“There are gaps in the available studies. There are many inquiries that show that regulation agencies only look at a very small part of the studies published, and often use those that are done by the [pesticide] companies themselves. It makes no sense.”
On glyphosate. Those bastard chemicals companies don’t studies on the toxicty of their own products.
Under EU law every company must do toxicity studies on their own product. That’s what REACH actually insists upon.
See also: Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca etc.
If glyphosate were that toxic, then farmers and farm workers would be dropping like flies. After all we use the neat chemical, pouring it into sprayers, breathing the vapours, breathing the air in fields that have just been sprayed etc etc. We must be exposed to far greater concentrations than anyone else possibly could be, unless they are drinking it neat. And we aren’t keeling over constantly. So I conclude that its all bollocks.
Of course there is the little issue that if glyphosate were banned then farmers would be celebrating as food prices would go through the roof, as its absence would mean a lack of control for many major weed species, and yields would drop significantly. And of course no one is going to want to import food thats been produced using glyphosate elsewhere in the world are they, as its so toxic……..they’ll all be happy to pay far higher prices for UK produce grown without the nasty chemicals.
Sorry Jim.
They’ll buy imported food grown with glycophosphate, alongside a bit of paper certifying that it wasn’t.
See also Spanish cooking oil GTX
Nonetheless it’s striking how often testing that might reasonably be done by government is done by manufacturers (e.g. Pfizer) on the excuse that governments can’t afford to do it. But the only reason they can’t afford it is because they are pissing money away on hosts of things governments shouldn’t be doing and spending wastefully even on things governments should be doing.
It’s all a bloody shambles, isn’t it?
She caved for thirty grand. Shoulda gone to a Mississippi jury and got a billion.
As these morons use the ‘linear no threshold’ model, fresh air causes cancer and must be banned.
Or you could of course, copy Pfizer and get approval for a product then flog something else under the same name……….
“And of course no one is going to want to import food thats been produced using glyphosate elsewhere in the world…”
You are missing an important aspect of the greeny mentality. Environmental damage is just fine and dandy providing someone else is doing it far enough away from them that they can’t directly observe it.
The article doesn’t tell us how the pregnant woman and the glyphosate came together which would have been the interesting thing to learn.
I suppose if glyphosate were banned, farmers could spray with comirnaty instead because it’s been shown to be a very effective killer.
Correlation is not causation.
@Andyf,
Correlation is not necessarily causation. Without correlation, causation is disproved.
“Without correlation, causation is disproved.” If only it were that simple.
“The article doesn’t tell us how the pregnant woman and the glyphosate came together which would have been the interesting thing to learn.”
Yes it does – she used it to spray weeds when she was a few weeks pregnant (before she knew).
“They’ll buy imported food grown with glycophosphate, alongside a bit of paper certifying that it wasn’t.”
Oh I know that, I was being sarcastic…..we have exactly the same thing with loads of other food imports that are allowed from places that use products and techniques that are banned in the UK. The UK electorate are utterly hypocritical – they vote for bans on things in the UK, but refuse to suffer the consequences themselves and pay the price, and just consume the same products made elsewhere using the banned techniques. For example oilseed rape can hardly be grown in the UK now due to the ban on neonicitinoids (flea beetles decimate OSR seedlings, neonics kill flea beetles) yet OSR grown abroad using them is imported to replace the home grown product.
Yes it does – she used it to spray weeds when she was a few weeks pregnant (before she knew).
I beg your pardon. I must have inadvertantly skipped that bit.
This is odd. She is said to have been working on an equestrian facility so the 700m² area would have probably been a smallish dressage arena / sand school or alternatively a stable yard. In either case this would call for spot treatment rather than treating the entire area so no more than an hour’s work with a 15l knapsack sprayer about half full of diluted glyphosate.
It’s interesting that the internal pipework of a fœtus is already that far advanced before the mother is even aware of its existence.
@jim Yes it does – she used it to spray weeds when she was a few weeks pregnant (before she knew).
Also in that time period she also probably put petrol/diesel in her car, used a mobile phone, walked under power lines, passed something that was stuck together using a volatile adhesive, and being French probably consumed soft cheese too. All of these have a “causal” link just as using the glyphosate does.
The payee here is a group funded by tax levied on the pesticide/herbicide industry so they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by enlarging their remit. The winner here is not the mother: it’s the lawyers who will use this as legal precedent to push further cases where their commission will make the 35k payout look like a rounding error.
“Without correlation, causation is disproved.”
Well confounders bugger that up.
There was an article doing the rounds on (Econ) Twitter recently which showed just how bad the problem is… basically attempts to adjust your regression for confounders (e.g. whacking a polynomial in to “control” a continuous confounder) turns out not to work very well in practical applications and still leaves a lot of residual confounding.
Anyone remember the paper?
Simples. Label the bottle “Must not be used by women”.
“The UK electorate are utterly hypocritical – they vote for bans on things in the UK, but refuse to suffer the consequences themselves and pay the price, and just consume the same products made elsewhere using the banned techniques.”
This is sort of the point that I made earlier, environmental damage is fine as long as it’s happening somewhere else. Where I would disagree here is that we vote for bans. We now have all parties singing from the same hymn sheet with differing levels of enthusiasm. We get bansturbators whoever we vote for.
“. Where I would disagree here is that we vote for bans. We now have all parties singing from the same hymn sheet with differing levels of enthusiasm. We get bansturbators whoever we vote for.”
Well yes, but the voters are still insulated from the consequences of the bansturbators actions. If the Uniparty said ‘lets ban glyphosate!’ and of course one of them would get in and do it, and that then had actual consequences to the voters (in this case far higher food prices, as imports grown using it were also prohibited) then there would be very rapid voter pushback. But the feedback mechanism is broken. Voters can freely vote for feelz, safe in the knowledge they will never have to pay a price for them.
Its high time voters were made to pay the true consequences of the policies they vote for.
@jgh
Bigot, what about the men who get pregnant.
‘Its high time voters were made to pay the true consequences of the policies they vote for.’
Jim. This is why I’m so strongly opposed to the climate rubbish. I’m afraid some of the consequences might affect me!!!!