The World Health Organization’s cancer agency says a common weedkiller is “probably carcinogenic.” The scientist leading that review knew of fresh data showing no cancer link – but he never mentioned it and the agency did not take it into account.
Read it all. Because you won’t hear about it elsewhere.
h/t nold
A large long-term study on the use of the big-selling weedkiller glyphosate by agricultural workers in the United States has found no firm link between exposure to the pesticide and cancer, scientists said on Thursday.
Published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI), the study found there was no association between glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s popular herbicide RoundUp, “and any solid tumors or lymphoid malignancies overall, including non-Hogkin Lymphoma (NHL) and its subtypes”.
A blistering report issued this week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture exposes the failure of government officials to ensure the integrity and safety of organic-food imports. Over the past several years, there has been a huge spike in organic imports — particularly corn and soybeans — to keep pace with consumer demand; more than 100 countries now ship organic products here. The USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) is tasked with making sure those countries meet our rigorous organic standards, but it is a dubious system based largely on reciprocity and good faith, not tight controls and federal enforcement.
Oh… dear.
Right click to enlarge.
Deweese says she hates the term clean eating. “It’s a social status thing. It’s more about ‘I’m better because I eat clean,'” she says. Adds Scott-Dixon, “‘Clean eating’ is a preoccupation of people who, in socioeconomic terms, really don’t have any real, legitimate worries. It’s a first-world problem.”
Indeed, labeling some foods as clean frames the rest as dirty, setting up a binary, us-vs-them, self-righteous world view. “It’s using food as propaganda. There’s a moral component,” says Trevor Kashey, a nutrition consultant for Complete Human Performance, who holds a PhD in biochemistry.
…that even though organic farms have the eco-friendly benefit of using fewer pesticides, they also use more land, which is harmful to the planet.
Researchers at the University of British Columbia analyzed organic crop farming across 17 criteria — such as yield, impact on climate change, farmer livelihood and consumer health — by looking at the existing scientific literature on its results.
For one, they found the environmental benefits of organic farming can be offset by the lower yields of such crops (typically 19 to 25 percent lower than conventional farming).
So you don’t like GMO? Let’s look at a mutation breeding!
Mutation breeding is the process of inducing genetic variation in a crop through use of chemical treatment or radioactivity. Chemicals like ethyl methane sulfonate (EMS), sodium azide (SA), N-nitroso-N-methylurea (NMU) are used to soak seeds or treat tissue or pollen in culture. They induce random changes in DNA, usually single bases or small deletions. These changes alter the encoded protein, forming new proteins that may be more or less functional, or perhaps truncated or even not made at all.
For radiation, fast neutrons, x-rays or gamma rays bombard seeds causing double-strand breaks in chromosomes. These lead to larger deletions of genetic material and sometimes rearrangements. These changes are essentially random. They are induced by short-term exposure (seconds to hours) to a powerful radioactive source, usually Cobalt-60. Sometimes whole plants are grown in high radioactive fields to generate these genetic errors. The Institute for Mutation Breeding in Japan has generated a number of cultivars using these techniques.
No labels required, which might explain things.
Fear Marketing: I haven’t set foot in an A&W in over two years.
Organic farming is sold as good for the environment. This is correct for a single farm field: organic farming uses less energy, emits less greenhouse gasses, nitrous oxide and ammonia and causes less nitrogen leeching than a conventional field. But each organic field yields much, much less. So, to grow the same amount of wheat, spinach or strawberries, you need much more land. That means that average organic produce results in the emission of about as many greenhouse gasses as conventional produce; and about 10 per cent more nitrous oxide, ammonia and acidification. Worse, to produce equivalent quantities, organic farms need to occupy 84 per cent more land – land which can’t be used for forests and genuine nature reserves. For example, to produce the amount of food America does today, but organically, would require increasing its farmland by the size of almost two United Kingdoms. That is the equivalent of eradicating all parklands and wild lands in the lower 48 states.
They’ve begun to eat their own:
Jessica Alba’s The Honest Company has been hit with another lawsuit that criticizes the brand’s claims.
The nonprofit, politically active group Organic Consumers Association filed a lawsuit earlier this month with the Los Angeles Superior Court alleging that Honest violates the Organic Food Production Act of 1990 and the California Organic Products Act of 2003 by claiming its Premium Infant Formula is organic.
CVS recalls organic herbal tea for salmonella risk https://t.co/6EoZpZC2Ts via @foxnewshealth pic.twitter.com/9mmvTKFTrP
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 26, 2016
Costco is recalling Organic by Nature brand frozen Organic Sweet Peas due to possible Listeria contamination.
13 cases of Hepatitis A: Store is offering vaccinations to those who may have eaten its Nature’s Touch Organic Berry Cherry Blend that was recalled Saturday by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. (h/t Meatriarchy)
Chipotle rejects modern synthetic fertilizers in favor of suppliers who use manure on their crops. This approach may be “all natural” and “organic” and make some customers feel warm and fuzzy, but it should not come as a surprise that applying stool, feces and excrement to growing fruits and vegetables significantly raises the risk of spreading disease. Bruce M. Chassy, food science professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana scoured U.S. Food and Drug Administration data to conclude that organic food is four to eight times more likely to be recalled over safety concerns than conventionally grown products.
I compared 2014 survey data from organic growers with overall agricultural yield statistics for that year on a crop by crop, state by state basis. The picture that emerges is clear-organic yields are mostly lower. To have raised all U.S. crops as organic in 2014 would have required farming of one hundred nine million more acres of land.
Microbiologist Alex Berezow: The New York Times Should Seriously Consider Not Writing About Science Anymore
Earlier this year, the activist organization US Right to Know (USRTK), bankrolled largely by a $47,500 donation from the Organic Consumers Association, submitted Freedom of Information requests asking certain US academics for e-mails dating back to 2012. This was to ascertain whether their ‘messaging’ was being coordinating with 14 companies, including Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont, Dow and other biotechs, food industry trade groups and their communication firms. The academics had all contributed to an industry-backed website called GMOanswers.com and/or had spoken out against California’s GM food labeling proposition. Over the summer, the activists broke their ‘news’.
These headlines focused on Kevin Folta, a University of Florida researcher, because USRTK leaked his e-mails to three journalists. Two of them co-posted a PLOS blog (now removed), while the third wrote a front-page New York Times news story highlighting a $25,000 donation from Monsanto to Folta’s institution. In both cases, the reporters cherry-picked sentences from several thousand e-mails, highlighting Folta’s communications with Monsanto, often out of context, to insinuate that he is an industry shill–and thus presumably unfit to talk to the public.
Hear my prayer: California Becomes First State to Label Monsanto’s Roundup as a Carcinogen
h/t Adrian