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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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How can you tell the American recession is still worrisome, despite government worker unemployment only being 4.3%?  Beer sales have fallen again.  You'd think beer sales would go up in a bad economy, like it does historically, right?  Cheap entertainment and all that.  No, that only happens for a short while, and by now things have been so persistently bad people are buying a lot more hard liquor instead.  Beer just isn't strong enough to make an emotional difference these days.
Are you a probiotic manufacturer who has become annoyed you are not allowed to market microbes that can help cultivate “intestinal flora” for consumers? Did the European Food Safety Authority tell you to stop claiming your magic potion reduces the chances of people developing diarrhea or respiratory tract infections? Did the U.S.A. force you to stop advertising that Activia yogurt and DanActive dairywhatever helps avoid colds or flu and force you to pay $21 million as part of a class-action settlement with the Federal Trade Commission and 39 states?
Don't have room in your stomach for 36 eggs but you really want those equivalent calories in one delicious treat?  Head to The Cheesecake Factory with me and get their French Toast Napoleon, which is basically bread dunked in cream and powdered sugar.  It clocks in at a delightful 2,530 calories(!)
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.