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Hank CampbellRSS Feed of this column.

I founded Science 2.0® in 2006 and since then it has become the world's largest independent science communications site, with over 300,000,000 direct readers and reach approaching one billion. Read More »

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45-year meta-analysis of 240 science studies found that 'organic' processed food is the same in pesticides, the same in nutrition and a whole lot more expensive.

"...there isn’t much difference between organic and conventional foods, if you’re an adult and making a decision based solely on your health,” said Dena Bravata, senior author of the paper and a physician at Stanford’s Center for Health Policy.
People who are either clueless or shills for anti-science hysteria insist 'something is better than nothing' when it comes to laws about food, and that we can just 'fix' it despite its flaws but we should go ahead and pass it if we care about what we eat.

It's smart to reject such simplistic black or white thinking.  Especially in California. This state has too many problems to count and 'fix them' should be an easy concept, except the legislature and 64% of the population remain so one-sided in their thinking nothing ever gets fixed because it is an echo chamber. Believing yet another bad law will magically get fixed when plenty of other bad laws have survived is in defiance of reality. 
Advocacy groups like Greenpeace and the Union of Concerned Scientists have already declared war on poor people and kids with their militant, anti-science hysteria against Golden Rice but actual scientists continue to work toward the common good.

There is more good news for kids on another front. A cow has been cloned and genetically engineered with a modification of its gene for producing beta-lactoglobulin, a protein which isn't in human milk and causes allergies in 2-3% of children. Potential benefit: a "hypoallergenic" milk that doesn't taste terrible, thanks to biology and scary 21st century science that freaks out progressive cranks.
The anti-GMO contingent may be anti-science, and they may be overwhelmingly progressive, but what they are not - and it is refreshing - is hypocritical when it comes to criticizing their own side of the aisle. Outside America, anyway.
Here is a head scratcher; when confronted about the vague, conflicting language in Proposition 37 - even the real name, the California Right to Know Genetically Modified Food Act, is weird and disjointed - Attorney James Wheaton, who made his fortune in nuisance lawsuits under the Proposition 65 labeling act he championed, told the Sacramento Bee's Dan Moran he put so little thought into the verbage of Proposition 37 that he he hadn't given any thought to whether he might litigate over the new measure, if it passes.
It used to be you had to rely on human science journalists to get concepts properly framed for you and enjoy the shot of dopamine confirmation bias provides.  It still happens, just a lot less. Popular Science just went on an anti-religion rant - and you know it is bad when your own subscribers ask you to stop trolling them - and Scientific American has long been basically an unregistered PAC. But people are jaded by that approach and it is a big part of the reason why science has basically disappeared from mainstream media companies even though the science audience has grown substantially.