Tim Tyler writes
In uk.rec.gardening Oz wrote:
: 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.

Ones from pancreatic cancer - for example:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...ed&list_uids=1
2594778&dopt=Abstract

sigh Pancreatic cancer mortality and organochlorine pesticide
exposure in California, 1989- 1996.


...or liver cancer:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...ed&list_uids=1
0620518&dopt=Abstract

sigh Cancer mortality and environmental exposure to DDE in the United
States.

These are OC's banned in the early 70's you prat.

: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.

I'm merely pointing out that the safely of pesticides remains
open to doubt.

Idiot, everything remains open to doubt, that proves nothing.
Now you really are clutching at straws.

Government regulators have demonstrably been wrong before on the
subject - with unpleasant consequences.

Indeed, but on pesticides in the last 10 years?

: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. [...]

Not if you simply put your trust in the government regulators
as guardians of the truth, no.

Excessively paranoid is how the chemical manufacturers describe them.
Usually products are approved for years before they get approved here as
a result.

They have a lot of pesticides to examine - and don't have
unbounded resources.

They do have unbounded resources, the chemical companies pay for it all.

I expect to see more mistakes - though perhaps not quite on the
grand scale of previous screw-ups.

Scale is important. Minor 'mistakes' in the usual refinement of
knowledge are to be expected. However I do not expect these to harm
consumers, the animal testing and the very large safety margins should
see to that.

:: 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).

Which is why I said "tend to be" rather than "are".

Quite. Potential hazards found via pesticide research because there was
NO adequate testing of the plastic products.

:Detergents are often poisonous.

: Yet you wash your veg for ten minutes in them.

Uh - how do you know how I treat my vegetables!?!

I never put my vegetables anywhere near detergents.

Ah, so the URL suggesting you should was to mislead others.
Right.

: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.

You presume an exhaustive set of tests. A false presumption.

It's as exhaustive as can reasonably be done.
Much more exhaustive than is needed.
Covers the arses of the pesticide directorate.

:: 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.

Of sorts.

Nope, they are.

: One little pill probably contains more than a lifetimes exposure to
: pesticide residues.

On what scale?

Take your pick, total active or therapeutic dose.

: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. [...]

You seem to have "a thing" about organic produce.

It seems to be contrary to the evidence suggesting pesticide residues
are lower on organic produce.

It's very rarely tested, and rarely for organic pesticides.

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

: Tough. Grow your own food.

Yes, I do. I just have not yet managed to grow *all* my own food.

Eat a smaller range or change your diet or get a bigger plot.

We are talking about pesticide trials on animals - and whether they
are an adequate model for humans.

It's the best you can have other than testing on humans.
This has been done on occasion, actually.
No interesting differences showed up.

: 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?

In most cases by using less.

Most farmers do use less wherever possible.
But you have to use enough.
This recent weather has made me increase my triazole level from the
normal 50% to 75%, and if it doesn't improve, 100%.

:and the risk could be made many times lower.

: How do you know?

It stands to reason that we are not yet on the pinaccle of pesticide
safety.

We may or may not be. I would hope for improvements, but many agchem
companies are cutting down on research due to the very high cost of
approvals.

We are still in the biotech dark ages - there's very much we
don't know - and ignorance is dangerous.

Biotech? You approve of GM cultivars?
I am amazed.
But yes, they could well help.

:: 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.

I do try to do that. I also try to have a very diverse diet -
in an attempt to prevent too much of any one thing causing harm.

What crops are you growing this year, and what percentage of your total
food intake (calories) do home grown crops amount to?


: 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.

Frankly, I can't see it as a likely scenario.

Indeed, but then you have a problem with high resistance varieties
(lotsa toxins) or more pesticide use (safer, lower levels of less toxic
compounds).

:: 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.

Left in case you figure out an answer.

: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.

We know a fair bit indirectly about plant toxins from the study of
human nutrition.

Actually we no sod all.

It may not have been medicine's most explored area - but
to say we know "virtually NIL" on the subject seems like an overstatement
to me.

Give me some examples of LD50, noel and content of a few food plant
toxins then.

:: 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).

You're mistaken there...

Hardly, I am a farmer.

:and things like a global market in seeds and produce.

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

...and there.

You are still wrong. Like most farmers I know a lot about seed
development and production.

: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.

Rather obviously, I'm talking about growing a greater proportion of
things "under glass" - or in controlled environments.

To feed the world?

speechless at the stunning level of ignorance

You may have noticed that there's been something of a trend in that
direction over the last hundred years.

Not in the UK, it's almost zero now other than for cut flowers.
Far too expensive.

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