During the Obama administration, he was concerned about vaccines causing autism and it showed when it came to guidance about swine flu vaccines. His administration banned multi-use vials because of his party's insistence that preservatives caused the disorder.
A recent paper claims that even at low doses pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides are changing the behavior of insects.Though they are not able to show how it is happening, the authors use 'needs more testing' rhetoric to call on governments to ban chemicals until it is certain there is no unintended long-term ecological harm. If that sounds very Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., that's because he and other anti-science progressives have been saying it for decades.
A whole lot of classic liberals have discovered how goofy their progressive cousins have been for 25 years. All it took for this sudden embrace of critical thinking was for a Republican to say 'maybe he is right on food and medicine' about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
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.
If you're an agenda-driven, lawyer-funded epidemiologist and really want to move the needle in media on scaring people, be so bad at math - literally the only thing an epidemiologist does - that you are off by an order of magnitude.Because if 60 x 7000 equals 42,000, you're either in third grade or you are an anti-science mullah like everyone at Toxic-Free Future, who know a journal they pay to publish in isn't doing any peer review, and know that media allies like the SEO tinkerers who rewrite press releases for LA Times and Salon will be excited about the chance to pad their pageview quota.
Over 50,000,000 Americans get subsidized or free health under the Affordable Care Act but that doesn't mean usage of preventive care increased across the board. Instead, a new analysis found that the inflationary spike which led to much higher costs for housing, food, and utilities are barriers.Data from 186 community-based health organizations in 13 states found that despite higher rates of primary care visits, patients experiencing social risks like concerns about food or rent were less likely to complete screenings when recommended by doctors.
Friends of the Earth and other litigation groups opposed to science are cheering the closure of AquaBounty's AquAdvantage salmon - the poster-child (decades of regulatory roadblocks) for how the US regulatory system is manipulated by lawyers to hold back technology and medicine - but progress marches on despite the public relations campaign by Greenpeace, NRDC, and others who stand against it.Their persistent efforts to get pesticides either banned or regulated so tightly they act as bans have been wildly successful during the Biden years, but with Chevron Deference overturned at the Supreme Court political appointees can no longer get science banned by using agencies to create regulations that act like laws.
Two Presidents ago, political appointees engaged in behavior that didn't make much sense(1) and had no benefit for public health. For example, they declared there was an epidemic of something they invented called "pre-diabetes" and insisted that smoking cessation tools that were twice as effective as gums and patches but were not controlled by Big Pharma, plus cigars and pipes that have never killed anyone, were an epidemic in kids.
