[Ferret7446]

That depends on your standard which is necessarily subjective. By some reasonable standards, a lot of things you consume has not had a formal study proving safety. For example, I'm not aware of studies proving the safety of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. No, history/"common sense" is not a replacement for a controlled/experimental double-blind study.

[jgust]

I'm worried less about the lettuce (which we have little control over) and more about what's sprayed on the lettuce (which we do have control over). It seems like man-made chemicals added to food have a significantly higher probability of harming humans than digging something straight out of the ground and eating it, even if it's GMO.

[jfengel]

The ground is actually pretty dirty -- by definition. And since you don't cook lettuce, you risk eating whatever was on the ground (and the hands of the picker, and everybody else along the line).

You usually don't drink water the way we pull it out of the ground, either.

That doesn't automatically make the chemicals safe. But it highlights that there is a tradeoff. The environment is full of things that make you sick.