Unlikely to be ammonium sulphate, it's a widely used nitrogenous fertiliser, used by amateurs and professionals alike. It's been common practice for ages for gardeners to add a little washing-up liquid to insecticides, fungicides and herbicides, to aid wetting and hence take-up by the bugs or greenery that's being sprayed. As you say, many of these chemicals now have a wetting agent included in the formulation.
Thanks, just ordered some.
We evolved from plants, we are made of the same stuff.
No, we evolved from monkeys. Everyone knows that.
OK. That's nice and clear.
But, I'm not so confidant on how the animal body responds to it directly. In house test reports suggest no ill effects.
I am more than confident that Monsanto have done extensive testing.
What is known is that our gut bacteria do have the shikimate pathway. Is that important enough?
I am more than simply suggesting it is harmless.
...What's a Bee, daddy?
Rubbish. We did not evolve from plants. See the evolutionary tree here
Nor are we made 'of the same stuff'. Plants are mostly cellulose, i.e. carbohydrate. Mammals, including us, are mostly fat and protein.
But you know both of those facts, and you are just being provocative. A typical troll.
Assume its Prods Weed nymshifting again
Not so. If the EU did not exist, or did not have regulatory powers over agrochemicals, then each country would be free to ban or not ban glyphosate in its own territory. It is only because the EU exists and has this power that member states are able to impose a ban on glyphosate use in *other* member states, by blocking the licence renewal.
In short, the EU provides a mechanism whereby the authorities of one state can enforce their wishes on another.
That is true, but does not contradict what I said (above). In my view, when it comes to carcinogenic substances it is better to be safe than sorry. If the present regulations had been in place, thalidomide would never have been allowed once its danger was suspected. The same is true of asbestos.
The scientific evidence on glyphosate is not clear, and until it is determined to be safe by both the IARC and ECHA I would prefer its use to be limited.
But both were withdrawn when their properties became known anyway?
There is a flaw in the logic that says 'because it happened on the EUs watch, it wouldn't have happened without the EU'
All over the world product controls are getting tighter. Not just in t EU.
Null points
Scientific evidence is seldom that clear. You are arguing for the precautionary principle which is itself logically flawed. If we never do anything we aren't sure about, we never will do anything at all.
IN the 19th century, people were concerned that no one travelling over
30mph in a locomotive would be able to breathe. There was no scientific evidence whatsoever that it was safe. Fortunately some people went and did it anyway.There is considerable evidence that the common potato, if it were introduced today, would not meed standards and would be banned for possible toxicity
How many Irish depended on it to stay alive?
Nothing is without risk, and everything has a risk/reward or cost/benefit price associated with it. Managing risk, and taking calculated risks, is how humanity got to where it could be stupid enough to think that a risk free society could, and should, be constructed.
That particular scenario only exists in dreamland. Try to imagine a world w here for the last century no new substances were permitted until proven not carcinogenic. We'd now have caught up to the living standards of the 1920s , and vast numbers would have died that needn't have.
The idea of a safe world is a nice thought, but nothing more. Perhaps in 50
0 years we'll get there. For now we're stuck with everything having risks, and trying to weigh up the risks and benefits of each thing.I'm not so sure, thalidomide is in clinical use today after all.
that's another story
By the same logic it would be time to say bye bye to cookers, cars, almost all medicines, mains electricity, even modern farming would be out with its reliance on toxic chemicals and vehicles. Glass windows too. And stairs. A nd electric light, power tools, etc etc.
IMHO we really should stop telling children that life is risk free.
NT
Maybe you'd like to consider the latest from the IARC:
I don't see the relevance of this. Unless you are saying that this warning (about drinking very hot tea or coffee) is absurd, and that therefore the IARC should be ignored.
If you read the article you cite you will see that several authorities support the warning, and no-one seems to say it is mistaken.
The job of the IARC is precisely to identify environmental causes of cancer. They seem to me to pursue this end in a scientific manner.
So? science can inform, or obfuscate, depending how you use it.
The point is that the 'precautionary principle' is bollocks.
'Don't know for sure' and 'one chance in a million' are being used to block very very useful and lifesaving things.
Usually for profit or for political expediency.
asbestosis was first recognized in the US in 1933, when it was found that 29% of workers in an asbestos factory had it. It was generally accepted by 1950 that asbestos caused lung cancer, with even the Encyclopedia Britannica stating this as a fact.
But regulations governing asbestos production in the UK were not set until 1969, with asbestos producers still denying the existence of asbestosis.
There is no such law anywhere in the world, as far as I know. The IARC (a branch of the WHO) studies substances that are in use, and which are suspected of being carcinogenic.
I think that ii spinning the facts.
The link to asbestosis was known well back, but there are two sorts of asbestos, and it wasn't clear that *minor* exposure to asbestos was in anyway harmful. And indeed there still is no evidence that it is.
As with Radon, the evidence is more that until the bodies natural defences get overwhelmed - usually with smoking - and you cant cough it out, it's actually not very harmful.
Because it does get coughed out.
It's even worse than that, in the UK the first official report by the factory inspectorate on the evil effects of asbestos and its dangers to workers' health was in 1898 it wasn't until 101 years later that it was finally banned!
I taught for many years in Barking where it was known as "the Barking cough" and many of my students had relatives dying from "asbestosis" due to them either working for Cape Asbestos, living on the housing estate built on part of the contaminated site of the old factory or working with asbestos. One of my friends who had been employed in the dismantling of part of the plant died a horrible death only 3 years ago.
The workers were told that drinking half a bottle of milk a day would protect them from the effects of asbestos!
eg see:
Alan
Talk about spinning facts ...
"Because asbestos fibers attach to the membranes that line the chest cavity and cover the lungs, they cannot be coughed out or washed out."
Cheers, T i m
But there are two minerals, both called asbestos, both used for similar purposes, but chemically and physically different. White asbestos, a fibrous form of the mineral Chrysotile, has short fibres. These can be engulfed by the macrophages that scavenge impurities from the body, and because of its chemical composition, can slowly dissolve over a year or two. Consequently it is less harmful than blue or brown asbestos, fibrous varieties of the mineral crocidolite. Despite this, there has been much pressure to include white asbestos with blue and brown asbestos, as a precautionary measure. White asbestos is commonly used as a reinforcing agent in asbestos-cement products. Blue and brown asbestos types are extensively used for thermal insulation. They have much longer fibres than those of white asbestos. They are too long to be totally engulfed by macrophages, and together with their different chemistry, do not dissolve, eventually causing the very specific cancer, mesothelioma. While prolonged exposure to white asbestos may cause asbestosis, this is a specific form of pneumoconiosis, of which other forms are silicosis, miners' lung, farmers' lung etc.
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