Comment by CGMthrowaway
5 hours ago
Trust the science. The World Health Organization on glyphosate in 2016:
"The only large cohort study of high quality found no evidence of an association at any exposure level"
"Glyphosate is unlikely to be genotoxic at anticipated dietary exposures"
"Glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet"
"The Meeting concluded that it was not necessary to establish an ARfD for glyphosate or its metabolites in view of its low acute toxicity"
https://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/agphome/documents/Pe...
Tptacek in 2018:
"There are no credible studies indicating that glyphosate is a carcinogen, and it would be a little bit surprising it if was, since it targets a metabolic pathway not present in animals. Meanwhile, many of the herbicides that glyphosate displace, plenty of which remain in use, are known human carcinogens. The most widely reported declaration of glyphosate's carcinogenicity, by IARC, was disavowed by the WHO, IARC's parent organization...The evidence seems to suggest that glyphosate is basically inert in humans"
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/who-iarc...
It's been awhile since I've done any reading on glyphosate, which I mostly paid attention to because of a wave of bullshit stories about how Monsanto was suing people over seeds that blew onto their land (that basically never happened). Nothing in the intervening years, including this specific retraction, changes what I think about glyphosate, which is that it's probably safer than the herbicides that are used when glyphosate isn't.
I don't know why you think bringing me into this discussion is useful. If you were thinking that some regulatory agency made decisions based on the persuasiveness of my HN comments, probably no.
I'm generally comfortable being on the other side of whatever Mehmet Oz is talking about.
Very US-centric POV. The herbicides that would be used in the US to replace glyphosate, that are potentially worse (paraquat/diquat, atrazine, and 2,4-D), are are already banned in the EU.
If the EU were to officially ban glyphosate, their food supply would increase in quality as a result, since these worse pesticides are not available.
The US needs to catch up. Eliminating glyphosate is not a one-shot kill for human health and never meant to imply that
I think it's quite the compliment - you should be flattered!
Unrelated:
I really enjoy "Security, Cryptography, Whatever".
I'm not offended, it's just weird. And thank you! We've got fun stuff coming out. If anybody knows someone involved in GrapheneOS, we'd really like to get their perspective on modern mobile platform hardening. I will repay them in Monsanto Roundup-Ready(tm) gift certificates.
1 reply →
Yeah but that's a bit of a motte-and-bailey fallacy isn't it?
Just because the chemical in question is safer than the previously existing alternatives doesn't mean that the way that Monsanto promoted it and marketed it for use and the way people ended up using it because they believed that marketing didn't result in a net greater detriment to society and the ecosystem than if we had adopted totally different pest management protocols that didn't require as many chemicals that a company like Monsanto conveniently sells.
I had a boss at a greenhouse tell me once that his old-timey agriculture prof at a big university would swear by the safety of glyphosate and he would literally drinking a shot glass of the stuff in every first year class like he was that dude who drank H. pylori to prove ulcers were caused by an infection.
This kind of insane grandstanding where a professor openly drinks herbicides for years in university classrooms came from absurd marketing from Monsanto and neither of these things have any place in our society.
Monsanto had a financial interest to make that professor into a fervent Jonestown-esque believer of their product and the end result was that spread that fervour to thousands of students who went out into the industry and figured that if it's alright for that guy to drink it then it must be alright to spray that shit everywhere as often as they want.
The downstream effect of that is you're on HN in 2018 advocating for glyphosate and then again in 2025 when someone points out how ubiquitous confidentially incorrect opinions about glycophosate are.
> Yeah but that's a bit of a motte-and-bailey fallacy isn't it?
Speaking of motte-and-bailey fallacy, pivoting from "Dr Oz was right about glyphosate" to this run-on claim:
> Just because the chemical in question is safer than the previously existing alternatives doesn't mean that the way that Monsanto promoted it and marketed it for use and the way people ended up using it because they believed that marketing didn't result in a net greater detriment to society and the ecosystem than if we had adopted totally different pest management protocols that didn't require as many chemicals that a company like Monsanto conveniently sells.
Is a textbook motte-and-bailey play. The original argument wasn't that "society and the ecosystem would be better if everyone didn't use chemicals". The claim above was that anyone who said there wasn't evidence that glyphosate caused cancer was wrong and Dr. Oz was right.
And that argument was a fallacy in itself. The retraction of a single paper is not equivalent to saying that glyphosate is dangerous, that it causes cancer, or that Dr. Oz was right.
These threads are frustrating because a small number of people are trying to share real papers and talk about the subject, but it's getting overrun with people who aren't interested in discussing science at all. They've made up their minds that chemicals are bad, glyphosate causes cancer, and Dr. Oz was right and they're here to push that narrative regardless of what the content of the linked article actually says.
I don't know what you're talking about. None of my opinions about glyphosate have anything to do with some stunt where somebody drank glyphosate. I wouldn't drink glyphosate. Nothing has happened between 2018 and 2025 that has changed my (not very strongly held) beliefs that glyphosate is broadly safer than the herbicides that get used when it isn't. I also don't give a shit how Monsanto is promoting glyphosate; Monsanto's success or failure as an enterprise simply doesn't factor into my thinking at all.
1 reply →
On what basis should we blindly trust this fao.org study as conclusive? If Monsanto ghost-wrote one paper, how many other studies did it put its finger on the scale for?
How many retractions has Dr Oz published?
Has he retracted his claim that “raspberry ketones” are a miracle for burning fat in a jar?
Idiots look at people who never admit they were wrong and think those are the people to follow.
People with the slightest bit of intelligence look at the people (or process in this matter) who are constantly checking themselves and willing to admit they were wrong (or in this case misled by frauds) when they find the truth.
Meanwhile, the real issue here is not the science. The real issue here is the American GRAS system, because Europe didn’t allow glyphosates because their political system requires stuff going into your food to be proven safe, whereas the American system simply requires it to not be proven harmful.
This is a lot of words to make no real point to who it’s replying to.
The guy they replied to didn't make a point, instead threw together some quotes by an HN user and Dr. Oz, relying on you to make the point for them.
1 reply →
Retracting a paper showing it's safety isn't the same as proving it is unsafe. I don't see anything here that does that.
The IARC says the 2A designation was "based on “limited” evidence of cancer in humans (from real-world exposures that actually occurred) and “sufficient” evidence of cancer in experimental animals (from studies of “pure” glyphosatese"*
* https://www.iarc.who.int/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/QA_Glyph...
> The evidence seems to suggest that glyphosate is basically inert in humans
It actually might be the case and it still can be damaging to people by affecting the gut microbiome:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5...
> affecting the gut microbiome
That is so vague it can apply to everything. Probably drinking a glass of water affects the gut microbiome.
I would disagree with the claim/usage of “inert” if it was damaging to gut microbiome.
Did you read the paper? I just did. There's no data in it. It's a broad statement about research directions in glyphosate accompanied by concerns that all chemical agricultural supplements are objects of concern, epidemiologically, with Parkinsonism.
I think the point about the microbiome is well taken, for what it's worth. It's a good response to "humans lack a shikemic acid pathway, which is where glyphosate is active".
reference [5] (right in the middle of point 3, the one about gut microbiome) links to https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.3233/JPD-230206 which is way too dense for me to unpack in general...
e.g.
1 reply →
> The only large cohort study of high quality found no evidence of an association at any exposure level
Was that the retracted study or a different one?
> Trust the science.
I haven't kept up with research. Do you have any actual science showing that glyphosate is a carcinogen?
Retraction of a paper doesn't automatically mean the opposite is true. It doesn't make Dr. Oz's methods right.
Using the retraction of a paper to elevate a known pseudoscience pusher who constantly makes claims without scientific basis is intellectually dishonest. It's a common tactic among pseudoscience and alternative medicine peddlers who think that any loss for the other side is validation for their beliefs.
Big Dr Oz fan eh? Got any quotes from Oprah or other HNers to balance the epistemic master class?
even a broken clock can be right every now and then
> even a broken clock can be right every now and then
But a broken clock isn't a reliable indicator of time: You don't know when it's right unless you have another, known-good indicator — in which case just use that other one.
No the opposite. I trust Monsanto, they know this chemical better than anyone.
I wouldn't really trust either one. Plenty of big companies have known how horrible their own products are, like cigarette companies, or fossil fuels. We'll probably learn about social media companies in a few years.
That said, just because a product comes from a big company doesn't mean it's bad either. I want to see independent research.
1 reply →
Is this sarcasm or are you seriously saying you trust Monsanto on a thread about them committing scientific fraud to influence our perception of their product?
1 reply →
Got any hot tips from Marlboro I should read as well?
3 replies →
CGMthrowaway writes:
> Trust the science.
Science is a process, not a result. Retractions like this promote the integrity of scientific research and evidence-based medicine.
> When Dr. Oz in 2015 spoke out against glyphosate...
Oz also promoted MLM dietary supplements, antimalarial drugs as COVID treatments, gay conversion "therapy", colloidal silver, and vaccine skepticism. He has zero credibility and cannot be trusted.
> > Trust the science.
>> Science is a process, not a result. Retractions like this promote the integrity of scientific research and evidence-based medicine.
He was obviously poking fun at people who say "trust the science" when what they really mean is "trust these scientits" or, even better, "trust this one study".
Undoubtedly "trust the science" is little more than an appeal to authority when used in a casual debate, not some appeal to skepticism, peer review and testability.
“Trust the science” … always when talking to a flat-earther or similar huckster.
There definitely needs to be more nuance to the phrase in the general case. Eg: “trust established science” Let’s be honest though, it’s a lack of nuance in some world views that need science as an authority the most.
2 replies →
>Tptacek in 2018:
Makes me want to punch everyone else on the high score board into a search engine and see how they did.
Kinda funny how the "it kills stuff, it can't be good for ya" luddite crowd turned out to be right all along.
Did they turn out to be right? Maybe, I'm not familiar with the research here, but no evidence for that has actually been posted. This study being untrustworthy doesn't make it prove its opposite instead.
[ On second thoughts, retracted ]
While it's not great I vastly prefer that sort of not great behavior to achieving the same results by being one of those people who has crappy opinions and then just cherry picks links to back them up when called out on it.
Probably a good call on the retraction TBH.
Speaking of luddites, I've recently stumbled on posts that point out that the framing of "luddites" was intentionally misleading and that it was never being against technology but how it was wielded.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/we-should-all-be-luddites...
[flagged]
He can just be a statist.