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Remember when Bayer (who now owns Monsanto) intentionally sold HIV infected blood in South America? The people that own these companies would sell their own gra
by user3939382 3y ago
Remember when Bayer (who now owns Monsanto) intentionally sold HIV infected blood in South America? The people that own these companies would sell their own grandmother for $5. They’re poisoning the world, as science and litigation they couldn’t buy their way out of has evidenced, and we get people on here “hacktually”ing their defense. Glyphosate is used for only one reason, it’s profitable for Monsanto.
- jaredhallen 3y agoGlyphosate is used because it works.
- onemoresoop 3y agoIf it's causing problems it may actually work more for the party profiting than the rest. "It just works" is lazy...
- permalac 3y agoI use it to kill the driveway weeds, works like a charm.
- thghtihadanacct 3y agoWell, let us know if/when you or your kids get kidney disease or any of the other listed diseases associated with it. I feel knowing the dangers and using it anyway should auto opt-out one out of the class action settlement. Ever try a weed eater or gloves? Gasoline would work just as well, probably less toxic
- m00x 3y agoYou're a lot less likely to get roundup in your system from killing weeds outside than eating vegetables and fruits that have been bathed in it.
- robbiep 3y agoYou don’t spray roundup over vegetables and fruits
- m00x 3y agoFarms do.
- orwin 3y agoNo. It's a weedkiller. Putting it ON the fruits would be expensive and useless. In conventional/industrial agriculture, its used after harvest and before seeding. In intelligent agriculture , it's used a day before seeding.
- Qem 3y ago> No. It's a weedkiller. Putting it ON the fruits would be expensive and useless. So, why Monsanto went all the trouble of developing GMO crops resistant to it, if it is intended just for the weeds?
- robbiep 3y agoThere is roundup-ready Cotton, Soybeans, Corn and Canola, that I am aware of. My family grows Roundup-ready cotton. The other 2 are used for animal feed; in no case is any farmer going to be spraying it when it is fruiting, because once the weeds have got to that point you've already lost all the benefit of it being 'roundup ready' - where the purpose is for weeds to be killed so they don't take the moisture which is now conserved for the crop. There are no roundup-ready vegetables that I am aware of, or fruits.
- CheBuzz 3y agoThere's RR Alfalfa as well, but your point still stands.
- 3y ago
- permalac 3y agoI'm not eating the weeds.
- thghtihadanacct 3y agoOf course, eating weeds is the only way to get exposed to environmental carcinogens ... that you just poured on your driveway. gotcha
- Turing_Machine 3y agoRight. Farmers and other end users don't give a crap whether it's "profitable for Monsanto" or not.
- qup 3y agoProbably half of them are buying the Tractor Supply knock-off brand, anyway.
- colordrops 3y agoIt "works". It kills weeds but there are externalities that are not accounted for with such a narrow view.
- m00x 3y agoNot only does it work, it's by far the safest herbicide we've used so far. People love to complain about herbicides, pesticides and fungicides, but they're the same people who would complain if their food was suddenly 8x the price because farm yields would go back to the pitiful amount it was before we had these chemicals. I've worked in agriculture for a couple years while doing my Biology undergrad. People who used chemicals had a HUGE increase in yields vs others. Be thankful we're not longer using things like Agent Orange and DDT.
- msandford 3y agoYeah that's all fair. But the problem is that since as the safety improves so does how people use it. More safe means we can use more since it's not as scary. It's so safe we can spray it on the wheat two weeks before harvest to make sure it's good and dry. Hopefully it doesn't rain!
- squidbeak 3y agoIt works at giving people chronic kidney disease and killing them. Probably it shouldn't be used or legal to use it.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoEvery alternative will kill even more people. Other herbicides are even more dangerous, and not using herbicide will cause food prices to go up. High food prices kill far more people than herbicides do.
- rnk 3y agoThere are other alternatives than use a herbicide that kills a certain number of people. The thing is that massive multi-billion dollar companies absolutely try to sabotage any consideration of the safety of their pesticides, because it's so much money to them. If you are a researcher, you'll be getting into a fraught area if you are doing a study to validate it's safety. It's similar to looking into climate science - the crazies will come for you, and probably the pseudo-non-climate-scientist people taking money from exxon.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago> There are other alternatives than use a herbicide that kills a certain number of people. Like what? What impact would that have on food prices? Glyphosate costs $10 / acre, or maybe 15 cents per bushel of wheat.
- thghtihadanacct 3y ago>Other herbicides are even more dangerous, and not using herbicide will cause food prices to go up ... This research brought to you by Mansanto :D
- bongoman37 3y ago[dead]
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago> Glyphosate is used for only one reason, it’s profitable for Monsanto. Farmers love glyphosate because it kills weeds very effectively. It’s hard to exaggerate how much of a neat thing glyphosate was considered in the agricultural world when it appeared. That’s the reason it is used. Now, the reason it is produced and sold is that it is profitable for Monsanto, and regulation hasn’t stopped Monsanto.
- diogenes4 3y agoGlyphosate kills far more than just weeds (whatever those are).
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bluGill 3y agoGlyphosate is well studied and affects cell paths that don't exist in humans.
- cvccvroomvroom 3y agoWould you drink it?
- undersuit 3y agoYou may call it a weed, I call it my garden.
- nickff 3y agoI was not aware of this story, but found that there is a Wikipedia page on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_haemophilia_blood_products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_haemophilia_blood... I don't think it's quite as clear as you put it, and Bayer was by no means the worst offender in this regard. Other related scandals are linked to at the bottom of the Wikipedia page, and the Canadian Red Cross (for example) seems to have behaved even more negligently.
- stevenwoo 3y agoOne would hope a company (Bayer) that arose out of history of using slave labor, medical experimentation and providing cyanide gas during the holocaust would be a little better corporate citizen than not quite as bad as the other guys.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jtbayly 3y agoNot quite as bad as the Red Cross? I’d take that as a commendation any day of the week.
- gruez 3y ago>Glyphosate is used for only one reason, it’s profitable for Monsanto. "iPhones are used for one reason, it's profitable for Apple" "pizzas are eaten for one reason, it's profitable for Pizza Hut"
- tivert 3y ago> Glyphosate is used for only one reason, it’s profitable for Monsanto. It's used because it's effective broad-spectrum herbicide. My understanding it's quite a bit less toxic than its predecessors, and I understand there's no equivalent replacement on the horizon. IIRC, the problem was they marketed it as practically nontoxic to humans, which is definitely not the case.
- m00x 3y agoSo far, there is monumental evidence that it's non-toxic to humans at normal doses. This study doesn't prove it's toxic. It only introduces the aspect that it might be associated to kidney disease. Everything is toxic to humans at the right dose, even water.
- LorenPechtel 3y agoI would call causing chronic kidney disease to be toxic. It sounds like they evaluated the chemical itself but didn't evaluate what could happen to the chemical once it was in the environment.
- throwaway290 3y ago> It sounds like they evaluated the chemical itself but didn't evaluate what could happen to the chemical once it was in the environment. I bet that's most of evaluations and it's probably not even required to take into consideration the environment and how it can change the response...
- cvccvroomvroom 3y agoAnd I would hazard a guess that this "mountain of evidence" was bought and paid-for by Monsanto.
- faeriechangling 3y agoI would hazard to guess that it’s been on the market for over half a century and has been controversial for eons and mountains of independent research has been done on it by this point notably by national health orgs. Of course Monsanto is putting its finger on the scales of both the research that is done and the research that is seen but they are not some sort of omnipotent evil.
- zzzeek 3y agofollowing that, the most prevalent use for GM crops is herbicide tolerance, where glyphosate is the most common herbicide targeted [1]. If you posted on Hacker News eight years ago that you thought it was a good idea for GM foods to be labeled, you'd be roundly mocked with all the data showing genetic modification is safe (as I'm sure is about to happen here anyway). That was never what the debate was about and it was a straw man. The debate was over things like this. Why GM was being pushed so hard, by whom, and what that genetic modification implies about the food its associated with. Consumers should have the right to opt out, or at least be aware, of when they are participating in these agricultural markets. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_crops#Glyphosate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_crops#Gly...
- riversflow 3y ago> Why GM is pushed so hard. Well go on, don't just eldude to it. Spell it out. My understanding is that GM is pushed so hard because while farming is the most necessary thing humans do, it's also highly undesirable labor and the pay is shit. It's also risky business, on a long enough timeline every crop fails. Consumers should grow their own food if they are worried. See how hard it is. My experience is that 99% of the people who are agasinst Roundup haven't ever done a day's farming.
- wrs 3y agoMonsanto introduced proprietary GMO crops that were resistant to Roundup so you could easily wipe out every plant that wasn’t the crop (aka “weeds”). It was a package deal. > In 1996, Monsanto introduced the Roundup Ready soybean, a genetically engineered crop resistant to glyphosate. In the few years after, Roundup Ready cotton, maize, and various other crops also made their debut. https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2015/roundup-ready-crops/ https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2015/roundup-ready-crops/
- mardifoufs 3y agoSure, but that's not a bad thing. Plus, farmers still use it without using GMO resistant crops.
- jimnotgym 3y agoThings are often not black and white. Farmers used to plough fields after harvest. This kills weeds. It also uses a lot of power, so burns a lot of diesel and releases CO2. Ploughing also allows carbon trapped in organic material in the soil to break down and releases yet more CO2 as well as destroying soil structure. Low/no till farming seeds directly into last year's stubble. This uses much less diesel so releases much less CO2. Organic matter in the soil builds up, trapping more carbon, and improving soil health. But now the weeds grow unchecked and destroy the crop. A common variation of the above low till method it to 'cultivate' (sort of scuff up) the surface of the soil after harvest. This causes weeds to germinate. Then you spray them with glyphosate (Roundup), and can almost immediately start sowing your crop. This allows you to farm with much less carbon released, lower fertilizer usage (also reducing carbon). Roundup allows farming with lower inputs and better soil health and less carbon released. That is why so many people defend its use.
- daddylongstroke 3y agoYes, but it causes cancer and chronic disease on a massive scale. I am a farmer who provides most of my family's food and has been for a looong time. I am shocked that you literally just claimed that roundup allows for better soil health. Roundup literally kills the soil over the long term.
- tptacek 3y agoGlyphosate is used because it is more effective and less toxic than the alternatives, and because it's straightforward to make some plants immune to it.
- 6nf 3y agoPfizer is still trustworthy though even after the 2.3 billion fine they got for Bextra alone