Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

truedelphi

(32,324 posts)
10. OKay answer this, mike_c
Mon Mar 30, 2015, 04:04 PM
Mar 2015

We found out here in Calif. circa 2001 or 2002 that large company, Novartis, had put up some fifty millions of dollars to help set up research laboratories at Univ of California Berkeley.

Novartis is a big ag, big pesticide manufacturer.

Do you really think that any of that research is going to be designed to look carefully and properly at pesticides?

I have spent thirty years of my life investigating the Big Time Industries of the USA.

Studies "look" at things, but they are carefully designed, by industry with data permissably pulled from a study for many nefarious reasons.

And often the study is designed to avoid examining the very aspects of a product that need the examination!

For instance, when Monsanto was attempting to get a license for RoundUp from the EPA so that RoundUp could be sold over the counter, a study was carefully designed to ensure the product was not eliminated from license consideration.

What the scientists at Monsanto did was to do a feeding study of dogs that had consumed RoundUp.

The dogs then experienced a low or non-existent death rate - but the fact is, a proper study would have looked at how a dog would fare after being sprayed with RoundUp.

The reason I make that distinction is that I can't imagine people feeding their dogs RoundUp but dogs get sprayed all the time. (for instance, on a bright sunny day, you leave your pet in the backyard while you go shopping for a few hours, not realizing that the neighbor is going to spray RoundUp all over his property, which the 8 mph wind will be carrying over to your property.

The Monsanto scientists knew full well that the acids in the gut removed the more harmful effects for the dogs of being fed a small amount of RoundUp. But the scientists deliberately shied away from framing the study so that the dogs' respiratory systems were examined.



We are one of the only industrialized nations in the world that lets the company that wants a license do its own investigative studies! And now we are giving away the freedom of our university labs as well! (on edit: but in today's world of globblization, many other nations are now emulating our corporate-control of science model.)

And yes, now the companies like Novartis and Monsanto are buying up lab space.

You can believe that no fudging of data has ever happened. But since I have spent those thirty years talking and meeting with scientists who have been blacklisted when they refused to fudge data, or refused to design a study that would not look at the real aspects of risk a product contained, then I would have to disagree.

XXXX

Latest Discussions»Latest Breaking News»Major publisher retracts ...»Reply #10