Watch me on 13/06 ..

Alas, there have been well-documented examples of all kinds of medical misbehaviour in the pandemic. Most notorious example:

https://www.luzernerzeitung.ch/zentr...cht-ld.2138582 Same guy (and the egregious behaviour that led to losing his license): https://www.solothurnerzeitung.ch/sc...eit-ld.2081894

And there are lists circulating of docs willing to write an exemption from masks without examining folks. https://www.20min.ch/story/schweizer...n-345617073702 Even if 99% do what is right, motivated Covid skeptics will end up finding one of the 1%.

I‘m an MD and generally not ashamed of it, and have repeatedly argued with those on this forum who insinuate we‘re all just after the money. Goodness knows there would be easier ways to fill one‘s pockets. However, there are colleagues I am not proud of.

And then what? You move to SZ to vote for higher taxes?

I believe you. Growing up with doctors left and right - once you open your eyes it is too hard to ignore malpractice, unethical or unprofessional behavior.

You would be in wrong country when you'd be all after money with MD degree - that would be US most likely.

CH is just bunch of docs that do their best and under high stress and load - most want to help other people and some reached already resignation where they just do-as-they-told .Certainly cheef-arzt makes some good $ but for years or learning and practice working in bank pays batter and you can gamble - MDs can't.

moral compass is not taught at Uni - it's something one takes away from home..

Watch me on 13/06 ..

It's an interesting idea put together by 3 academics, but is not remotely ready for field-trials, let alone country-wide rollout. Put it this way, would you invest hundreds of thousands of your savings and an entire year's livelihood on a widget suggested by 3 PhDs in engineering with little practical experience in doing your job? I'm a gadget-prone academic with a PhD and I still wouldn't take that gamble.

As a toxicologist, I would be interested to know on which criteria or concerns you would be interested in further restricting pesticide use. I'm not trolling, I'm asking out of curiosity. I've seen so much poorly executed- and pseudo-science on the subject and there seems to be a large and growing disconnect between what I see from reviewing the data and reports coming out of systematic reviews of the high-quality scientific studies (e.g. by EFSA) and what the general public seem to perceive. I would love to work on a better public understanding of toxicology and the science of safety, but it is so hard to distill something that broad and complex down into an essence which is still consumer-friendly.

It would already help if the electorate understood that organic farming does not mean pesticide free. Organic farmers use pesticides, they just don't use synthetic formulations. If they need to use an insecticide, for example, the organic farmer will choose a pyrethrin-rich extract of chrysanthemums, rather than the 'conventional' pyrethroid product. Pyrethrin is the parent compound in the family and the structural basis of all the synthetic pyrethroids that have been made since it was discovered.

I sometimes think that many people assume that organic farmers can somehow afford to let their crops fail at the first sign of adversity during a growing season.

I‘ve been wondering whether to read Count Down by Shanna Swan. Do you find her concerns reasonable?

I am not sure I understand how higher taxes actually help for the C02 reduction.

The success heavily depends on what exactly are the zero tax/low tax alternatives.

Plus many people seem to be happy to carry on as usual and simply pay the extra.

The research I have seen does not demonstrate a significant reduction in flights due to carbon taxes, excluding the virus impact the number of flights grew around 40% in the last ten years despite the tax.
In Switzerland around a third of the money goes to the Swiss energy-saving program EEREP (over CHF 300 million annually) and the rest is returned to us, which seems to be self-defeating.
It is difficult to find out how effective is EEREP; it is not like when you travel around Switzerland you see new solar panel farms being built with big signs saying "paid for by EEREP"?

Before voting for an increase in carbon tax I would like to see exactly what they will spend the money on; everything I have read so far reads like "trust me I am a doctor"

At the risk of putting too much identifying information out there, my field is actually endocrine disruptors, so it would be odd if I didn't find them at all of concern. I am just much more moderate and nuanced in what specifically I find concerning.

Regarding Countdown, I actually find the science really, really poor. The studies discussed are often of poor quality and cherry picked to meet a pre-arranged political point. High-quality data which at times contradict her thesis are ignored. I work for industry and if I ever did that at my job it would a) be discovered quickly, b)I would be fired and c) my employability would be ruined.

Tangent: It isn't a very popular sentiment at the moment, but I'm starting to realize that as a scientist, advocacy is somewhat dangerous. You can advocate for the data, but once you start advocating for the issue, hypothesis or position, you lose your studied objectivity that allows you to apply the term science to the work that you are engaged in and the word scientific to your findings. The world needs both advocates and scientists, but those who practice advocacy should not term what they do science, nor should scientists try to advocate beyond the level of here-are-the-data-and-they-are-of-sufficient-quality-to-suggest-certain-conclusions.

A quality scientific review would systematically pull studies from the literature based on predefined search terms, cull the studies by removing those of low quality regardless of outcome, and then assessing those that remain holistically using a weight of evidence approach. But then again, this kind of review wouldn't make the bestseller lists. It would also be more measured in its conclusions. This approach is, however, how expert groups make regulatory decisions, which is often why what e.g. EFSA says is often markedly different from what you read in the pages of the Guardian. If you want to read Coundown, by all means, do so, but have a skeptical frame of mind and understand that she has framed everything that she has written for maximum shock value and a political agenda.

If you really are interested in learning some simple tricks to be able to think about and interpret data, I highly recommend Hans Rosling's Factfulness which is as entertaining a read as it is informative. It isn't about toxicological data per se, but the guidelines he proposes can just as easily be applied to those kind of data as well.

I'm not sure, but the current approach seems to be too focused on short-term human toxicity, to a lesser degree on short-term environmental toxicity, and not enough on long-term systemic toxicity in real natural environments.

Once an approval is granted it seems to take a very long time to withdraw it in the case of new adverse evidence, even if the potential impact is high.

Neonicitinoid toxicity in bees is a good example - still afaik not a problem for direct human health, but potentially catastrophic for a big part of the environment. Evidence took time to gather and was low quality to start with, but was consistently pointing towards a bigger and bigger problem. Standard risk management tells us that relatively low confidence x massive impact = high risk, and usage should have at least been paused much earlier.

The use of neonicotinoids has been restricted in Switzerland and the EU since 2018.

Yes, but that's really late considering significant hive loss started in the mid-2000s.

Actually the EU took some action in 2013, but IMO the evidence of toxicity was clear at that time and the study the EU produced should have been enough evidence to take much stronger action, not waiting another five years.

Germany had already introduced a partial ban in 2008...

Sure, but you agree neonicotinoids are not relevant to this topic of "Vote June 13th 2021".

Huh?

Since one of the votes is about banning pesticides and neonicotinoids are clear evidence that the current regime doesn't work, how can it not be relevant?

It's just a shame that the proposal is too far reaching and unrealistic - if it was about needing more independent evidence for approval and less for a precautionary ban then I would vote for it (if I could).

That is usually the reason good initiatives fail here. They pack more and more on top of a good idea and/or formulate the demanded new law in a tight manner that it is either no good anymore or legally impossible to implement.

So your called good initiatives fail because the people backing them were unable to make their case to the voters. They never enjoyed sufficient support in the first place to go it alone and the only way to get it to a vote was to drag in a whole lot of other crap to try and make it popular.

Nonsense.

It's the "while we're at it" attitude of initiators who have the support for their initial idea, which (over the decades, so they're not learning) ruined it. It's often simply not possible to vote yes anymore, because of the "side-effects". Worst cases there are things in the text, which have barely anything left to do with the subject.
Sometimes - yet not often - the government's "Gegenvorschlag" saves part of the subject.

But neonicotinoids are already not allowed here.
Or is your argument that because neonicotinoids had a bad side effect then this is a reason for banning the other 500 pesticides regardless of how important they are to agriculture?

I agree the current proposal is too far-reaching and unrealistic.

That depends. Is omtatsat still lurking around?