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.
“Here’s my bet: the kids are going to win and when they do, it’s going to matter,” prophesized environmentalist Bill McKibben about fossil fuel divestment in 2013.If so, they are going to be led by Quakers, who were among the first to officially say no to fossil fuel stocks. Though Quakers were considered anarchists in the Old World, in America they banned slave ownership way before government did and created Pennsylvania as a commonwealth without social elites, established churches, tithes, high taxes or compulsory military service. Are they thought leaders once again?
With the advent of government-mandated health insurance, there has developed an ongoing national debate about what exactly they can mandate. Can the government force consumers to eat broccoli? Can the government force the Catholic church to pay for contraceptive coverage, which violates their principles?
President Obama is getting credit for one odd thing in a new paper - diminishing American exceptionalism and confidence. America is a lot less egotistical than it used to be.
If you are skeptical of nutrition advice in general, or Miracle Vegetable of the Week claims in mainstream media, you have good reason: In a world where the United Nations body on cancer meta-analyses, which self-identifies as the most important carcinogen-finder in the world, lists sausage as the same level of hazard as cigarettes and mustard gas, it's fine to roll your eyes and groan and wonder how long before yet another meaningless Prop. 65 warning label shows up in California.
Organic food has managed to wrap itself in both a health and ethical halo and a lot of the credit for that has to go to outstanding marketing and the work of trade groups that represent organic farmers. They have turned what was once a niche market focused on a different process into a $100 billion juggernaut where mothers chide other mothers as bad parents if they don't buy organic.That will be taught in business classes for decades.
In the early days of food labeling and regulations, it was just about mandating honesty. If you go to buy mayonnaise, you shouldn't have to wonder if it is mayonnaise (1), and then labels became a marketing distinction. Better ingredients meant a better product and that appealed to people who cared about higher quality or superior health for their families. More recently, labels have become a way to promote self-identification with a world view - you could show you are more ethical and care more about your children and the developing world, and even the whole planet, if you buy a special label.
In an effort to keep the pressure on scientists who accept the overwhelming consensus on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the hard-left political magazine Mother Jones has written another article using emails provided to the organic lobbying organization US Right To Know(1) to undermine science it has chosen not to accept.
If you get money from a corporation, are you for sale?It’s obviously a silly question, since almost everyone in America signs the backs of checks ratherr than the front of them, yet much of the public tends to think that if a scientist gets funding from the government or a corporation, they are mandated to produce a specific, pre-chosen result, even though those same people would not agree that their own “funding source” — an employer — controls their beliefs.
If you have to go without gluten but want to maintain the texture of popular foods that contain this sticky protein, you are forced to use substitutes containing extra sugar, extra fat, hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose and xanthan gum, none of which are all that great from an overall health perspective. Given that, opting for a gluten-free diet makes little sense unless it's necessary.
When Paul Krugman, a famous liberal economist who has gained enduring cultural prominence by writing for the New York Times, actually put his philosophical beliefs to practical use, he helped give us Enron. Today, Dr. Krugman wisely avoids anything that translates to the real world. In the Sarbanes-Oxley culture he helped make necessary, he can stay out of jail if he sticks to polemics about Republicans.
I’ll be honest, I like Equal. If I had my way, my morning would consist of a kiss from my wife and a cup of Double Black Diamond Extra Bold coffee with a packet of Equal and a little bit of French Vanilla creamer thrown in. Super bold coffee with sweetness added? I like contrasts.What’s even more of a contrast, and more confusing to people who know me, is that someone who won’t eat store-bought jelly - doesn't even want it in the house - someone who would, given his way, never let his family eat anything that wasn’t grown, killed, processed and cooked by anyone but him, would consume an “artificial” sweetener at all.
Not only does organic food have pesticides, which the $100 billion Big Organic industry would rather you forget, but it even has synthetic pesticides.And that "Non-GMO Project" project sticker won't save you, because some boxes of Kashi GoLean Original cereal may have been "verified" by that piece of paper also, yet the food still had glyphosate, according to an analysis by another activist group.
