[siftrics]

I've always been a fan of this.

If RoundUp is so safe, why don't the execs and lawyers and shills all douse themselves in it? It'd prove their alleged point against the guy who got horrible lesions and cancer all over his body after being exposed to it in a work accident.

[jzebedee]

Even that stunt might not be enough for a sufficiently evil shill, e.g. Thomas Midgley Jr. He famously did a similar move at a press conference for tetraethyllead (TEL), where he washed his hands in the stuff to prove its safety:

> On October 30, 1924, Midgley participated in a press conference to demonstrate the apparent safety of TEL, in which he poured TEL over his hands, placed a bottle of the chemical under his nose, and inhaled its vapor for 60 seconds, declaring that he could do this every day without succumbing to any problems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.#cite_ref-Se...

It probably won't shock you that he frequently suffered from lead poisoning.

[Frost1x]

The trick to this stunt is to, as usual, hide behind complexity. While this sort of stunt may be telling in some cases where a single or handful of exposures lead to health problems, there's an increasing amount of investment in things that may or may not be so obvious, where an exposure or handful of exposures are unlikely to have a huge effect.

In that context you only give the shills more sway. We could take the golden public health case of something like cigarettes. The evidence these days is pretty rock solid and irrefutable but if you didn't have that information because said thing is new, you could consume it right in public with almost no side effects. While it's not advisable, you could smoke a pack of cigarettes over a year in such demo's and have little side effects/risk overall. Heck, if you're smart about it you only puff a few puffs each time to demonstrate to make the exposure even less.

So while these sort of safety demos can be valuable and shine a light on truth, risk, and just how far someone may go to sell something and reap the benefits, you have to make sure the context like dosage, exposure, whatever else is relevant match.

We've been living in a highly reductionist scientific world for awhile and in a lot of cases reductionism is fantastic, if we can generalize and peel away a bunch of context that's great, but we have to remember we can't always do that and these demos appeal to that sort of overly reductionist mindset. It makes it very hard to tell someone not educated about real risk that may exist to take something like a short exposure demo as ironclad proof that something is low-to-no risk and it'll be difficult to ever show that person otherwise.

[siftrics]

> In that context you only give the shills more sway.

This is a really good point that I overlooked.

I'm in an industry where sophisticated participants can see the blatant scams, but laypeople have no chance at spotting them. Your claim makes a lot of sense.

[ars]

Why you call him an evil shill? It sounds like he actually believed it.

It's not evil to be wrong.

[j-bos]

There was evidence of the negative health effects from his own research.

[flagrant_taco]

I'm not sure how that line could be drawn. If a person does something that most would consider evil, but does it for reasons they honestly believed in which side is right?

Some of the Nazis may have honestly believed that Jewish people were the cause of Germany's economic problems, but I don't think many would claim they were anything less than evil.

[6510]

The line isn't drawn at the quality of their indoctrination or the evil doers world view. We judge by our own indoctrination and world view.

We for example don't do trial by ethnicity. We don't give a rats ass if the people who caused the German economic problems were Jewish.

[flagrant_taco]

I think you're agreeing with me, if I'm understanding you right.

> Why you call him an evil shill? It sounds like he actually believed it.

> It's not evil to be wrong.

I was responding to this and making the point that we don't often allow it to be this simple. I raised the Germany example to make the point that most consider what the Nazis did evil regardless of whether they honestly believed in their reasoning that lead to genocide.

[gruez]

But they never claimed that it was "so safe" that you can ingest or douse yourself in it? It says so right in the MSDS.

https://labelsds.com/images/user_uploads/Roundup%20Pro%20Con...

[jona-f]

"Lobbyist Claims Monsanto's Roundup Is Safe To Drink, Freaks Out When Offered A Glass"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM&t=10

[aesh2Xa1]

That was incredible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Moore_(consultant)

During an interview by French investigative journalist Paul Moreira, which was first broadcast on French television station Canal+, Moore was asked about the safety of the herbicide glyphosate. Moore told Moreira that one "could drink a whole quart of it" without any harm. When Moore was challenged to drink a glass of the weedkiller, he refused, saying "I'm not an idiot" and "I'm not stupid" before ending the interview. Monsanto, the primary producers of glyphosate weedkillers under the Roundup brand, denied claims that Moore is a paid lobbyist for their company.[71][72][73] The interview came shortly after the release of a World Health Organization (WHO) report adding glyphosate to a list of probable carcinogens.[74][75]

[heavyset_go]

That's what they're subjecting farm workers to.

[gruez]

Isn't that the farm's problem? At least in theory workers are supposed to be protected with PPE and/or proper procedures. Blaming them for the failure of that feels like blaming chainsaw manufacturers for causing hearing loss.

[bastawhiz]

If the chainsaw company executives have to repeatedly try to convince the government that their product is actually safe despite being excessively loud over and over again, but they won't actually put themselves in a situation where they themselves wield their own chainsaws because of safety concerns, then yeah, it's on them.

If you're in the US, you've probably consumed glyphosate today. Farm workers wearing PPE will be exposed to elevated levels of glyphosate no matter how hard they try because humans aren't perfect. If execs won't put themselves in the same position as the people handling their products, they're evil hypocritical bastards.

[gruez]

> If the chainsaw company executives have to repeatedly try to convince the government that their product is actually safe despite being excessively loud

We're going in circles here. As mentioned earlier the MSDS provided by bayer clearly says you shouldn't get it on your skin or ingest it. Therefore it's pretty clear that glyphosate isn't "safe", at least in those circumstances.

>Farm workers wearing PPE will be exposed to elevated levels of glyphosate no matter how hard they try because humans aren't perfect.

You can make the same argument for chainsaws. Earmuffs aren't comfortable to wear in 100 degree weather. Should they be liable for hearing loss for the same reason?

[saiya-jin]

Earmuffs in 100 may not be the most comfortable thing in the world, but its still perfectly fine to use for hours, you just sweat a bit more on ears and around. Also, if you want rest just stop cutting and put them down. I've seen forest workers use them all the time in summer heat.

Now we switch to same conditions but requirement is to wear pretty good 'airtight' face mask. Most people would be nearing collapse after some time when doing some hard work, I know I had some proper hard time during covid when trying some rather low efforts.

Those 2 examples are really not that comparable. Also, you very conveniently ignore the fact that chemical crap poisons everything, and ends up in my and your and my kid's food chain. Some chainsaw 20 km in the forest is really no such concern.

I can go on and on like this. Really, not comparable examples at all. Yeah, fuck Bayer and all those involved, I am normally peaceful person but for those involved while knowing, or at least strongly suspecting the truth I wish only horrible things in their lives.

[heavyset_go]

They know how it's being used, spend millions on downplaying and denying its harms and lobby the government to loosen safety restrictions on its use.

This is the same excuse drug dealers use when selling substances they know are being abused and harm people. Following your logic, the MSDS sheets for heroin and fentanyl make it clear on how they should be dealt with safely.

[justinclift]

> Isn't that the farm's problem?

From a legal perspective, maybe.

From the farm workers perspective... it sounds they'd better try avoiding the situation anyway.

---

An analogy is an accident between a semi trailer and a motorbike.

Even if the semi trailer was the cause of the accident (legally), it's still a really bad idea for the motorbike to not try avoiding it. That way leads to a squished motorbike rider. :(

[refurb]

You believe table salt is safe? Ok! I want you to eat 500 g of salt and we'll see just how safe it is!