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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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A recent epidemiology paper links common weedkillers to prostate cancer and further claims four of them cause death. 

Obviously they can't show that, there is no plausible biological mechanism, no increase in prostate cancers, and no evidence any of the people who got prostate cancer had contact with the pesticides at all.
GMOs had quietly been in use for decades when they became controversial - for saving a fruit in Hawaii that legacy techniques like breeding and chemicals had not.

The Rainbow Papaya became a home run for genetic engineering, the first genetically rescued organism, and that made it a target for environmental groups who had ignored it when it was saving diabetics by creating insulin.

Lawyers have not stopped campaigning against GMOs since, and are calling on all media allies to criticize Mexico for refusing to ban GMO corn, but while they fight the past, biotech may be winning another fight for the future; against malaria.
Once upon a time, environmentalists embraced biotechnology as key way to reduce pesticide use. Rachel Carson, author of "Silent Spring", was a fan of genetic engineering. That was before we all learned that environmental groups are only 'for' something if it means they can raise money being against something. Biotech was great - until it was real. Then they hated it. Along with hydroelectric power and natural gas, and how they will want to tear down solar energy, once it stops being a government gimmick.
In ancient civilizations, rulers and nobles exchanged gifts as acts of prestige. Only when Assyria came into existence, and it had a need for manpower and resources to feed its conquering empire, did gifts turn into taxes and government become overlord of its people, who were moved from place to place and told what to do by elites.
A recent paper claims the common weedkiller known as glyphosate gives mice Alzheimer's and therefore is a risk to humans.

Arizona State University researchers created an association between glyphosate exposure in mice and symptoms of neuroinflammation, as well as "accelerated Alzheimer’s disease-like pathology", whatever that is supposed to mean, and claim that farming could mean a persistent risk to human health.
I rarely win when it comes to cultural language stuff. Before 1999, an attractive older woman, for example, was to me a "Momshell" and no woman had any objection to a portmanteau of mom and bombshell (if they heard it - but a woman should not hear it, or your charm goes way down) yet after 1999's "American Pie" film the vulgar acronym "MILF" became the default. I have maintained for decades that we are worse off for it. If a young man used it in my presence where the woman could hear, I'd correct him. Not in a mean way, just by explaining there is a term that doesn't make him seem crass.