HuckleB
HuckleB's JournalVANDANA SHIVA, BULLSHIT ARTIST: This Week In Pseudoscience
http://www.twipscience.org/news/2014/8/5/q9h838x9mawvrq8fincfenghry209m"On the 1st of August, an article was published on Common Dreams titled 'The Fine Print of the Food Wars'. This letter was penned by none other than pseudoscience heavy weight and the remarkably effective anti-science troll Vandana Shiva. And before we can truly get into the track record of this woman, let's start taking a look at the article in detail.
The first thing that struck me as odd was how loaded the title was. Chronicling the woo of the world, you get to see some impressively titled pieces of crap, but this one was nefariously loaded. Attributing a 'fine print' to the topic immediately places the reader as an outsider from some type of bureaucratic red tape and insinuating a complexity that doesn't exist. It de-humanizes whatever it is we're to be discussing. Secondly is the topic: 'Food Wars'. That word, war, is utilized by the anti-science chemophobic Luddite crowd quite often. It polarizes the discussion about our agricultural practices into two camps, disallowing for any possibility of a middle path of compromise and discussion.
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In the very first two paragraphs, Shiva pulls out an old tactic, making the case that genetically engineered seeds are the only ones patented. In fact, almost all seeds for large scale agriculture are patented; GMO, conventional and organic. As well, she lumps in the technology with Monsanto, despite there being many different producers of GE crops, some of which are competitors in the field. This is especially troubling given Vandana Shiva rather quickly mirrored Mike Adams (owner of Natural News) famous article comparing Monsanto to Nazis and calling for the death of scientists and journalists. (although she took it down once it was apparent people were less than thrilled with the notion of opposition extermination).
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She also makes it a point to mention that she was appointed as an expert to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and helped to create Article 19.3. She does this because her entire career depends on legitimizing herself despite almost everything she publishes or says in public forums is either hideously distorted from available facts, or just made-up.
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I really hate to have to point out the reality that someone is a huckster, but, in this case, it appears to be needed. Shiva is not someone to be trusted. She has made that very clear, over and over again.
BEES AND CCD: MYTHS AND FACTS
http://www.twipscience.org/news/2014/8/8/bees-and-ccd-myths-and-facts"Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is a phenomenon that is occurring, and causing much fear, wherein the Western honey bee (Apis mellifera) is suffering huge numbers of lost worker bees from colonies abruptly and without a seemingly evident reason.
While much scientific research is being conducted to try and understand CCD, the fearmongers have taken it upon themselves to whip up alarm in the public and come up with many claims as to why it is occurring; however many of these claims are not only not backed up by solid science, but betray an ideological bent to the proponents of the claims.
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There is no doubt that CCD exists, and there are many theories as to why. I mentioned the varroa destructor mite earlier for a reason as this appears to have some of the best evidence for being one of the causes of CCD. As you can see in the first graph, bee populations started to decline right around when this and other parasites were introduced.
This isn't to say CCD is a simple phenomenon with a single cause, it is an extremely complex problem that is still being studied and research by scientists around the world. However things that are not helping are fear mongers who, often blinded by ideology, blame "chemicals" and "frankenfood" and scream that the world is coming to an end. It isn't and by scarring the public you are not helping, you are hindering progress.
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A very good assessment of the full picture. This perspective is truly valuable, if one actually wants to figure out what is going on with bees.
How Scare Tactics on GMO Foods Hurt Everybody
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/528331/how-scare-tactics-on-gmo-foods-hurt-everybody/?utm_campaign=socialsync&utm_medium=social-post&utm_source=twitterAnti-GMO claim examined: Does genetic engineering foster monoculture?
http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/08/08/anti-gmo-claim-examined-does-genetic-engineering-foster-monoculture/Key narcolepsy–influenza vaccine findings retracted
http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2014/07/key-narcolepsy-influenza-vaccine-findings-retracted"Since swine flu swept the globe in 2009, scientists have scrambled to determine why a small percentage of children in Europe who received the flu vaccine Pandemrix developed narcolepsy, an incurable brain disorder that causes irresistible sleepiness. This week, a promising explanation was dealt a setback when prominent sleep scientist Emmanuel Mignot of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, and colleagues retracted their influential study reporting a potential link between the H1N1 virus used to make the vaccine and narcolepsy.
Some researchers were taken aback. “This was one of the most important pieces of work on narcolepsy that has come out,” says neuroimmunologist Lawrence Steinman, a close friend and colleague of Mignot’s, who is also at Stanford. The retraction, announced in Science Translational Medicine (STM), “really caught me by surprise,” he says. Others say that journal editors should have detected problems with the study’s methodology.
The work provided the first substantiation of an autoimmune mechanism for narcolepsy, which could explain the Pandemrix side effect, researchers say. The vaccine, used only in Europe, seems to have triggered the disease in roughly one out of 15,000 children who received it. The affected children carried a gene variant for a particular human leukocyte antigen (HLA) type—a molecule that presents foreign proteins to immune cells—considered necessary for developing narcolepsy.
In the 18 December 2013 issue of STM, Mignot and colleagues reported that T cells from people with narcolepsy, but not from healthy controls, are primed to attack by hypocretin, a hormone that regulates wakefulness. They also showed molecular similarities between fragments of the H1N1 virus and the hypocretin molecule and suggested that these fragments might fool the immune system into attacking hypocretin-producing cells.
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Perhaps of interest...
Professor: What exactly is this mythical ‘pristine’ alternative to GMOs that presents no risks?
http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/People/Professor-What-exactly-is-this-mythical-pristine-alternative-to-GMOs-that-presents-no-risks?nocountDENMARK’S NEAR-ZERO-WASTE WONDER
Has this Danish community found the formula for environmentally friendly industry?
http://ensia.com/articles/denmarks-near-zero-waste-wonder/
"When we look closely at systems in nature — coral reefs or rainforests, for instance — we see something we don’t often see in human systems: mutually beneficial relationships and energy flows among the various elements, such as air, water, rocks, soil, and plant and animal life. If we emulate these relationships in our cities and in our industrial infrastructure, we can vastly improve the sustainability of natural resources and energy use.
That’s exactly what the municipality of Kalundborg, 64 miles west of Copenhagen, is doing. In fact, for over 50 years, Kalundborg has been home to the first — and still the most advanced — example of this concept: the Kalundborg Symbiosis. Anchored originally by a power and district heating plant, this innovative industrial complex has grown to include some large and profitable enterprises, including the biggest oil refinery in the Baltic Region; an insulin-producing plant with 2,700 employees; factories making enzymes for use in everything from bioenergy to textiles, and gypsum for lightweight building materials; and the largest sewage treatment plant in northern Europe. Heat, water and a host of other resources that would otherwise be treated as waste supply some of the energy and many of the feedstocks to these operations and to the surrounding municipality, including farms.
“To some visitors, it can be a little confusing here because it’s old and new, private houses and industrial area,” says Lisbeth Randers, a project officer with the Symbiosis Center, the complex’s outreach arm. “The way it works in Denmark is that residential and industrial have to find a way to live and work next to each other. If the industries were polluting a lot, there would be many complaints and penalties. But environmental protection is so good in Denmark, we don’t have that.”
The heart of the industrial complex at Kalundborg occupies 4 square kilometers, nearly 1,000 acres. Throughout the site, inputs and outputs weave together like strands of thread, creating a tapestry of efficiency. The DONG Energy power plant, for instance, provides not only electricity to the grid but steam to four industrial plants, as well as heat to the local municipality and to a fish farm. In return it receives water from a refinery and the municipality, and gas from the refinery. It also sends its fly ash for processing by the cement industry and its gypsum to be made into building materials.
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Interesting stuff, or so I think.
Babies Are Getting Brain Bleeds—Are Vaccine Fears to Blame?
Some parents are refusing vitamin K injections for their newborns. The consequences can be devastating.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/07/vitamin-k-injection-infants-safety
"In May, the Tennessean reported on a truly shocking medical problem. Seven infants, aged between seven and 20 weeks old, had arrived at Vanderbilt University's Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital over the past eight months with a condition called "vitamin K deficiency bleeding," or VKDB. This rare disorder occurs because human infants do not have enough vitamin K, a blood coagulant, in their systems. Infants who develop VKDB can bleed in various parts of their bodies, including bleeding into the brain. This can cause brain damage or even death.
There is a simple protection against VKDB that has been in regular medical use since 1961, when it was recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics: Infants receive an injection of vitamin K into the leg muscle right after birth. Infants do not get enough of this vitamin from their mother's body or her milk, so this injection (which is not a vaccine, but simply a vitamin being delivered via a shot) is essential, explains pediatrician Clay Jones on the latest installment of the Inquiring Minds podcast (stream below). It's also quite safe.
So then why are some parents refusing to get it, leaving their infants vulnerable to a potentially devastating condition? It's difficult to understand the phenomenon outside the context of a growing fear, in general, about vaccines in the US. "There's a lot of overlap with that anti-vaccine mentality," says Jones. Indeed, reporting on the Vanderbilt VKDB cases, the Tennessean explained that "Vanderbilt doctors believe incidences are on the rise because of the anti-vaccine movement."
VKDB comes in two versions, an "early" form (occurring in the first week of life) and the much more dangerous "late" form, which tends to strike infants between two and 12 weeks old who have not received Vitamin K, and who are "exclusively breastfed" by their mothers. The problem, writes Jones, is that "levels of vitamin K in breast milk are low, much lower than in infant formula."
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