Scientific Research, differences in academic, pure science and commercial research

I loved academic life, I really did. So much cool equipment to play with, spending time making electron micrographs for truly important research. Well, and coeds, halter tops and shorty shorts, I was an American guy, of course I loved the academic life. But then reality overtook the fantasy world and marriage, home, family all became more important than impressing buxom coeds with statistical analysis of their, well, never mind that. And my life went in a different direction. Now, in the winter of my life, I find myself going back to those carefree days, not so much for the attraction of the opposite sex, but to learn as much as I can. The internet is an amazing thing, so much knowledge, so much research and so much information is out there, available for us to utilize with just a few quick keystrokes and in many instances (and for the very best info) membership in the elite consortium of humans that are rightfully allowed to place initials after their names. It's there that a major portion of published articles written by researchers, grad students and paid minions of the corporate world are available to be used as reference work and for the enlightenment of all. Well again, all that have initials after their name and the annual fee to allow access. It's here within these convocations of knowledge that we find the true plethora of information. We also find tons of stuff that makes us scratch our heads and go "What the Fuck?" Stuff like the thesis on the Pet Rock phenomena and the effect on society. Sheesh.

To begin, on September 17, Forbes magazine published an article that stated that the controversy over Genetically Modified Food is finally over and that there is a definitive report published in the Journal of Animal Science (Everything is wondrous report) that states that out of trillions of meals consisting of GM crops eaten by humans and production feed animals, no one anywhere has ever died or gotten sick from the Genetically Modified food. The conclusion, Genetically Modified Food is perfectly safe. That sort of thinking seems to me to be very similar to the Dr. Seuss method of logic. However, there are other indicators that for many people the GM food controversy is over, the Genetic Literacy Project (GLP site) claims that there are over 2000 scientific studies done on Genetically Modified food crops and that GM foods are the most studied, most tested, most researched products in human history. 2000 studies, and every single one concludes that the technology behind the creation of new life forms is infallible. The Genetic Food industry pays them to tell us that. Plus just the mere fact that trillions of meals consisting of GM foods have been consumed without any deaths or serious illnesses by animals and humans proves conclusively that GM foods are safe. Let me just start with this quote,
"It is often claimed that “trillions of GM meals” have been eaten in the US with no ill effects. However, no epidemiological studies in human populations have been carried out to establish whether there are any health effects associated with GM food consumption. As GM foods are not labelled in North America, a major producer and consumer of GM crops, it is scientifically impossible to trace, let alone study, patterns of consumption and their impacts. Therefore, claims that GM foods are safe for human health based on the experience of North American populations have no scientific basis."  Yeah, that's from the European Network of Scientists (ENSSER.org) It isn't proof, it is merely logic.

However, let's take this assumption a step further, and look at the health of Americans. I've been told that Americans live longer, and are healthier than ever before in the history of this country. And that probably is true, and it's also true that Americans eat more Genetically Modified food products and more meat produced via the method for meat production of feeding animals Genetically Modified food products than any other country. So with our high standard of living, why are Americans when compared to the rest of the world, only 18th in life expectancy? And why don't Americans have the lowest infant mortality in the world instead of being 34th in infant mortality? There are no clear cut answers to those questions, and even I admit that no clear definitive conclusions can be drawn from those three facts, amount of consumption and rates of death for adults and infants. It is not clear, it is simply logic. Bright glaring logic.

So now we get back to those two thousand studies showing that GM foods are safe. There's a website you can go to, (GENERA) which was built for the express purpose of cataloguing all of the research done on Genetically Engineered Organisms, a sort of repository of triumphant bravado for those scientists performing the miracles of creating new life forms. And as a big publicity notch in the belt of the GM industry, anyone can go there, anyone can get the information. It's just a little hard to utilize their search format and there is no actual "LIST" per se for anyone to just look at, and count. So I went to the FASS list which gives us one thousand seven hundred and sixty research papers about Genetically Modified crops. Now comes the tough part, none of that research has anything to do with human health. It seems that 62% are all about environmental impacts. 37% are all about actual production data for the business side of using GM feed, meaning that the reports are all about how much milk dairy cows gave depending on the percentage of GM feed is one example. Literally, there are hundreds of research papers about how little difference there is in meat, milk and egg production when feeding GM feed as opposed to feeding non-GM feeds. The actual fact is that none of those animals used for production of those products live very long. And the animals that are raised strictly for meat, live even shorter lives. So, with that in mind, less than one percent (27) are about doing specific health related studies with histopathological investigations of subject animals to determine any detrimental effects of having a GM feed diet. The scary part of this information is that over half of this small group of studies were published, in one case nine years, after the USDA approval for the GM crop was given. None were studies for longer than ninety days. The reality is that the USDA has given approval for commercial use of 47 different GM crops. Studies for nine of those crops can be found on the internet within these 27 studies. None of the feeding studies done by the corporations seeking approval of their newest creations are available to the public or to scientists anywhere in the world for any kind of systematic review. That is, if they were actually done, we don't know, we aren't allowed to see them. So what about those 27 studies, do they definitely prove one way or another the viability of using GM crops for food production or to actually feed to humans? Well no, not really. But here is what some researchers for the Elsevier Ltd group wrote about 21 of the studies. (Elsevier) It's not pretty.

This is from their conclusions,"The majority of studies reviewed lacked a unified approach in their methodology and results making it impossible to properly review or repeat these studies. Furthermore such lack of detail makes it difficult to generate evidence based guidelines to aid in the delivery of an optimum safety assessment for GM crops for animal and human consumption."


I don't know, I like the Elsevier Group, somewhere back in the dark and dusty annals of their archives is a little read (and rarely purchased) copy of a thesis about mushroom substrate alkalinity for which the publishing of gave to one internet blogger the ability to put two initials after his name. And access to a lot of information as well. But, that aside done, we need to address the statement from the beginning of this bit of drivel. What is the the basis for scientific research? There are three types of research, academic, research done by geeks that is generally about getting grants from corporations and done to further a career of get those initials after your name. Like the stuff I did. Pure theoretical science, stuff like delving into the make up of atoms at Cern. Or like the stuff those guys on The Big Bang Theory TV show do, although that might be classed as academic as well. And then there is Commercial research. This is stuff done at labs owned by corporations or contracted out to private labs by corporations and pretty much all of it is done for the express purpose of achieving regulatory approval for a specific thing, be it crops, drugs or food additives. Virtually all commercial research is done knowing what the results are going to be even before the research starts. Academic research is done generally with the intent to gain new knowledge. Both cost a lot of money.

What is the true basis of scientific research? Science, research, is all about getting money to pay the bills. Yeah, draw your own conclusions about that from the available data and what you personally believe people will do for money. Me, I believe in the reality of greed. This is a very different aspect of research, but the big drug companies have been in hot water with the FDA to the tune of 30 billion dollars in fines for among other things, the falsifying of data in their research; just since 2000. I'm not really sure that sort of blatant greed is limited to the pharmacology industry. Not when the manufacturers of GM crops spend millions and millions of dollars to sway the voters to stop labeling of their products. But ultimately it's up to each of us individually to believe what we feel is right for ourselves.

The weirdest crap you've never heard of before. Chlor-Alkali

Chlor-Alkali is more of a common name for a group of products that are used for industrial purposes rather than what you might use at home. Well, other than bleach and drain cleaner, both of which are examples. Industry uses lots of those things and the process for making them goes all the way back to 1895 with two guys Hamilton Castner and Karl Kelliner getting together and perfecting the process first patented by Charles Watt way back in 1851 for electrolyzing brine to make Hydrogen gas, Chlorine gas, Hydrocloric Acid and Sodium Hydroxide. Those two came up with a process they called the Mercury Cell and it worked fairly well and was very economical to operate. And the process is still used today to manufacture these important industrial chemicals. If you took chemistry in high school you probably remember electrolyzing water into Hydrogen and Oxygen. You passed an electrical current through salt water and at the anode you collected gas bubbles into a test tube then lit it on fire when it was partially full and you removed it from the water, hopefully without getting a shock. Fun, and it demonstrated a well known principle of science that is used everyday in the industrial world. Electrolysis.

It would take a lot of space to detail how the Mercury Cell works and most people reading this wouldn't care, but for those interested, Wikipedia has a cool description (Wiki ) It's interesting to note that in America today the Mercury Cell is used to manufacture a little over 10 million tons of Sodium Hydroxide and Hydrochloric Acid annually for industrial uses. (US EPA) And that the EPA itself tells us that the largest industrial user of Mercury in the world today is this process for manufacturing these chemicals. And that all of them, meaning all the Chlor-Alkali products, are contaminated with Mercury. Not such a bad thing you might say, I mean in reality you pour bleach into the washer and it goes down the drain and the washer rinses that minute amount of chlorine into the sewer. Same with the drain cleaner, out into the sewer. And of course we all know what happens to it then, the municipal waste water treatment plants all over the country remove all the wastes from the sewage water and dump it back into the waterways and the environment. I mean it is a tiny amount of Mercury. And it just gets flushed out into the ocean, which is pretty big. And the US FDA tells us that tiny amounts of Mercury are not harmful in any way. That's why the flu vaccines contain up to 25 micrograms of Mercury per dose. That's a lot like eating 12 pounds of swordfish in one sitting, or eleven cans of tuna. Which the same US government tells us we should avoid.

I haven't figured out the rationale for that yet. probably won't ever either.

But back to the other problem with Mercury, there is a little tiny bit in all of that Sodium Hydroxide and Hydrochloric Acid that comes out of the Mercury Cell process for manufacturing them. The EPA tells us that for the most part, 80% of these products are still manufactured using the much much cheaper process of Mercury Cells rather than the more expensive Membrane Cell process. Hey, it's cheaper, isn't that what making money is all about? I think I learned that the first week in business class in college, if you can make or buy things cheaper than your competition, all things being the same otherwise, you'll make more money. So industrial users of Chlor-Alkali products prefer to buy the cheaper, Mercury contaminated products over the more expensive, non-Mercury stuff.It's just business, cheaper means greater profits. So, back in the middle part of lhe last century, one of the big agricultural food processors figured out how to make corn syrup. The process is pretty impressive, they take corn, corn cobs and grind it all up and process the stuff with sodium hydroxide and then use enzymes to convert the starches and cellulose structures into fructose and glucose. Then to neutralize the sodium hydroxide, they bathe it in hydrochloric acid. Both are Chlor-Alkali products. As a side note here to the main story, the FDA recently upheld the claim of the Corn Processors Association that High Fructose Corn Syrup is an "All Natural" product. I haven't figured out the rationale for that yet either. and again, probably won't ever.

So back to our story, back in 2003 an FDA inspector by the name of Renee Dufault in the course of her job took samples of High Fructose Corn Syrup and sent them as marked and numbered samples only to a lab that the FDA utilized for testing such stuff. Almost half the samples contained Mercury. As a professional, she reported this information to the heads of the FDA. The response was to stop the investigation into Mercury content of the largest sweeteners used in the food processing industry.today. More than 3 billion dollars worth of High Fructose Corn Syrup was manufactured in 2005. That translates into about 150 billion dollars worth of processed food products, everything from Poptarts to Manwich, to Coke and Pepsi and pancake syrup. Anything with High Fructose Corn Syrup as an ingredient.

We know that Mercury is a cumulative toxin. If you, or any living organism consumes anything containing Mercury, that Mercury pretty much stays in your system and accumulates in your brain and nervous system along with muscle and fat tissues in your body. That's why the US FDA and the US EPA recommend that we humans don't eat any fish that are high up on the food chain, swordfish, shark and tuna, because these guys eat small fish that ate smaller fish that ate little crustaceans that had a small amount of Mercury in them. The higher up the food chain, the higher the concentration of Mercury.

In 2012 we see that 80% of all Chlor-Alkali products are still manufactured using the hundred and nineteen year old process called Mercury Cell technology. The FDA still ignores this fact.

It's just business after all, big business.

What do people do for money and what does it really cost you?

I work for myself, and have for quite some time now. I'm also a very moral man, one who believes in Karma, the Universal Consciousness and live my life according to the virtues needed for life on this plane of existence. For me, this question is pretty simple. For many, it might be a little difficult to answer. But, here we go. "What would you do for a LOT of money?"  By a lot, I mean, say a hundred thousand dollars. And by what would you do for it, I mean would you go to the produce section of the grocery store and put a drop of fecal matter on some lettuce. Not a bad thing, some sucker gets the runs, you get a hundred grand.

Would that really happen?

Well, sort of. If you owned a bunch of cattle and kept them in a big lot to feed them and get them a bit fatter before you sell them and let's say that it would cost you a hundred thousand dollars to set up a correct completely safe disposal system for all the cattle waste. Or you could just wait and dump it into a big pond and when it rained hard the runoff would wash most of it out into the environment. Away from your place and then it wouldn't be your problem. Would you spend the money? It is perfectly legal to allow all that shit to flow away, the Second Circuit Court of the United States has decreed that owners of feed lots do in fact need to make a plan and provide for handling the huge piles of animal wastes, but that should rain wash it all away into local waterways and ultimately into fields of produce, or even into local municipal water supplies; then that's okay. If you don't believe me, check out this page on the EPA website (EPA CAFO) where they interpret the Circuit court ruling for everyone. And it's interesting to note on page two, the Court rejected the premise that zero discharge needed to be enforced in areas with high rainfall.

All this leads us into the information as stated in the title. What is the TRUE and REAL cost to you? You can buy cheap burgers, cheap chicken sandwiches, cheap meat really, pretty much everywhere. But the question truly is, what is the true cost. If we START here at the end, we begin to see how so much of the costs of cheap meat are passed onto all consumers and in fact are one of the main reasons for increases in cost of living for each and every citizen and illegal alien living in this country today. Yeah, strong statement, but let's start to look at the hidden costs of cheap meat and how everyone pays the ultimate cost for it.

Waste disposal at Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) should be simple. Food is brought in, some of it goes into meat, the rest is manure. That manure should be removed in the same manner that the food is brought in. It isn't. Sustainable farming techniques show us how beneficial it is when the manure is put back on the soil. Yet in today's world of agrigiant commercial farming, the manure is a waste product and is treated as such, meaning as little money as possible is spent on removal and disposal of the stuff. That's why so much of produce that is grown commercially is contaminated with animal fecal matter and has bacterial contamination. It happens every week, the FDA recalls foods, especially produce. Here is the FDA recall site that is updated DAILY with recalls for contaminated food products. (FDA Recall) Corporate savings for not treating manure would be hard to estimate. I've never read anything about it. However the cost to the people for the corporate agrigiants refusal to spend the money is astronomical

• From 50 to 70 million cases annually of illness from exposure to bacterial contamination such as salmonella, listeria, e.coli and others less well known generally from produce and meats. (CDC)
• 22,000 deaths annually from that exposure and illness (CDC)
• Economic costs such as lost wages and lost business range up to 40 BILLION annually (USDA ERS)
• Just this one aspect of producing cheap meat raises costs of healthcare, healthcare insurance, life insurance and drug costs. That being because most of the bacteria causing these illnesses are now antibiotic resistant and newer stronger ones are needed, costing us money

One of the ways that agrigiant corporations make money on raising cheap meat is through the process known as farm subsidies. Since 1995 the federal government has paid around 260 billion dollars in farm subsidies to generally large corporate agrigiants growing primarily crops used for, animal feed. Everything from direct payments to offset costs of production to payments for crop insurance. Think about that for a second, does the federal government pay for your health insurance?

• Farm subsidies have cost taxpayers 260 billion dollars in the past ten years
• I have no idea what that cost is per burger or chicken sandwich
• But it is about a hundred bucks a person each year

Green house gas emissions go up dramatically because of the modern industrial agrigiant corporate model for raising cheap meat. And no, it isn't because cows fart out a lot of methane, which they do, but that's only a small part of the problem.

• Sustainable farming methods where the manure is returned to the soil and helps capture carbon dioxide and reduces greenhouse gases as opposed to the current agrigiant model of allowing the manure to ferment and decay in ponds or in worst cases, flow out into waterways in rain storms
•  Degradation of soil due to extensive use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides keeps the natural cycle of carbon dioxide capture from occurring 
• The manufacture of chemical fertilizers, pesticide and herbicides all use huge amounts of petrochemicals and increase greenhouse gas emissions
• The corporate drive for ever greater quantities of cheap animal feed has led to corporate agrigiant farms in South American countries like Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Peru where native forests are being stripped away and soy farms take their place
• This removes huge tracts of land of forests upsetting the world wide ecosystem and increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
• This also increases the use of petrochemicals not just for the production of the feed, but for the transportation of that feed to the meat production facilities in the US and Europe

These costs are incalculable. How do we put a dollar amount of global warming, increased healthcare, untimely deaths of our fellow citizens, the uselessness of drugs to treat infections and the destruction of our way of life. The big question is what would you do for money. We know what corporate leaders as well as their paid minions in our government will do, they will slowly kill us all.

Glycemic Index, the fascinating science showing the world pseudo-facts for personal interpretation and profit

What?

Oh come on, I think we all know that results in science are driven by the needs of those paying the bills. This is just simple interpretation of the reality of our world. Big drug companies have been fined billions of dollars for falsifying data, the US FDA approves chemicals to be added to foods that the US EPA has declared too toxic to be ingested by humans in any amount, and of course Genetically Modified foods are approved with short term feeding studies that legitimate scientists aren't allowed access to for review. It happens, it's part of our existence. And the glycemic thing is helpful, we just have to take the interpretations of those trying to sell you something for what they are.

Anyway, what is the Glycemic Index? This is a very interesting concept and the reality is that although it gives us a measure of how specific food items are digested and broken down within the human digestive system; it is an imperfect and subjective measurement at best, and at worst, it gives pseudo-scientific credence to internet gurus as well as those selling books, supplements and the ideal way of life to unsuspecting people. It isn't the panacea for those that want you to drink the Kool-Aid, even though they want you to believe that it. It isn't snake oil, but it is helpful. Back in 1980 this guy, Dr. David Jenkins working at the University of Toronto developed the concept. Since then, there have been a bunch of other researchers doing the testing to produce their very own GI charts. Probably the one most often cited as gospel on the internet is the one done by Harvard University. The way that the GI is measured is a group of test subjects, usually students needing extra money, are first given control foods to eat. Normal controls are table sugar and then on a separate day, white bread. The blood glucose is then tested over several hours and the changes are plotted as a curve comparing time and rise in blood glucose levels. These are the BASE LINE results and then differing foods are then fed to the test subjects to get similar graphs for each food item and this is then compared to the base line graphs for white bread and sugar. From that comparison we derive the Glycemic Index rating for that particular food. For a very simple explanation of how it is calculated, the Linus Pauling Institute has a great one that's easy to understand. (Linus Pauling) 

Now comes the bad part that I have to explain. The whole thing is subjective, and interpretation of the data is not in anyway conclusive proof of any specific individual food item when consumed by any specific individual. The GI charts are drawn up giving a MEDIAN average of individuals with those individuals being young students in much better health and vitality than the people reading about it all. And of course the big one, the chart gives the GI for the food items that the researchers chose to test. It may have very little to do with the diet that you or anyone else might be consuming. It has little to do with the food I eat. And in fact a huge portion of it just doesn't make any sense at all. Although the Harvard chart states that 30 grams of a baguette has a glycemic index of 95, a 30 gram portion of a hamburger bun has a GI of 61. That part is hard to understand, a baguette by definition is nothing but flour water salt and yeast whereas most hamburger buns contain High Fructose Corn Syrup. So how does that work out? The chart also tests commercial baked breads that aren't common in the Western US with most of those that have high percentages of cracked or unprocessed whole wheat to have much lower GI numbers than plain processed whole wheat flour breads. This makes sense as plain wheat kernels have a GI of 30. I can't examine those breads to determine how they were made but since they are commercial brands I can only assume they are made as cheaply and quickly as all the commercial brands made around here. Now comes the part where we can't really use the GI charts to determine what's good for us or not. When the Harvard, and well all the others doing this testing, did their research, they don't tell us how the foods they test were prepared. We do know that the big ways to make whole natural foods healthier for us are soaking, sprouting, fermenting and steaming. All of these preparation techniques make food better for us by breaking down the lectins and phytic acids and they also breakdown the cellular structure to make them more digestible. However, we have no idea if that in anyway alters the GI ratings of any of the foods.

Also one big thing that I do is use a wheat grinder to make my fermented breads. A wheat grinder for home use is a lot different from the high speed roller mills used by commercial flour mills and commercial bakers. We have no idea if that alters the GI rating of the breads that I and a million other home bakers produce. The thing to remember about all of this is that the science behind it all is all subjective and open to interpretation and that even though certain websites out there make big claims (all the Paleo diet gurus wanting you to buy their crap) that it isn't true that a slice of bread has a greater Glycemic Index than table sugar. The truth is that GI charts are just one minor tool that can be used to help you determine what sort of diet you as an individual needs to consume. I think that most reputable doctors and scientists will tell you that your life will be better if you stick to less meat, more unprocessed foods and never ever eat at McDonalds

Statistical Evidence is not fact. Any theory deduced is false, at least any proposing concepts contrary to the perception fed to us by the prevailing establishment

Well that's a long title. And for those not quite sure what it means, let me explain. Science dominates our modern existence. And there are a lot of differing studies of science. Some, have very little room for interpretation. From the basic arithmetic functionality of how computers operate to the complex calculus and physics needed to design buildings, roadways and well, the basic structure of the man made portion of our world. The other sciences, are all based on subjective interpretation of data normally collected either via experimentation or observation of existing phenomena and even specific extrapolation of our recorded history. Scientists gather the data they need, from whatever source being used, then draw conclusions about their research based on Statistically significant trends as determined by analysis of the raw data.

Here's a simple example, look at the database that contains all the car crashes in say, Arizona; and determine the casualty rate based on speed of crash. Look at car crashes at 10 mph and on a graph, plot how many deaths per accident occured. Then do the same for 20 mph, then 30 and 40 and 50. We won't get a straight line, it will curve sharply upwards. And it will perform in a measurable, specific way. And from that chart, we can pretty accurately predict what will happen at 70, 80, 90 miles an hour. This is a statistical probability of the causality effects of speed in car crashes based on statistical evidence. This technique is pretty much used EVERYWHERE in science. This differs dramatically from anecdotal evidence. By that I mean that you sister's boyfriend's cousin's next door neighbor was driving at 200 mph and hit a wall and lived. That has little to do with the statistical determination that driving faster and crashing gives a greater risk of dying. That's an anecdotal plot on the graph of life and probably not true, but fun to tell.

A long time ago, (yikes, I really am that old) I noticed something when working with commercial mushroom growers. They had problems with transference of the mycillium to new beds from existing ones. Micrographs showed small subtle degradation of the mitochondria in some samples. When examining the specifics of the substrate for each specimen a graph was made that showed a significant trend, a statistical probability of the outcome due to specific conditions in the individual environment of each bed used for growing. Science, and statistics in action.

These are just two examples of how statistics are used in science, from the gleaning of data already available to experimental research gathering specific data to reach conclusions. I'm not that interested in doing research in a lab any more, too old, too poor, too tired. But I do like to sit at my computer and look at the research that others do. And I see statistical evidence showing specific protocols that modern industrial economic and governmental ruling classes don't want to admit exist. And all of them deny whole heatedly and completely that all of this doesn't exist and is in error. There is wholesale denial of statistical evidence.

Case study number 1. Vaccines. I have written about them before and everything that I have printed here I have gleaned from the volumes of research available to anyone using the internet. The salient point here is that according to published DATA from a wide variety of sources, things are not what we are told. In the EU where they actually publish these things (as opposed to the US where it is kept secret) more adults die from the flu vaccine than die from the flu. In the US, American children are mandated to have 49 vaccinations before the age of 6, and are 34th in infant mortality having a higher infant mortality rate than Cuba and other underdeveloped countries. In the US blacks have an infant mortality rate of 18.6 per 1,000 live births and whites 8.8. Overall vaccination rates for whites has dropped since 2002 with an overall rate of infant children receiving all 49 vaccines before age 6 now being less than 71%. Whereas blacks have overall compliance of slightly under 91%. Despite hours of trying, I have never been able to find the total number of claimants that have used the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, otherwise known as Vaccine Court. They do not allow access to the public of that information. I do know that the Feds set aside 200 billion dollars to compensate those injured by vaccines. This has nothing to do with autism, this is all about the quantifiable evidence that a very large percentage of children and adults that receive vaccines suffer from nearly 100 known adverse serious side effects other than rash and fever. The Feds own HRSA even has a webpage that gives a timetable to watch for specific side effects and how long it takes to materialize and the parameters needed in order to make a successful claim to the Vaccine Court for payment. Given the multitude of problems with CURRENT manufacturing processes for CURRENT vaccines, there is Statistical Evidence that they are unsafe, poorly designed and a causitive factor in many many long and short term health problems up to and including death.

Case study number 2. Genetically Modified Food. Again, I write about this all the time. The establishment of the ruling class in America has decreed that Genetically Modified Foods are necessary to produce enough food for the world. In America, there are 3,537,455 square miles of land. The US produced 1,006,000 metric tons of milk on that land using rBGH hormones to increase milk production. The USDA estimates that approximately 85% of milk produced in the US is done using rBGH hormone treatment. The EU has 1,707,462 square miles of land and produced 1,400,00 metric tons of milk. None of it had rBGH as it is illegal to use in the EU and just about every other country in the world. Crop yields according to the USDA ERS are mixed, with only slight increases; however total costs for farmers initially dropped after the introduction of GM crops because of labor and mechanical costs were lower; but in recent years costs of GM seeds has risen over 3000%. EU farmers growing traditional crops have seen yield growth in double digits due to improved computerized farming methods. In the world today, GM crops we have been told are the future to world hunger. However 72% of all corn and 88% of all soy grown is used for animal feed. Western dietary habits with extremely HIGH percentage of meat intake is the driving force for the shift from agrarian biodiversity to agrigiant monoculture for meat production. There is Statistical Evidence that Genetically Modified foods are NOT the answer to feeding the growing world population.

Case study number 3. Pesticides. Again, I write about these things here on my blog a lot. Whereas the US government EPA gives us the "Animal Farm" belief that GM crops are reducing the total amounts of pesticide usage in the world today, the actual facts differ when information is gleaned from reports from the manufacturers of chemical pesticides in the forms of Herbicides glyphosate, 2,4-D, atrazine, metachlor-S, acetaclor, and pendamethalin; Fumigants meta sodium, dichloropropene, mythyl bromide, and chloropicrin; and Insecticides which comprise a wide variety of chemicals in eighteen groups. The EPA tells us that from 2007 to 2009 pesticide usage dropped 2.2%. Sales by weight of pesticides increased in the same time period according to manufacturer's information by nearly 7%. Independent testing of the herbicide glyphosate shows that when fed to mice at a rate of .005 parts per million of their feed, there was significant neural damage along with developing renal tumors. Because of the overuse of herbicides there are now sixteen reported species of weeds that have become resistant to glyphosate which has driven the increase in its usage. Mounting pressure from agribusinesses forced the EPA to raise the allowable limit of glyphosate on animal feed from 1 ppm to 200 PARTS PER MILLION.

There is Statistical Evidence that Americans are being lied to by our leaders, our corporate masters, and the media. Anyone that produces evidence to the contrary is denounced as using bad science.

However, it's all right there for anyone to see.

Change is coming, we have a new power in the Senate

If you really think it matters which political party controls the U.S. Senate, please answer these questions. Don’t worry, they’re not that difficult:

With much hoopla and celebration, many Americans are ecstatic to see that the Republican Party now controls the Senate of the United States of America. To some, this is a great thing, to others, it has been likened to the downfall of civilization. However you feel about this event, here are questions that will explain to you what happens when one political party controls the Presidency, the Senate or the House,

1. Will the US foreign policy in the Mideast change from current incoherent and disjointed efforts on numerous fronts of war not being a war? Answer, This first question is simple, it doesn't matter who controls the Senate, Presidency or House of Representatives, nothing will change.

2. Will basic civil liberties be returned to citizens? Answer, This second question is simple, it doesn't matter who controls the Senate, Presidency or House of Representatives, nothing will change.
3. Will the influence of big corporate money no longer be an issue in election campaigns. Answer, This third question is simple, it doesn't matter who controls the Senate, Presidency or House of Representatives, nothing will change.

4. Will the predatory policies of the Federal Reserve that profits Wall Street Do Nothings and is the main cause of the disparity in economic wealth of Americans change. Answer, This fourth question is simple, it doesn't matter who controls the Senate, Presidency or House of Representatives, nothing will change.

5. Will the policies controlling the administration of drugs, food and beverage change in ways that will benefit the populace that elected those that represent us. Answer, This fifth question is simple, it doesn't matter who controls the Senate, Presidency or House of Representatives, nothing will change.

6. Will there be any prudent assessment of unaffordable weapons systems being developed currently such as the F35 fighter which doesn't work, is over budget and completely antiquated even before being finished. Answer, This sixth question is simple, it doesn't matter who controls the Senate, Presidency or House of Representatives, nothing will change.

7. Will there be any changes to the system of lechery paid for by Washington lobbyists garnering favors for Big business, Wall Street do-nothings and anyone with vast sums of money. Answer, This seventh question is simple, it doesn't matter who controls the Senate, Presidency or House of Representatives, nothing will change.

I'm sorry, those that actually believe that who is in power actually makes a difference will be sadly disappointed to learn the truth. Power corrupts, and those seeking the power to make change are all corrupt right from the get go. 

America, It is the best place to be, but far from ideal.

MILK, it does a body, well, not so good!

It's true, I don't drink milk. Not for any particular beliefs or protests or whatever. My lack of desire for the stuff is based on something a little more, mundane and in fact my aversion to the stuff goes way back some thirty years or more. But it would seem that there in fact is a good reason for me not to drink the stuff after all. New studies have recently been published that give us some very disturbing views of the this once heralded product that has long been claimed to be liquid health in a bottle.

I know there are a lot of skeptics out there that want proof, and just saying something is true doesn't make it so, even on the internet. So I have some interesting research to present to you that begins to make those old homilies about always drink your milk for strong bones and teeth, a little less believable. Last month the prestigious British Medical Journal published an article that compiled the data from a TWENTY year study that involved over a hundred and five THOUSAND people that answered specific questions regarding their eating habits, with one of the factors looked at and recorded was consumption of milk. Now here is where it gets a little odd, when the researchers looked at both groups, men and women, they discovered that the mortality rate for both was considerably higher (very nearly DOUBLE) for regular milk drinkers than it was for non or occasional milk drinkers. And the worst part, that regular milk drinkers had dramatically higher incidences of bone and hip fractures over those that didn't drink milk.

Yikes, that isn't what the American Dairy Associations have been telling us now for decades.

No, it isn't. However in America large corporations have the ability to declare whatever they want to be true and we as citizens are required to believe their lies. That's the way the system works, private businesses and humans of wealth give money to elected servants of the people to use their influence to make changes in the Code of Laws of the "Government of the People" that will allow them as the wealthy or businesses to do what they desire.  If you think this is baloney, then you just need to take a look at the IRS tax codes to verify how true this statement is. The little booklet you get with your return has very little to do with the six thousand pages of loopholes added to the Tax Code by privateers. I think that is but one very prominent and visible example of how our government works, there are of course many many more. (Just for fun, search Keating Five to see how much Senators cost)

I digress, sorry. Anyway this isn't the first study like this done. In 1994 the American Journal of Epidemiology published a similar study reporting that women that drank milk on a regular basis had greater incidences of bone and hip fractures than women that rarely or never drank milk. And in 1997 the The American Journal of Public Health published the Harvard Nurses study detailing the 12 year long study of over seventy-seven thousand women showing a definitive increase in bone fractures as consumption of milk increased. And then there is Dr. Amy Lanou, director of nutrition for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine who has come right out and stated that WORLDWIDE the countries that have the highest consumption of milk have the highest rates of osteoporosis. And the connection between calcium consumption in the form of milk and overall bone health is almost nonexistent.

But wait a minute, the TV has ads on it ALL THE TIME telling us to drink milk because it's good for our bone health and prevents those things. How can they not be true? Indeed.

All is not bad though, the BMJ study did in fact indicate that when milk is fermented, as in the making of yogurt, kefir or other ferments, the exact opposite was true. Then the milk had beneficial effects. But milk itself, not so good.

• Studies show that drinking 3 glasses or more of milk per day show increases in both prostate and ovarian cancers. 2009 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
• World wide countries that have higher milk consumption have greater rates of multiple sclerosis. 1992 issue of Neuroepidemeology 
• Milk increases atherosclorisis and arthritis in humans 1992 Journal of Nutrition
• Milk is the food item with the highest rate of allergies in the world. 2007 Allergy Clinical Immunology

Here in America what we are told, is not always the truth. We as consumers need to verify for our own protection any products that we buy. Snake oil, is everywhere.

Milk, it does a body good!

Genetically Modified Plants and Animals are completely safe

We know this because the manufacturers tell us they are.  It's pretty simple, they have tested them, they proclaim them as completely safe, therefore they are.

Let's look at these corporate leaders of bioengineering technology in a little more depth.

Monsanto, the first company to market genetically modified products has been in business for over a century. Their first product, saccharin for the Coca Cola company.  They have existed mainly by manufacturing some of the worst chemicals known to mankind, from PCB's to DDT to Agent Orange to Dioxin.  It isn't the manufacture of harmful chemicals that in itself is bad, it is the FACT that Monsanto attempted to save money by wholesale dumping of byproducts, used PCB's and other industrial wastes into lakes, streams, waterways and into settlement ponds to infiltrate the groundwater instead of correctly handling and disposing of such wastes.  High temp incineration costs money, it's free to dump it into the water supply of local towns.  Monsanto is directly responsible for 98 of the EPA Superfund Sites that have been in the cleanup process for nearly forty years now at a cost to American taxpayers of ten TRILLION dollars.  Monsanto's contribution to cleanup of their illegal dumping, ZERO.  Currently Monsanto makes money from GMO seed production, herbicides and other farm chemicals, the manufacture of the questionable hormone rBGH which is outlawed in most of the industrialized world, weather data services, and not to be discounted, but a significant amount of revenue comes from suing farmers for patent infringement. 

Dow. is the largest manufacturer of industrial chemicals in the United States. They make some interesting things, napalm, nerve gas, a huge variety of plastics including styrofoam, and lately they have begun to buy up coal mining operations.  At one time they made pesticides and are responsible for nearly a quarter of a million deaths due to equipment failures and the release of said pesticides into the heavily populated town of Bhopal India.  To date, the company has refused to compensate a single person for losses of loved ones, pain suffering or anything related to the disaster. In the last ten years the EPA has begun an investigation into the decades of the company dumping dioxin into the Michigan waterways instead of using approved yet more costly disposal of the wastes.  They are also being investigated for over 250 deaths from chloropyrifos poisoning at their manufacturing plant.  Something they hid, and just compensated American workers to keep quiet about.  Dow now makes Genetically Modified crops for farmers.

BASF is the largest manufacturer of industrial, commercial and consumer chemical products in the world.  Not just old video tapes, but all kinds of plastics, pharmaceutical and farm chemicals.  Huge ties to Fascist Germany and for three decades after the war virtually all of the senior management were former members of the Nazi party.  The three manufacturing facilities in the US are rated as some of the worst in the world and since 2001 have been cited by the EPA 673 times for violations of environmental regulations.  BASF now makes Genetically Modified crops for farmers along with a whole host of chemicals for farmers.

DuPont started out making munitions and explosives.  Not a bad thing in itself, someone had to do it.  The company has the dubious and grand designation as being the company that has the largest ever civil fine assessed by the EPA for violating Federal environmental laws. The company is responsible for 20 of the EPA superfund sites.  Again, ten trillion dollars for the cleanup, money paid toward that cleanup by DuPont, ZERO.  In 2013 DuPont has been targeted as the worst contributor to air pollution in the US.  DuPont now makes Genetically Modified crops and farm chemicals.

Syngenta, was formed by the merging of the agrochemical divisions o AstraZeneca and Novartis.  They make dozens of pesticides of which many are banned in their home country of Switzerland. Paraquat and Atrazine beng the most recognizable.  Well, except for their neonicotinide pesticides that are now in the process of being banned in most EU nations.  Syngenta is lobbying hard to block the ban and has even gone so far as to threaten to sue EU leaders that vote for the block.  Syngenta is responsible for 18 of the US EPA Superfund sites and now produces Genetically Modified crops along with a whole host of agrochemicals.

These are the companies that control the destiny of food in the world today.  Each of them has horrific pasts, and some are not so exceptional in the present and their track records have been filled with lies, deceptions and disinformation. Each of them tells us that their products are safe, each of them backs up their claims with short term feeding studies.  The big question is do we believe them?  When qualified scientists do comprehensive long term studies the results give us very different pictures.

Who do we believe?

Knowledge, the internet is the true Renaissance Man

The Renaissance Man of myth and legend was a man that knew everything.  It may have been possible once, long long ago to have been able to acquire most, I doubt all, of the knowledge of mankind within one's lifetime.  The amount of knowledge then was pretty limited and really only covered a few subjects and branches of science.  So, it might have been possible.  In today's world, there are people that seem to have a claim to enormous knowledge and identify themselves as true Renaissance men.  I'm sure you know a few, they are people that we colloquially refer to as "Know-It-Alls".  I know a few, was married to one, and they are all around us penetrating social groups with their particular brand of uninvited oratory on every subject discussed and volunteering their own experiences and unsought opinions into conversations.  Some people reading my blog might think that describes me, however it isn't true, I am actually quite timid and withdrawn in groups and quietly offer my knowledge only when asked.  And, the big one, I am never afraid to say "I don't know."

We live in a marvelous age, the internet has become our Renaissance Mind.  It contains the sum total of available knowledge and it is there for us to learn at the touch of just a few buttons.  As a child I profess to spending hours and hours reading through the old Funk and Wagnells Encyclopedia that my mother got one volume at a time for shopping at a local grocer that offered them as a promotion, one volume at a time with a minimum purchase.  I read them all.  As a youth I was a knowledge junkie.  And a math whiz. To this day I know what this is    
                                               

12√∫π/2−π/2dθ∫2√acosθ0rdr=a22√∫π/2−π/2cosθ2dθ=π22√a2

Three semesters of college calculus and my overall GPA at the time I earned my Masters was just 3.78, probably because when I first went to college I took Fortran, and to this day I can't think like a programmer, it just isn't in my mind to do so.  I learned to speak Latin in high school, probably forgotten it all now, but software programming, wow, not for me.  But I do have a sort of analytical mind and I thrive on learning things.  Not so much geared toward the applied mathematics anymore, my drive for knowledge now encompasses a lot of cooking, as well as the stuff I write about here, how our government has failed the citizens and big agribusiness and drug companies have decided that money is more important than safety.  I think that the billions of dollars in fines levied against the drug industry for just those things justifies my concerns toward them.  However the agribusinesses just haven't killed enough of our citizens to attract our wrath and cause the regulatory agencies to bypass the prevailing system of corruption and actually perform their functions and begin to regulate the flow of toxins into our food supply.

No one can know everything, but the true Renaissance Men of our time are those that can correlate widely diverse bits of data and reach conclusions that ordinary people never would believe possible.  It all begins with thinking outside the box.  Here is a remarkable website that I just love. (Sciencelab) This site gives to the reader a ton of information about common (and not so common) chemical compounds used in industry.  Everything from cinnamon oil to mercury.  It also gives us the toxicity of those compounds.  And the fascinating study of the LD50 for each of them.  And let's differentiate that from the other toxicity study, the LC50.  This LC50 is more virulent and defines what amount in aerosol form measured in parts per million within the atmosphere, does it take with an exposure of four hours to kill fifty percent of test subjects, generally large mammals.  Our interest is in the LD50, or the amount of a compound that when ingested will kill fifty percent of the test subjects within a given time frame, generally the standard is two weeks.  This is interesting information.  Did you know that if you give rabbits 320 milligrams of cinnamon oil per kilo of body weight, that fifty percent of them will die.  Makes me think about how sick a lot of those people got from doing the internet stunt of swallowing a tablespoon of cinnamon on camera just to get on the net.

However this site also gives us really useful information about some of the toxins in our food supply, like one of my favorites, Azodicarbonamide.  I detail how nasty the stuff is here on my blog at this entry (Poison)   And this is just one of the multitudes of chemicals that the FDA has allowed into our food system, simply because some corporations want those chemicals and have found uses for them that make more money for them.  And there are a lot of them.  Just for fun, let's look at the most popular and widely used preservative in the food industry, BHA.  Look it up.  We see that it is a Class 2B carcinogen.  Testing shows it to be Mutagenic to bacteria and yeasts and the big one, chronic exposure causes system and organ damage.  It is the most widely used preservative in our food supply.  It kills bacteria, it's cheap, it has no discernible flavor on its own, and it is approved for use by the FDA. 

I believe the FDA needs to hire a few Renaissance Men to look at the internet more.  It would appear that they don't have ANY at all right now.

Dixie Cup Consumerism

George Bernard Shaw - The truth is something that absolutely nobody will believe!

Surely we all know what a Dixie cup is.  The little paper cup on the sides of water coolers, use it once, then toss it into the bin.  Disposable objects purposed for one specific task.  Although in real life Dixie cups are used for a multitude of functions.  From mixing paints, to craft projects to portioning medications to, well, a myriad of things; their specific design  and construction is one that makes them, disposable.

Dixie cup has become sort of analogous with our society, disposable everything.  A plastic society, use once and throw it away.  It's been said that Lee Iacoca perfected the Dixie Cup car, exceptional marketing and design, but lasted only as long as the warranty and then was disposed of. Plastics along with the detritus of our disposable society fill our landfills, litter our country, and our oceans, and they are in fact, the legacy we leave our offspring.  Plastic people, we use them, then throw them away.  Not the Kardashians or tabloid fodder, who meet, mate, marry and say bye bye more often than most people change their pants.  But actual people.  We, the consumers of America, are disposable.  We are THE Dixie People. 

Back in the fifties, the FDA was inundated with huge numbers of applications to approve new additives for the manufacture of processed foods.  The FDA itself doesn't have the resources to test new food additives, and instead relies on the manufacturer of these chemicals to do comprehensive studies to determine just how safe they are for human consumption.  Just for fun, check out this site, it is the guidelines for scientific evaluation of new products for human use. (FDA Guidelines)  You would think that these are all pretty specific and if a company follows them to the letter, then the interpretation of the data will conclusively prove the efficacy of any compound so that it may be allowed into the food supply and added to the EAFUS list of chemical additives allowed in food (EAFUS list)  Right now, EAFUS lists over 3000 items.  Many are natural things, like Acai berries, cinnamon, Azodicarbonamide.  Oops, that last one really isn't natural.  I detail how toxic it is here- (FDA FAIL)  and show how this compound has been disallowed by the EPA for use in food, but because the manufacturer applied to the FDA to allow its use in bread making, it was allowed and added to the EAFUS.  That testing report, well all of the reports for any of the listings in the EAFUS are not available to the public.  However it must have shown a favorable interpretation of the raw data to be included, and let's not ever forget, interpretation of data is what science is all about.  

That's where human Dixie cups come in.  Realistically we might believe that any manufacturer paying money to test a new wonder drug or food additive might interpret the raw data in favor of themselves.  It's kinda like dating, we present the most favorable picture of ourselves to our prospective dating partner, and leave out all the bad info.  Plus the FDA guidelines again only call for 60 day testing on small groups of rats, there are no requirements for long term testing.  In fact the truth is that if we could find a viable use for some compound of lead to make food better, the FDA guidelines for testing for sixty days would show that our lead based ingredient would be perfectly safe.  It is however, a very nasty cumulative toxin, and sixty days of minute ingestion would not be long enough for the subjects to exhibit the effects of lead toxicity.  The obvious solution to the dilemma is for the FDA to approve the toxin and allow the Dixie cup population to determine if it kills them or not.

Sounds simplistic doesn't it.  And not at all true.  The FDA has never knowingly allowed a new drug or food additive into the system with the intention of determining whether or not it is safe.  It just seems like they do.  (Drug recalls)  Actually there is no such list for food additives, there is just the one, cyclamates.  The FDA hasn't ever rescinded approval for any other food additive on the EAFUS list.  700 of those additives are classed as Class II carcinogens, or worse, like the above blog entry for Azodicarbonamide, are chemicals that are banned in EVERY other country in the world and of which our own EPA bans the use in food.  

We are the Beta testers for the food industry.  The Dixie cup consumers.  We are the perfect test subjects for the food and drug industries.  There is research and testing data in the FDA archives for every single drug and food additive out there in use today, however that data is based on testing of each individual drug and additive.  The reality of our world is that we as consumers are exposed to multiple additives daily.  There is no testing required to determine what happens when large numbers of individual chemical additives are ingested on a daily basis.  We have no actual knowledge of how these chemicals interact within our bodies.  There is no way to definitively assess such a thing either.  The preliminary testing of sixty day feeding studies is horribly inadequate in itself, to attempt to define and test interactions of a large number of chemicals on the human body over long periods would be ridiculously expensive, and the data virtually impossible to accurately interpret.  

We are the Dixie cup consumers.  Someday, someone else will notice.  

Dolly, the first cloned sheep, and why we don't see her twins everywhere

July 5, 1996.  Scientists in Scotland announced the successful cloning of genetic material from a mammal, a domestic sheep.  She was genetically identical to the female sheep from which they took a tissue cell nucleus and caused it to grow into a live sheep.  She died seven years later.  Scientists have since cloned cows, horses pigs, mice. dogs and cats and they even cloned a racing camel.  Depending on your point of view, it's pretty exciting stuff, or some might call it interfering with the work of the creator.  Which in a way, it might be, as I have stated here before with respect to Genetically Modified foods; those scientists attempting to play god don't have the manual required to explain how to do it.  And are screwing it up big time.

A few pertinent points about cloning technology.  It doesn't work all that well.  In 2008 the FDA released a 968 page report in an attempt to alleviate any fears the public, well, anyone aware of the situation, might have had about consuming the meat, eggs, milk or whatever that comes from cloned animals.  It didn't really do so, there are more questions raised by the report than are answered.  The biggest question that I can think of is why are we still attempting this when it is such an obvious failure.  Well the FDA states that the science of cloning is inexact and that they even have a term for the errors that occur during the process "epigenitic dysregulation"  Which basically means that 90% of the cloned animals die or are born with abnormal or poorly developed lungs, hearts or other internal organs, and the big one, they have LOS  or what they have named Large Offspring Syndrome where the unborn grows so large it kills both itself and the host "mother".  The animals that survive birth often have circulatory system problems, failure to regulate their own body temperature and the common problem, failure to thrive.

The FDA has decreed that any such animal is okay to put into the food system for human consumption.  Well, that's only partially true.  The FDA stated in their report that they would ask that producers not use cloned animals for food and it was entirely voluntary as the FDA stated that "cloned animals were virtually identical to normal animals raised specifically for meat."  Except that elsewhere in the very same report they state that meat and milk differed and had "alterations in fatty acid composition and delta-9 desaturase {an enzyme that synthesizes fat} activity"  And again later "these changes imply that lipid metabolism may be altered"    Two companies, Cyagra and ViaGen already have cloned animals out in the dairy industry, and state that the animals are already at butchers for human consumption.  Their claim for the milk from cloned animals is perfectly safe even with this statement from ViaGen, "Milk from cows, sheep and goats are mixtures that are estimated to be composed of more than 100,000 molecules and that we will rely on federal nutrition labeling requirements to catch problems"

These are the same scientists that have defined the genetic code for humans, cows, sheep and goats and yet they can't analyze milk from genetically engineered animals to determine if it contains something that normal milk doesn't.  They also state that they will rely on federal slaughterhouse inspections to catch cloned animals should they be sent to slaughterhouses to be put into the food supply.  Because the FDA asks that rejection of cloned animals be voluntary.

Yikes!  I sort of thought that if you were raising a cloned animal, you would know it.  Perhaps they do.

Of course the theory behind cloning and genetically engineering animals is in itself flawed.  Big dreams about engineering cows that aren't susceptible to the man made prions causing mad cow disease (BSE) is noble, even if it's too little too late.  But scientists have lots of other concepts for animals, pigs that excrete 75 percent less phosphorous thus allowing them to use 33 percent less land, and enabling farmers to overcrowd the animals together even more.  Cows, pigs, sheep and poultry that grow at accelerated rates just like the recently approved genetically modified salmon that grow three times faster than normal salmon.  And for which no environmental nor long term feeding studies have ever been done. There are even scientists that are attempting to engineer dairy cows that secrete lysostaphin in their milk in order to prevent mastitis, which is a huge problem in the dairy industry that relies on the use of rBGH hormones to increase milk production.  All the while causing infections in the cow's udders that results in pus in their milk.  Yum, milk with antibiotics. Not sure if that's better than milk with pus. But then I don't drink milk.  And that's only one of the reasons why.

The basic problem with the entire concept of cloning genetically engineered animals is simple.  Mother nature isn't so cut and dried about her methods of infections and diseases.  If these guys are successful in creating a steer that can't be infected with prions for BSE or if they create a cow that won't ever get a staph infection and mastitis; what makes these guys think that mother nature won't mutate virus and bacteria.  It happens all the time.  Ebola, new flu strains EVERY SINGLE YEAR, the disease that mimics polio, but isn't polio.  Oh sorry, that one is just polio, the WHO just call it a new disease so they can get ever more funding to vaccinate the third world at a profit.  (My opinion only, not based at all on the mountains of evidence)  If farmers remove ALL genetic diversity from the farm by only raising cloned animals with one specific genotype, they are opening themselves up to massive losses from diseases that mutate to a strains that are infectious to that genotype.  With no diversity, ALL the animals will get sick.  Modern farm methods are based on containing all the animals in close confined quarters insuring the EASY spread of new diseases within the populations.  When scientists genetically altered food crops to kill insects that ate them and to withstand applications of weedkiller they never once considered the fact that the insects would become immune to the insecticide in the plants and that the weeds would thrive on the weedkiller as all have done.  It sure seems as though the scientists and corporate leaders are all short sided, or maybe just one sided and that side is profit driven science.  Once the world accepts new technology that soon fails, their scientists will produce newer more creative, perhaps more deadly replacements.

All I know is that I personally don't want to be the scientific world's guinea pig.  I should be able to opt out of being in their testing mode for humans.  I want their products labeled so that I don't have to buy them.  The FDA testing requirements for these new genetically engineered foods are totally inadequate.  Their requirement is that the corporation playing god and CREATING new animals and plants test the food for sixty days and to not even do it in a double blind feeding study.  It's all pointless, random and inaccurate, and yet our government uses those studies as gospel.  In 2010, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack was asked if cloned cows and their offspring were in fact now part of the food chain in America and his response was, "I can't say today that I can answer your question in an affirmative or negative way, I don't know.  What I do know is that we know all the research, all the review of this is suggested that this is safe."  What this says to me is that the FDA, the USDA, and let's throw in all the other regulatory agencies that oversee the health of Americans; do not have any idea nor have they been DIRECTED to regulate these new technologies that by definition, are going to FAIL and of which we do not at this time even know if they are harmful in any way.

So, I have looked and looked and have been unable to find just how many of Dolly's sisters did not survive during the process of creating her.  The FDA admits that 90% die.  That's ten years after the fact.

I shop at farmers markets, I eat organic food.  I'm not a lab rat guinea pig test subject being fed genetically altered food during my lifetime to see if it causes increases in cancer, heart disease, bowel problems or any of the huge numbers of problems befalling humankind today.  Oh, wait.  maybe that's the reason all of those things have increased in our population of late.  I don't know, I'm not a scientist.  I only look at statistics that they publish.