2,4-D herbicide 'possibly' causes cancer in humans

[tcreeley]

Steve- this is the guy who wrote what you quoted. He has a facebook blog.

 

[tjkadar]

Monsanto's annual revenue is $14.8 billion. Whole Food's, a single player in Big Organic, annual revenue is $12.9 billion. Looks pretty evenly matched to me. Organic farming is also big business. Large, thousand acres farms are heavily involved in organic farming using the same methods as 'nonorganic' farming. The difference is in the application of chemicals. Yes, they still use chemicals. It isn't chemical free. They just use different ones. Some farms will raise organic and nonorganic crops at the same time. Albeit in different fields. For a lot of farmers, the question to go organic or not is a business decision based on profitability.

If you want to read a follow up to the Radium Girls, try The Plutonium Files by Eileen Welsome. It will horrify you. A tasty tidbit is MIT experimenting on 57 developmentally disabled children by feeding them radioactive oatmeal. It gets worse. It is real and it happened.

I believe in the scientific process, not activism.

 

[Sodo]

I believe in the scientific process, not activism.

If theres money (behind either one), then what is it you believe in?

Is the money behind increasing the market? Investment profits? Is it behind increasing the health of our citizens? Longevity of our croplands? Increasing safety? Decreasing hunger? The money's put there for a purpose and you can get what you want (either way) within the scientific process.

One can say profit requires activism.

 

[tcreeley]

re the Radium Girls- those are just sad stories. It was not until it ended up in court (activism of a sort) that the corporation changed its worker safety protocol. Then no more people had the bones in their face fall apart. As to the radium girls- for the most part, they all died.
Government is frequently careless of the safety of its citizens. That does not usually change until activism enters the picture. People hate activism because it upsets the apple cart, and generally money is involved in rectifying situations. -Re the radio active cereal by MIT- that was at the Fernald State School for MR folks right? That place was a neglected nightmare show of abuse and looking the other way until a class action suit was filed by parents with years and years of consent decrees and inspections by the judge in the case. Activism works - helps counter the apathy of neglect on the part of so called responsible people.

Monsanto is building a global monopoly re gmo patent seeds and no till glyphosate application. -Just like with tobacco, this will go down to the bitter end. Of interest though, non-organic companies are starting to buy out their organic competitors. ...capitalism and controlling the marketplace.

This is an interesting one:

GMO study finds 'indications of harmful and adverse effects' - The Ecologist

GMO study finds 'indications of harmful and adverse effects'


15th July 2015

"A new biosafety report for the Norwegian Environment Agency says GM foods cannot be declared safe due to major gaps in the science, writes Nafeez Ahmed. Indeed research clearly indicates harmful and adverse impacts to both health and environment. But Monsanto insists that GMOs are just as safe as, or even safer than, conventional crops. ......"

 

[tjkadar]

If theres money (behind either one), then what is it you believe in?

Is the money behind increasing the market? Investment profits? Is it behind increasing the health of our citizens? Longevity of our croplands? Increasing safety? Decreasing hunger? The money's put there for a purpose and you can get what you want (either way) within the scientific process.

One can say profit requires activism.

I. Trust. The. Scientific. Process.

In case you don't understand what that is, I'll spell it out in detail.

Make an observation or observations.
Ask questions about the observations and gather information.
Form a hypothesis — a tentative description of what’s been observed, and make predictions based on that hypothesis.
Test the hypothesis and predictions in an experiment that can be reproduced.
Analyze the data and draw conclusions; accept or reject the hypothesis or modify the hypothesis if necessary.
Reproduce the experiment until there are no discrepancies between observations and theory. “Replication of methods and results is my favorite step in the scientific method," Moshe Pritsker, a former post-doctoral researcher at Harvard Medical School and CEO of JoVE, told Live Science. "The reproducibility of published experiments is the foundation of science. No reproducibility – no science."

Some key underpinnings to the scientific process/method:

The hypothesis must be testable and falsifiable, according to North Carolina State University. Falsifiable means that there must be a possible negative answer to the hypothesis.
Research must involve deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning is the process of using true premises to reach a logical true conclusion while inductive reasoning takes the opposite approach.
An experiment should include a dependent variable (which does not change) and an independent variable (which does change).
An experiment should include an experimental group and a control group. The control group is what the experimental group is compared against.

It doesn't matter who pays for a study. Good science is good science. Bad science is crap. There is a lot of crap out there passing itself off as science. It isn't. This is further exasperated by the media touting crappy studies as gospel. As an environmental scientist, I am experienced in reviewing documents and judging the veracity of the study on its merits. An unbiased slant towards a hypothesis is fairly easy spot... at least to my experienced eye. Other times you have to carefully the data or the method of data collection to spot inconsistencies. That is why a single study, without peer review, without reproducibility by another source, isn't accepted until such time that those other things occur.

It is fairly easy to spot 'activism science' if one applies the criteria of the scientific process/method. Unfortunately, America is very anti-science and extremely closed minded. It has become unacceptable to have a viewpoint that differs from another's. This is very apparent in politics.

 

[tjkadar]

re the Radium Girls- those are just sad stories. It was not until it ended up in court (activism of a sort) that the corporation changed its worker safety protocol. Then no more people had the bones in their face fall apart. As to the radium girls- for the most part, they all died.
Government is frequently careless of the safety of its citizens. That does not usually change until activism enters the picture. People hate activism because it upsets the apple cart, and generally money is involved in rectifying situations. -Re the radio active cereal by MIT- that was at the Fernald State School for MR folks right? That place was a neglected nightmare show of abuse and looking the other way until a class action suit was filed by parents with years and years of consent decrees and inspections by the judge in the case. Activism works - helps counter the apathy of neglect on the part of so called responsible people.

Monsanto is building a global monopoly re gmo patent seeds and no till glyphosate application. -Just like with tobacco, this will go down to the bitter end. Of interest though, non-organic companies are starting to buy out their organic competitors. ...capitalism and controlling the marketplace.

This is an interesting one:

GMO study finds 'indications of harmful and adverse effects' - The Ecologist

GMO study finds 'indications of harmful and adverse effects'


15th July 2015

"A new biosafety report for the Norwegian Environment Agency says GM foods cannot be declared safe due to major gaps in the science, writes Nafeez Ahmed. Indeed research clearly indicates harmful and adverse impacts to both health and environment. But Monsanto insists that GMOs are just as safe as, or even safer than, conventional crops. ......"

Monsanto is far, far from a monopoly. They are not the sole source of glyphosate or GMO patent seeds. The aren't even the largest producer of said products.

The article linked above is pretty bad. Even a quick read of the actual study will show that. The study itself, at first blush, appears to be fairly sound (essentially, it says there needs to be more studies). But I'm way too tired to review 85 pages, in depth, right now. I've my own deadlines and my own study to finish by the end of the month.

If you want to believe Monsanto is the devil, go ahead. To me, they're just another company - some bad, some good, some indifferent.

 

[tcreeley]

This is a good one too as now The FDA uses "equivalent values" for GMO and non-GMO crops- fuzzying the information.

New US Soy Study Invalidates FDA ‘Substantial Equivalence’ Regulations on GMOs


Posted on Jul 15 2015 - 12:00am by Sustainable Pulse

A new study published today in the peer-reviewed journal Agricultural Sciences reveals genetic engineering of soy disrupts the plant’s natural ability to control stress, and invalidates the FDA’s current regulatory framework of “substantial equivalence” used for approval of genetically engineered food (GMOs).

The study, led by Dr. V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai, Ph.D., an MIT-trained systems biologist, utilizes his latest invention, CytoSolve, a 21st century systems biology method to integrate 6,497 in vitro and in vivo laboratory experiments, from 184 scientific institutions, across 23 countries, to discover the accumulation of formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, and a dramatic depletion of glutathione, an anti-oxidant necessary for cellular detoxification, in GMO soy, indicating that formaldehyde and glutathione are likely critical criteria for distinguishing the GMO from its non-GMO counterpart.

Dr. Ayyadurai stated, “The results demand immediate testing along with rigorous scientific standards to assure such testing is objective and replicable. It’s unbelievable such standards for testing do not already exist. The safety of our food supply demands that science deliver such modern scientific standards for approval of GMOs.”.......
Access Forbidden - sustainablepulse.com

complete study here: PEER-REVIEWED PAPER SUGGESTS GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SOY (GMO) PRODUCES EXCESS FORMALDEHYDE AND DISRUPTS NATURAL PLANT METABOLISM | International Center for Integrative Systems

 

[tjkadar]

Did Sustainable Pulse even read the study before they came up with their alarmist content? Again, in this case, the study is valid while the article reporting the study draws conclusions not apparent in the study itself.

Conclusion
In conclusion, systems science may provide the path forward in moving beyond the current debate and controversy,
constrained by a reliance on reductionist approaches, to a new paradigm of systems biology that enables a
systems understanding of 兎quivalence and/or 電ifference between a GMO and its non-GMO counterpart.

Future Direction
The methodology and results of this effort provide many areas of future research. There are four areas, in particular,
that are relevant undertakings as logical and immediate next steps.
First, is to test the hypothesis that glyphosate action in endocrine disruption may likely be mediated through
its upregulation of formaldehyde. The current framework is poised to conduct such in silico analysis.
Second, since C1 metabolism is present in gut bacteria of animals, it is possible to predict formaldehyde accumulation
and glutathione depletion in the microbiome, and its subsequent effect on various disease models
affecting the health of the host.
Third, to address the logical question why a GMO product survives and appears to maintain a phenotypic
homeostasis, in spite of the deleterious biological impacts predicted from this research, future research can be
conducted to demonstrate that it is likely that the GMO is in a perturbed state and has 殿djusted to an unnatural
allostasis, a result of a significant disruption from its normal homeostasis.
Fourth, since little is known concerning the mechanism of methylation and how it affects the regulation of
genes, future work can incorporate emerging research towards understanding how changes in the numbers of
methyl groups modify methylation processes and how genes are targeted for methylation, affecting epigenetic
phenomena in plants.

 

[tcreeley]

Did Sustainable Pulse even read the study before they came up with their alarmist content? Again, in this case, the study is valid while the article reporting the study draws conclusions not apparent in the study itself.

Conclusion
In conclusion, systems science may provide the path forward in moving beyond the current debate and controversy,
constrained by a reliance on reductionist approaches, to a new paradigm of systems biology that enables a
systems understanding of 兎quivalence and/or 電ifference between a GMO and its non-GMO counterpart.

Future Direction
The methodology and results of this effort provide many areas of future research. There are four areas, in particular,
that are relevant undertakings as logical and immediate next steps.
First, is to test the hypothesis that glyphosate action in endocrine disruption may likely be mediated through
its upregulation of formaldehyde. The current framework is poised to conduct such in silico analysis.
Second, since C1 metabolism is present in gut bacteria of animals, it is possible to predict formaldehyde accumulation
and glutathione depletion in the microbiome, and its subsequent effect on various disease models
affecting the health of the host.
Third, to address the logical question why a GMO product survives and appears to maintain a phenotypic
homeostasis, in spite of the deleterious biological impacts predicted from this research, future research can be
conducted to demonstrate that it is likely that the GMO is in a perturbed state and has 殿djusted to an unnatural
allostasis, a result of a significant disruption from its normal homeostasis.
Fourth, since little is known concerning the mechanism of methylation and how it affects the regulation of
genes, future work can incorporate emerging research towards understanding how changes in the numbers of
methyl groups modify methylation processes and how genes are targeted for methylation, affecting epigenetic
phenomena in plants.

What is pointed out is that the FDA is incorrect in its assumption of equivalence, and for such a finding as the FDA makes, more studies need to be completed, as well a greater understanding of the mechanisms involved achieved. ....but companies want to rush the products into the marketplace yesterday.

 

[ultrarunner]

Some very small, independent farms could survive, especially those practicing self-sufficiency. And not just mouthing the words, actually DOING it. Probably 1 in 10,000 farms could do it. Probably are "greenies". Any farm dependent on petroleum, chemicals and banks would have trouble similar to the cities. I know quite a few farmers with 500-3,000 acres, while they know how to grow stuff in an agribusiness fashion they don't do it for their food - they go to Costco like everybody else.

I will forever be grateful for the time I was able to spend with my Grandparents on their small Dairy Farm as a child... they were Green before I had ever heard the term... and also very self sufficient and the old community was extremely self sufficient within walking distance... as in a water powered mill, blacksmith, church etc...

One year the peaches had a blight... so I brought a case of Del Monte peaches... my grandparents did not own a can opener! Grandma did say the Del Monte peaches were not bad!

When my friends from college visited... they asked me where the garbage can was... they had really no garbage... left overs went to the pigs and other items could be used for kindling... those Del Monte peach cans were saved and used for nut and bolts in Grandfather's shop... they had long winters and he made all the furniture in the house from trees on the property...

The monthly trip to town was for staples... sugar, coffee, flour and cloth to sew with...

The old farm house had hydronic heating with a large wood/coal fired boiler in the basement shop...

In 1950... they sold the plow horses and bought a small tractor after selling a lot of timber... used that tractor for 50 years... neither my of my Grandparents had driver's licenses... and when they needed to go far... it was the tractor...

Wedgwood wood stove in the kitchen and fresh baked bread...

Farm was small.. only 45 acres with pasture and woods... and water with a great spring... no pumps needed.

They did enjoy reading and the nightly news on the radio... early to bed and early to rise as anyone running a dairy knows...

If someone chooses to live simply... it can be done on a small dairy farm... cows, pigs, and chickens... fruit and nut trees, fresh milk, make your own cheese and live off the land... they did not buy chemicals or fertilizer... only fertilizer was from the grass fed cows.