The lies from you just keep coming, don't they, Tom? It's unfortunate that the ecofundamentalists have to rely on nonexistent science and, when confronted, turn to bald-faced lies to attempt personal destruction.
In contrast to me -- who has both science and truth on his side.
Tell me, Tom, who do *you* work for? How much money do
*you* make every year promoting the anti-science agenda?Now, run away, hypocrite.
billo
Fine. However, don't pretend you know what the article actually says.
More important, it is bad practice to cite an article you haven't read as evidence it says what it does not say.
Well, no. If you are knowledgeable about the area it will not be meaningless. You don't have to be doing research in the field, you merely have to know what the procedures are.
Moreover, it is important to read the article if you are going to be *using* that article in any kind of scientific discussion.
"As a scientist" I consider it lazy and profoundly poor practice to cite articles I have not bothered to read.
This is particularly true in a scientific discussion where one is citing articles as if one did *not* find them meaningless.
But, OK. I'll be happy to agree that you all are citing articles in areas of which you are profoundly ignorant, you don't know what the articles actually mean, and that you are not competent to understand the articles had you actually bothered to read them.
If that's the claim you want to make, run with it. Otherwise, read the articles and don't pretend they say what they don't say.
billo
Sure, no problem.
Try:
Williams GM, Kroes R, Munro IC. "Safety evaluation and risk assessment of the herbicide Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, for humans." Regul Toxicol Pharmacol 2000
31:117-165.The danger of Roundup is so small that it is difficult to provide any study that will show any excess mortality. Attempts to do so have failed. However, it is possible to calculate the excess mortality of all pesticides/herbicides put together (of which Roundup is among the most safe).
Thus, lumping Roundup in with known carcinogens and bad actors, you can get some data about the real environmental risk in terms of excess cancer mortality.
On average, there are 20 excess deaths per year in the US due environmental exposure to all pesticides and herbicides combined, out of a total of around
560,000 total cancer deaths in 1999.In 1981, Doll and Peto's epidemiologic estimates of quatitative cancer risk found pesticide/herbicide exposure to be negligible (Doll R. Peto R. "The causes of cancer: quantitative estimates of avoidable risks of cancer in the United States today" J. Natl. Cancer Institute. 1981 1191-1308.).
This study was confirmed in 1987 by the EPA (Gough, M. "Estimating cancer mortality: epidemiological and toxicological methods produce similar assessments." Environ Science and Technology 23:925-930).
This was again confirmed in 1996 by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences who found that "the great majority of individual naturaly-occuring and synthetic chemicals in the diet appear to be present at levels below which any significant adverse biologic effect is likely, and so low that they are unlikely to pose an appreciable cancer risk." (NRC,
1996 "Carcinogens and anticarcinogens in the human diet: A comparison of naturally occurring and synthetic substances. National Research Council. Washington, DC. National Academy Press.In particular they note that "there is no direct evidence that herbicide residues, when regulated and monitored, significantly affect human cancer risk." (Chapter 7, Section 7.1.2 "Herbicides.")
World Cancer Research Fund. "Food, Nutrition, and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective." New York: American Institute for Cancer Research. ISBN 1899533052 670 pp
"8. The Panel did not find any exising evidence that crop protection chemicals and lawn and garden products are likely to be a major cause of cancer."
(Ritter, L., Clark, H. Kaegi, E., Morrison, H., Sieber, S. "Report of a panel on the relationship between public exposure to pesticides and cancer." Cancer 80:2019-2033,1997)
billo
... and not *one* of them makes the claim to show that Roundup is not safe when used as directed. Not one.
billo
It's not that uncommon. There's a psychiatric disorder called polydipsia in which people drink too much water. See:
Lightenberg, JJM, et al. "A lethal complication of psychogenic polydipsia: cerebral edema and herniation" Intensive Care Medicine 1998 24:644-645
Clearly, we must ban water.
billo
Yeah, and the stupid World Health Organization, National Institutes of Health, Environmental Protection Agency, National Cancer Institute, etc. All part of that great Monsanto Conspiracy.
billo
billo, each reader can judge for him/her self what information the abstract provides; he/she can then decide whether they want to look at the full paper and/or whether the abstract is sufficient for their purpose. In making that decision I expect that they will take into consideration that the scientists involved, the editor, and the reviewers have mutually agreed that the paper was worth publishing and that the abstract represented what is in the paper. I would also expect that they will take into consideration the reputation of the journal and the authors' affiliations.
If you feel that the editor and reviewers were in error in approving the wording/publication, you are entitled to submit your own analysis of any paper for publication. It will be sent to reviewers, and then the editor will review their comments and make a decision on whether your comments/interpretation are worth publishing.
Henry Kuska, retired snipped-for-privacy@neo.rr.com
The abstract does not claim that Roundup is dangerous to humans when used as directed. Your implication, by including it is that it does.
I never claimed that it was a bad paper. I simply note that it does not claim what you imply. It is a good paper that does not claim that Roundup is dangerous when used as directed. Your attempt to pretend otherwise is what I object to.
I don't have to. I have no quarrel with what the paper actually
*says.* I have a quarrel with your implication that it claims something it does not claim.In particular, it does not pretend to show that Roundup is dangerous to humans when used as directed. In fact, the authors are careful *not* to make that claim. I applaud the authors. I take issue with your attempt to pretend the authors claim something they do not claim.
billo
Biiio, states: "> More important, it is bad practice to cite an article you haven't
H. Kuska comment: it is interesting how you can come up with "rules" of "practice", I have tried to point out to you (with documentation) what the procedures are for writing abstracts and that the editor and reviewers have decided whether what is in the abstract accurately reflects what is in the paper. AND "> Moreover, it is important to read the article if you are going
H. Kuska comment: again one of your "rules" (see below for applicable comment). AND "> "As a scientist" I consider it lazy and profoundly poor practice to
H. Kuska comment: first, you have not given any indication that you are a scientist, second, I have been communicating on the internet in scientific discussions since the internet was first available for scientific discussions (that was the original purpose of the internet). Most scientific libraries are not wealthy enough to purchase each and every journal, plus there are articles in many different languages. Apparently, the scientists that I have been communicating with feel very confident in discussing a paper based on its abstract. If you are a scientist and refuse to partake in such discussions that is your decision. AND "> This is particularly true in a scientific discussion where one
H. Kuska comment: if the editor and reviewers did not consider the paper "meaningless" I find your conclusion that it is meaningless, well, shall I say "interesting". AND "> But, OK. I'll be happy to agree that you all are citing articles
H. Kuska comment: wow! Is this the writing of someone who was trained to be a professional scientist?????? Maybe you can set up logic diagrams to show us how you reached such conclusions. AND "> If that's the claim you want to make, run with it. Otherwise,
H. Kuska comment: The complete abstract was given. The editor and reviewers decided it represented the paper.
Henry Kuska, retired snipped-for-privacy@neo.rr.com
Billo states: "> The abstract does not claim that Roundup is dangerous to humans when used as directed. Your implication, by including it is that it does."
H. Kuska reply: the topic of this thread is not determined by you, it is determined by the original August 26 post:
------------------------------------------- "Mindfully.org note: Roundup Unready just barely touches on the problems with Roundup. Its target genetically engineered crops are commingling with weedy relatives, thus creating super weeds. This is indeed a major problem for commercial farmers around the world. In his article on Jan. 14, 2003, Andrew Pollack wrote that Roundup-tolerant crops are now found in "Delaware, Maryland, California, western Tennessee and at the edges of the Corn Belt in Ohio and Indiana." Canadian canola farmer, Percy Schmeiser says superweeds are ubiquitous throughout Canada. But I'd like to broaden the scope of discussion here by including the human and animal health effects of Roundup. It is both a carcinogen (non-Hodgkin's lymphoma) and an endocrine disruptor (inhibits steroidogenesis). The testing that revealed those two points looked at glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup, by itself. The complete formulation is even more toxic.
One of the premises for Roundup and genetically engineered crops was that they would reduce the use of toxic pesticides. And Roundup was billed as being "as safe as table salt," until the Attorney General of the State of NY won a suit against Monsanto for such lies. Some farmers have had to use as much as 6 times the recommended amount of Roundup to come close to killing some of those super weeds. To sidestep the lost efficacy, Monsanto is mixing the good 'ol standard pesticides into Roundup that it was supposed to safely replace as well as tweaking the concentration of glyphosate in the mix. The result is that more toxic chemicals are used in spite of the "official" reports of lowered quantities. The Roundup story is also political, but that can wait for another day."
------------------------------------------------------------ H. Kuska reply, continued: your key word seems to be based on the word "imply", See
Henry Kuska, retired snipped-for-privacy@neo.rr.com
However, you posted in response to my challenge. I wrote a challenge to show a single article in a peer-reviewed scientific journal that purported to show that Roundup was dangerous to humans when used as directed.
I gather then, that when you posted in reply to that challenge, you were actually *not* posting in reply to that challenge, but merely posting non-responsive things that had nothing to do with the claim that Roundup is or is not dangerous to humans when used as directed.
Good. I'm glad we've cleared up that your article posts have nothing to do with the question of whether or not Roundup is dangerous to humans when used as directed, and we agree that these articles do not do that.
Next time, when I challenge people to provide an article showing that Roundup is dangerous to humans when used as directed, and you post a reference as a follow-up, please point out that you are not responding to that challenge, but instead that you are responding to some other, unrelated post. That will clear up any confusion as to whether or not you are actually pretending that your posts are responsive.
billo
Yeah. Here's a "rule." If you want to pretend you know what an article says, read it. Don't fake it.
Blah blah blah. Yeah, I have been communicating on the internet in scientific discussions since the internet was first available for scientific discussions, too. And I don't care if you can or cannot read a foreign language. If you don't bother to read an article, don't pretend to know what it says.
And the bottom line is that it's even *sillier* to ignore what is *in* the article because it isn't in the abstract.
The fact is that the authors of these articles do *not* make the claim that Roundup is dangerous to humans when used as directed -- in the abstract *or* in the article. The difference is that in the article they go into details as to why the cannot make that claim. Since you can't bring yourself to read the articles, you miss that little bit.
Read the context, buddy. Go back and see where "meaningless" was used and how it was used in the sentence I was replying to. It referred to the *reader* finding the article meaningless because he or she was not competent to understand the article. It did not refer to anything about the authors. Surely you are not that silly; why are you trying to willfully misstate my position?
Your attempt to make my reply say something that I clearly did not mean doesn't say much for your skill at divining information from scientific articles without reading them.
Yawn. Here's a clue. There's a reason journals contain whole articles and not just abstracts. It's because important stuff is in the *articles.* The idea that one can read a two paragraph abstract and get everything that's in a 20-page article is just silly.
billo
In article , snipped-for-privacy@radix.net (Bill Oliver) wrote:
Oliver) wrote:
Touchy touchy. When you make a decision to be as wrong as you enjoy being, you should just keep repeating the same three or four basic lies you're so enamored of, & keep citing & re-citing Monsanto's man Ian Munro as the only "good" science. But when you reduce yourself to calling your betters "stupid" over statements you yourself cooked up from scratch, well, you'll barely even convince your personal choir if you keep that up.
You list in your alleged "conspiracy" FOR Monsanto some of the same organizations you've previously deplored for releasing non-peer-reviewed warnings against Monsanto products, but now suddenly you dream up new positions for all of them! Although Monsanto still distributes a 1994 W.H.O. statement that glyphosate is not a proven carcinogenic, WHO has published warnings against RoundUp for other reasons, & are not even any longer repeating that it is not a carcinogen, leaving that open due to the most recent evidence. You (like Monsanto) may LOVE what WHO said ten years ago, but have to overlook what they've said since. And what WHO presently says is that acrylamide & polyacrylamide neurotoxic pollution of the food chain is already a very real health hazard (Weis, Science 27, 2002). These pollutants are reaching the environment almost exclusively from additives in RoundUp that are supposed to reduce the also-serious problem of "drift" (such as has killed century-old hedges along the English countryside). These pollutants are finding their way into tubrous vegatables & in fruits, further assisted by the RoundUp surficant in penetrating plant cells [Smith, Ecotoxicol. Env.35, 1996; 37, 1997; Leonard, J. Chromatographic Sci 37, 1999]. Now it is true that WHO in their first published article felt it political expedient to not mention Monsanto by name when warning against the Monsanto chemicals in RoundUp, & this "oversight" was spun out into a scandal by people annoyed that they skipped that chance to point the finger in the only direction feasible. It remains, WHO is now spreading warnings against the use of chemicals dispersed into the environment in the Monsanto product, & they are calling it a dangerous neurotoxin.
RoundUp additives as deadly neurotoxins in the foodchain pretty much outweighs WHO's studies that showed nothing more than this: if people & animals eat a lot of glyphosate-tolerant GM crops, they won't drop dead -- that's what Monsanto likes to hear, but it's not much of an endorsement. What WHO is saying more clearly about RoundUp Ready crops is that they do indeed result in super-weeds, & almost every month WHO's profound scepticism about RoundUp Ready crops increases over the bases of neurotoxic additives reaching the foodchain & weeds becoming superweeds. WHO have furthermore blasted Monsanto very confrontationally about the milk-modifying products -- both for Monsanto lying about the amount of hormone still in the milk, & the beef & milk being in general unsafe. WHO has even implicated Monsanto's rBGH in Mad Cow Disease because of hormone injections increasing cattle susceptibility. In the very near future the USA may be the ONLY country left that does not warn consumers about rBGH contaminating beef & milk -- & WHO is really pissing off Monsanto for having come down on the right side of this issue. So while WHO has done a few things that got them a bit of backlash & embarrassment for walking "too carefully" around Monsanto's justly hurt feelings, overall, no, WHO is NOT your personal Monsanto-lovin' buddy.
And EPA's in on your alleged conspiracy to assist Monsanto? Their recurring investigations & chastisements of Monsanto for inventing statistics & fabricating studies doesn't make EPA Monsanto's best buddy either, though hiring people out of EPA into giant-salery jobs, & buying off Congress to restrict EPA from action, doesn't make EPA quite the watchdog they should be until we get out from under the current Republican big-corporation preferences. So again, you may selectively find EPA letting Monsanto get away with murder (literally) here & there, but in total, many at the EPA deplore the harm Monsanto persists in doing, & do not trust Monsanto to provide research findings that isn't phony.
But oh yes, the National Cancer Institute -- I notice you don't say National Cancer Society which is independent of Monsanto. I still think your allegation of "Conspiracy" doesn't apply when Monsanto is so proud & publicity-happy about their take-over of the NCI. They built NCI's City of Hope institute then placed it under the control their own Monsanto employee, Michael Friedman (senior Vice President of Clinical Affairs for Monsanto, as well as National Cancer Institute chief of clinical investigation), assisted by another Monsanto vice-president, Philip Needleman -- all to make sure NCI research remains "Monsanto-appropriate" So yes, you can find NCI claiming the decaying byproduct of RoundUp, formeldehyde, does not cause cancer no matter how great the evidence that it is, & other Monsanto-serving nonsense generated in a Monsanto-built lab run by Monsanto-appointed researchers & officers. Oh yes, Friedman is a piece of work, & you're quite right to charge him with serving exclusively Monsanto/Searl/Merkh/Dupont interests, but it's not a Conspiracy because that implies secrecity, & NCI is very up-front about serving Monsanto & Merkh foremost. But what happened back when it was NCI that first publicized the fact that Monsanto is directly responsible for the increase of non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma in America? Oh right, that was before Monsanto built the new lab & put their own man in charge -- back when NCI told Congress that non-Hodgson lymphoma was six times higher in Anniston than nationally, thanks entirely to Monsanto, which has done nothng to this day to correct the Anniston problem except tell the people not to go outside in their own yards.
Even now though, we can look to the National Cancer SOCIETY for a bit more independence. NCS has been warning against glyphosate-contaminated chicken, cattle, hog, & goat meats, plus eggs & soybean products, since
1996. They have warned since 1992 that Monsanto pesticide & herbicide (including trimethylsulfonium salt of glyphosate) has been implicated in non-Hodgson's lymphoma.You can call the facts a "conspiracy theory" until the cows come home, but the truth is the truth. Glyphosate & other Monsanto products get a clean bill of health when Monsanto pays for or personally orchestrates the study
-- that's self-interest, not conspiracy. Studies independent of Monsanto, devoid of self-interest, provide a much more mixed picture, one that generally warns of sundry dangers ranging from probable to definite. And what they have to say about Monsanto's milk-contaminating hormones really ain't pritty.
So keep on bleeting "Ecofundies!" and "Conspiracy theories!" -- that may indeed, in the end, be your only possible tactic, having by now run your favorite Ian Munro bullshit "science" further than it ever reached.
-paghat the ratgirl
In article , snipped-for-privacy@radix.net (Bill Oliver) wrote:
There he goes again, Henry, the Bleeting Billo Shillo! He well knows THERE IS NO SAFE WAY TO USE ROUNDUP. He has yet again given as truth his own redundancies (his mere bleeting "when used as directed, bleet bleet"). Using deadly toxins "as directed" is a labeling procedure that achieves a minimal level of legality only. As it turns out, it is even based on falsified data. It is also based on some bits of real data derived from decay periods that occur ONLY in controlled laboratory conditions & do not apply to gardens or crops. These "directions" overlook temperature variance, overlook bonding with other chemicals in the environment, overlook actual soil conditions that can in many instances permit glyphosate to remain active for months to over a year depending on percentage of organic content & numbers of microorganisms, overlooks even the fact that it is a MIX of chemicals squirted all over the place & not the individidual chemicals given limited testing in laboratory conditions, overlooks the chemicals which this mix of toxins breaks down into some of which are known to be increasingly toxic & carcinogenic, overlooks the untested chemicals & chemical combinations since there's a lot more in a jug of RoundUp than is on the label, overlooks the dioxane & other contaminants inevitably in RoundUp, even overlooks the fact that the surficant alone increases the toxicity of glyphosate & its ability to enter cells -- all that before evne getting to the sad fact that tons of it are NOT used as directed, though Monsanto sells it for off-label uses all the time, even for use directly in watersheds, & applied directly on RoundUp Ready crops so as to toxify basic food products. The "as directed" instructions are fraudulant to begin with, these instructions are based on phantasmagoric invention, then it is sold for off-label use anyway.
Which is why independent non-Monsanto studies have found RoundUp to be risky for people even with minute exposures, & most assuredly harmful to the environment in HUGE ways, even when used "as directed" since there really is no way to use it safely.
I know Billo Shillo will retell the same old couple of lies again & again, though, cuz that's all he's got left.
-paghat the ratgirl
LOL so the second coming has happened and I missed it!!!
ALL HAIL PRINCE OF SCIENCE!!!
Billo Shillo is a bundle of "tactics" but is not in the least interested in the logical. He'll wear you down eventually by his completely moronic repetitious bleetings for "cites!" when you just gave seven cites, then claim he beat you at a pissing match he was playing with himself, aiming it into his own mouth very effectively. No matter how well & correctly he is answered, & no matter how many times, he will pretend were never answered at all, or that your answer stinks, then he'll eventually get round to re-posting his most preferred citation (from a known fraud) while pretending he's read everything & you've not, always pretending his "everything" couldn't be found in a single PR piece generated by Monsanto.
If he knew for a certainty his whole family would drop dead within the week he wouldn't change his position, because his position was never based on rationality. His trust in Monsanto is like a guy who fired a rifle at three of his four kids, killing each in turn with the Agent Orange bullet, the PCBs bullet, & the beef hormones bullet, & yet still willing to try the round-up-bullet next & kill the fourth kid too, because the manufacturer insisted THIS time the latest bullet really will safely bounce off a child's noodle.
-paghat the ratgirl
Any fool with a modicum of internet skills can find that your UNC professors have worked as consultants for Monsanto. Your own leadership in your current position have consulted with and worked for Monsanto. Circumstantial? Perhaps, but your fervor clearly provides your identity as billo the Monsanto shillo....
Well, at least he's only making claims for "his side," which is not the environment's side quite clearly! If his side really is to harm the environment then science & truth supports that he does so when using RoundUp! Extinction of two frog speces so far; loss of century-old hedges in England to glyphosate drift; stunting of plants seeded into areas treated with glyphosate MONTHS before seeding; weakening of winter tolerance in shrubs & trees & greater susceptibility to fungal diseases all caused by RoundUp when "used as directed." And even if someone in his family DOES come down with nonhodgson's lymphoma, who's to say it wasn't Shillo's brand of table salt after all, rather than the Roundup contaminating the foodchain.
-paghat the ratgirl
Hey, I'm not the prince of science, I just don't choose to ignore it because it conflicts with my cult.
billo
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