there are other mechanisms for neutralizing the ROS. The point is ROS probably not something to get too agitated about. [1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytochrome_c_oxidase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytochrome_c_oxidase>
  - Terry_Roll 5y ago
    When thinking about cell signalling and sensing, I wonder if a group of cells generate ROS to "nuke" a faulty cell, I say nuke because ROS will destroy surrounding healthy cells. The problem with this theory, is its hard to see it working in anything other than a test tube! Lets face its not like we can audit each and every cell, its contents and condition in a body is it!?! Sure we can use some magnetic spin with some chemicals, or radioactice isotopes with others, but the sensing equipment is what holds us back with in vivo studies, so then its back to the patient provided metadata to form an opinion.
coin 5y ago
> The Poison Papers is a project of The Bioscience Resource Project and The Center for Media and Democracy. Center for Media and Democracy has a bias against pesticides and conventional agriculture. CMD runs Sourcewatch.org, which has no problem attacking scientists (like Kevin Folta) that speak favorably of biotech (GMOs), but conveniently has no entry USRTK, an organic funded advocacy group. This is is because CMD's executive director Lisa Graves sits on the board of USRTK. I don't trust CMD to present a balanced, evidence based view of things.
- sammalloy 5y ago
  Sourcewatch cites reliable sources alleging Folta has a conflict of interest as an industry spokesperson. How in the world does that make CMD biased? https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Kevin_Folta https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Kevin_Folta I don’t see how your position could possibly be tenable.
  - coin 5y ago
    Many of the sources have CMD ties (Carey Gillam who works for USRTK), are anti-GMO activist groups (GM Watch), have financial interests (Rachel Parent makes money from her anti-GMO views, her parents sell natural products), or law firms suing Monsanto.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  with this much money at stake, absolutely nothing, including courts, will present a balanced and evidence based view of things. EVER. It's an unachievable idea. Maybe, if someone is being viciously attacked by both sides, then maybe, just maybe ~10%, or so, of what they say is unbiased, but it's still hard to disentangle that apart from the wrong/incorrect/biased other things they said.
  - Mathnerd314 5y ago
    I'm optimistic about Wikipedia. The popularity means if an important fact is missing it will get added, and the entrenched interests mean the fact will get reverted if it isn't balanced. Hence an article presenting a balanced, complete viewpoint is the steady state. But of course the article isn't guaranteed to reach that state.
culi 5y ago
The real harm of pesticides is rarely talked about. The impact on human health, while important (particularly in the third world), is minimal compared to the ecological devastation its done to our soils (and therefore the quality of our food). Today, one would have to eat eight oranges to derive the same amount of Vitamin A as our grandparents would have gotten from one. A study tracking 43 different types of vegetables found "reliable declines" in protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin, and vitamin C in the past half century for all 43 of these vegetables.[0] Estimates say mineral levels in our vegetables have dropped by up to 90% since 1914.[1] Over 90% of all plants rely on mycorrhizal fungi for the MAJORITY of their nutrients. Our obsession with sterile soil has driven countless numbers of these species to extinction and continues to drive one of the largest, and most overlooked, ongoing mass extinctions today. It's not just pesticides either. Artificial phosphorus fertilizers impede the complex plant signaling dance necessary for plants to make this essential connection with these soil fungi Even if you're not worried about the direct implications pesticides have to your risk of cancer or other diseases, you should absolutely be aware of the nutritional impacts they are having on our produce [0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-an... [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6163803/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6163803/
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  I'm more interested what happens, when we kill of the last of the insects by those pesticides, and the effect goes up the food chain. Considering the history and eg. killing of the sparrows (four pests campaign), the results might be a lot worse than adding checmically produced nutrients to our diet.
  - culi 5y ago
    I don't know if you heard the part about the vast majority of plants being dependent on soil fungi for the majority of their nutrients Sure commercial crops still make it to fruit because farmers take care to add the necessary fertilizers and plant hormones to keep them going, but rest assured that this is a major driver of plant extinction as well Plants have the smallest trophic level. Without plants, there's no insects either. There's no way you could care about insect extinction and somehow not care about this issue
TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
Why did the EPA collude with industry to hide or debunk studies? How is it in their interest unless they are bribed?
- titzer 5y ago
  > unless they are bribed? I think you answered that question yourself. They may not be "bribed" directly, but they are put under the direct influence of politicians who can be bought through campaign contributions and lobbying.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    Nobody in the EPA is under the direct influence of a politician. The head is appointed by a politician and confirmed by others. > politicians who can be bought through campaign contributions and lobbying Some, and to different degrees. Who was bought regarding the EPA and what influence do they have?
- hammock 5y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  The EPA head is a political appointment, even without being bribed they often hire people that already have deep connections to those industries.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    How much of the EPA is political appointees and how much is career professionals? How are the career professionals insulated from politics? Who has what power?
- Spooky23 5y ago
  The government has a lot of stakeholders to manage. If we declare the methods that keep the Midwest alive as the breadbasket of the world and the deserts of California and Arizona as our greenhouses as catastrophes, what’s next? New Jersey isn’t going to be the garden state again. My grandfather used to buy tomatoes in Paramus from a farm cooperative, now a Westfield mall. Meat is similar. You don’t have to use gross feedlots and unsustainable husbandry methods. But… distributed meatpacking was unionized and hard to consolidate. In the long run, we’ll have hard times and small scale gardens for vegetables, etc will come back. Where I live in upstate NY, agriculture is absolutely devastated - like 70% of small farmers are basically out of business in a few years if not already. But Amish families are scooping up property in some areas and make a lot of money on farming with non-conventional methods.
freddealmeida 5y ago
So much is hidden over the last 50-80 years. So much is hidden now.
cryptica 5y ago
The worst thing about this is that the people who are responsible for all these transgressions only get a slap on the wrist, a small fine and then they can keep doing what they've been doing... Accumulating more wealth and power, imposing their neglectful and deceptive approach on the employees who work for them, the companies they invest in and the governments they lobby... No wonder the west is on the verge of collapse now. The system has been rewarding the wrong behaviors and the wrong people and now they set all the rules.

204 points by BarrySeal 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Dose dependent is also worth bearing in mind. Reactive Oxygen Species is also reportedly quite harmful but I guess everything has its place.

inter_netuser 5y ago
for many (maybe even most) compounds there is no safe low-level dose/exposure. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5736171/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5736171/
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
  So too low to stimulate an immune system response based on a typical diet is what this appears to be saying? I do find some Vitamin RDA's to be pernicious!
mistrial9 5y ago
LD50 casual reading, not very casual. Carcinogens - who can say with all the confounding factors? Endocrine-disruptors ? people are overly sensitive.. right? </s> zero trust in big Ag here, truly
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
  Big Ag are likely to also be Big Pharma though, they are chemists, and then depending on their skillset/knowledge/money they specialise in producing certain types of chemicals, thats not to say they couldnt diversify either. However when is Big Ag is to plants what medicine is to humans? The only problem with farming is they have got good at growing to a certain point in order to maximise yields for human consumption, and this might not always be good for our health. For example, B5 Pantothenic acid, little in pig feed because little causes fat to build up around organs, lots causes fat to deposit under the skin. Supermarkets dont want an inch or two of fat under the skin. So Farmers do what their customers (supermarkets) want, however supermarkets also like to trump out they are meeting customer demand. Is this genuine demand or manufactured consent from the media? If the media, where do they get their opinions from, the editor, or someone else or Govt Legislation? If Govt Legislation, where do they come up with it? Driven by the public or by some other knowledge perhaps military? Or is the above just a bit of everything in a pseudo chaotic fashion, little more than the blind leading the blind?
  - mistrial9 5y ago
    I worked in computer aided chemistry professionally for almost two years, in California. Both of my managers had PhDs in Chemistry -- they didn't need any help from me on that. I wrote C/C++ code for them. my opinions are my own
    - Terry_Roll 5y ago
      So I remember watching a farming program years ago about what could best be described as the hot potato. So chemicals get sprayed on a field of crops and one of the crops would take up more of the chemicals than those around it. It meant that individual plant would be above "safe" or legal levels but because it was impossible to detect which of the plants was the one above allowed levels, they never got tested. I'm also aware of the glyphosate over use issue and how thats been causing health problems. Glyphosate reduces Testosterone levels in rats according to one study and was intergenerational ie the lowered levels were seen in offspring. I think its some sort of management plan for global population levels. Dont know if thats what you are getting at?
dieselerator 5y ago
> Reactive Oxygen Species is also reportedly quite harmful but I guess everything has its place. Yes, I think it does. Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) are generated as part of the metabolic pathway. That is in processes essential for life. Though the details of the biochemistry are beyond me, I recall Cytochrome c oxidase [1] produces H+ used to power ATP generation. Along the way it produces ROS. Of course there are other mechanisms for neutralizing the ROS. The point is ROS probably not something to get too agitated about. [1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytochrome_c_oxidase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytochrome_c_oxidase>
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
  When thinking about cell signalling and sensing, I wonder if a group of cells generate ROS to "nuke" a faulty cell, I say nuke because ROS will destroy surrounding healthy cells. The problem with this theory, is its hard to see it working in anything other than a test tube! Lets face its not like we can audit each and every cell, its contents and condition in a body is it!?! Sure we can use some magnetic spin with some chemicals, or radioactice isotopes with others, but the sensing equipment is what holds us back with in vivo studies, so then its back to the patient provided metadata to form an opinion.

coin 5y ago

> The Poison Papers is a project of The Bioscience Resource Project and The Center for Media and Democracy. Center for Media and Democracy has a bias against pesticides and conventional agriculture. CMD runs Sourcewatch.org, which has no problem attacking scientists (like Kevin Folta) that speak favorably of biotech (GMOs), but conveniently has no entry USRTK, an organic funded advocacy group. This is is because CMD's executive director Lisa Graves sits on the board of USRTK. I don't trust CMD to present a balanced, evidence based view of things.

sammalloy 5y ago
Sourcewatch cites reliable sources alleging Folta has a conflict of interest as an industry spokesperson. How in the world does that make CMD biased? https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Kevin_Folta https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Kevin_Folta I don’t see how your position could possibly be tenable.
- coin 5y ago
  Many of the sources have CMD ties (Carey Gillam who works for USRTK), are anti-GMO activist groups (GM Watch), have financial interests (Rachel Parent makes money from her anti-GMO views, her parents sell natural products), or law firms suing Monsanto.
inter_netuser 5y ago
with this much money at stake, absolutely nothing, including courts, will present a balanced and evidence based view of things. EVER. It's an unachievable idea. Maybe, if someone is being viciously attacked by both sides, then maybe, just maybe ~10%, or so, of what they say is unbiased, but it's still hard to disentangle that apart from the wrong/incorrect/biased other things they said.
- Mathnerd314 5y ago
  I'm optimistic about Wikipedia. The popularity means if an important fact is missing it will get added, and the entrenched interests mean the fact will get reverted if it isn't balanced. Hence an article presenting a balanced, complete viewpoint is the steady state. But of course the article isn't guaranteed to reach that state.

culi 5y ago

The real harm of pesticides is rarely talked about. The impact on human health, while important (particularly in the third world), is minimal compared to the ecological devastation its done to our soils (and therefore the quality of our food). Today, one would have to eat eight oranges to derive the same amount of Vitamin A as our grandparents would have gotten from one. A study tracking 43 different types of vegetables found "reliable declines" in protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin, and vitamin C in the past half century for all 43 of these vegetables.[0] Estimates say mineral levels in our vegetables have dropped by up to 90% since 1914.[1] Over 90% of all plants rely on mycorrhizal fungi for the MAJORITY of their nutrients. Our obsession with sterile soil has driven countless numbers of these species to extinction and continues to drive one of the largest, and most overlooked, ongoing mass extinctions today. It's not just pesticides either. Artificial phosphorus fertilizers impede the complex plant signaling dance necessary for plants to make this essential connection with these soil fungi Even if you're not worried about the direct implications pesticides have to your risk of cancer or other diseases, you should absolutely be aware of the nutritional impacts they are having on our produce [0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-an... [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6163803/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6163803/

ajsnigrutin 5y ago
I'm more interested what happens, when we kill of the last of the insects by those pesticides, and the effect goes up the food chain. Considering the history and eg. killing of the sparrows (four pests campaign), the results might be a lot worse than adding checmically produced nutrients to our diet.
- culi 5y ago
  I don't know if you heard the part about the vast majority of plants being dependent on soil fungi for the majority of their nutrients Sure commercial crops still make it to fruit because farmers take care to add the necessary fertilizers and plant hormones to keep them going, but rest assured that this is a major driver of plant extinction as well Plants have the smallest trophic level. Without plants, there's no insects either. There's no way you could care about insect extinction and somehow not care about this issue

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago

Why did the EPA collude with industry to hide or debunk studies? How is it in their interest unless they are bribed?

titzer 5y ago
> unless they are bribed? I think you answered that question yourself. They may not be "bribed" directly, but they are put under the direct influence of politicians who can be bought through campaign contributions and lobbying.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  Nobody in the EPA is under the direct influence of a politician. The head is appointed by a politician and confirmed by others. > politicians who can be bought through campaign contributions and lobbying Some, and to different degrees. Who was bought regarding the EPA and what influence do they have?
hammock 5y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
boomboomsubban 5y ago
The EPA head is a political appointment, even without being bribed they often hire people that already have deep connections to those industries.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  How much of the EPA is political appointees and how much is career professionals? How are the career professionals insulated from politics? Who has what power?
Spooky23 5y ago
The government has a lot of stakeholders to manage. If we declare the methods that keep the Midwest alive as the breadbasket of the world and the deserts of California and Arizona as our greenhouses as catastrophes, what’s next? New Jersey isn’t going to be the garden state again. My grandfather used to buy tomatoes in Paramus from a farm cooperative, now a Westfield mall. Meat is similar. You don’t have to use gross feedlots and unsustainable husbandry methods. But… distributed meatpacking was unionized and hard to consolidate. In the long run, we’ll have hard times and small scale gardens for vegetables, etc will come back. Where I live in upstate NY, agriculture is absolutely devastated - like 70% of small farmers are basically out of business in a few years if not already. But Amish families are scooping up property in some areas and make a lot of money on farming with non-conventional methods.

freddealmeida 5y ago

So much is hidden over the last 50-80 years. So much is hidden now.

cryptica 5y ago

The worst thing about this is that the people who are responsible for all these transgressions only get a slap on the wrist, a small fine and then they can keep doing what they've been doing... Accumulating more wealth and power, imposing their neglectful and deceptive approach on the employees who work for them, the companies they invest in and the governments they lobby... No wonder the west is on the verge of collapse now. The system has been rewarding the wrong behaviors and the wrong people and now they set all the rules.