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by simonrobb 2820 days ago
> I’m sorry but it’s fundamentally irrational. Everything is chemicals. Chemophobia is by definition irrational.

You might disagree, but it's not irrational at all. To follow your argument, if everything is chemicals - is it rational to presume everything is safe? Of course not, there are plenty of dangerous things in the world. Of course the -phobia demarks a fear as irrational, but this isn't "chemophobia".

> ~~~It’s not.~~~ Glyphosate is a herbicide: if you spray it on plants, those plants die. That is in fact its purpose.

It's also worth noting that while it's a herbicide, of course it's only effective as a herbicide at a certain concentration. Consider that <agricultural conglomerate X> intends to spray the weeds right next to the lettuce, not the lettuce itself, so they can make $$$ from that still-alive lettuce at market. It's still going to be exposed to a small amount of herbicide, just not in a "lethal" dose. Is it absorbed into the lettuce/does it make it to the consumer? I don't know. If it did, would it be harmful at that dose? Probably not, but I don't know. Does it accumulate in the body over time, to an eventual harmful dose? Don't know. But those questions all demonstrate that it's not simply an irrational fear; there is a good number of questions to answer to go from "this could be unsafe" to "this is definitely safe".

I don't have any views on Glyphosate at all, I know next to nothing about it. Just objecting to your first two points.

1 comments

> Is it absorbed into the lettuce/does it make it to the consumer? I don't know. If it did, would it be harmful at that dose? Probably not, but I don't know. Does it accumulate in the body over time, to an eventual harmful dose? Don't know. But those questions all demonstrate that it's not simply an irrational fear; there is a good number of questions to answer to go from "this could be unsafe" to "this is definitely safe".

These are all questions that have simple, well-tested, easily-Googelable answers. The fact that you don't personally know them is irrelevant, because scientists and government regulators do.

Easily-Googleable answers arrived at by industry scientists and approved by a captured regulatory body. From scientists educated at industry-funded institutions. Who as professionals, bite the hand feeding them only at the risk of becoming unemployable in their industry. (and saddled with student debt) Their studies published in peer-reviewed journals where every peer receives money from industry in some form.

This is far from an adversarial system of proof that is required by hard Science.

It seems clear to me that you don't have the faintest idea of the level of scrutiny that glyphosate has undergone in the half a century since its discovery.
It’s clear you are blind to the fact that Monsanto hid its involvement in RoundUp studies (see link). Also, glyphosate is merely an ingredient in RoundUp. To be an herbicide, RoundUp additionally requires some pretty nasty adjuvants.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-27/monsanto-...