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Not surprising at all but I'll weight for the apologists

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This is a pretty weighty topic for such a pun.

It sure is but the reactionary mass denial of any potential harm is more severe than a pun

It's absurd how much we rely on methods and substances that we understand very little of to produce the food we eat and sell to others.

Agrarian reform should be at the forefront of political debate, not mostly irrelevant distractions such as children indoctrination or whatever the current buzz is

Here's the actual correlation chart (Figure 1). There's not much data in high glyphosate exposure group. It's hard to say that there's even a correlation with so few samples.

There is a tiny negative correlation that is extremely unlikely to be the outcome of random noise for this sample size.

Yeah I agree but I think what it comes down to is that any way of farming that will be safe is going to require more labor and community involvement in peoples' own food production. but people have become acclimated to delegating the food production to mass producers so they can have easier lives.

I mean food prices have drastically dropped over the last 100 years since food production became hyper industrialized, to the point that the quantity of labor that actually goes towards feeding oneself is an all time low across world history. They're acclimated to super cheap food (with the health costs they're largely unaware of). People complain that the costs went up 10% or so as a result of inflation. It will be even more expensive than that if its not produced industrially with harmful compounds

I think it's a decent correlation considering the lack of weights in the upper percentiles past 5ng/ml

What’s worse is that these substances are basically assumed safe until proven unsafe, and we leave the vast majority of safety testing and regulation to those who own and profit from the sales of these substances.

Ok, so maybe don't have the pregnant missus run the sprayer that season and let the AC run on recirculate.

This study has some more significant issues than that, with the biggest one being that their their entire population was heavily biased.

From the study:

"...our study participants were not selected other than prospectively attending a Maternal-Fetal Medicine Specialty Obstetrics Clinic for high-risk pregnancies."

They then go on to indicate that high risk pregnancies only account for 6-8% of the total in the US and that, as a result, "...our findings cannot be easily generalized to low-risk pregnancies."

Funny how so many of the anti-biotech groups seem to neglect bringing up this point...let alone the issues with them being unable to account for a wide range of variables.

>It's absurd how much we rely on methods and substances that we understand very little of to produce the food we eat and sell to others

Glyphosate has been studied for decades, there are hundreds of publications and even entire textbooks dedicated solely to it. And the overwhelming conclusion from those studies is that is low risk, especially compared to what it replaced.

... and that's not even touching on the incredible environmental benefits from using it in tandem with crops bred to tolerate it.

This is simply not accurate. All agrochems have to pass regulatory standards for agencies relevant to their use.

For example, in the US all pesticide residues are regulated to be at least 100x lower than the no-observed-affect level.

As for funding those studies... of course they are funded by the manufacturers, who else would? Many required studies are, however, conducted by independent certified testing labs.

Uh huh. Then why did it take decades to show that glyphosate is toxic despite opponents saying it for so long?

...it's practically nontoxic.

Nature: Although GE crops have been previously implicated in increasing herbicide use, herbicide increases were more rapid in non-GE crops. Even as herbicide use increased, chronic toxicity associated with herbicide use decreased in two out of six crops, while acute toxicity decreased in four out of six crops. In the final year for which data were available (2014 or 2015), glyphosate accounted for 26% of maize, 43% of soybean and 45% of cotton herbicide applications. However, due to relatively low chronic toxicity, glyphosate contributed only 0.1, 0.3 and 3.5% of the chronic toxicity hazard in those crops, respectively.

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But it’s still effectively “safe until proven unsafe” because they merely reify the fact that they know what a safe level is, and that they understand every potential mechanism by which glyphosate can harm us, and that they know and have measured the full extent of the effects of the safe amounts of residue

Red flags: Strong correlation related to urban (more access to health care) vs rural (less access to health care); mischaracterize gly as "organophosphorous compound," which is a common tactic by anti-gly activists to associate it with organophosphate insecticides. This is activist research.

>This is activist research.

That's to be expected, it's from the same group of people that conducted this atrocity.

I've been reading papers like this ever since the original Seralini report, and it has become easy to spot activist research. But then, researchers like that don't care, they are just running headline mills, nothing more.

It's been fascinating and depressing to see how easily charlatans like Seralini, and even worse, the dimwitted duo of Seneff and Samsel, can manipulate the general public, and non-scientists as a whole.

In the case of Seneff, pretty well everyone I've ever interacted with in relation to her papers doesn't realize that all she's been doing for over a decade is data-mining to dream up hypotheses...that she never bothers to test experimentally.

Quite literally, she stops at the first step in the scientific method.

There has been one hilarious thing involving team Seralini, and Seneff was that, while Seneff hasn't bothered to test any of her hypotheses, a group of researchers, including both Antoniou and Mesnage, did test her glyphosate can substitute for glycine hypothesis (Antoniou et al., 2019 Doi:10.1186/s13104-019-4534-3).

To the surprise of no one, the hypothesis was debunked.

I don't see any red flags or mischaracterizations

You do realize that the overwhelming majority of the scientific community, and regulatory agencies agree that it is not a significant risk at the current regulatory limit, right?

Let me guess, you read about the IARC's classification, and the studies used to spread fear by the various anti-biotech blogs, but haven't actually looked into the full docket?

In fact, I'm going to bet that you can't tell me the difference between how the IARC assesses chemicals, and how literally every regulatory agency does.

Original cohort of 822 whittled down to 155 newborns. n=155 is a small study, and lots of opportunity to cherry pick subjects when starting with 822. High-risk pregnancies = preexisting health issues, lower socio-economic status, substance abuse, alcohol, smoking during pregnancy, which often have significant effects on their own. They made an attempt to adjust for confounders, but you can only do that for the confounders you know about, and they were limited by what they found in medical records. For instance, most significant correlation was between GLY concentration and less than high school education for mother. What is going on there besides just the fact mother had less than high school education? With such a small n and effect size, a few outliers is all it takes.

When there is a lot of noise in the data, pretty easy to pick out a signal that serves your purposes.

As was pointed out in peer review, all references support conclusion, in other words, they mined the literature for work that supported a preexisting narrative; they weren't trying to prove themselves wrong, they were trying to prove their hypothesis was right, which is not the way science is supposed to work.

"This study aims to establish baseline urine GLY levels in a high-risk and racially diverse pregnancy cohort and to assess the relationship between prenatal GLY exposure and fetal development and birth outcomes." They start off by saying there is a relationship = red flag.

Authors lack credentials in relevant fields; none are epidemiologists, and at least two, Mesnage and Antoniou have signed on to previous work by Seralini, which is a red flag all by itself.

Another red flag pops up when you review past, related work from authors and it always points in the same direction. That is virtually impossible if one does honest research, especially when dealing with very small effect sizes, underpowered designs (small number of subjects), and many confounders. That is the case here as well. Either its publication bias or they are putting their thumb on the scale.

In the end, those doing activist research know that most people don't read past the title or the headlines their work generates, all they have to do is dress up their reports so they can navigate past peer review and make it into some journal, any journal, even if they have to pay for it. Flawed peer review process and predatory journals are a whole other can of worms.

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That massive leap in efficiency came from mechanization. The minor contribution of pesticides is not worth the chronic exposure of our population.

Organic agriculture needs to be properly optimized. Soil science is where it's at.

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It's accurate

If it was the only study laiming harm your point may be valid, however all the independent research is pointing this way. Glyphosate and AMPA seem to have endocrine effects, they certainly disrupt development on lower life forms.

Researchers can't justify projects like this without background evidence. It's not like they just woke up one day and published on what if Roundup disrupts difficult pregnancies

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Are you aware that Seralini continues publishing?

>As our previous low-risk cohort found an association with GLY and shortened pregnancy, we sought to conduct a larger study of more diverse women with higher risk pregnancies living across the state of Indiana.

This is the continuation of earlier studies.

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Unfortunately, yes, same bad science, different day. There is always a journal willing to publish crap for a price. He is the epitome of an activist research scientist. Good example of research that always supports a predetermined narrative.

Anti-pesticide, anti-GMO, anti-glyphosate crowd is always saying "follow the money," but they never say that about charlatans like Seralini who is making a nice living milking the credulous and true believers. Much the same as anti-vaxxers like Mike Adams or Alex Jones hawking snake oil and supplements for COVID19. In Seralini's case, it began with ties to Sevene Pharma and homeopathic detox products. Scare people about toxins, and then sell them detox products. He is still at it.

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I see Robin Mesnage as a common author between this and the retracted Seralini paper. What's the story behind him?

Actually, it's literally every study capable of showing causation that indicates there is no increased risk of harm at the current exposure limits.

The only studies that try to claim this can only test for correlative effects, and even then they are riddled with design issues. Insufficient sample size, non-standard treatment, inappropriate animal model, deviating from normal histopathological assays without indicating why, and of course, incorrect statistical methods and insufficient power of analysis.

Over and over again, these studies all follow the same pattern. A correlation between glyphosate exposure and harm is claimed...and that's it. There's no attempt to validate the results by designing a study, or using the currently existing baseline, the OECD Guidelines for the Testing of Chemicals, to test for causal effects.

Glyphosate has been through Tier I endocrine disruption screens in both the US and EU, and there is no indication that it has such effects.

Again, the only studies claiming this do not adhere to even the minimum standards in toxicology.

What's even worse for the anti-glyphosate narrative is that, even among the correlative observational studies, the strongest of these (in terms of statistical power), the Agricultural Health Study, a prospective cohort study (best you can get without moving to a DB-RCT), shows no increased risk from glyphosate exposure.

You need to remember that all studies are not equal, and the risk assessment for these chemicals involves weighting studies based on their power of analysis. Methods that have the power to test for causal effects are given more weight than those who can only conclude correlative ones, and one-off studies that don't adhere to the international standards get weighted far, far less.

As things stand, there are no OECD compliant studies indicating that there's an increased risk from glyphosate exposure until the exposure level is orders of magnitude above the current limits.

What you should really be asking is why the anti-biotech researchers seem to be incapable of following the same standards that all scientists, myself included, are expected to uphold.

The OECD methods have been the standard since 1981. Since that time they have been revised, added to, and removed when there is evidence to support this, and there's even a built in mechanism for scientists to instigate such a review.

Those same anti-biotech researchers haven't even tried to indicate that the current standards need revising.

Instead, they just continue to generate weak correlative studies that, unfortunately, individuals like yourself see on various blogs, but almost never in context with their statistical power.

Not just homeopathic detox products, but one specifically for glyphosate (Digeodren), that he was a paid consultant for.

So does Seneff, and she has yet to actually test any of her hypotheses experimentally.

Not joking about that in the slightest.

Since her first paper in Entropy, all of her publications have involved data-mining other studies, using the bits she likes to develop hypothetical mechanisms on how glyphosate is responsible for every ill mankind suffers from...and that's it.

She stops at the very first stage of the scientific method, developing a testable hypothesis.

There's a reason why she's considered to be unhinged even by the Seralini crew.

And yet they just keep coming year after year and you keep ignoring it.

A lot has changed since 1981

And yet they just keep coming year after year and you keep ignoring it.

A lot has changed since 1981

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And you missed the fact that I specifically stated that they have been updated during that time.

You also missed that the anti-biotech researchers haven't even attempted to make use of the built in review protocols, and it's because you need to back up allegations with data, and yet again, literally none of the studies capable of showing causation support your allegations.

Oh, and FYI, the entire history of the study designs are openly available, and each modification recorded.

The only one here ignoring anything is you, and the fact that you can't seem to understand just how vast the gap between the power of the studies you're relying are, and those that my peers and I assign the most weight to.

We actually put the studies into context with their power of analysis, not by how the results align with our existing beliefs.

Want to keep going?

A comment so vapid, you decided to post it twice?

Well, I'll just paste in the previous reply:

And you missed the fact that I specifically stated that they have been updated during that time.

You also missed that the anti-biotech researchers haven't even attempted to make use of the built in review protocols, and it's because you need to back up allegations with data, and yet again, literally none of the studies capable of showing causation support your allegations.

Oh, and FYI, the entire history of the study designs are openly available, and each modification recorded.

The only one here ignoring anything is you, and the fact that you can't seem to understand just how vast the gap between the power of the studies you're relying are, and those that my peers and I assign the most weight to.

We actually put the studies into context with their power of analysis, not by how the results align with our existing beliefs.

Want to keep going?

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You seem to be removing your comments, but fortunately, they remain viewable. Let's start with this one:

https://ibb.co/h2qMRLF

You'll note that none of the studies indicating harm from glyphosate are compliant with the international standards, but even then, they can't test for causal effects.

Secondly, in the studies using the formulated herbicide mix, have you actually looked at any of them?

There are several reasons why the formulated mix isn't used for the standard toxicity metrics, but the most frequent ones are put on display quite nicely in your citation.

1. Many of the studies using cell cultures aren't an appropriate model for real world conditions. Quite simply, you will see the same results if you subbed out the herbicide with dish soap. The reason for that is because the formulated herbicides contain surfactants to aid in penetrating the waxy cuticle present on most plant species. Surfactants of this type are soap...and disrupting lipids, like those present in the cytyoplasmic membrane of mammalian cells, are the reason why we've been using them for millennia.
2. Using the forumlated mix isn't representative of what consumers will be exposed to, as there is a mandatory period, normally 2-3 weeks, where a farmer cannot harvest their crop after an application of pretty well any GBH. Using the formulated mix without accounting for the differential adsorption of the active ingredients (glyphosate, which is systemically transported), and the adjuvants (local exposure only, with little to no systemic spread).
3. At no point do the studies listed counter any of the compliant studies conducted, as they lack the statistical power to even come close. Add on the fact that many of the OECD-compliant studies have been successfully replicated.
4. Attacking the source of any study without evidence derived from experimental data of equal or greater power of analysis doesn't work in science, and you'll note that I have provided multiple critiques of the methods, and analyses used in the studies you've elected to cite.

One fun part about actually being a scientist is that it is extremely easy to determine when someone has no real understanding of a given topic, and is just parroting what they've seen online.

You definitely fall into this group.

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I haven't removed any comments.

>There are several reasons why the formulated mix isn't used for the standard toxicity metrics

Glyphosate is never applied without the associated chemicals.

>Attacking the source of any study without evidence derived from experimental data of equal or greater powe

Yet you seem comfortable with doing it.

>as there is a mandatory period, normally 2-3 weeks, where a farmer cannot harvest their crop after an application of pretty well any GBH

Pre harvest application to dry crops is common. EPA os just fine with 3 days before harvest if I remember correctly.

It's pretty funny that you are speaking to some mythical list as if they are all the same. It's also pretty funny that you assume that I don't have more experience in this subject than you.

At what point does a steady stream of results demand attention? In your expert opinion? Like how many studies showing toxicity in a wide variety of organisms are necessary for you to take it seriously?

It would seem to me that you are satisfied with industry and regulator studies from decades past, do modern techniques not impress you? Hmm.

Not to let the opportunity for even more quackery go to waste, she attempts to connect COVID19 and glyphosate. https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19-pseudoscience-environment/dr-stephanie-seneff-strikes-out-again-glyphosate-and-covid-19

It's a small study with tiny effect size, dubious subject selection methods, and unknown confounders. Add scientists with a history of anti-gly activism and no relevant credentials in epidemiology, and you wind up a big load of nothing.

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Three days for swathing, 7 for harvest in wheat...and you don't know much about endosperm development in wheat do you?

When the crop reaches the point where harvest begins, how much head filling is still happening?

Almost nothing, and the plant is already starting the senesce at this point. There's almost no additional nutrients being transported to the harvested tissues, and that's why pre-application isn't an issue.

Want to know what evidence will change my mind?

The exact same evidence that my peers in the scientific community expect.

Empirical evidence from a study design that meets or exceeds the statistical power of the OECD compliant studies, or their regional equivalents.

You really don't seem to get that you have literally NOTHING like this.

That's actually one way that I know you're not a scientist, and most certainly are not up to speed on even the rudimentary aspects of toxicology.

As for the age of the studies...since there's been nothing to indicate that those ones are in error, you really don't have anything to justify excluding them.

I on the other hand can use the fact that the studies you laud lack the capability of testing for causal effects to assign them a lower weight in the Weight of Evidence Narrative section of the regulatory assessments.

Again, if it was a standalone paper you might have a point however there has been a steady stream of independent research showing toxicity in a wide array of non target organisms ever since Glyphosate came off-patent.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0278691518303004

>Our results showed that a postnatal subacute treatment with GBH induces endocrine-disrupting effects in the male mammary gland in vivo, altering its normal development.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0278691518303880

>The data from this study indicate that glyphosate can induce cell growth in ERα positive CCA cells through non-genomic estrogen receptor/ERK1/2 signaling pathway

"big load of nothing" huh

>and that's why pre-application isn't an issue.

Isn't an issue for crop yield, it is an issue for residues being found in consumer products. Your misdirection in this discussion shows you to be disingenuous.

> >The exact same evidence that my peers in the scientific community expect.

Doesn't really seem that way. Are you claiming all these studies bypassed peer review? >

I keep up to date on her idiocy simply because I've become the chair's go to person when a "concerned citizen" contacts my department regarding almost anything related to the dimwitted duo.

Now, I will admit that it was hilarious to see her get debunked by the likes of Antoniou and Mesnage in the case of her glyphosate substitutes for glycine hypothesis, she's simply gone off the rails too far in my opinion.

As I wrote to fasthpst, the simple fact that she hasn't bothered to experimentally validate any of her molecular spitballing should be a good sign that her research is useless, but it persists.

By the way, my comment is still there. Maybe you blocked me out of habit,

https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/z4g1ab/glyphosate_associated_with_lower_birth_weights/ixxyetj/

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/robin-mesnage

I would love to see what people come up with regarding his reputation.

That single Seralini paper was retracted due to industry pressure. Read the journal's retraction notice and comments to see they never even alleged 'fraud'. Unfortunately, those who would rather support outdated industry findings than follow current science become fixated on shooting the messenger. Seralini has authored dozens of papers since none of which have been 'retracted'

Fact is that the OP paper is just the latest in an unending stream of research articles produced by independent researchers since Glyphosate went off-patent whi h shows negative outcomes from Glyphosate exposure. Did you notice that nearly every single woman in the study had glyphosate in their urine.

It is now near impossible to avoid exposure and yet we are still looking at decades old rat studies for deciding allowable exposure

...look up what head filling is.

Glyphosate requires active transport for it to be systemic, and active transport to the wheat head stops after head filling is finished.

At this stage the plant is literally dying, but in a controlled manner. Nutrients aren't being transported to the head any longer, and as such, neither is the glyphosate.

Again, you're showing that you have no understanding of any of these topics.

>Doesn't really seem that way. Are you claiming all these studies bypassed peer review?

...seriously?

Peer review isn't the issue.

The issue is that there are literally no studies that can counter the compliant studies conducted to date.

Perhaps you're a bit more dense than even I thought, so I'll take this a bit slower.

Not all studies are created equal.

A basic component of experimental design is that a study need to provide enough power of analysis to accurately distinguish treatment effects from background noise.

Power of analysis isn't some subjective metric. It's a literal calculation that takes elements of the study such as sample size, population variance, and cutoff for significance into account.

The OECD Guidelines for the Testing of Chemicals were developed to ensure that studies used to assess the toxicity of chemicals had sufficient power to test for direct causal effects. Additionally, the standardized methods make falsification of the data much more difficult, as replicating such results is almost impossible without the same manipulation conducted each time.

The studies that you are relying on do not have the statistical power to test for causation. This isn't an arbitrary thing, and it's directly based on the ability of a study to accurately tease apart results from noise.

To date, not a single study capable of showing causal relationships has indicated anything other than there being no increased risk at the current exposure limits.

It really is that simple.

The standards in toxicology apply across the board here, and it's quite telling that you would exempt statistically weaker studies from these requirements just because they align with your pre-existing beliefs.

Again, this is good evidence that you are not a scientist.

Yup, still big load of nothing. Activist scientists have been churning out this stuff out for well over a decade. Look beyond the titles and actually read the papers and you find animal models, high exposures that are not relevant to actual human exposures, and conclusions that are not supported by the data.

If I had blocked you, I couldn't reply to you now could I?

I rarely block anyone, as that means that I can't keep tabs on what they might be posting.

https://ibb.co/HPkBrCn

That's all I see currently from your link. It might be a simple technical issue, but for now, all I can go on is the fact that, I haven't blocked you, and I see notifications relating to your replies, but I cannot reply to them as the comments are missing.

None of this changes the fact that you really have no clue about even basic experimental design, let alone the specifics relating to toxicology.

At least seeing another example of the Dunning Kruger Effect provides amusement enough for me.

Interest in ag chem goes back to his university days, which were not all that long ago. Was a major contributor to Team Seralini, including retracted work, which should be disqualifying in itself. Read his papers as lead author while with Seralini, pretty sad work. He is currently a consultant profiting from litigation against Bayer and also, since this past April, he is Lead Data Scientist at Buchinger Wilhelmi Clinic, a spa that promotes dubious claims for detox benefits of intermittent fasting first developed by Otto Buchinger 100 years ago. Germans certainly do seem to have an affinity for quackery.

...even the IARC rejected the Seralini paper, and for the exact same reasons why it was retracted in the first place.

From the IARC Monograph:

The Working Group concluded that this study conducted on a glyphosate-based formu-lation was inadequate for evaluation because the number of animals per group was small, the histopathological description of tumours was poor, and incidences of tumours for individual animals were not provided.

As for Mesnage and Antoniou, the main issue with them is that:

a) They haven't conducted any OECD compliant study, and instead make use of weaker, correlative studies.

b) They explicitly go against the recommendations relating to large scale 'omics analyses in toxicology.

One of the results of the whole Seralini lumpy rat study, was the EU commissioning 3 different studies (GRACE, G-TwYST, and GMO90+) to determine if there was any validity to the conclusions of Seralini et al., (2012).

The GRACE project specifically examined the effectiveness of molecular fishing studies conducted on transcriptome and proteome-level analyses.

The results were not surprising, as they found that the level of Type I errors was too high for them to be used directly to conclude even correlative effects. The reason for this is that these studies typically involve far more pairwise comparisons than even our best ability to correct for multiple comparisons can handle...a problem that we in the research community deal with frequently.

Studies of this type should only be used to identify prospective targets for further examination using specific testable hypotheses.

To the surprise of none, neither Antoniou, nor Mesnage have performed such follow up work in relation to their transcriptome screenings.

Yet again, you seem to be a bit lacking when it comes to knowledge relating to these topics.

Fortunately, I do not suffer from such an handicap.

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I didnt remove it.

The density of insults in your comments shows your personality. It's all you have.

>Glyphosate requires active transport for it to be systemic

But not as residue on harvested product, which is the topic of discussion.

>The studies that you are relying on do not have the statistical power to test for causation

Which studies? What I rely on is the steady stream of publications that is being produced by independent researchers. Relying on one or a handful of papers is how you get stuck in the past.

Perhaps you arent aware

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Glyphosate+ampa+tocixity

This comes as no surprise. Recent findings leading up to human studies have shown endocrine interaction and reproductive effects.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0269749118330197

>The results showed decreases in body weight gain and, ovary and liver weight in glyphosate-treated mice. Additionally, histopathological alterations in the ovary including increased atretic follicles, interstitial fibrosis and decreased mature follicles were observed in the groups treated with glyphosate. The serum concentrations of both progesterone and estrogen were markedly altered after glyphosate exposure, and there were also changes in the expression of GnRH, LHR, FSHR, 3β-HSD and Cyp19a1 genes at the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis. Furthermore, oxidative stress was observed in the treated mice, increasing the activity of T-AOC, CAT and GSH-Px, as well as the MDA content in both the serum and ovary. With regard to litters, the sex ratio was significantly altered by pure glyphosate. These results show that glyphosate is able to cause several effects on pregnant mice, such as ovarian failure, interference with hormone secretion by affecting the steroidogenesis-related gene expression, and oxidative stress. The sex ratio of litters was also influenced by prenatal exposure to pure glyphosate.

It's funny how the people with claims of "activist research" seem to ignore a growing body of evidence being produced by a large number of researchers around the world. Like how big is this conspiracy they are claiming?

In research science we rarely if ever rely on one paper and rarely if ever publish a definitive result based on single tests. Since Glyohosate came off-patent there has been a steady stream of publications showing toxicity and interaction with hormones etc. Many many papers have led up to this human study.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=glyphosate+estrogenic

The real red flag is reddit 'scientists' who compartmentalize research papers and discredit them based on the false assumption they are meant to stand alone. In scientific research we look over all the publications

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=glyphosate+microbiome

I think you will find the number of researchers groups and research topics is far too broad to be painted with the same brush. When they claim 'activist research' and 'predatory journals' I wonder just how big they think the conspiracy is. Imagine the level of coordination necessary to ha e hundreds of researchers from around the world all 'making stuff up' to disparage a chemical. It's laughable.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=glyphosate+embryo

Perhaps one day r science will have an honest scientific discussion on this subject. I have been waiting 10+ years for it and it hasn't happened yet. I've been involved in this discussion for 3 decades, the first decade they said it can't have an effect on animals be abuse they lack the shik pathway. The second decade they said yes it does affect animals but it isn't toxic or carcinogenic. The third decade they switched gears (thanks to Jon Entine) to claims the studies aren't good enough. Fact is that in research we make stepwise progression and build on previous conclusions. Initial studies are often broad and find hints. Those hints are studied and appropriate tests are formulated with current detection methods. If those tests show possible results, other researchers will notice and investigate closer based on their group's expertise.

This is all normal in the course of research. Don't pay attention to those who would rather shoot the messenger than discuss the data.

The problem with this is that truth is not voted on democratically. There used to be a consensus that malaria was contracted from the soil and those who believed it to be caused by mosquitoes were very few and considered fringe. Consensus doesn’t determine reality. We cannot just vote on what we want the laws of physics to be. Things are as they are.

Not to mention the consensus manufacturers gets to choose what scientists/what data to include

I thought it was interesting that this person said that glyphosate is mischaracterized by being correctly categorized as an organophosphorous compound, the sort of compound that it actually is. It’s actually a projection, they are suggesting that they wish to classify it incorrectly because being in the same class with insecticides makes it look bad even though it truly is an organophosphorous compound

It says glyphosate is an organophosphorous compound in the first line of the Wiki. How do these people bring up such nonsense in good faith?

Every year more studies come out showing toxicity and every year they claim its not enough. Unfortunately this is the result of propaganda being pushed on Reddit by Cornell's industry mouthpiece "Alliance for Science" and 'geneticliteracyproject' who unsurprisingly also claimed Neonic pesticides don't harm bees.

>truth is not voted on democratically.

Nobody is saying this. We are applying the hierarchy of evidence.

Must be exhausting at times, and frustrating to have to counter such ignorance. It would be one thing if it was just a matter of presenting the facts, but the anti-gly crowd knows all they have to do is plant a seed of doubt or fear, and it will grow on its own regardless of the facts.

>because being in the same class with insecticides makes it look bad even though it truly is an organophosphorous compound

I think you're a little confused here. Organophosphates are the insecticide class, and they aren't the same thing as organophosphorous compounds like glyphosate (technically a phosphonate).

What was that about projection?

>Initial studies are often broad and find hints.

They also use unrealistically high doses to search for effects that might be hard to notice at realistic doses.

It just sounds like you aren't familiar with how OECD toxicology studies work. There are standardized protocols to assess chemical interactions with cell culture and animal models.

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Glyphosate is an organophosphorous compound and you want it falsely classified otherwise. If insecticides are a different class than correctly classifying glyphosate should not be confusing for others even though it may be for you

I could essentially just reply with the same exact comment.

Still effectively “safe until proven unsafe” because they merely reify the fact that they know what a safe level is, and that they understand every potential mechanism by which glyphosate can harm us, and that they know and have measured the full extent of the effects of the safe amounts of residue.

Hence why other studies have demonstrated the harms

You were the one who said it's in the same class as insecticides. It's not.

You could say that about literally any chemical. Why focus on glyphosate?

I'm not denying that glyphosate does harmful things to cells if you expose them to preposterously high concentrations. I'm arguing that such studies have no relevance. Consumers ingest about 0.5 mg of gly daily, that's far lower than any of the studies showing harm.

More accurately, an organophosphonate, but don't be coy, all you have to do is read the title of Monograph 112 to know what is going on: "Some Organophosphate Insecticides and Herbicides", and there's glyphosate listed along with tetrachlorvinphos, parathion, malathion, and diazinon. Why? Certainly not because of its mode of action or risk to humans. It's an obvious attempt to mischaracterize and associate glyphosate with organophosphates in the minds of the public to stoke greater fear and uncertainty. Prominently identifying glyphosate as an organophosphorus compound may be technically correct, and not quite as disingenuous as what IARC did, but it's disingenuous nonetheless, and a common feature of activist research.

No, I was responding to the person that said “Red flags: Strong correlation related to urban (more access to health care) vs rural (less access to health care); mischaracterize gly as "organophosphorous compound," which is a common tactic by anti-gly activists to associate it with organophosphate insecticides. This is activist research.”

No I mean harm done in the doses regularly found in residues

Can you cite some example studies?

Again, animal model with pregnant mice drinking 5,000 ppm solution of glyphosate or Roundup for 19 days. Many, many orders of magnitude greater exposure than humans will ever see unless they drink straight out of a spray tank for 19 days. But who cares, right, as long as they can get "glyphosate" and "effect on ovarian function" into the public's consciousness. There are naturally occurring toxins in many of the foods we eat (cyanogenic glycosides, for instance) that would have killed those mice outright if fed at those levels.

Yes, that is how initial studies work Decap!

First we chuck a load at some cells to see if something happens. If we see an effect then we reduce the amounts to see at what level. Then we take those results and look closer to see what mechanisms are affected. Once we see the systems, pathways etc it affects change in, we study other organisms which also rely on those pathways.

Realistic doses are different under different circumstances too right? And once a substance become so prevalent that it is in everything and unavoidable, then we look at chronic low level exposure.

That is the stage we are at now. Apologists like yourself have enabled the ag-chem companies to continue selling Glyphosate well beyond the time we knew it was killing off target organisms. Now a decade later we see 99% of mothers in this human study are living with Glyphosate in their bodies 24/7

Still you will claim it is safe and just like always there will be more and more accurate papers published showing harmful effects. Science won't stop.

If this was the only study then perhaps your point would stand but there are literally hundreds of studies showing harm and many of them at field realistic doses.

Your tired old excuses are just that. When you brush off research because of high doses it shows that you aren't particularly aware of how research into effected pathways work.

Mice are also more resilient than humans. They can tolerate some things we can't and have extremely quick metabolism meaning they can also clear chemicals they were exposed to faster than us.

There are logical reasons in both directions, yet you guys only seem interested in the ones which support your narrative. Why?

Does anyone find it interesting that the only time animal model studies and high exposure are called into question is when the agent being tested is an agricultural chemical?

There are studies every day posted in this sub regarding animal studies, cell cultures, in silico, etc finding effects of various stressors but rarely does someone disparage methods like they do with Glyphosate

Can you describe in more definite terms what kind of studies you are looking for? Because there are literally entire textbooks dedicated to glyphosate. It's the single most studied pesticide, and there is good reason for it to be the most widely used. It breaks down quickly, works at a low dose, has minimal off-target toxicity, binds soil to prevent runoff, and works as a post-emergent broad-spectrum spray.

>beyond the time we knew it was killing off target organisms

No industrial chemical is going to have zero consequences. How does it compare to the alternatives? How can we mitigate damage further?

>99% of mothers in this human study are living with Glyphosate in their bodies 24/7

Dose matters. 100% of mothers have arsenic in their bodies 24/7. This is not a good approach to evaluating toxicity.

>Still you will claim it is safe

The benefits strongly outweigh the harms, but I still strongly encourage mitigating those harms!

Look how the minimal toxicity of glyphosate has reduced the overall burden of toxicity for agriculture:

Although GE crops have been previously implicated in increasing herbicide use, herbicide increases were more rapid in non-GE crops. Even as herbicide use increased, chronic toxicity associated with herbicide use decreased in two out of six crops, while acute toxicity decreased in four out of six crops. In the final year for which data were available (2014 or 2015), glyphosate accounted for 26% of maize, 43% of soybean and 45% of cotton herbicide applications. However, due to relatively low chronic toxicity, glyphosate contributed only 0.1, 0.3 and 3.5% of the chronic toxicity hazard in those crops, respectively.

Consider how glyphosate has contributed to a reduction in emissions from agriculture:

The adoption of GM insect resistant and herbicide tolerant technology has reduced pesticide spraying by 775.4 million kg (8.3%) and, as a result, decreased the environmental impact associated with herbicide and insecticide use on these crops (as measured by the indicator, the Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ)) by 18.5%. The technology has also facilitated important cuts in fuel use and tillage changes, resulting in a significant reduction in the release of greenhouse gas emissions from the GM cropping area. In 2018, this was equivalent to removing 15.27 million cars from the roads.

You are absolutely right, one study does not stand alone, the body of evidence counts, but so does the quality and relevance of the evidence. Your claim reminds me of acupuncture studies. There are tons of them out there that claim to show it works, so it must work, right? Dig deeper and you find profound publication bias where large positive effects correlate with lower quality studies, and no or tiny effects correlate with high quality studies.

Did you read all of those papers? How about the one from EFSA that concludes "The current assessment concluded that the weight of evidence indicates that glyphosate does not have endocrine disrupting properties through oestrogen, androgen, thyroid or steroidogenesis mode of action based on a comprehensive database available in the toxicology area. The available ecotox studies did not contradict this conclusion"?

Or Dai et al. "Taken together, we conclude that glyphosate alone has low toxicity on male rats reproductive system." after washing rat testes with glyphosate solution?

And of course, there is the fact that professional, career toxicologists and epidemiologists at national regulatory agencies around the world have reviewed the body of evidence and have concluded that glyphosate can be used safely (does not mean zero risk) as labeled. Among those who have concluded otherwise are well represented by the organic industry (fear and uncertainty is good for business), lawyers employing science by jury against Bayer, and political interests.

Decap, we both know no-till farming was invented well before Glyphosate and that there are many different metrics to assess environmental impact. Electric tractors are right now reducing agricultural emissions too, so what will your excuse be then?

It's pretty comical when you guys bring up the old more toxic pesticides because we were against those too! Agricultural chemical companies selling even more toxic stuff in the past and the government regulators approving more toxic stuff before glypuosate isn't the win you think it is. All it shows is that ag chem companies will happily sell poison and regulators don't look very closely at profitable products.

Which leads in to your claims:

>breaks down quickly,

Yet it is persistent in humans because of constant exposure

>works at a low dose,

Like other endocrine disruptors, yes

>has minimal off-target toxicity,

"Minimal" is a weasel word, subjective and brushes aside the lives of aquatic creatures, insects, etc

>binds soil to prevent runoff,

Which would be fine if it wasn't the most sprayed ag chem in the world constantly running past that bound soil

>nd works as a post-emergent broad-spectrum spray

Which ensures consumer exposure too right?

>Can you describe in more definite terms what kind of studies you are looking for?

Well, i have posted plenty in this page and we have been discussing this back and forth for a decade right. The studies I search for are ones that look at exposure to Glyphosate and it's associated chemicals. I read all of them. Many say they don't see effect from pure Gly but do see effects from Roundup formulations. As Glyphosate is never applied pure, both are relevant. I personally like seeing 'omics and methylation data because we knew there would be effects but the field is new. I also look for studies on microbiota because as we know now, your gut bacteria has effect on brain function.

>No industrial chemical is going to have zero consequences

Correct. . and the closer we look the more we find

>How can we mitigate damage further?

Apply the same level of R&D money to Organic Agriculture and soil science so we can end the use altogether

>professional, career toxicologists and epidemiologists at national regulatory agencies around the world

Regulatory agencies and industry share experts. EFSA included. I've read their 2015/17 decision and the references too. If you notice, they discount papers which dont use pure glyphosate. Pure glyphosate is never applied alone. It's a dodge commonly used. They also give a lot of weight to outdated studies and ignore hormonal findings because they were not 'consistent'.

Considering EFSA has a mandate as safety authority, you would think that they would sponsor some lab bench research. Ah well, we will keep doing it with or without them. Now there is about 7 years more worth of publications.

In 2015 glyphosate had only been available to independent researchers for a short while.

> many different metrics to assess environmental impact. Electric tractors are right now reducing agricultural emissions too, so what will your excuse be then?

Oh no... you think emissions from tilling come from tractors... okay, have a nice day.

My advice: if this stuff interests you, seek out an actual education in it. :)

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No, that's not how it works.

At the present time, all of the data regarding causal effects from glyphosate exposure indicate that there is no increased risk of any harm at the current exposure limits.

None of the studies claiming to show harm have an equivalent power of analysis, and are weighted lower than the compliant studies.

The data gets worse for the anti-glyphosate types when we also consider that, among the observational studies, the one with the largest power of analysis, the AHS, doesn't even show a significant correlative association to harm.

This is the reason why the scientific and regulatory communities overwhelmingly reject claims of harm.

What you are advocating is for scientists to weight studies based on how they align with your ideology, not in the strength of their design.

The key point is that we have data for causal effects from glyphosate exposure.

We have it for chronic exposure

We have it for acute exposure

We have it for carcinogenicity

We have it for cytotoxicity

Even though they've had decades to perform studies to show that those studies are flawed, either methodologically, or analytically, we see nothing that even comes close to the minimum standards in toxicology.

Back to the original study for this thread, it's design was so weak that even the authors state that their results are not representative of normal pregnancies.

That's a far cry from what we can determine from the compliant studies.

And finally, when reason and evidence is no longer in their favor, antis move the goal posts and turn to conspiracy theories. Same tropes and logical fallacies I have heard repeated for over a decade.

And the virtual mountain of data derived from studies capable of showing causal effects, along with the overwhelming consensus among my peers, and the regulatory agencies.

I also have over a decade of primary molecular research, and evaluating the merit of such studies is literally part of my job.

You're the one who decided to comment on a topic you know next to nothing about on a subreddit dedicated to science, and you got called out on it.

Rather than take the information provided in the earlier replies, you doubled down, relying on studies that you didn't bother to place in context with their power of analysis, and yet again, you were called out on it.

That's willful ignorance on your part, and not something I have any desire to coddle.

The truth is that scientists are very easy to convince about something. You just need to show us the data. We examine the methods used, how it was collected, how it was analyzed, and then how it was supports the conclusions reached.

To date, the data from the strongest studies (as determined by the statistical power of their design) does not support your position, and until this is why the overall consensus among us will not change until the data indicates otherwise.

No what you’re doing is presupposing that you can measure and completely control in order to find harm. You’re also disqualifying or not counting studies that reject your hypothesis, and yes that glyphosate in the residual amount is safe is a hypothesis and not a conclusion.

You’re the one advocating that studies are weighted based on their alignment with your ideology rather than their adherence to the scientific method or their rigorousness

No, you're missing a key component here, and not taking the complete dataset into account.

We have multiple OECD-compliant studies showing that adverse effects are not significantly associated with exposure below the current limits.

This study claims that this isn't the case, but it does not have the statistical power to counter the ones that have the ability to test for causal effects.

Additionally, even the authors of this study concede that their results shouldn't be applied to normal pregnancies, and that their overall PoA is insufficient to account for a range of confounding and lurking variables.

As for your link, go through them and check if they can test for causation, or are just correlative assessments.

Your 15min at the U of Google doesn't quite equate to decades at the bench, and it's pretty obvious that you haven't actually taken a comprehensive look at the studies you elect to cite.

The number of studies doesn't really matter when it comes to topics like this, and the key metric is the design and strength of the studies involved.

Multiple weak studies, do not trump studies with a far greater PoA,.

Until you can wrap your mind around this fact, you will be doomed to see the scientific and regulatory communities reject your position.

Want to change things?

Commission a study with comparable statistical power to the OECD designs, and generate data that actually would be capable of countering the earlier studies conducted over the past 40 years.

Just make sure to adhere to the standards of this field in regards to experimental design and GLP in general.

The thing to realize ius that, for a depressing percent of the general public, they aren't actually looking for information when they contact someone like me, they're looking for validation of their beliefs.

When that doesn't happen, it can get spiraled up into a Machiavellian conspiracy and that all scientists who disagree with them are paid shills.

That's usually the point where I just shrug and move on.

This is also why I provide quite a bit of detail in my replies to threads like this.

In many cases, I know that nothing I write will change a zealots mind, but my answers aren't for them. They're for someone who comes across this down the road who has an actual interest in learning.

For them, the information is available for them to do so.

...you do know that power of analysis isn't a subjective metric, right?

It's quite literally something that we calculate during the design stage of an experiment.

It's also why methods like the OECD designs include multiple guidance documents specifically to ensure that researchers will have data of sufficient strength to test for the causal effects for which the methods were designed.

There is a very real hierarchy in terms of statistical power, and the methods like those from the OECD Guidelines, along with their regional equivalents are only superceded by studies like DB+RCT

All but the largest prospective cohort studies rank below this, and in the case of. Glyphosate, it's actually hilarious that the AHS, a prospective cohort study, that doesn't have the statistical power to counter the OECD-compliant ones, it does have the power to counter the other lesser observational studies.

Guess what?

The AHS shows no significant link between glyphosate exposure at the current limits and harm.

Until data from studies of comparable power to the OECD methods materializes, there's no justification to change the toxicity metrics of glyphosate.

There's nothing capable of showing causal effects.

All of that data supports the current toxicity metrics.

What we tend to see are underpowered studies with little replication...if any, non-standard techniques, unsubstantiated deviations from established protocols, and of course, passing off of molecular fishing expositions, as being able to accurately determine treatment effects.

Consider that the OP posted a study where the authors state that their results shouldn't be extrapolated to represent normal pregnancies.

Having the entire study population comprised of high risk pregnancies is a major issue.

You just don't get it do you?

It's not the use of animal models that's the issue. It's the overall experimental design of the studies you elect to cite.

It's entirely possible to make use of the same animal model in multiple studies, it's how they are used in terms of the overall power of analysis that determines the strength of the study, and if it can be used to show causal effects, or is limited to correlative associations.

Quite simply, power of analysis reflects the ability of a given method to accurately differentiate between treatment effects and natural background noise at a specific threshold for significance.

The key elements that factor into this are the sample size, and the variability within the population.

The problem with the studies you cite is that they universally lack the strength to accomplish this for causal effects. There's simply too much noise in the background for them to accurately manage this.

This isn't the case for the OECD studies, as they were specifically developed to ensure that researchers would have the statistical power to test for causal effects, and they've been updated MANY times over the years to take into account new methods and overall knowledge relating to toxicology.

Just take a look at the review of Griem et al., (2015, Doi: 10.3109/10408444.2014.1003423).

It goes through a range of carcinogenicity and chronic toxicity studies and details not only studies that were fully compliant, as well as those who fall short of this.

Just in that review we see the successful replication of the OECD methods, with comparable results obtained from different lab, different researchers, different countries, and a period of two decades.

Now look at the studies that you've bet the farm on.

None of them even come close to the statistical power of one of the compliant studies, let alone be capable of rebutting the full collection of them.

No, we assign the studies weight based on their design, not on their conclusions, not on their source, not due to what floating around on social media at any given time.

It's good to know that you don't even have a clue how the regulatory agencies determine the exposure limits, as we bake a safety factor right into the development of the ADI, and similar metrics.

We start with the experimentally derived aggregate NOAEL, then apply a safety factor to account for the use of an animal model, along with the variability present in the human population.

I'd normally write that you should take a step back and actually learn some toxicology, but your ramblings are far more amusing to poke holes in.

Can you explain why the Seralini paper only showed photos of deformed rats for the experimental group but not the control group?

> a consultant profiting from litigation against Bayer

Ahh, as usual, follow the money.

And before anyone asks for proof, I did a quick search and came up with https://mesnage.github.io/consulting.html

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> Organic agriculture needs to be properly optimized. Soil science is where it's at.

But those two doesn't support each other. You can't really have healthy soil when farming organic at large scale. And you need more of it.

>Funny all these independent research groups from various facilities around the world are all thumbs (according to you)
>
>Have you ever proposed a project, had it approved by ethics department etc then gained funding? It's a pretty involved process usually involving a team of people. I'm terrible at statistics but we have specific experts that tell us in advance how how many mice/fish/frogs/flies are needed for each level of results. If you think all those various teams were unaware then really the onus is on you to prove this incompetence.
>
>The OECD guidelines you keep harping on about are for regulatory application approval and consideration for reviews. They dont usually apply to primary research. Have you ever actualy applied for a grant?

Doubling down on idiocy I see, and now pretending that you actually plan and conduct toxicity testing...how cute.

You keep on forgetting that there are different types of studies, and they all have differing abilities based on their design and statistical power.

The studies that you keep on harping about can only show correlation, and in the case of observational studies, that's the norm, as only the largest of these are ever capable of concluding that a causal link exists.

Consider the landmark cancer study of Hammond and Horn. It recruited over 100,000 subjects, and even that wasn't enough to be certain that the link was causal. It was only after the follow-up study of Hammond and the American Cancer Society followed over 1,000,000 subjects that the link was firm enough.

The reason why such numbers are needed is due to the increased variation of the population used in the study. The greater the variance, the greater the required population size is, plus in epidemiological studies, we are not dealing with controlled environments, and as such, the number of confounding and lurking variables makes anything but correlative associations next to impossible.

The OECD studies do not have such a limitation, as they are designed specifically to have the power of analysis to determine if the effects of a given chemical are causal in nature.

Now, first off, I can now see why so many of your posts cannot be seen. They've been removed by the moderators.

https://ibb.co/S7fqV9q

Note that it's not just your replies to me that are getting removed, so this might be an instance where you should take the hint, and realize that you're fundamentally wrong in your understanding of toxicology.

Case in point, in an earlier, and now deleted post (I still have the link though https://libguides.winona.edu/ebptoolkit/Levels-Evidence), you provided a link to the hierarchy of evidence...but you missed what types of studies that was related to, as well as where the OECD methods would fall under this hierarchy.

The page that you selected is in relation to clinical studies relating to treatment protocols, not assessing toxicity of a given chemical.

While toxicity testing is conducted on all pharmaceutical candidates, it's not in the clinical phase, it's all pre-clinical.

Quite literally, you're not even looking at the right place in the research timeline.

Also, and even more amusingly, we can extrapolate out this hierarchy to encapsulate toxicity assessments by looking at the design of things like the OECD methods.

More specifically, almost ALL of the OECD study designs are double blinded randomized control trials, with the test and control populations all randomly selected.

Guess what that makes Griem et al., (2015)?

Top of the bloody heap, as it is a systemic meta-review of all the relevant DB-RCT studies on glyphosate.

Finally, the age of a study isn't relevant unless you can show that there's an issue related to the data collected and/or the methods used. Simply pointing to more recent studies that lack comparable statistical power to the older studies isn't in any way, shape, or form, capable of countering the previous studies.

This is why I keep on pointing out the fact that you have NOTHING that can counter the compliant studies because literally every single study you choose to cite is orders of magnitude weaker in terms of just what it can differentiate.

Hell, even the authors of the study here don't even try to claim that they can show causation, and even their correlative associations are underpowered.

You don't understand this topic, and are unwilling to take the time to learn. Unfortunately this means that your only real use in this discussion is as an abject lesson of the dangers of the Dunning Kruger Effect and cognitive dissonance.

Edit: Oh, and your comment about the number of publications supporting you; again it's so cute that you think that, but you are very wrong, as you have NO publications that can show causal effects. This is the whole reason why we continually see the regulatory and scientific agencies reject the banal fear-mongering from the anti-biotech side of things.

Your supporting data isn't even close to equivalent, let alone capable of superseding properly conducted chronic toxicity studies.

For the same reason why he required all the reporters who attended the press conference prior to the publication of the study that they could not discuss any of the results with other scientists.

He wanted to create a splash, yet almost certainly knew that the study would be eviscerated once it was published.

...seriously, there's no way aside from utter incompetence that anyone could submit a paper that bad and not know what the fallout would be.

Unfortunately, it worked, and those lumpy rats get brought up over, and over, and over again.

The scientific community isn't overly affected by this, but that's also why we see so many of the anti-biotech types targeting the public directly, as opposed to trying to convince their peers of the validity of their work.

Just look at Seneff and Samsel.

They've don nothing but present hypotheses as fact for over a decade now, and are viewed as unhinged by even the Seralini crew, but we still see her speaking about her papers as if they were experimentally validated, when there's next to no chance her audience will be able to tell differently.

...it's kinda sad when the evil industrial ag complex has better ethics when it comes to accurately representing research than supposedly independent scientists.

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