Tim Tyler writes

It does seem likely that these statistics are unlikely to cover many of
the slower deaths from pesticide exposure.

What slower deaths?
Give me a government website giving these consumer deaths.

Some of the deaths will be things like suicides - i.e. they would happen
anyway - but by some other means.

However some other ones are like the deaths of the 26 children I cited -
who consumed the pesticide in their breakfasts.

I'm sure this was not due to residues.

Accidents. If the toxic chemical had not been around in the first
place they would never have happened. In such cases it's harder
to avoid pointing the finger at the pesticides making the environment
a more dangerous place by their presence.

So ban knives, cars and alarm clocks first.
Rather than something that is completely safe when used as directed.
By the way you are aware that for some years all UK spraystores must be
kept locked?

::: 2) There is most definitely a health cost for consuming produce
::: contaminated by fungi. Aflatoxins and vomitotoxins for example.
::
::Humans can easily detect many sorts of fungal infection - and can
::reject contaminated produce.
:
:: Rubbish. [...]
:
:My comment is accurate.

: No, it's rubbish.

I was quite accurate. Note that I went on immediately to say
"There /are/ some undetectable fungus toxins".

Most of them are, so that's a stupid and misleading statement of no
relevance to the discussion.

: Most really toxic fungal toxins are quite undetectable at the lethal
: dose.

My comment related to "fungal infections".

You seem to have changed this to "really toxic fungal toxins".

Fungal infections, gross ones, are detectable.
Mostly they are safe to eat.
Many fungal toxins are produced where there is no evidence of 'fungal
infections'.

Don't you think that change is in danger of obliterating the
other range of cues which individuals might use to determine
infection - besides the taste of the toxin itself - including
the appearance and taste of the other parts of the fungus?

No, generally speaking.

::There /are/ some undetectable fungus toxins. Aflatoxins on or in
::nuts are notoriously difficult to detect by the consumer.
:
:: So are ergots, vomitotoxins and in fact pretty well all of them.
:
:Many fungal toxins are easily detected by taste and/or appearance.

: No, you are confusing 'food attacked by fungi' with 'food rendered toxic
: by fungi', the two being quite distinct. [...]

Well, you will note that the former group /does/ contain the latter one.

Rejecting food with fungal infections will also reject food with
toxic fungal infections.

No, because you would not detect many toxic (that is harmful levels) of
toxins by that route. Consequently it's an illusion. Rather like your
illusion that you can detect poisons by taste.

Most foodstuffs are attacked by rather visible and obvious forms
of fungus. Leave things out for a while and see. When food
goes mouldy, people usually throw it out - a practice which
takes any fungal toxins with them.

That's the sporulating bodies, in most cases.
Fungi can (and usually do) attack stuff days or often weeks before
fruiting bodies are seen. That's pretty typical of many cereal diseases
for example. To control phoma in rape, which becomes visible in spring,
you spray in autumn when the fungus is spreading invisibly through the
plant. If a fungus needs live tissues, then it doesn't kill the tissues
it's infecting. Remember, many of these toxins do NOT affect plants.

::However, if they wind up on the produce, consumers should expect to
::see them on the label.
:
:: No need, current use of pesticides leaves minute, usually undetectable,
:: residues which are perfectly safe.
:
:Levels of safety of most pesticides are not known.

: ********.

It's true. Science doesn't offer certainty - and there are a very
large number of ways in which human health can be adversely affectd -
it's impossible to test them all - and testing is usually the only
way to be at all sure.

Certainty is NOT the same as 'the levels of safety are well known'.
Nobody can ever be certain about anything, so it's a moronic thing to
say.

Of course there are ethical problems associated with testing
pesticides on humans. This makes things even harder - often
the very tests that are most needed can't legally be performed.

They aren't needed. Animal and cells give more than adequate security,
particularly when combined with the huge safety margins and very low
incidence of residues near the allowed levels anyway.

: I quoted some of the info. ALL approved pesticides have a
: full toxicology, far far more detailed than pharmaceuticals or
: materials you find in the home (plastics and detergents for example).

: And that is despite the fact that your consumption of residual pesticide
: remnants and residues is at worst in microscopic quantities.

Plastics tend to be inert.

Take a look at pthalates used in plastic manufacture.
Take a look at the carcinogenic properties of benzene (in your fuel
tank).

Detergents are often poisonous.

Yet you wash your veg for ten minutes in them.

I can easily believe more effort is put into testing pesticides
than detergents - but that hardly means that they are safe.

It does, because they must pass ALL the tests to be approved.

:Scientific investigations have difficulty showing things are
:safe in long-lived organisms like us. Lifetime trials are
:frequently required - probably across multiple generations -
:before you can claim something is safe with much in the way
:of certainty. Such trials have not been performed in humans.

: They have been performed in a range of mammals and appropriate safety
: levels set. If you followed your dictum then we should not be using any
: modern plastics, paints and other things found in life. Indeed many of
: them have been shown to be toxic, yet they are still used because people
: want their utility.

I don't mind other people eating pesticides - if they choose to.

Remember antibiotics are a pesticide, too.
One little pill probably contains more than a lifetimes exposure to
pesticide residues.

I'll bet you will jump at the chance to swallow lots when you get your
first tooth abcess or have your first operation.

Basically what I want is more ability to control my own level
of pesticide consumption - so I can down-regluate it in areas
I am concerned about.

Then don't buy organic. There are lots of pesticides available for
organic use. The Bt toxin for example.

Doing that today would restrict the diversity of foods available
in my diet.

Tough. Grow your own food.

:There are so many things that can go wrong. If pesticides
:weaken your immune system (one of the most common effects)
:than this likely won't show up in lab studies - since these
:are typically done in relatively disease-free environments.

: Labs are not particularly 'low disease', no high accumulation
: of animals ever is.

Yes they are. Disease is often a function of the environment.

Quite, and packing lots of animals together tends to a high disease
challenge.

Lab animals are in a highly artificial environment - and face
different challenges. For example normally there are no predators.

Predators are not diseases.
Few farm livestock have predators either.
No difference there.

That might mean that running speed doesn't show up in
lifespan studies in the way that it usually would.

Indeed it works fine.


:I don't regard today's level of testing pesticides to provide
:much more than minimal protection.

: Then you are an idiot or quite ignorant about it.

I mean that it's minimal compared to what it could be - not that
it doesn't protect people from pesticides at all.

At 50M quid a hit, more than has been spent on plant toxin research
since the dawn of time, it's most certainly not minimal but (in the view
of manufacturers) excessive overkill.

In other words the
safely level could usefully be many times higher -

How?

and the risk could
be made many times lower.

How do you know?
We are using the safest products ever found right now.

:: Obviously you couldn't use the same safety spec as for pesticides as
:: you would have few, probably no, allowed food plants.
:
:I think you'll find eating no food at all kills you fairly rapidly.

: Yes but:

: 1) I could select less toxic plant foods.
: 2) I could use low toxicity cultivars.

Well only up to a point - eventually you will run out of less-toxic
foods to switch to.

Indeed, but you could influence it.
Of course the big problem, and why no significant work has been done, is
that everyone expects plant toxins to be so dangerous that all vegetable
foods would have to be banned for safety reasons. Nobody wants to go
down that route.

: Noting the strong relationship between plant toxins and pest resistance
: (it's why the toxins are there in the first place) it would almost
: certainly be safer to use plants bred for low toxin production and use
: the much safer pesticides to control the pests.

You seem heavily in favour of spending pesticide research dollars
on eliminating natural food toxins - perhaps by breeding.

Hardly. We would need more and much better pesticides to keep pests off
the very highly disease susceptible plants that would result.

/Eventually/ I would rather have safe man-made toxins to deter
predators than poisonous natural ones. However - currently -
many of the natural toxins have their upsides - often in the
form of cancer prevention.

Claims rarely (if ever) supported by solid evidence.

E.g.:

L-Canavanine
A Potential Chemotherapeutic Agent for Human Pancreatic Cancer
http://www.szp.swets.nl/szp/journals/pb363194.htm

Resveratrol - which belongs to a group of compounds known as stilbenes,
which are spontaneously synthesized on the surface of grapes as an immune
response to attack by fungal diseases - and improves heart health;

Glycosides:
http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/plants/.../glucosin.html

...and Phytoestrogens:
http://www.herbalchem.net/Introductory.htm

I'm not sure it would be a good idea to breed such "toxic"
agents out of food - since one of the things they are good at
killing is human cancers.

They may also *cause* human cancers, cell killers often do.

...and at the moment I am not satisfied that enough is known
about the long-term effects of man-made pesticides to take
such steps.

Hardly surprising since you have shown no evidence of solid knowledge of
pesticides or their toxicity other than scaremonger websites.

The natural toxins have been around longer,
our bodies have had a chance to get used to them - and
there has been more opportunity for study.

1) So what if they have been around longer. Think strychnine.
2) Our bodies didn't evolve to consume a small range of food plants.
Take out the brassicae and solanum groups and there isn't much left.
3) There has been virtually NIL study on plant toxins.

So wrong on all three counts.

:Eating fruit and vegetables is important to good health.

: Eating healthy meat and veg is, and pesticides help enormously here.
: Not only that, but the abundance of food available today is DIRECTLY
: the result of the introduction of safe effective pesticides.

...amongst many other modern farming techniques - including the
use of machinery -

Irrelevant. It does nothing more than could be and was done by hand
(better).

and things like a global market in seeds and
produce.

That's always been there (not that it has any relevance to your
submission).

Frankly, food abundance matters little to me personally these days. I
live in a western country - where there is more food than can be eaten,
and there's a plague of obesity on the land.

Take out pesticides and that would change within 12 months to world
famine. Your 'abundance' of food is only good for the current harvest.

If there are food shortages - then by all means do what's necessary
to stop people from starving. However when food is plentiful, I
would rather have good quality food than even more masses of it.

With pesticides you get both. Unfortunately.

:Eating pesticides on the other hand is not required at all.

: 1) Usually undetectable levels.
: 2) You would get less food, of much poorer (ie infected) quality without
: them. I am old enough to remember the 50's when few pesticides (pretty
: well DDT only) was used, and remember picking caterpillars out of the
: veg before cooking. Quite a common occurrence, in some years usual.

I'm hoping in the future that food quality will improve - /and/ that
pesticide usage will decline.

So do I. The resultant shortages will mean fat profits for farmers
instead of the current less than breakeven.

I suspect that eventually mechanical barriers to pests will eventually
make many of today's pesticides redundant.

Dream on, you have no idea what you are talking about.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.