5 ms·

It's striking how many of these "product safety" cases are decided in the court of public opinion, independent of actual scientific merit. The case of DDT was p

It's striking how many of these "product safety" cases are decided in the court of public opinion, independent of actual scientific merit. The case of DDT was pretty interesting. More recently, we have microplastics - no one has really shown they're dangerous to humans, but there's enough hand-waving that "everyone knows" they're killing us. And aspartame, etc... Glyphosate is probably the safest of the things people spray their lawns with. I don't think we should - the worst you get on a typical suburban lawn if you mow but don't spray are dandelions and clover - but it's probably not giving you cancer. As for food... again, there are far worse, more persistent pesticides that escape this kind of scrutiny.

tptacek 5mo ago
Worth noting here that the trier of fact in this case mostly agrees with you about this stuff; the issue is that the state statutes in question created strict liability conditions for failure to comply with warning label regimes. The plaintiff brought substantive charges about Roundup to the case, and the jury rejected them.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
thayne 5mo ago
> the worst you get on a typical suburban lawn if you mow but don't spray are dandelions and clover I also get a lot of morning glory AKA bindweed that kills my grass. But spraying doesn't really help with that anyway, so :shrug:.
- EvanAnderson 5mo ago
  Bindweed is evil incarnate in plant form. Wouldn't wish that on anybody.
  - jay_kyburz 5mo ago
    We hand some log droughts here about 10 years ago where you were not allowed to water the lawn at all. I would have expected a single dominate weed to take over, but instead, if I let the grass grow for 6-8 weeks in summer I get this amazing field of different knee length plants. And it alive with bee's and butterflies. I much prefer it to lawn.
    - gzread 5mo ago
      You must not live under an HOA. They'll fine you for not making your house look the same as everyone else's.
    - PyWoody 5mo ago
      I would love to do that, if if weren't for ticks.
titzer 5mo ago
Well I don't know of people claiming that microplastics are "killing us", there are dozens of papers that implicate microplastics in negative health effects from hearts to intestines, to sperm. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2309822 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2309822 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.3c09524 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.3c09524 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c03924 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c03924 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-3964(24)00405-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-39... There are a lot of studies that find correlations, and then are studies like this one that show that the direct introduction of microplastics alters cell functions negatively: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12692081/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12692081/ I think at this point we should stop talking about how "there's no data" or "no studies" and "no one has shown" and graduate to "oh, maybe should figure out the extent of the damage." Microplastic pollution is a global problem amongst a whole host of global pollution problems. We'd do well to try to figure out how bad it is, because it isn't going away. Oh, and we should probably work on fixing all of our pollution problems, especially cumulative ones like this.
- tptacek 5mo ago
  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/13/microplastics-human-body-doubt https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/13/micropla... (This is a summary of a Nature Matters Arising article).
  - internet_points 5mo ago
    I understood that article as there being many bad studies on how much plastics are in our body. But I find it highly unlikely there isn't any plastic in my body, from my toothbrush or chewing gum or water bottle or that old black plastic spatula I fry my eggs with or the air that pushes all kinds of particles into me etc. etc. And studies like your parent comment's https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12692081/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12692081/ make it seem likely that they could have some negative effect. So I'm not worried about it, but I also find it a good idea to be cautious (maybe I'll avoid heating food in plastic containers) and for there to be more research into it.
adzm 5mo ago
People are usually spraying broadleaf herbicides on their lawn like 2,4-D to control things like dandelions and yard plantains. Glyphosate just kills everything. Personally I only use it very selectively on poison ivy.
pfdietz 5mo ago
> Glyphosate is probably the safest of the things people spray their lawns with. Glyphosate kills grass, so I would not recommend this unless you are planning to reseed from scratch (or replace the grass with something else). Are there "Roundup Ready" grass seeds?

tptacek 5mo ago

Worth noting here that the trier of fact in this case mostly agrees with you about this stuff; the issue is that the state statutes in question created strict liability conditions for failure to comply with warning label regimes. The plaintiff brought substantive charges about Roundup to the case, and the jury rejected them.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

thayne 5mo ago

> the worst you get on a typical suburban lawn if you mow but don't spray are dandelions and clover I also get a lot of morning glory AKA bindweed that kills my grass. But spraying doesn't really help with that anyway, so :shrug:.

EvanAnderson 5mo ago
Bindweed is evil incarnate in plant form. Wouldn't wish that on anybody.
- jay_kyburz 5mo ago
  We hand some log droughts here about 10 years ago where you were not allowed to water the lawn at all. I would have expected a single dominate weed to take over, but instead, if I let the grass grow for 6-8 weeks in summer I get this amazing field of different knee length plants. And it alive with bee's and butterflies. I much prefer it to lawn.
  - gzread 5mo ago
    You must not live under an HOA. They'll fine you for not making your house look the same as everyone else's.
  - PyWoody 5mo ago
    I would love to do that, if if weren't for ticks.

titzer 5mo ago

Well I don't know of people claiming that microplastics are "killing us", there are dozens of papers that implicate microplastics in negative health effects from hearts to intestines, to sperm. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2309822 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2309822 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.3c09524 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.3c09524 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c03924 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c03924 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-3964(24)00405-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-39... There are a lot of studies that find correlations, and then are studies like this one that show that the direct introduction of microplastics alters cell functions negatively: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12692081/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12692081/ I think at this point we should stop talking about how "there's no data" or "no studies" and "no one has shown" and graduate to "oh, maybe should figure out the extent of the damage." Microplastic pollution is a global problem amongst a whole host of global pollution problems. We'd do well to try to figure out how bad it is, because it isn't going away. Oh, and we should probably work on fixing all of our pollution problems, especially cumulative ones like this.

tptacek 5mo ago
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/13/microplastics-human-body-doubt https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/13/micropla... (This is a summary of a Nature Matters Arising article).
- internet_points 5mo ago
  I understood that article as there being many bad studies on how much plastics are in our body. But I find it highly unlikely there isn't any plastic in my body, from my toothbrush or chewing gum or water bottle or that old black plastic spatula I fry my eggs with or the air that pushes all kinds of particles into me etc. etc. And studies like your parent comment's https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12692081/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12692081/ make it seem likely that they could have some negative effect. So I'm not worried about it, but I also find it a good idea to be cautious (maybe I'll avoid heating food in plastic containers) and for there to be more research into it.

adzm 5mo ago

People are usually spraying broadleaf herbicides on their lawn like 2,4-D to control things like dandelions and yard plantains. Glyphosate just kills everything. Personally I only use it very selectively on poison ivy.

pfdietz 5mo ago

> Glyphosate is probably the safest of the things people spray their lawns with. Glyphosate kills grass, so I would not recommend this unless you are planning to reseed from scratch (or replace the grass with something else). Are there "Roundup Ready" grass seeds?