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Organic Food Activists Are Using Coronavirus To Claim Regular Farmers Are Making People More Susceptible To Disease

Organic Food Activists Are Using Coronavirus To Claim Regular Farmers Are Making People More Susceptible To Disease

Mar 19 2020 | comment(s)

It's no surprise that Twitter is a hotbed of misinformation and disnformation about science. They have no barrier to entry whereas a journal article must survive peer review and if you want to promote your clients in The Guardian you at least have to cut them a check.

What is interesting is how these deniers for hire are using the public's newfound resolve to mitigate risk for people with preexisting conditions from coronavirus to advance their agenda against normal agriculture. This, they argue, is the "precautionary principle" in action and if it's right for infectious disease, why not use it against food sold by competitors to their clients and spiritual leaders? 
A Very Measured Live Discussion With Dr. Tony Fauci On Coronavirus

A Very Measured Live Discussion With Dr. Tony Fauci On Coronavirus

Mar 18 2020 | comment(s)

What is the line between increased resolve to mitigate risk to people who have preexisting conditions from coronavirus, and therefore possibly COVID-19, versus the panic culture that seems to be evident in places like California, where the governor has declared it a crime to leave your home if your trip violates what government has deemed essential.
Roche SARS-CoV-2 Test Gets Emergency Use Authorization For 2019 Coronavirus

Roche SARS-CoV-2 Test Gets Emergency Use Authorization For 2019 Coronavirus

Mar 13 2020 | comment(s)

In 2017 a group of colleagues and I began editing a short book called "The Next Plague, And How Science Will Stop It".

It was published in early 2018 and became quite popular. Shortly after that, articles began appearing in The Atlantic and other places wondering what the next pandemic would be.
#Catteningthecurve To Create Coronavirus Transmission Prevention Awareness

#Catteningthecurve To Create Coronavirus Transmission Prevention Awareness

Mar 12 2020 | comment(s)

You may have seen a graphic showing how we should "flatten" the curve of transmission risk to prevent the health system from being overloaded by people with COVID-19 or who want to be tested for the presence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes it.

It involves common sense precautions like washing hands and using sense. Don't panic and subsidize toilet paper companies and retreat to a bunker but don't pretend it can't spread. As the first person-to-person analysis showed, it may not spread to your broad circle, but people with respiratory issues are at risk.
Microbiologists Didn't Trust Cruise Ship Cleanliness Before Coronavirus, Now No One Does

Microbiologists Didn't Trust Cruise Ship Cleanliness Before Coronavirus, Now No One Does

Mar 05 2020 | comment(s)

When a mass outbreak of the coronavirus occurred on a Princess Cruise ship, it quickly became international news. There was a rush to panic and Diamond Princess was quarantined for over two weeks, and the infection rate onboard was about four times higher than what can be seen on land in the worst infected areas of China. But, they said, it would have been worse if they had not isolated everyone.
Republicans Want To Limit Taxpayer Subsidies On Electric Cars For Wealthy People

Republicans Want To Limit Taxpayer Subsidies On Electric Cars For Wealthy People

Mar 02 2020 | comment(s)

A dirty secret about the alternative energy market is that it's not funded by companies, it's funded by poor people who are forced to shell out more for electricity so rich people can have solar panels. Government gives subsidies, but you have to be rich enough to buy the installation in the first place, and then will buy the energy back from you at the same cost they sell it. But they can't charge for employees, transmission lines, maintenance, or anything else so government lets them pass those costs along to people in apartments or rentals or those who simply don't have the money for solar.
Coronavirus May Be Over in China Before It Even Begins In America

Coronavirus May Be Over in China Before It Even Begins In America

Mar 02 2020 | comment(s)

While the U.S. CDC continues to show that concerns about it being more Klondike Kops than serious disease prevention experts are valid, China is making progress in containing 2019-nCoV - coronavirus. Which means the job should be relatively easy elsewhere.
FTC Is Blocking A Hospital Merger Saying Reduced Competition Will Mean Higher Prices - That's Wrong

FTC Is Blocking A Hospital Merger Saying Reduced Competition Will Mean Higher Prices - That's Wrong

Feb 27 2020 | comment(s)

The one sure way to get lower prices on goods is to increase competition. Unless both parties are funded by government and exploiting a government-controlled system. Imagine if we had two US Postal Services and because they are both government-controlled, neither one charges lower prices but government claims that the competition is better for everyone while mail arrives no faster. 

Competition is healthy. When it is really allowed. When it is not, a fake competitive landscape costs people more. 
All You Need To Know About Chronic Lyme Disease; It Can Be Cured By Tripping On Acid

All You Need To Know About Chronic Lyme Disease; It Can Be Cured By Tripping On Acid

Feb 26 2020 | comment(s)

All you need to know about distrust in science and medicine is that Facebook is littered with claims of chronic lyme disease, along with bizarre advice such as 'keep looking for a doctor' until you find one willing to diagnose you, and bizarre self-experimentation and remedies.

It turns out all you might need is to mistake LSD for cocaine, take 55,000 percent of what you would take of cocaine, trip for 34 hours, and you may find your chronic lyme disease is cured.
Meanwhile in Florida, The Annual Lake Hollingsworth Snake Orgy Is Happening

Meanwhile in Florida, The Annual Lake Hollingsworth Snake Orgy Is Happening

Feb 19 2020 | comment(s)

After Valentine's Day, two important things happen in Florida: baseball spring training and snake orgy season.

Nerodia fasciata fasciata, the banded water snake, doesn't want to bite you, and they have no venom - they are lovers, not fighters. And they love. A lot, at this time of year.  Along with lots of other Floridians, brown watersnakes, et al. 


NRDC Gets NY Victory Over EPA On EPA Efforts To Limit Panel Bias

NRDC Gets NY Victory Over EPA On EPA Efforts To Limit Panel Bias

Feb 11 2020 | comment(s)

If EPA is conducting an approval review of a pesticide a company wants to market in the U.S., would EPA put scientists paid by the company behind it on the approval panel?

No, but EPA routinely had people who are receiving grants from EPA to conduct studies - including epidemiology claims - on panels that then recommend political action.  But then they stopped, which sent environmental groups who had exploited the system into a rage.
Joe Mercola's Girlfriend Erin Elizabeth Finn Moves From Vaguely Libelous To Giving Away Tanning Beds

Joe Mercola's Girlfriend Erin Elizabeth Finn Moves From Vaguely Libelous To Giving Away Tanning Beds

Feb 11 2020 | comment(s)

Joe Mercola, D.O, calls himself Dr. but he is nothing of the kind. He is an osteopathy quack who generates $100 million a year fabricating nonsense ailments he can then claim to sell cures to stop. 

His girlfriend is more like a junkyard dog. When David Gorski, M.D., went after Mercola, as people who care about sane science outreach tend to do, Erin Elizabeth Finn started suggesting he might be a pedophile. That's how they operate. 
Propane Flame Throwers, Conventional Chicken Manure, And More Things Labeled Organic

Propane Flame Throwers, Conventional Chicken Manure, And More Things Labeled Organic

Feb 10 2020 | comment(s)

If you don't want to use a synthetic weedkiller to keep pests from sucking up all the nutrients around your food, and you are out of the organic certified yet inorganic compound CuSO4,, you can use a propane flamethrower to kill the weeds.
Organic Vegetables, Bread, And Pasta Are About To Get Banned in France

Organic Vegetables, Bread, And Pasta Are About To Get Banned in France

Feb 07 2020 | comment(s)

 In France, the Council of State judges have decreed that mutagenesis is subject to the same regulations applied to genetically modified organisms (GMOs). In the past they were allowed to exclude all organisms obtained by mutagenesis from GMO regulations by rationalizing that GMOs insert a gene from another species into the genome of an organism while mutagenesis causes internal mutations. 
DIY Cosmetics: A Menstrual Blood Face Mask

DIY Cosmetics: A Menstrual Blood Face Mask

Feb 07 2020 | comment(s)

Except for medicine, there is no greater target market for alternative hucksters than cosmetics. A dozen non-profits have appeared claiming that chemicals are harming women, without disclosing that the levels of chemicals that can be considered harmful are in defiance of what Paracelsus noted about the dose making a chemical a poison versus a benefit. They are at trace levels, you have to believe in homeopathy, or its 1990s re-brand as endocrine disruption, to believe it is magically bio-accumulating you and harming you while cancer rates continue to go down.
As Smoking Plummeted Elsewhere, Juul Marketed To Native Americans To Boost Its Vaping Device, But Was That Wrong?

As Smoking Plummeted Elsewhere, Juul Marketed To Native Americans To Boost Its Vaping Device, But Was That Wrong?

Feb 06 2020 | comment(s)

Congressional documents show Juul Labs met with eight Native American tribes about its vaping device. Native Americans still have the highest smoking levels in America, 22 percent versus 14 percent overall, so if this was 2015 I'd argue 'of course they should talk to tribes, everyone who smokes should be approached with smoking cessation and harm reduction tools' but the evidence is clear that Juul was not just appealing to smokers, they were creating new markets. And people who see racial profiling, legitimately or as an overarching conspiracy, will say they targeted vulnerable communities.
RIP Li Wenliang, Coronavirus Hero

RIP Li Wenliang, Coronavirus Hero

Feb 06 2020 | comment(s)

One medical professional who sounded the alarm about China's coronavirus epidemic was not an academic or an immunologist, Li Wenliang was an ophthalmologist.

In December, he worried in a medical chat group that people with a SARS-like illness were being quarantined in his hospital in Wuhan and the communist dictatorship arrested him for "rumor-mongering." 

“We solemnly warn you: If you keep being stubborn, with such impertinence, and continue this illegal activity, you will be brought to justice—is that understood?”
Want To Hang Out With Your Anti-Vax Friends And Spread Measles In L.A.? Here Are the Hot Spots

Want To Hang Out With Your Anti-Vax Friends And Spread Measles In L.A.? Here Are the Hot Spots

Feb 06 2020 | comment(s)

Measles has broken out on the California coast again, as it has done ever since discredited former doctor Andrew Wakefield tried to sell a new vaccine by claiming the existing ones causes autism.

When Science 2.0 was in its early days, anti-vaccine sentiment was a tiny fringe of religious people in one group and then a whole swath of people on the west coast in another. If you wanted to find a hotbed of anti-science sentiment, including beliefs about vaccines and organic food, you could take a compass and draw a circle around a Whole Foods.
Why Does Anyone Still Read Michael Pollan?

Why Does Anyone Still Read Michael Pollan?

Feb 06 2020 | comment(s)

Michael Pollan, the darling of the anti-science community, believes his walled Berkeley garden is a model for those dumb farmers who do it for a living and that Medicine Is A Vast Corporate Conspiracy.

He's like Paul Krugman when it comes to economics. Basically, he's like a Kardashian or anyone else famous for being famous, with no one really able to figure out why.
A Holistic Nutritionist Who Sold Alternative Treatments and Products Changes Her Mind

A Holistic Nutritionist Who Sold Alternative Treatments and Products Changes Her Mind

Feb 06 2020 | comment(s)

Denby Royal felt like being a holistic nutritionist, selling alternative health treatments and products, was a legitimate choice. Royal believed in the products and "certification" in Canada (and the U.S.) is kind of a joke but people will rationalize it as reasonable either way. You can be a trainer in a gym or a hair stylist with just as much training - and no disrespect to either of those, but they are not qualified to give medical advice either.

You learn early that you cant say “treat," "cure," "heal" or "prevent” while suggesting that alternatives to medicine and cosmic diet advice do just that.