In the modern era we can detect anything in anything. Being able to detect in parts per billion, trillion and even quadrillion means that if an epidemiologist can "correlate" a chemical to harm in a spreadsheet, someone raising money opposing science can weaponize the result.

A new paper finding that they can detect chemicals linked to harm in rats with the urine of 201 preschool kids is a new battle in the War on Moms that activists continually wage, but there is no reason for parental concern. Unless you believe in homeopathy.


The War On Moms dictates that every hysterical claim about BPA involve a graphic of a pregnant woman, even though BPA only binds 1/20000th as well to endocrine receptors as products like soy, much less birth control pills.

Scientists know why without reading any farther and the reason isn't just the 'the dose makes the poison', it's that the findings are in urine. Which means even tiny amounts of chemicals are not persisting in the body. We'd have gone extinct hundreds of thousands of years ago if our bodies didn't contain filters for chemicals in soap. Any mother who has raised a teenage male knows that too little testosterone is not their problem, now or at any point in recorded history. Adult French males do have lower testosterone than in the past but epidemiology could blame the rise in organic food pesticides with as much legitimacy as they do sunscreen.

Chemicals that can persist in the body and have been shown scientifically to cause harm are a worry. What these authors instead want to scare people about are none of those. It is instead only appealing to people who won't order pizza because the box is 'leeching' chemicals into their bodies, rather because of the calories.


It's only about the calories. Every scientist knows that also. In 100% of clinical trials.

The authors blatantly signal their agenda when they endorse toxic pesticides - because lobbyists on the National Organic Standards Board exempted them. Like copper sulfate, which is far worse for humans and wildlife than the modern products which succeeded old chemicals. They also continue to talk about BPA, despite companies pulling it out of products. Throw in "forever chemicals" and it you could put Robert F Kennedy, Jr. or the name of any Guardian journalist on it and no one would notice the difference.

This is the same school that tried to claim modern pesticides cause autism, but not the organic ones about which the authors did not disclose their Conflicts of Interest.  Who is a co-author on this paper?

You probably guessed.



Of course, the exact same person who used a proxy, a weak odds-ratio, and tiny sample size to sound the alarm about science and claim pesticides not endorsed by her group caused autism.

The exact same flaws in this paper. Exactly the same weakness.

One of the co-authors is even Tracey Woodruff, PhD, an activist, Robert F. Kennedy believer, and overt conspiracy theorist at UC San Francisco who is a favorite of sue-and-settle attorney Raphael Metzger, the lawyer who created his own in-house epidemiology front group, the Council for Education and Research on Toxics (CERT) to help him win settlements.

No one should work with people who work with companies who do this stuff.


Modern academia doesn't just use "diversity checkpoints" to make sure no one who will ever disagree with them gets hired for faculty, they use them in fields purporting to wrap themselves in a veil of science also, so Dr. Jiwon Oh of U.C. Davis can take the hit from scientists this time. For scaremongering way outside the lane of the paper and epidemiology in general - claiming causation while using fluffy halo terms like "linked to", "suggests", and "correlated." In this case, “Exposure to certain chemicals in early childhood — such as pesticides, plasticizers and flame retardants — has been linked to developmental delays, hormone disruption and other long-term health issues."

Before they add that to prevent the Harm That Never Was, buy “Fragrance-Free” and expensive air filters and Organic Pineapples.

None of their claims are true. Not a single one. But it can show up in a press release because U.C. Davis is composed of non-overlapping magisteria that can undermine each other and the school just finds a way to stay out of it.

U.C. Davis has spent decades being in conflict with itself. They had a Department of Nutrition nearly entirely funded by a candy company. A school founded on agriculture has become inundated with activists who hate science as the 'San Francisco mentality' spread inland and California has gone farther to the political fringe. It's been a problem for the nearly 20 years we have existed and this paper shows their credibility issue won't be resolved soon.