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Wiki Education assignment: Toxicology

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 10 August 2022 and 8 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Chazzidy Harper (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Tdepeyster (talk) 18:03, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Forced increased use

Hello @Ttguy: I've reverted your most recent edit because I think the source says exactly that in the abstract, and several other places. Additionally if you remove the ref that way then the rest of the text doesn't have that ref with it either. Invasive Spices (talk) 18 November 2022 (UTC)

@Invasive Spices: The abstract says "likely"

"Further increases in the volume applied are *likely* due to more and higher rates of application in response to the widespread emergence of glyphosate-resistant weeds"

Which hardly constitutes evidence for the claim. In fact I would suggest the emergence of glyphosate resistant weeds would REDUCE the use of glyphosate. You are not going to try and kill glyphosate resistant weeds with glyphosate.Ttguy (talk) 06:29, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

In fact the cited paper goes on to say "Genetically engineered crops with tolerance to glyphosate are widely grown, and their use has led to increased application of GBHs. This increased use has contributed to widespread growth of glyphosate-resistant weeds ."

So the paper says the GM crops has led to more glyphosate and this has contributed to glyphosate resitant weeds. Which I the oposite of the claim made at the start - it says glyphosate resistance is the cause of the increased glyphosate usage.Ttguy (talk) 06:34, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps we should change our text to reflect that likely. I agree that that is not the same as this is the reason. However, in these other points I think you've misunderstood how resistance works--

In fact I would suggest the emergence of glyphosate resistant weeds would REDUCE the use of glyphosate. You are not going to try and kill glyphosate resistant weeds with glyphosate. I understand however this is common. It isn't working so spray more. We may not have used enough.

So the paper says the GM crops has led to more glyphosate and this has contributed to glyphosate resitant weeds. Which I the oposite of the claim made at the start - it says glyphosate resistance is the cause of the increased glyphosate usage. That's not the opposite. One doesn't disprove the other. They are somewhat unrelated however. Invasive Spices (talk) 2 January 2023 (UTC)

• Only able to take a quick look right now, but the study being mentioned is by Benbrook, so that's already a red flag. Even without that, I'd personally opt for leaving the content until a more descriptive source can be used since there does seem to be some confusion right now.

Normally, pesticide rates don't increase due to resistance as you're typically supposed to be using near the maximum labeled rate anyways for resistance management. There usually isn't room to just "up the dose" if a field has resistance issues. There may be reapplications initially, but usually you're going to have farmers switching to other modes of action. The currently removed piece of content doesn't seem very well supported from a WP:WEIGHT perspective at least, so probably best to leave out for now and tailor something else. KoA (talk) 20:29, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Biased study included in Cancer section.

Citation 115 is a paper by Geoffrey Kabat and the paper fails to disclose he is a member of the board of scientific advisors of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a group that has received funding and guidance from Monsanto in the past. I believe the sentence + citation should be removed as it doesn't maintain neutrality. 98.37.18.134 (talk) 06:45, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Considering that USRTK is a known anti-science group, I don't think that's a useful source to be making such a claim. Also, having worked at a group that at one point received some funding from Monsanto wouldn't be a required disclosed COI for all future publications one does. Was the actual study and research done funded by Monsanto? Silverseren 08:01, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

| Considering that USRTK is a known anti-science group

I don't think it's necessarily relevant for determining if the paper's author is biased, but I would be grateful if you could provide a source for this for my own edification.

| worked at a group that at one point received some funding from Monsanto wouldn't be a required disclosed COI for all future publications one does

That isn't exactly an analogous situation though. In this case, he is an active board member for an organization where Monsanto is a client. Insulting a client could jeopardize his position as a board member, or the group's finances. The disclosure guidelines I've seen (one example) are more broad and seem like this would be covered. I'd be interested if you have a source that backs up the idea that this wouldn't be a required disclosure.

| Was the actual study and research done funded by Monsanto?

Given the individual's personal failure to disclose and the lack of transparency, historical failure to disclose, and criminal activities of ACSH and it's members I think the only answer is "we have no way to know" which doesn't seem sufficient. 98.37.18.134 (talk) 20:04, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

EFSA

There's been a bit of edit warring going on, so just to make sure edit summaries aren't missed, the EFSA recently put out a press release for their findings on glyphosate. They intend to publish the full publication around the end of July, which is what we should primarily be basing content on, but the press release works for the single line of content we have at Glyphosate#European_Food_Safety_Authority.

Also as a reminder, we are supposed to flesh out content in the body first per WP:LEAD. That should be pretty easy to do once the full report is out, but in the meantime, we don't necessarily need to be updating the lead with each new development either. Better to wait and see how the structure of the overall body looks first. KoA (talk) 13:38, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for starting this discussion. Proposing edits is not edit warring, just editing. So no need for those mischaracterisations.

With regards to the reverted edits: removing content from the body and the lead (not sure why you mention WP:LEAD)

• The EFSA source is the most thorough WP:MEDRS risk assessment and peer review on this substance by one of the most important agencies in the world. It lasted 3 years and the conclusions are clear. It deserves WP:DUE weight in the lead.
• The fact that the full report is being published soon is irrelevant. The agency has clearly stated that the conclusions cannot change and has already published this information in multiple forms. See for example:

• EFSA explains the scientific assessment of glyphosate
• EFSA FACTSHEET on glyphosate

So the publication of additional material is irrelevant and won't change the content that I included in the article. And the Agency states clearly As with all peer-reviews of pesticide active substances, and according to EU legislation for pesticides, EFSA provides materials intended for publication to the applicant which is entitled to request confidentiality for elements relating to personal data or commercially sensitive information. Applicants are not able to request changes to the conclusions or the assessment itself nor submit additional information..

Delaying the inclusion of this material in the article is unjustified. This is a WP:MEDRS source of the highest quality and should be thoroughly covered in the lead and in the body. {{u|Gtoffoletto}}   18:34, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

KoA, I'd find it very helpful if you could summarize what things you would like to have cleared up by being able to have access to the final report. I mean something like xyz is unclear in what we have now, but should be clear when we can read the full publication.

I've looked at the disputed edits, and while I do think that it's very much WP:DUE to include significant coverage of the EFSA findings on this page, I think there are things to discuss about exactly how we word the content. I'm inclined to think that the reverted edits didn't get the wording right. (Saying in Misplaced Pages's voice that EFSA "conservatively allowed" is editorializing. I'd also prefer not to tell readers what EFSA's findings mean, as opposed to simply summarizing what the findings were.) Given that we have WP:1RR here, I suggest that we propose and discuss possible edits about EFSA here in talk, before implementing them on the page. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:54, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Agreed on inclusion (I don't think anyone disputes that) and how exactly we word content. That's largely why I had been saying to wait until the full conclusions at the end of the month instead of relying on just the press release. Scroll to the bottom to Next Steps for more info: As soon as this process is complete, EFSA will publish its conclusions and all background documents related to the peer review and risk assessment in full on its website. In the meantime, just have the very short version in our text here that currently exists as placeholder until we have more sourcing to really expand content on.

There's a lot going on just in this edit, but there's care needed in modifying the scientific consensus statement and biodiversity doesn't really belong in the carcinogenicity discussion. For the EFSA-focused content itself though, I agree with the editorializing issue on "conservatively allowed". In this edit, there's a lot of potential context missing related to mentioning things like impurities, consumer risk, mammalian risk, etc. We also just don't know what may truly be at issue in our attempts at summarizing now until the more fleshed out conclusions are posted too, so that's why I was saying wait they week or two the EFSA said remains as a pretty clear cut WP:NODEADLINE case.

I'm mostly just making sure we aren't chomping at the bit to add something else when we know we aren't dealing with the finalized or fully fleshed out statements from EFSA yet. In journal terms, we're at the abstract stage right now waiting on the full paper to come out while avoiding speculation on what's in it. Waiting for that should make all of our lives easier here. KoA (talk) 20:05, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

WP:NOTTEXTBOOK We already have the conclusions published by the agency and any additional "analysis" on our part would be WP:OR. The stength of this review means it summarises the latest scientific consensus as far as we are concerned. So we should avoid "making it up" ourselves (as we currently do in the current article text) and just report what they published. No problem editing it further of course. Maybe we can WP:FIXFIRST. {{u|Gtoffoletto}}   20:20, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Gtoffoletto, that use of the wikilink completely misses the point. We don't have those conclusions, we have a preview of them. Journals were mentioned because the way this publication process works for EFSA is like we have an abstract in hand right now, but not the full publication for clarification. Nothing was said about making the article like a journal article.

Again, please slow down instead of rushing to conclusions about what sources are doing or saying. What EFSA has shared with the EU states won't change, but we don't know what that final report is yet. Either way, we're in a good state in the article until the full release until we can check what needs to be changed to better reflect sources or even expand. We can start with the summary as Tryptofish puts it at that point and work from there. It should be extremely straightforward at that point, much so more than now, so we shouldn't really need to dedicate additional text to this talk page until then. KoA (talk) 20:48, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Let's see if we can agree that a good approach will be to write it as a summary of what EFSA concludes, without any analysis in Misplaced Pages's voice of what the conclusions mean. And let's write some draft versions of what to say, here in talk, before putting it on the page. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:25, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Totally agree with the approach @Tryptofish. Tried exactly that in my edits (I was basing it off their language as directly as possible) but of course I might have missed something. Despite my best efforts neither I nor Wiki are WP:PERFECT :)

Here is the paragraph as it was before the revert separated by sentence so that we can point out more easily any problems with specific parts. Feel free to comment directly below each if some problems are identified. The EFSA FACTSHEET on glyphosate is another good resource to use to check this text. {{u|Gtoffoletto}}   23:10, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

1. In July 2023, EFSA re-evaluated after three years of assessment the putative impact of glyphosate on the health of humans, animals and the environment.
2. The EFSA risk assessment and peer review was conducted by dozens of scientists from EFSA and EU Member States.
3. It identified no "critical areas of concern", meaning concerns that affect all proposed uses of the substance thus preventing its approval or renewal.
4. Some data gaps remain and some issues could therefore not be fully evaluated, such as the assessment of one of the impurities in glyphosate, the consumer dietary risk assessment, and the assessment of risks to aquatic plants.
5. The available information did not allow the EFSA to reach a conclusion on the potential risk to biodiversity, due to its complexity and dependance from multiple factors.
6. With respect to ecotoxicology, a high long-term risk to mammals in 12 out of 23 proposed uses of glyphosate was identified.

References

1. "Glyphosate: no critical areas of concern; data gaps identified | EFSA". www.efsa.europa.eu. 2023-07-06. Retrieved 2023-07-06.

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