Talk:Daminozide

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This is one of those controversies that's hard for me to take a side on. I wouldn't hesitate to eat an alar-treated apple merely because giving a mouse 200,000 times as much (per body weight) as one apple contains, produced 1 tumor in study of 45 mice. But it raises the interesting question of toxicity and the slogan "the dose makes the poision".

So, I tried to write the article dispassionately and give external links to pro and con sides. Is this not the epitome of NPOV?

Pesticide?[edit]

I think it is in a wrong category. A plant growth regulator is not a pesticide. Where should it belong instead? --Shaddack 11:28, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There is Category:Plant hormones, but since daminozide is synthetic, I don't know if it fits there. -- Ed (Edgar181) 12:41, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article states that the product was registered by the Food and Drug Administration from 1963 to 1989. It was actually registered (originally) by the US Department of Agriculture and then by US Environmental Protection Agency (when they took over the pesticide registration function in the early 1970s). Daminozide is a plant growth regulator, but can be called a "pesticide" also, as it meets one of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act's definitions ("...any substance or mixture of substances intended for use as a plant regulator, defoliant, or desiccant...") and is regulated as such by EPA.Mrgrtwtrs1 (talk) 12:33, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Describing the sides[edit]

Should we take the liberal side and say that Alar really was dangerous ("myth" of Alar scare)?

Or should we endorse the conservative side and say that Alar "problems" were exaggerated?

  • In laboratory tests, the amount fed to mice before any effect was noted was equivalent to an average adult eating 28,000 pounds of Alar-treated apples each year for 70 years, or a 10-pound infant eating 1,750 pounds per year. [1]
No one can ever eat that much, or drink that much equivalent juice, yet the article cites that "the human lifetime cancer risk to be 5 per million". If it really took an impossible quanitity to ingest, then the lifetime cancer risk would be 0 per million, or per any number you want. Clearly, we as non-experts don't know how to intrepret any of this. However, I'd be suspicious of a site called "heartland" on scientific matters. The name sounds too similar to polically oriented sources that put out a lot of BS on wide varieties of topics. I just want straight science; I don't want any nonsense about "sides". At the time, the industry boosters were quick to compare risk of cancer from peanut butter to Alar. Is it possible to get a reputable source that allows direct comparison of substances and foods in terms of risk? As far as peanut butter goes, the toxin involved there now averages under 2 parts per billion, but I don't know how that translates to how much quantity required to be eaten to get cancer, or lifetime risk in per million people terms. I sure as hell won't trust a site called "heartland" regardless. 207.189.227.82 (talk) 08:58, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What do the Wikipedia:science standards say about this sort of thing? Is there even a controversy about this, or is one side so obviously right that the other side is simply politicizing the issue?

There is a known cancer risk. The standard is to not use synthetics with known cancer risks, I imagine. But political commentators will gladly talk about it political terms because that what they do. 207.189.227.82 (talk) 08:58, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Would it be giving Wikipedia:equal validity to say that there was a controversy? --Uncle Ed (talk) 20:27, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Current Views[edit]

This section seems to be slanted towards one point of view a little more than Im comfortable with. Im not disputing anything the facts say here but It just doesnt seem Neutral point of view to me. Interested in others opinion on this.Gamekeeper7 (talk) 14:40, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. Many edits were made by an anonymous user last month (August 11-13), including a "multiple issues" box. I think this user also inserted an excessive number of flags throughout the article, such as why? in a self-explanatory sentence about two senators calling a press conference.

Meanwhile, other purported facts such as the "$100 million loss" claimed by apple growers remain unchallenged, with no evidence cited other than an industry group that initiated a lawsuit.

There is a larger context here which should be explored, perhaps with a new section that links to junk science. That meme was analogous to the more recent one fake news as a method for gaslighting dissenters.

Here is an article that presents both sides of the controversy with some historical context, specifically the popularization of the term "junk science" by the tobacco industry, which had just been dealt a major blow by Surgeon General Everett Koop in 1988: https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Alar_and_apples

Source Watch (see Center_for_Media_and_Democracy#SourceWatch) also points out that market conditions (glut of supply during the harvest that preceded the 60 Minutes broadcast) were the primary cause of the growers' loss in 1989. Further, their profits increased by 50% during the next 5 years, which implies that objectively assessing the medium-term financial damage is difficult. Martindo (talk) 21:49, 23 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Source Watch is not a WP:RS as a wiki. KoA (talk) 22:52, 23 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sez who? They cite sources, just like AP. Anyway, this is Talk not Article. My points relevant to a potential update are:
1. There is a wider context that should be addressed, such as the promotion of the notion of "junk science" by the tobacco industry, which had just "suffered" the declaration of a Surgeon General's warning after decades of denying the risks of cigarette smoking. I don't see how this article can achieve completeness and NPOV without mentioning politics.
2. There was a flurry of anonymous selective flagging last month in an attempt to prod an update. The claim of $100 million loss is "verified" here by a court document, which is RS only in the sense of accurately reporting an opinion/demand. But I don't see anyone flagging that. OTOH, two senators calling a press conference to criticize the FDA is flagged with "why".
IIRC, the state legislature of Washington passed a law against disparaging any agricultural product with unproven rumors. I can't find it, but if that is a fact it should be included in the article. Martindo (talk) 00:26, 24 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
WP:USERGENERATED is right in WP:RS, so no, and it even includes Wikipedia as not being reliable. If there are actual reliable sources to discuss, then bring them. Keep in mind the article pages are for formulating content and aren't a WP:FORUM. KoA (talk) 19:35, 24 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
OK. I see what you're saying. SourceWatch does invite user edits. This article from PubMed and Sage might present a good summary, having been written in 1996 after the dust settled. It looks NPOV and might provide the political angle from a RS. However, everything beyond the first page is behind a pay wall.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22909674/
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.2190/NS6.2.d
What do you think? Martindo (talk) 12:43, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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