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Roundup Safety and Toxicity
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Roundup Safety and Toxicity
In article ,
Siberian Husky wrote: I do care but I am not a chemist nor a biochemist, and I do not know how to test Roundup and see whether it affects sperm production -- for instance, even if Roundup is proved to affect sperm production in salmons or dogs, it does not prove its effects on Homo sapiens. We know its effect only when one day, say, Mr. William Olive accidentally got Roundup on his body and the medical results show us Roundup effect on humans. How about your strategy? You emphasize only the part you support, that no peer scientific journals have found Roundup dangerous, and you disregard the part not in line with your view. Let me tell you a few stories. Not too many years ago, there were lots of people who loved to quote incomplete and inconclusive anecdotal research as evidence that giving postmenopausal women estrogens protected them from heart disease. Then, after a controlled large study was done, it was demonstrated that the opposite was true. Lots of women who took estrogen in the belief they were protecting themselves from heart disease were instead *increasing* their risk of heart disease. Until a few months ago, there was a religious conviction that passive exposure to smoke caused coronary heart disease and lung cancer. An entire political agenda has been devoted to this, and health nazis have made great hay waxing hysterical on it. Legislation has been built around it, to the point that in my county the County board passed a bill that made it illegal to smoke in your own home if a neighbor found it offensive. It was only vetoed because the County Executive decided it would be nothing more than a tool for bickering neighbors. Now, of course, a large definitive study *has* been done that concludes that there is no causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco-related mortality. But do you think the smoking nazis are changing the way they want to enforce their views? Of course not. That's what comes from drawing conclusions from inconclusive studies. It's what comes from taking a limited study and pretending that it is definitive. Early results are commonly reversed by definitive studies. It's as common as dirt. But people who use these early results as if they were definitive do it because they have an agenda. The bottom line is that people use these studies to create legislation, to force people to act in certain ways, and to impose their world view and their agenda. That's why these people are so insistent that articles state things they do not state. That's why they trot out articles that they claim show that Roundup causes infertility -- even when the author says the article doesn't address it. That's why they trot out articles that they claim shows that Roundup causes abortions in Ontario -- even though the authors state they aren't even *testing* it. It's because the truth is secondary to the agenda. And I am evil because I bother to ask them to stop lying in order to advance that agenda. I am bad because I ask them to admit that early and inconclusive studies are early and inconclusive. I am outrageous because I challenge them to show that the studies they tout actually say what they claim they say. So while you again and again emphasize how safe Roundup is, may I ask you when did scientists find DDT dangerous since it was made? Thalidomide? When they had evidence. I gather it is your belief that *everything* should be considered dangerous until proven safe? Or just *certain* things? If so, then you had better start clearing out your home -- and forget about your garden. Better correct "a lie" into "an unproven claim". At least, I myself as of now never claimed anything about Roundup based on a lie. If you have problems with lies, deal with them, but don't deal with me :P No, "a lie." Henry, Paghat, et al. trot out articles that explicitly do not claim what they say they claim. It's one thing to state one's belief. That's fine. It's another to outright lie about what an article states. I do not care what they claim. Exactly. billo |
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Roundup Safety and Toxicity
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Roundup Safety and Toxicity
On Mon, 08 Sep 2003 23:38:30 GMT, Rick wrote:
the dumb ones will starve off first eh? if thats the case we'll surely miss you and your snipping skills.... |
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Roundup Safety and Toxicity
X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.93/32.576 English (American)
MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 9 Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2003 18:30:21 -0700 NNTP-Posting-Host: 68.108.40.241 X-Complaints-To: X-Trace: fed1read04 1063070884 68.108.40.241 (Mon, 08 Sep 2003 21:28:04 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2003 21:28:04 EDT Organization: Cox Communications Path: kermit!newsfeed-east.nntpserver.com!nntpserver.com!priapus.visi.co m!news-out.visi.com!green.readfreenews.net!news.readfreen ews.net!cox.net!news-xfer.cox.net!p01!fed1read04.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: kermit rec.gardens:248755 On 8 Sep 2003 09:44:23 -0700, (Siberian Husky) wrote: if Roundup is proved to affect sperm production in salmons or dogs, it does not prove its effects on Homo sapiens. Sometimes I wonder, based on the humaity around me, if reduced fertility might not be so bad for Homo sapiens.... |
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Roundup Safety and Toxicity
billo said: "That's what comes from drawing conclusions from inconclusive
studies. It's what comes from taking a limited study and pretending that it is definitive. Early results are commonly reversed by definitive studies. It's as common as dirt. But people who use these early results as if they were definitive do it because they have an agenda." H. Kuska comment: billo again appears to be using a modified criteria: (this is the original one - "come up with a single scientific article that claims to show that Roundup is dangerous to humans when used as directed") to one where the scientific study must be "definitive". Unfortunately in science "definitive" is almost an impossible goal (in non simple yes/no situations). It is also a relative concept. What one group may consider for all practical purposes as "definitive" another group may not. For example, there is still a group that argues against the banning of DDT. You may have noticed that we use " 95 % Confidence Intervals". This means stasticially that the number can be thought of as being within that range with a 95 % confidence limit. A large study is being done: "An ongoing study funded jointly by the National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Environmental Health and the EPA is tracking 90,000 herbicide applicators and their spouses to look for possible health effects of pesticides." (quote from the following July 2003 article: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in562737.shtml ). If you would like to read additional information about chemicals and birth defects you can do a Google search. A recommended site is the March of Dimes site: http://www.marchofdimes.com/pnhec/4439.asp A specific page on that site of interest is: http://www.marchofdimes.com/aboutus/681_9146.asp . The pertanent information is: "Can pesticides harm an unborn baby? Pregnant women should avoid pesticides, whenever possible. There is no proof that exposure to pest-control products at levels commonly used at home pose a risk to the fetus. However, all insecticides are to some extent poisonous and some studies have suggested that high levels of exposure to pesticides may contribute to miscarriage, preterm delivery and birth defects. Certain pesticides and other chemicals, including PCBs, have weak, estrogen-like qualities called endocrine disrupters that some scientists suspect may affect development of the fetus's reproductive system. A pregnant woman can reduce her exposure to pesticides by controlling pest problems with less toxic products such as boric acid (use the blue form available at hardware stores). If she must have her home or property treated with pesticides, a pregnant woman should: a.. Have someone else apply the chemicals and leave the area for the amount of time indicated on the package instructions. b.. Remove food, dishes and utensils from the area before the pesticide is applied. Afterwards, have someone open the windows and wash off all surfaces on which food is prepared. c.. Close all windows and turn off air conditioning, when pesticides are used outdoors, so fumes aren't drawn into the house. d.. Wear rubber gloves when gardening to prevent skin contact with pesticides." MedLine is the source of the latest scientific information for doctors. I post abstracts from it on general public internet boards. My policy has been to post them without comment. If the reader does not have the background to understand the abstract; and if is potentially applicable to their lifestyle (in this case pregnancy), I would hope that she would bring the abstract to the attention of their doctor. The Minnesota study states "about 3.7 % of children born on an average day in the United States are said to have a birth defect". I do not know about your family, but in my family the pregnant woman have practiced the Precautionary Principle with regard to potential birth defect agents. If a pregnant woman decides to use Round-Up, according to the most recent information available (the 2002 Minnesota paper under consideration here - "Use of the herbicide glyphosate yielded an OR of 3.6 (CI, 1.3-9.6) in the neurobehavioral category."); she is increasing the odds of having of baby with a neurobehavioral birth defect. If she wants to waits for a "definitive" study, that is her choice; but according to the knowledge now available, she is running an increased risk. This is not simply an increased risk of a one time and it is over event, this is an increased risk of having brought into this world a child who may have a lifetime birth defect and a possible potential of being able to pass it along to future generations! About 15 years ago I read a very interesting book about birth defects and chemical exposure. Unfortunately I do not remember the title, only the subtitle - "Blame it all on Mother". After reading that book, I included information from it in my lectures about chemical safety - One of my favorate quotes went something like the following: it is a horrible thing when a war kills such and such many people, it is also horrible when a plague kills such and such many; but the real, "super" horrible event is if we somehow introduce something that ruins the gene pool or otherwise has an effect over multgenerations. A little background may be in order: Historically, we started out with brute force poisons. As our understanding of biology/botany increased, we were able to develop more specific poisons, i.e. ones that we "thought" would only affect a certain biological pathway; for example, one that only an insect had. Unfortunately, nature did not decide to make all fungi silicon based life forms and all insects calcium based life forms. Instead, we are finding out that many biological pathways are similar in different life forms. That said, I will now make what appears to be a very cold statement. Similar to what I just said about normal natural disasters, the poisons of the past could kill, say, a hundred people, or a thousand people, or even a million people; as far as the big picture is concerned - so what? These are just numbers in one dimension. With our new more sophisticated "poisons" we have to be concerned about affecting the gene pool. This is a two dimensional poison - today and future generations. A comparison more familiar to the public is to compare a biodegradable poison spill with a radioactive spill. Hopefully, the above will help the reader understand why some feel that it is even more important to be cautious with the newer chemicals than it was with the older "less sophisticated" ones - particularly when birth defects are involved. This is why many scientists (including myself) advocate the utilization of the "Precautionary Principle" for suspected birth defect chemicals. If you are not familar with this principle, please see: http://www.biotech-info.net/precautionary.html . Henry Kuska, retired http://home.neo.rr.com/kuska/ |
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Roundup Safety and Toxicity
In article ,
Henry Kuska wrote: billo said: "That's what comes from drawing conclusions from inconclusive studies. It's what comes from taking a limited study and pretending that it is definitive. Early results are commonly reversed by definitive studies. It's as common as dirt. But people who use these early results as if they were definitive do it because they have an agenda." H. Kuska comment: billo again appears to be using a modified criteria: (this is the original one - "come up with a single scientific article that claims to show that Roundup is dangerous to humans when used as directed") to one where the scientific study must be "definitive". No, Henry. I am answering the question of why I bother with you. In fact, my challenge still stands. None of the articles you have posted deal with use as directed. In fact, that is one of the stated limitations in the large population studies. billo |
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Roundup Safety and Toxicity
Kindly cite that study about second hand smoke.
And, please cite all the studies that contradict it. "Bill Oliver" wrote in message ... In article , Siberian Husky wrote: I do care but I am not a chemist nor a biochemist, and I do not know how to test Roundup and see whether it affects sperm production -- for instance, even if Roundup is proved to affect sperm production in salmons or dogs, it does not prove its effects on Homo sapiens. We know its effect only when one day, say, Mr. William Olive accidentally got Roundup on his body and the medical results show us Roundup effect on humans. How about your strategy? You emphasize only the part you support, that no peer scientific journals have found Roundup dangerous, and you disregard the part not in line with your view. Let me tell you a few stories. Not too many years ago, there were lots of people who loved to quote incomplete and inconclusive anecdotal research as evidence that giving postmenopausal women estrogens protected them from heart disease. Then, after a controlled large study was done, it was demonstrated that the opposite was true. Lots of women who took estrogen in the belief they were protecting themselves from heart disease were instead *increasing* their risk of heart disease. Until a few months ago, there was a religious conviction that passive exposure to smoke caused coronary heart disease and lung cancer. An entire political agenda has been devoted to this, and health nazis have made great hay waxing hysterical on it. Legislation has been built around it, to the point that in my county the County board passed a bill that made it illegal to smoke in your own home if a neighbor found it offensive. It was only vetoed because the County Executive decided it would be nothing more than a tool for bickering neighbors. Now, of course, a large definitive study *has* been done that concludes that there is no causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco-related mortality. But do you think the smoking nazis are changing the way they want to enforce their views? Of course not. That's what comes from drawing conclusions from inconclusive studies. It's what comes from taking a limited study and pretending that it is definitive. Early results are commonly reversed by definitive studies. It's as common as dirt. But people who use these early results as if they were definitive do it because they have an agenda. The bottom line is that people use these studies to create legislation, to force people to act in certain ways, and to impose their world view and their agenda. That's why these people are so insistent that articles state things they do not state. That's why they trot out articles that they claim show that Roundup causes infertility -- even when the author says the article doesn't address it. That's why they trot out articles that they claim shows that Roundup causes abortions in Ontario -- even though the authors state they aren't even *testing* it. It's because the truth is secondary to the agenda. And I am evil because I bother to ask them to stop lying in order to advance that agenda. I am bad because I ask them to admit that early and inconclusive studies are early and inconclusive. I am outrageous because I challenge them to show that the studies they tout actually say what they claim they say. So while you again and again emphasize how safe Roundup is, may I ask you when did scientists find DDT dangerous since it was made? Thalidomide? When they had evidence. I gather it is your belief that *everything* should be considered dangerous until proven safe? Or just *certain* things? If so, then you had better start clearing out your home -- and forget about your garden. Better correct "a lie" into "an unproven claim". At least, I myself as of now never claimed anything about Roundup based on a lie. If you have problems with lies, deal with them, but don't deal with me :P No, "a lie." Henry, Paghat, et al. trot out articles that explicitly do not claim what they say they claim. It's one thing to state one's belief. That's fine. It's another to outright lie about what an article states. I do not care what they claim. Exactly. billo |
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Roundup Safety and Toxicity
Billo said: No, Henry. I am answering the question of why I bother with
you. In fact, my challenge still stands. None of the articles you have posted deal with use as directed. In fact, that is one of the stated limitations in the large population studies. H. Kuska reply: ??????? the Minnesota paper states: "Population and population access. In Minnesota, licensing for application of pesticides commercially or for application to one's own farmland requires periodic recertification by completion of a program of education and examination. Applicators are licensed to apply specific classes of pesticides (herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, and/or fumigants)". If a group of licensed and periodically recertified people does not meet your criteria, then I cannot visual any meaningful real world group that your criteria would apply to. Please give some examples .. Also, please provide the exact quote in this paper that you feel makes the statement that the glyphosate was not used as directed. Henry Kuska, retired http://home.neo.rr.com/kuska/ |
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Roundup Safety and Toxicity
Tom Jaszewski wrote in message . ..
On 8 Sep 2003 09:44:23 -0700, (Siberian Husky) wrote: if Roundup is proved to affect sperm production in salmons or dogs, it does not prove its effects on Homo sapiens. Sometimes I wonder, based on the humaity around me, if reduced fertility might not be so bad for Homo sapiens.... I think for most people, reduced fertility has the only advantage of savings over Trojan and Durex (if you use them for contraception purposes). In the tense discussion about Roundup, let me share a joke with netters to calm down. A car's license plate shows SAVE THE EARTH 001-ABC COMMIT SUICIDE |
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Roundup Safety and Toxicity
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Roundup Safety and Toxicity
In article ,
Henry Kuska wrote: Billo said: No, Henry. I am answering the question of why I bother with you. In fact, my challenge still stands. None of the articles you have posted deal with use as directed. In fact, that is one of the stated limitations in the large population studies. H. Kuska reply: ??????? the Minnesota paper states: "Population and population access. In Minnesota, licensing for application of pesticides commercially or for application to one's own farmland requires periodic recertification by completion of a program of education and examination. Applicators are licensed to apply specific classes of pesticides (herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, and/or fumigants)". If a group of licensed and periodically recertified people does not meet your criteria, then I cannot visual any meaningful real world group that your criteria would apply to. Please give some examples . Hmmm. Let's see, can we think of any certified people who don't act exactly as directed. Boy, you must be right. A person who goes through a quick training program and certification must never act in a way contrary to those guidelines. All those reports of malpractice and practice errors by physicians, nurses, and medical technologists in hospitals must be lies, eh, Henry? After all, if going through an orientation session immunizes people from this kind of thing, then years of training and multiple rigorous exams must make it impossible! And lawyers, they never cut corners either, do they? Or plumbers. Or carpenters. Or welders. Or funeral homes. Or restauranteurs. At least not licensed ones. And god knows that there are no licensed drivers that ever break the law. Henry, a good part of my living is investigating the messes caused by trained and licensed people who ignore the rules. There's nobody better than a trained and licensed Ordnance Disposal Expert to be found blowing up himself and his kids welding on a full propane tank. Familiarity breeds contempt, and "experts" are some of the worst at cutting corners -- because they are good enough that they *can* often cut corners and get away with it. My criteria for using things as directed is using things as directed. Also, please provide the exact quote in this paper that you feel makes the statement that the glyphosate was not used as directed. It was not a subject of the paper. Since it was not addressed, a scientist would not make unwarranted assumptions one way or the other. Once again, you pretend that something was tested in a paper that was not tested. This is another paper who's purpose was to generate hypotheses, not test them, and you tout this as a paper that tests the hypotheses. billo |
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Roundup Safety and Toxicity
In article ,
Siberian Husky wrote: And let me also tell you "my strategy". In general, if a message is longer than 48 lines (two pages in my terminal), I in general lose interest in reading further. Then don't read. Now my question for you after listening to three stories from you is, do you think the current scientific studies on the safety/toxicity of Roundup is conclusive? For instance, when Roundup is used as directed on grapes, N days before the harvest, no danger is found. When Roundup is used on roses, M days before going to the florist shop, no danger is found..... Is it possible that one day the scientists realize Roundup combines with a certain ingredient in pumpkins (or change it to some other agricultural product if you like) and it forms a highly poisonous compound, or a dangerous carcinogen? To sum up, how can we determine something to be "conclusive"? Please forgive me if I sound naive, because I am no chemist, no biochemist, no medicine major, and no environmental science background. I am an average gardener. There is nothing that says that some day it will be found that growing one crop next to another will cause both crops to be poisonous. It has never happened, to my knowledge, but one cannot rule out everything. Does that mean that you should never plant crops? The only think you know is that after all this looking, the kind of thing you are talking about has not happened. That suggests that unless you are doing something novel, it will not happen. If you believe that one should live one's life believing that things for which there is no evidence are about to happen, go ahead. However, most people look for evidence before drawing conclusions. Okay. But so far I do not think my question is answered, about how you Bill Oliver decide something is safe or something is not in your garden. Please note that I myself do not support legislation against Roundup (so far), and I do not remember anyone in this newsgroup proposing it. Sure, you have said my memory is flawed, and I told you I lose interest in reading some certain posts. I decide that something is safe by looking at the available evidence. The evidence is that Roundup is safe for humans when used as directed. Even if the untested hypotheses that certain groups with high exposure to multiple pesticides and herbicides may be at a slightly higher risk for rare problems were nor found to be a false lead from noisy statistics, I would ask if I fall in that group. It's because the truth is secondary to the agenda. And I am evil because I bother to ask them to stop lying in order to advance that agenda. I am bad because I ask them to admit that early and inconclusive studies are early and inconclusive. I am outrageous because I challenge them to show that the studies they tout actually say what they claim they say. If you swear you would not participate in a class action lawsuit against Monsanto about Roundup 15 or 20 years later (God forbids), your being evil, bad, and outrageous will all be forgiven. What does this have to do with my statement? So the issue boils down to whether you want to err on the safe side or the dangerous side. Using Roundup or other insecticide is fine for you if you believe they are safe. Not using Roundup is fine for John Smith if he believes it is dangerous. Advocating the safety of Roundup is your freedom of speech, and arguing how bad Roundup can do to the earth is John's. That's fine. You can advocate whatever you like on the basis of taste, aesthetics, religion, or whim. I won't argue with you, and I won't criticize you. Just don't pretend you are doing it on the basis of science. billo |
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Roundup Safety and Toxicity
In article , Betsy -0 wrote:
Kindly cite that study about second hand smoke. No problem. Enstron, JE, Kabat, GC. Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960-98. BMJ. 2003 May 17;326(7398):1057. It is a study of 35,561 never-smokers with a smoking spouse. The full text can be found online through pubmed, or directly from BMJ: http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7398/1057 And, please cite all the studies that contradict it. Read the many comments that the BMJ put online. I will quote from two. Perhaps the best was an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, which addresses the general habit of obsessing about extremely small risk factors: _______ Polemic and public health, CMAJ 169 (3): 181 (2003) (begin excerpt) [snip] The problem with the data on passive smoking (and many other potential environmental hazards) is that the estimated risks are so close to zero. The study published in BMJ showed that the risks of heart disease, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease among never-smokers living with a smoker compared to never-smokers living with a nonsmoker were 0.94 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.85?1.05), 0.75 (95% CI 0.42?1.35) and 1.27 (95% CI 0.78?2.08) respectively, all statistically insignificant and none very large. Fifty-three years ago BMJ published research by Doll and Hill on 649 men who had lung cancer and compared their smoking habits with a group of 649 comparable men who did not have lung cancer.3 The risk (odds ratio) of lung cancer among smokers compared to nonsmokers was 14.0, meaning that smokers were 14 times more likely to develop lung cancer than nonsmokers. This result is interesting for 3 reasons. First, it is instructive that this huge increase in risk was not apparent from casual observation: because most men smoked, the effects of this behaviour were inapparent. Second, although even these astonishingly high risks were disputed, this study (and others that followed) marked the start of a long but steady decline in smoking among men, followed decades later by a decline in deaths from lung cancer. Third, from the perspective of almost all current research on environmental hazards, in which odds ratios of 1.2 (or an increase of risk of 20%) are considered sufficient to prompt action by public health advocates (or social hygienists?), perhaps we should ask if we are sometimes overzealous in our attempts to publicize and regulate small hazards. It is impossible to control completely for confounding variables in observational studies. The smaller the risk estimate, the greater the chance that confounding factors will distort it and invalidate it. This is not to say that observational studies should be abandoned. Faced with the results of the recent study we can, as individuals, elect to change our behaviours and possibly our risk exposures. But, when interpreting the results and then championing public policy and legislation to regulate exposure, we must be doubly wary of tailoring statistics to fit the current fashion. We must be open with our doubts, honest in our interpretations and cautious in our recommendations. Exaggerated claims of risk will only erode the credibility and effectiveness of public health. (end excerpt) The second provides an off-the-cuff metanalysis: Gian L. Turci "What killer? Let's call things with their name." BMJ Rapid Responses, 19 May 2003 http://bmj.com/cgi/eletters/326/7398/1057#32320 The situation on passive smoke is quite simple. The heterogeneity of the studies militates against a formal meta-analysis, and the general and admitted weakness of results rather favors a simple eyeball appraisal. Out of a total of 123 studies (excluding this last one) 16 have shown a risk elevation for cancer, 30 have shown a benefit from exposure, all the rest failed to demonstrate either way. Out of the 16 studies mentioned above, NONE showed an elevation of risk greater than 20 percent. We all know that in this kind of epidemiology, it takes an odds ratio elevation of 200% or more just to demonstrate that a correlation EXISTS. The US National Cancer Institute affirms that "Relative risks of less than 2 are considered small and are usually difficult to interpret. Such increases may be due to chance, statistical bias, or the effect of confounding factors [other causes] that are sometimes not evident"- and this is just an example. Thus, the 16 studies could not even demonstrate unequivocally the existence of a correlation. The evidence for other diseases attributed to passive smoking is even weaker. What killer? Propaganda and instigation of hysteria (whether done by public institutions or otherwise) do not constitute proof or evidence -- unless, of course, we want to tell the truth and use the real names: intolerance and prohibitionism; but please do not call it scientific demonstration, for that insults science and intelligence! billo |
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