They don't "poison the people" unless the pesticides are found in a toxic dose (they are not).

Of course, the legal limits are purposefully designed to be well below the LOAEL, and those companies that were found to contain levels above them should face consequences. But to claim they "poison the people" isn't true.

▲

Saline9515 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The toxic dose is a vague term. You may not die from exposure, but you can still have effects, such as infertility, cancers or endocrine disruption.

▲

fasterik 3 hours ago | parent [-]

If we really want to be precise, we should talk about parts per million (PPM). Scientific research establishes a safe level of consumption in terms of PPM, below which there are no detectable health effects. Generally when you see alarmism about "pesticides found in food" they're orders of magnitude below the PPM that would have any effect on human health.

	▲	Saline9515 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Exactly, scientific research established that DDT was perfectly safe, too! Scientists even used to eat it to "prove" that it was safe. In reality it depends, being biology, "safe level" is also very relative since you don't know every effect the substance has on the body. That's why pesticides and other chemicals such as bisphenols are regularly phased out, since effects can appear long after "scientific research" established it was "safe". Or it can affect certain populations, such as farmers, who get a high dose, or children, who are more sensitive than adults. Others, such DDT, lead or cadmium, are accumulated in the body over a long period, and then start to show effects, even when the person has stopped eating it. Or can find their way later the food chain: Inuits would get poisoned when eating polar bear's meat, that was full of DDT from fields on the other side of the globe.