Organic Food Causes Autism and Diabetes

While people think of "organic" cultivation techniques as natural and safe, there are important points we might consider.  Most of the plants used today have only been developed genetically in the last 100 years, and even "heirloom" varieties were bred relatively recently.  There have been no long term studies, and plants certainly are known to produce a wide suite of toxic compounds.  

Worse, organically cultivated plants are placed in highly artificial environments.  Rather than growing in soil as it exists, soils are highly amended with composts and manures. High levels of nitrogen and carbon dramatically alter gene expression leading to patterns never observed in nature. Van Djik et al. (2012) found that there were dramatic differences in gene expression between conventional and organically-grown potatoes, with organic potatoes showing higher expression of stress-related genes. There have been no long-term studies to assess the effects of this un-natural gene expression. 

It is clear that this causes human diseases. The first graph below shows organic food sales.  The second graph shows increasing numbers of autistic children and the bottom graph shows diabetes.  Those results are pretty conclusive. 

The graph on the left shows organic food sales. The graph on the right shows autism incidence. The graph below shows increases in diabetes.  Clearly a connection. 

Do these data support a hypothesis that organic food causes autism or diabetes?  Not at all.  The paragraphs above do illustrate how easy it is to write something completely unfounded that sounds legitimate. In these cases the data are real but they implied associations are not, or at least there is no evidence for them. 

But if you read comments sections of blogs and articles there is a massive tendency to draw a link between GMO food, cancer, diabetes, autism, etc based on the same type of correlations. 

Even Robyn O'Brien, a sharp author and communicator, fails to see the difference between causation and correlation in her TEDx talk.  She passionately develops a relationship between GMO crops and allergies, asthma, obesity and other human ills-- that absolutely does not exist.  It is a little dishonest. 

Bookmark this page.  Next time you see someone stating that transgenic crops are dangerous because of disease incidence since they were introduced, remind them that many other dynamics are also at play.  Also remind them that there is no legitimate causal relationship between biotechnology and human disease or disorders. 

The Identification and Interpretation of Differences in the Transcriptomes of Organically and Conventionally Grown Potato Tubers

Jeroen P. van Dijk, Katarina Cankar, Peter J. M. Hendriksen, Henriek G. Beenen, Ming Zhu, Stanley Scheffer, Louise V. T. Shepherd, Derek Stewart, Howard V. Davies, Carlo Leifert, Steve J. Wilkockson, Kristina Gruden, and Esther J. Kok

Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 2012 60 (9), 2090-2101

Spectrum of Fruit Death

Are big AgriBusiness and their university scientist stooges pushing it too far?  First it was a blue strawberry with a fish gene.

Scientists have altered the jellyfish green fluorescent protein.  When they change the protein sequence, they can change the emission color, making any combination available.

Oh No! Now GMO Strawberries of All Kinds!

About two to three times a year some anti-technology person is getting some solid time in front of a computer on the internet.  They find the long-discredited story of the blue strawberry, a fictitious account of a strawberry engineered with a flounder gene to help it not freeze.  There never was such a commercial product, never will be.  However, it certainly can upset a lot of people that don't do much thinking.

The blue GMO strawberry that "contained fish genes to keep it from freezing" wasted days of my life.  It was a poor photoshop job that faked out hundreds of non-critical anti-GMO advocates that were sure it existed. There even were reports that the blue strawberry caused sickness, allergies and death.

Today I'm reading articles online and I find this:

Those Germans!  Will they not stop at anything?

Actually it translate (I think) to "GenFood, the Current Handbook"

and the yellow dot says, "NO THANKS!" 

So another source of bad information on strawberries, allegedly carrying transgenes.  Of course, there is no such thing, and if we could control color like that it would be so cool. 

For me, this represents an impending stupid storm.  Here come the emails from angry, gullible, crazy people. 

The Tree that Would Not "Leave"

We oftentimes hear miraculous stories of dogs that are lost and return over thousands of miles to reunite with their owners.  We hear of a soldier's mail lost after World War II that decades later finds the mailbox of a former sweetheart, now an octogenarian.  The stories of the lost being found are many.

I have my own story, a strange story of a unusual reunion.

When we moved to Florida, Roxy thought it would be nice to make our screen porch a bit tropical.  We went to a craft store that was going out of business and bought an awful fake palm tree.  It looked fake, it was heavy, but it was cheap.  We lugged it home.

It sat on our screen porch through seasons of pollen, years of airborne swamp scum and three episodes of hurricane blown dust.  It grew evil and filthy. After years of service, it had to go.

So we cleaned it up and put it out along with a clothing donation to Goodwill.  The truck came by, the worker got out, and as he lifted the heavy tree with the concrete base, he dropped it, breaking the pot.  He told us that he couldn't take it if it was damaged.  The fake tree in a concrete slab stayed on our porch.

We got an idea.  What if we were to take it somewhere and put it into the landscaping?  Would anyone even notice?

Late one night we put the tree in the back of my pickup and drove to Don Julio's Mexican Restaurant by Oaks Mall.  I took the tree out of my truck and put it into the landscaping, the cement base buried deep in the groundcover.  It totally fit.  Nobody would ever notice.

And nobody did.  We'd drive by and see that stupid tree, standing majestically as the cornerstone of the landscaping. Its gently wafting palm fronts stood as a focal point, waving to us as we drove by.

But Don Julio's was short lived.  It took two hands and one foot to count the Mexican restaurants in Gainesville, FL, and Don Julio's was destined for failure.  It closed, and the site was demolished, only to give rise to BJ's Brew House a few short month's later.

The artificial tree was gone.

Slash-cut to 2011.  A former student makes a visit to UF and we go out for dinner at my favorite restaurant-- the Top.  The place is busy and bustling, and we are lucky to get a table for two near the kitchen.  As the conversations wear on I notice a familiar sight over her shoulder.  Upon closer inspection I see an artificial tree, the broken concrete base.... it was THE tree, alive as it ever was in my favorite restaurant.

I'll never know the events that took it from a defunct Mexican restaurant to the Top.  Probably best unknown.  But I do like to visit my stupid artificial tree every time I go there.  I just saw it again tonight, told the story, and got a good laugh.

I wonder where it will go next...

Reunited, and it feels so good... 

A Missed Opportunity to Unify

Imagine the power of the message sent if President Obama had a private inauguration and then said, "Let's skip the inaugural ball and other festivities. We have a lot of work to do, only four years, and we can use the money to hire some teachers."

It is not a vote or stroke of a pen that changes a culture. It is the voluntary actions taken that communicate real intention and character of our leaders. The president can change minds and win hearts by taking advantage of these atypical approaches.

GMO Strawberries-- More BS from the Misinformation Machine

Yesterday I get an email from the University of Florida strawberry breeder, calling my attention to an article posted on Real Food Explained.  Real Food Explained claims on its tagline, "Food Information You Can Trust".  

After that brainwash get ready for the crapfest. 

The article "Let's Learn About Genetically Modified Food" is the same old, same old, only poorly written and completely clueless.  I'll spare you the details.  Go there and read, maybe comment. 

From the article: 

Example 4. Do you notice the white firm center in most strawberries on US market? It is there because it is genetically modified to produce fish protein. In fish, this protein keeps them from freezing in cold waters. As a result of this genetic modification, strawberries can be frozen and transported. This is one of the oldest GMO products, most people in USA never even had non-gmo strawberries. They are extremely soft, and barely last few hours after being picked. From National Institute of Health

Are they kidding?   Not only is it a complete fabrication based on misinformation, they cite National Institute of Health!  When you click the NIH link, it takes you to an article written by Maxine Singer in 2000.  Maxine E. Singer is a National Academy of Science member with great credibility.  However, she didn't work for the NIH, she was at the Carnegie Institute of Washington.  She also is a tremendous advocate for transgenic crops, so maybe they should actually read the articles they cite. 

Where did they get NIH from?  My guess is from the URL of the paper they link to.

What a bunch of idiots. 

My colleague was a bit disturbed by this, as no commercial strawberries are, or ever have been GMO, yet this article says they all are!  Great concern came to Gary Wishnakzki of Wish Farms here in Florida.  Wish Farms has an awesome organic or conventional product and they are a huge part of our industry.  They have a slick web presence too.  Go check out their website.  Then go to your local market and buy their products. They are in season now!

They do offer a Genetically Modified Organisms Explained section on their website.  It's pretty good, but does imply that there might be something unhealthy about GMO strawberries, if they were to exist, but big kudos to the company for helping diffuse this baseless argument. 

So once again a photoshopped strawberry and an infectious pipeline of disinformation fuels the crazy notion that transgenic strawberries exist.  Again, breeders, growers, the industry and Yours Truly have to waste valuable time slowing the spread of bad information. 

Yet readers will accept this information over the words of a strawberry breeder, an organic strawberry grower and a guy that studies strawberry-- genomics to physiology.  They use their authority to spread bad information.  It should tell of their obvious agenda. 

Seralini's Connections to Quack Science and Strange Philosophies

Today we anticipate more earth-shattering news from the Seralini lab.  This will be followed by generous reverberations across the anti-GMO movement that crave any information from his lab, as Seralini is the point man in generating findings that transgenic crop products are dangerous.

His findings are widely dismissed by the scientific community.  Unfortunately we have forced to spend our time correcting those that don't want to be corrected, as their religion of anti-GMO has a leader, and the leader cannot be challenged.  Critical thinking out the window.

In concert with today's likely revelation there is an article in Agriculture and Environment  that addresses links between Seralini and other entities.  He is linked to Sevene Pharma, where he is a consultant.  The company deals in homeopathic remedies.  He is linked to the Invitation to Life movement (cult), that also is connected to Sevene. Of course, these allegations need to be considered with some skepticism, but when read, they do tell quite a bit.

An English translation of The entire story can be found here.  Check it out.  Read the whole creepy thing. Good times.

When the Anti-GMO folks disqualify scientists' advisement based on Six Degrees of Monsanto, here you can play One Degree of Seralini- direct connections to hard agendas

The best part is that the backgrounds of his co-authors are discussed, and they fully illuminate the situation with a clear light.  The now-famous GMO debunkers are not trained as PhD scientists.  Frequent co-author, Clair Laurent, holds a bachelor's degree in psychology and a masters in ethnobotany.  Others have equally dubious backgrounds that perhaps suggest alternative interests to hard scientific evidence.

One of the papers she published with Seralini is on the activity of DIG1 as a protectant against glyphosate-- and DIG1 is sold by... Sevene Pharma.

These connections are as networked and interlaced as those claimed against companies and scientists that work in trangenic plants.  Only here the agenda of a naturalist fallacy shines through.