GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

20-08-2003, 05:22 PM

(Bill Oliver) wrote in
:

I have been following the debate but I have not done a literature
search to determine the merits of both sides. I myself, use roundup -
very sparingly - and not in areas where I think there is a likelihood
of contaminated the ground water.

I CAN say that based on my professional experience, that I am HIGHLY
skeptical of any chemical company propaganda.

Fine. Let's keep it to the scientific literature, then. Please
provide a single scientific article in a peer-reviwed journal that
claims to show that Roundup is dangerous to humans when used
as directed.

What the man is saying, Bill, is that it is very well possible and even
likely that this scientific literature is also possibly 'influenced' by
the companies.

I admire your stubborness, and agree with David J Bockman elsewhere,
that you exposed a fair amount of irrationality and even dishonesty in
your opponents.

But IMO the reason why this drags on is that you are so rigidly trusting
scientific evidence. History is full of monumentous mistakes that at the
time were either not seen in need of scientific approval or were
approved with the (incomplete) knowledge of that time. And this was all
before there were these gigantic corporations at work that have more
money at their disposal than their own government and (provenly) use it
to distort the fact-finding with our current (and STILL incomplete)
knowledge.

I find it hard to believe that _anyone_ could be so rigid in trusting
the evidence around a product coming from a company that is known to be
dishonest in the past and is currently bargaining for the right to print
money during the next 100 years. Since you _are_ that 'someone', not
even allowing for a shred of doubt about all this, I find it hard to
believe the rest of your statements as well.

Ppl are not only making their decisions based upon pure information;
they also look at where the information is coming from. It is to me
quite acceptible and even applaudible that we (or the majority of us)
are not believing _anything_ that has to do with claims made by Monsanto
or by research surrounding their products. For every article that shows
doubt about safeness of their products there will be needed at least 10
articles proving the opposite. That is the price MS is paying now for
their behavior in the past. If they only showed they were at least aware
of this PR problem there might be a solution. Until then all the
scientific evidence in the world will not convince ppl and make it more
expensive to sway the politicians.

Ursa..

BTW. I'm a mathematician by education and CEO/owner of a small
IT-company; I favor organic gardening but occasionaly use Roundup in
spot-application. The recent charade around GM-tech lawmaking and
dooming tradewar between US and EUR made me watch Monsanto with more
interest. What I came to know since then will not make me trust Monsanto
again during my lifetime. If one company should be closed down because
of criminal behavior it is them.

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