The 5 Most Blatantly Corrupt Industries in the World (and what YOU can do about it)

14 Responses to “The 5 Most Blatantly Corrupt Industries in the World (and what YOU can do about it)”

1. 

   Gavin says : May 21, 2012 at 7:01 am

   I don’t think it’s as simple as buying organic when it comes to food. I think it’s more important to know how the farmer grows their food and treats the land, which is why I like going to the local farmer’s market for produce,

   http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/2011/07/18/mythbusting-101-organic-farming-conventional-agriculture/

   Also, it’s ridiculous the way you demonize healthcare. Drugs interact with the human body in far different ways than just through anesthesia, chemo and vaccinations. Not to mention homeopathy, chiropractic, reiki and accupuncture work at about the same level of a placebo… so if you can convince yourself that drinking syrup from a special maple tree makes you healthier, that would have about the same effect as any of the traditional medicines. It’s true that it’s mostly up to the human body to heal itself when you’re ill, but that doesn’t mean proven modern medicine can’t help.

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   • 

     Noah Bonn says : May 21, 2012 at 8:22 am

     Gavin, I definitely don’t think that the USDA Organic Cert is anything close to the holy grail of health. If you’d read that section closely you would have noticed that I encourage growing your own food as the best option. The point is simply to eat non-GMO food that isn’t grown with chemicals- the rest is semantics. As for your article that outlines the hypocrisies of the government cert, well, what do you expect? It’s the fucking government. I don’t think my writing implied at all that simply “buying USDA organic” would save the world, but apparently you took it that way. I agree that farmer’s markets are the next best option from a health perspective. At least in Seattle, however, they can be impossibly expensive to support. As much as I would like to, I really can’t afford to shop at them, which is why I’ve starting growing fruit and vegetables at my dad’s place. You can’t do much better than that.

     As for the healthcare issue- I would appreciate it if you could refrain from rhetorical mud-slinging like calling my writing “ridiculous.” I don’t agree with a lot of the stuff you say but I don’t call you names.

     Anyway dude, my point about pharmaceuticals is that none of them would actually make a healthy person healthier. I named the 3 most prevalent archetypes because I don’t have time to list every drug on the market. They all compromise health in one way or another. The idea that vaccinations are the only solution to preventing disease, or that chemo and radiation are the only treatments for cancer are false dichotomies marketed by the pharmaceutical industry through their heavy influence in journals, med schools, and politics. There are far more effective and harmonious alternatives out there.

     Lastly, your dismissal of alternative medicine as mere “placebo,” does nothing but elucidate your lack of understanding about how these methods work. Acupuncture helped me enormously after tearing 12 ligaments in my ankle last year. The swelling would be cut in half after every treatment because it improved the circulation of blood and qi (chi), clearing out toxic buildup, and introducing new healing energy/ nutrients. As much as people don’t like to touch this issue, it all comes back to funding. Pharmaceutical products are “proven,” because they have the money to fund their own studies. Acupuncturists don’t. If they did, we would have study after study of the amazing health benefit of acupuncture. That’s just how this industry works.
     I don’t mean to imply that there is ZERO validity to conventional allopathic medicine- it’s just not anything close to what it’s hyped up to be. If you don’t want explore alternative medicine, I sure as hell won’t make you. But don’t be so condescending as to assert that they are nothing more than drinking “special maple syrup.” I am very familiar with the placebo effect, and these methods are much more than that.

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     Daniel S says : June 26, 2012 at 10:59 pm

     Your knowledge of health is merely mainstream arrogant ignorance, programmed by the professors of conformism and leftbrained megalomania and their pharmaceutical paymasters. Even using the farcically absurd “science” protocols dogmatists like you insist on arts like acupuncture have been well proven. BTW pharmadrugs are on average no better than a placebo. Try talking instead about things yoiu actually know about.

     Reply
2. 

   p3 says : May 21, 2012 at 2:57 pm

   hi,
   the world is one big corporate conglomerate! all governments and their chattel; including human beings /their all capital letter slave name and ss number, soon to be a permanent implant so as not to loose track of any little doggies!
   it is a very efficient and effective management system and few escape it!
   it thrives because 85% of the population is genetically dumbed down!
   and the 15% benefit from the corruption ie. in our face lies, treachery and evil.
   this distrust/conflict between the Rh negative and Rh positive types is at the root of our ongoing contention over space/resources that make life possible and that can make life paradisiacal.
   so, what are we (monkey brained) to do?
   caught in a hybreed limbo, praying for a genetic upgrade?
   probably for farm efficiency, a culling of the flock is in planned.
   human flesh on the bar b q!
   ahh, so it is here in the saha world,
   one test after another to see how well we can endure
   and to push us to wake up!
   omitofo

   Reply
3. 

   Michael says : May 21, 2012 at 4:39 pm

   Noah, I feel you on a lot of this, but your biology background isn’t shining through here whatsoever. I’m going to be brief, and I’m, not trying to attack you personally, but I have to take issue with a few of your points.

   “I wonder how eating 90% sterilized food might effect the reproductive health of humans. Don’t a lot people have issues with that these days? Oh well- it’s cheaper.”

   Having food that is sterile doesn’t necessarily induce sterility in anything that consumes it. Mules, the cross between a donkey and a horse, are sterile. Yet if you were to eat a non-reproductively viable creature such as this, it would not affect your gametes. When something is “modified” to be sterile, the modification is not transferred to the thing consuming it. Much in the way that I have blue eyes, but if a cannibal were to eat me, his eyes would not turn blue, nor would those of his children in the future. If these plants were sterilized through some chemical they were treated with, then it would be possible (but ONLY if that chemical operated on a pathway conserved in our genetics, which is quite unlikely) for the sterility to be conferred to the consumer. In short, your food’s genes don’t affect yours, only their protein products can. Sterilization causes their reproductive systems to be ineffective, but not yours. I understand how the seed purchase is a forced choice and not good for the consumer, but don’t bring sterility as a health issue into your argument, it only weakens it.

   “There is not a single pharmaceutical drug that actually makes people healthier”

   This claim at the outset seems ridiculous, and I am aware that you add explanations, but this doesn’t stand on its own merits. If no medicine made people healthier in any capacity, we would never have begun to use it. People who didn’t take medicines would fare just as well when compared to people who do not, and yet you will notice that your odds of survival tend to increase when you undergo treatment. If survival and a return to non-diseased body function is not being made healthier, then what is?

   “destroy cells indiscriminately (Chemo and other cancer treatment drugs)”

   Not only do these treatments not destroy indiscriminately, but many of them are targeted quite well. The chemotherapy example specifically targets cells that undergo the replication phase of the cell cycle, i.e. cells that are dividing. Cancer cells divide the most frequently, and so are subject to the effects of chemotherapy the most often. Neurons, which never divide, are never affected by this component. Also, the cells that are then affected by this targeting, if/when they die, are the cells that were the cause of the symptoms. A removal of cancer cells in the body mitigates cancer, and effectively “cures” the disease. If treatments that kill the cells causing the problem do not make one healthier, how is healthier defined?

   “or introduce small amounts of disease (vaccinations)… and none of them cure disease. Only the human immune system can do that.”

   This statement upsets me for two reasons. There are other things beyond the human immune system that can cure disease. To say otherwise is to ignore the multitude of nonhuman systems that cure disease, or the fact that there exist chemical treatments that can do just that. You even mentioned one earlier this article! If I treat my plants with a fungicide, then the fungus that ails them is killed and the plant is “cured” of the fungal infection. If I treat a human with penicillin, the same effect is achieved. The human immune system may help, but is not a necessary component of disease cures. Otherwise, how would an immunocompromised individual (AIDS patient, geriatric individual or infant) deal with disease? Why even bother to help them? Can’t their bodies handle it on their own?

   Second, the introduction of small amounts of disease through vaccinations is an incredibly effective aid in fighting disease. There are three types of immunization via vaccine, one of them uses a live attenuated version of the virus, which is an active form of the virus that has been “deadened”. This is likely the one you are most concerned about, but it allows your immune system to recognize and develop resistance to a disease that is fighting at a reduced capacity, allowing it to better deal with it at its next encounter. If this is not allowing the human immune system to cure disease, what is?

   The second form uses killed virus, and while less effective at establishing resistance, is also less dangerous to the body. The third type only uses component proteins – not even an assembled virus or full bacterial cell – which lets the body develop resistance to certain markers. This has absolutely no chance of harming the body, as the system is not only not functional, but nonexistent. a piece of a virus does no harm where a full virus is not present to implement it. for someone who champions the power of the human immune system, immunizations via vaccine should be a shining example of its power, not something you hide from because companies make (by the smallest margin of any product that they carry) a profit from it.

   And finally: “There is not a single one that actually harmonizes the human body.”

   I would very much like to know how harmonization is defined, what exactly it entails for your health, and how any of these products fail to produce this result. How is harmonization achieved? How does one gain it through some method that medicine or GMO food could not possibly provide?

   I don’t mean to be harsh but as a biologist I find these things relatively indefensible. The corporate problem still exists, but you can dislike them for things other than their beneficial products

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4. 

   Noah Bonn says : May 21, 2012 at 9:35 pm

   Michael, first of all let me say that it’s an honor to receive such a challenge from a professional scientist. You are right that none of my understandings here come from the bio studies that I did at UW. That being said, I am familiar with your objections and think I can, in fact, respond to all of them. See if you agree:

   1. Eating sterilized food:

   the sentence you highlight is rhetorical and speculative in nature. I was not implying absolutely that GMO food goes straight for the testicles/ ovaries. It’s intended to make a larger point, which is simply this: never throughout our evolution have we consumed sterile food in any kind of significant quantity. Eating one piece of GMO wheat bread will obviously not do anything. Because they are so new, however, (introduced in the mid-90′s) we have no clear understanding of what exactly it will do to us long term to eat food that is predominantly sterile. To assert that “there are no health side effects to eating a sterile diet,” is, in my view, a far bolder claim to back up. How exactly the genes of a consumed species manifest after being metabolized by the consumer is pretty complex stuff. However, it is well known that what you eat does play a determining role in your genetic programming. Technically its the epi-genome that I’m talking about here. Aka not the genetic hardware, but the software program that tells it how to grow. Exactly what kind of epigenetic programming a sterile diet will illicit is difficult to speculate long term. I just threw reproductive health out there as one thing it might affect. Pure speculation, but it needs to be considered.

   As for the mules, I don’t think that’s the most applicable example. There’s a big different between a hybrid species that has the wrong number of chromosomes but perfectly healthy sexual organs, and a species whose genes have been spliced to carry an explicit “sterility gene.” I think I pretty much explained my reason why above.

   Moreover, I focused on the “terminator gene,” here, but there are literally hundreds of random genes being spliced into these organisms, and that WILL effect our epigenetic coding. How exactly it will do that is open to discussion.

   2. Chemo and cell destruction

   The phrase “destroys cells indiscriminately,” is, of course, hyperbole. A laser gun destroys cells indiscriminately. Chemo targets replicating cells, but there are many non-cancerous cells and systems that are seriously disrupted by chemo. I’m sure I don’t have to list side effects to you. While chemo may kill cancerous cells, it does not “cure” cancer. If this were the case, no one would ever come out of remission. Cancer is the normal functioning of the lymphatic system (or whichever system) gone haywire. In order to overcome cancer, therefore, the individual will ultimately need to restore proper function to their lymphatic system. This is the cure for cancer, not the drugs. Chemo, in fact, has a carcinogenic effect on the system. Like I said, you may want to have these options in your back pocket, but they do not CURE anything. YOU cure cancer. What’s more, there are other ways of reversing tumor growth through alternative methods that are more effective, and carry virtually no side-effects. One example that has been publicized by independent media is Max Gerson’s antioxidant therapy. It is one of many. There is also systemic alkalizing treatments that prevent reproduction through fermentation (this is pretty similar to what Gerson did). And, of course, acupunture and other energy work. All of these treatments actually promote health in addition to regulating disease.

   3. Drug effects on health, harmonization, and disease-curing.

   I’m combining three points into one here because the answer is effectively the same for all of them.

   By harmonization I mean smooth and cooperative functioning of the systems of the body: endocrine, digestive, immune, lymphatic, central nervous- all of it. Health is everything working in sync- that’s why I use the analogy of musical harmony.

   My point about drugs is that none of them improve that harmonization. None of them actually make the endocrine system healthier for example. They might stimulate a given system while the drug is being metabolized.. but that’s not the same thing.

   Your point about fungicides is an interesting one. I guess I would agree with it, but only insofar as you have developed parasitical relationships. It’s similar to the way I see cancer treatments. Yes, it will kill the bad stuff, but it also kills good stuff. I don’t consider it a harmonious treatment, and I think that there are better alternatives out there.

   Here is where I see the real schism between our views on this: conventional medicine looks at health care in terms of opposites: health versus disease. I, on the other hand, see health as a spectrum issue. There is not healthy and unhealthy, but a million increments in between into which we all fall. My view is simple: if you want to avoid disease, move toward the health side of the spectrum. Conventional healthcare treatments may get rid of an acute condition, but the end result is moving someone the wrong direction on the spectrum from where they were before, and leaving them more susceptible to future disease. As far as I know, this is every pharmaceutical on the market. Ultimately I feel that mainstream allopathy has simply given us a false dichotomy: treat disease with drugs or don’t treat the disease. There is not legitimate consideration given to alternative treatments, which I believe are much more harmonious and effective. The problem is that they undermine a huge industry, so they are kept out of the mainstream. This is why I keyed in on it as corruption.

   Finally, vaccinations: it is not the exposure to viruses that i object to. we are all exposed to thousands of viral strains every day. The reason that I personally do not support vaccinations is for the other neurologically toxic ingredients (such as mercury) that they carry. The end result of a vaccination again is to move the person away from the “health side” of the spectrum. In my opinion, a much better approach to disease prevention to actually get healthier! If your immune system is functioning optimally, you won’t get viral infections, and won’t have to wonder what that mercury is doing to your brain.

   alright, i think that’s everything. let me know what I missed/ where you disagree.

   Reply
   • 

     Michael says : May 22, 2012 at 6:49 pm

     I’ll start by saying that I appreciate that you A) Responded thoughtfully and respectfully and B) Engaged my arguments for the most part, rather than bringing up new points and avoiding an adult discussion. Those are, unfortunately, things I don’t see on the internet as often as I would like.

     With that out of the way, let’s move on to the responses you have given:

     1: Sterilized food

     My biggest issue with this argument is that you have effectively said ‘we don’t know what it might do, and whatever it does, if anything, might be bad, to an unknown degree, so we shouldn’t ever use it’. Will GMO food have some effect on gene expression, almost certainly. Does regular food also alter expression rates and patterns? Yes sir. We also don’t know what effects regular food has epigenetically. It is wholly possible that eating rice causes deleterious epigenetic effects. But we don’t know whether it does or not. So your argument would suggest that we shouldn’t eat rice until those effects are fully known and studied, seeing as rice is an evolutionarily new addition to the human diet.

     It is also possible that the effects of rice are less bad than the effects of corn. Should we then never eat corn, because there is a better option? I wouldn’t think so, necessarily.

     I’ll yield on the mule point, it wasn’t the best example. I just feel that the fact that something isn’t known well enough isn’t a very strong counter argument. We don’t really know how any food affects us in that way, and assuming something is dangerous because it isn’t understood is the same thing that may have shut down a blog like this in a less modern time. Also, how much must be known before you are willing to say that you have been convinced one way or the other. having too little information is an excuse people can use to deny something, with the convenient fact that they can always say “We need to know more, there hasn’t been enough study yet, the matter isn’t settled, there is still a debate” regardless of the number of studies. Global Warming arguments come to mind.

     2: Chemo (or more the definition of health)

     I think we’re defining cure differently. You are saying that a return to normal function is the cure, but I feel like that is the indication that one has been cured. I can say I am over the cold I had last week, so I am cured. The actions my immune system took to put me in that place are the cure, but being cured isn’t the cure. In much the same way, radiation/surgery/chemotherapy can remove the problem, restoring your systems to their regular function, curing you. The return to proper function of your cancerous organ is a result of your treatment, but it is not, in itself, the cure. In this definition, the acupuncture and antioxidant work you have mentioned do not count as cures either.

     3: Various topics

     Harmonization

     If your definition of health includes this concept of harmonization, I believe drugs can in fact promote it. My mother has a thyroid condition, for example, which causes her endocrine output to be suboptimal. This, in turn affects other systems, deharmonizing her body, so to speak. By taking medicine, she can elevate thyroxine levels to where they should be, and restoring this harmony. When you say that “They might stimulate a given system while the drug is being metabolized.. but that’s not the same thing” I find it difficult to engage you in a debate on this point because whether her body synchrony was achieved through yoga or a pill seems irrelevant because to me, they do appear to be the same thing.

     Fungicides

     Fungicides don’t also “kill the good stuff”, and so cannot be a parallel to your chemo example. They specifically kill fungal cells by disrupting fungal systems that are not present in other organisms, and as such cannot be killed by that method. I feel like the label of harmonious treatment is applied arbitrarily, and I for one don’t plan on drinking kambucha to deal with a future fungal infection when I know penicilin to be effective.

     Spectral Health

     I like the idea of the spectrum between health and disease, and I agree that some treatments have collateral damage, so to speak. I feel though, that in many cases this is worth it in the long run. You may become more uncomfortable and susceptible to disease during a chemotherapy course, for example, but if it puts your cancer into remission, and you can subsequently discontinue your chemotherapy, you will have a net gain in your overall health. If I hit a traffic jam on my way to work and need to double back to take side streets, I may get to work faster. I shouldn’t rule that out as an option simply because it means going in the other direction for a minute. If we limit ourselves to only moving forward on this health spectrum, we will find situations where the overall health benefits are reduced.

     (Also, it is not every pharmaceutical on the market that does this, contrary to your earlier statement. Generalizations are a great way to get yourself in trouble, and are often used to discredit alternative therapies as well. Just because I don’t think diluting an herb extract 500-fold and selling it as homeopathic medicine or the use of “resonant crystals” are legitimate doesn’t mean I should dismiss acupuncture because it shares the same “nontraditional” label)

     Pharma companies

     I have no disagreement with you that these companies do what is in their financial interest, and one of those things is trying to keep potential customers from seeking alternative therapies. That does not, however, mean that their therapies and medicines are any less effective because the businessmen behind them are corrupt. It would have served your argument better to point out that they want to keep you on their pills, but to attack their pills as bad and not ‘harmonious’ enough to suit your tastes doesn’t help.

     Vaccinations

     I’ll admit, you are going to have a very difficult time convincing me to change my mind here. It may not lead to a fruitful discussion, but I’ll just say this: While you may not move toward health on your spectrum when getting an injection, you do prevent further moves away from health. Much as a skin cell must ‘waste’ immediate energy and resources producing melanin in response to sunlight, it prevents damage in the future and is a worthwhile investment for the overall health of the cell. I believe vaccines can be viewed the same way, as a short-term detriment with long term benefits that hugely outweigh the costs.

     We also don’t have to wonder about what mercury is doing to our brains. It is well known what doses cause what symptoms, when, where, and how. The amount contained in vaccines is not only too small to be of any real concern, but also is not significant compared to the amount of mercury (and various poisons, and radioactive substances, and other heavy metals, etc) you likely already have in your system. All substances are toxic. All substances are poisonous. It is not what you have in you, but how much of it you have in you that matters.

     I don’t want to get on a soapbox and rage about misinformation and unnecessary fears about vaccine, but there are many more important and relevant things to be concerned about. Vaccines, aside from contraceptives, may be the most important medical advance in our history and to shy from them because of who makes the money is a fool’s task, in my opinion.

     Reply
     • 

       Michael says : May 22, 2012 at 7:33 pm

       I made a mistake when I said “future fungal infection when I know penicilin to be effective.” Penicillin is a fungus, not a fungicide. Typing faster than I think, apparently. The argument still stands though.
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       Noah Bonn says : May 23, 2012 at 10:21 pm

       This is becoming an epic thread we’ve got going here. I definitely hear the points you’re making, but have not been convinced that pharmaceuticals do anything that we couldn’t do better with a more holistic treatment. Without trying to belabor any of my previous points, let me try to touch on yours quickly.

       1. Sterilized food and the epigenome

       While it is technically possible that rice creates some deleterious health health condition, it would have to be a condition that has been appearing in rice eaters for thousands of years. While it may not necessarily be isolated, it would be documented. Put another way, new diseases do not come from old foods. This decade’s increase in bone cancers, for example, is almost impossible to be caused by traditional rice foods. The cause is something new and not well understood. This is the kind of category that GMO’s fit into.

       Obviously you can never know every single epigenetic effect of eating a food. Blueberries might have a secret anti-nutrient, but we’re pretty damn sure that they are extremely healthy. What I’m saying is this: when you have an ENORMOUS question mark (such as a tomato with genes from 100 different species), common sense must come into play until our understanding catches up.

       If our goal is optimal health, does it seem like a good idea to eat 90% sterile food? Or does that seem like the kind of thing that might have some unintended consequences? Personally I suspect the latter.

       Today, millions upon millions of people find themselves at this bizarre dichotomy of “eat sterile food,” or “don’t eat.” Seeing this, I simply suggest that we seriously re-evaluate whether we want Cargill and Monsanto in charge of our food supply- indeed out of a concern for health.

       2. Chemo/ Recovering from disease

       Normal functioning is not the cure, but it is the goal. In fact, I don’t think that the word “cure” is even an especially helpful word for describing what happens, biologically, when someone recovers from cancer. The system is merely re-stabilizing. The reason I highlight Chemo and radiation is because they do not in any way assist in that re-balancing process. They may kill the tumor, but their effect on re-stabilizing is actually negative. Chemo, as I mentioned before, is a carcinogenic drug.

       You’re correct in stating that acupuncture and antioxidant therapies are not cures. What they do is dramatically help in facilitate the re-stabilization of an unbalanced system. Esther C (an antioxidant), does not delete tumors, but it does provide nutrients and alkaline balance that helps the system de-tumorize (I believe that’s the technical term).

       My only real point about conventional cancer treatment is that there are much more effective options out there, which do not have “side effect,” the way these drugs do, and actually help re-balance the system to keep it from going back into remission.

       3. Harmonization

       The difference between a pill and yoga (not necessarily the perfect example, but the point is taken) is that after you are done doing yoga, your endocrine system functions better than it did before. After you finish metabolizing the drug, your endocrine system (and probably one or two others) functions worse than it did before.

       This is not a necessary compromise. The goal of holistic healthcare is to treat the specific disorder without compromising the system involved

       Fungicides

       do you really think that ingesting fungicides is harmless if you’re not a fungus?

       It’s pretty well documented that exposure to pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides have toxicological effects, and have been correlated with cancer and neuro-developmental disorders (wikipedia). That’s pretty much the biggest motivator behind the organic farming movement.

       As for penicillin, I’m sure you’re familiar with the arguments against antibiotics. They kill necessary as well as over-replicating bacteria. Likewise chemo kills necessary as well as over-replicating cells. I think it’s a pretty good analogy.

       I haven’t done a ton of looking into holistic topical antibiotics, but I know they exist, and that Kombucha is not the go-to prescription, lol.

       Spectral Health/ backtracking

       I’m not saying that there is no benefit to using a pharmaceutical to get rid of a tumor- obviously you want to get rid of the tumor. I just don’t think that enough consideration is payed to WHY a person in remission is more likely to develop cancer than a regular person. It’s because they are not healthier. In fact, they are unequivocally less systemically healthy than before they underwent treatment.

       This is what every pharma product does: makes the specific disorder go way, makes the general state of health weaker. Again, I am just asserting that this is a compromise that we don’t have to make. We can treat these disorder more efficiently and holistically with alternative treatments.

       Big Pharma

       Yes they want to keep you on pills, but I also stand by my claim they that are disharmonious with the human system, and vastly better treatments exist. I believe strongly that the only reason they run the industry is because they have all the money. If you fund your own studies, you can prove anything you want. If acupuncturists, for example, had equal ability to fund studies, we would have no end of studies about how safe and effective that was.

       Vaccinations

       Yeah, this may not be the most productive one to debate. Suffice to say that the “these super toxic things are in low quantity so it’s okay,” argument has never really resonated with me. I believe that they way you prevent disease is by strengthening the immune system. If you want to get into a full fledged vaccine discussion, I’m down, but we should probably do it somewhere else, as that’s a huge one in and of itself.
     • 

       Michael says : May 24, 2012 at 6:01 pm

       For some reason I can’t reply directly to your post, so hopefully this ends up in the right spot. I’m probably going to end the discussion after this post (or shortly after, anyway) because we are running up against differences in priorities, rather than fact based opinion. I’ll try to be short, we’ve typed a whole lot on these topics already.

       1: sterilized food

       As for this decade’s increase in bone cancer: Correlation does not prove causation. The increase (which may be in total number of cases, a possibility due to more people overall without a rate increase, or could be due to better diagnosis and detection) is caused by something unknown. We can’t say that GMOs cause this, or any other given factor. Studies need to be carried out that use bayesian statistics to find these things. These are, however, the kinds of studies you do not appear to trust and so I do not know if we will reach an agreement here and I don’t think I can convince you of their validity.

       My goal is optimal health – but optimal for the group as a whole. I may be better off eating organic foods and the like, but when the cost is prohibitive and availability is low for the species, people will starve. We have worked ourselves into a situation where we must continue expanding access to food or see widespread famine, leading to war, collapse of society, and the death of much of the population. Read Thomas Malthus for more on the idea, but biology has the concept of population carrying capacity that fits quite nicely here as well.

       We need food. And as long as humans keep breeding as quickly as we do, we will need more. I personally favor food that may lower the health of some if it saves the lives of millions.

       2: Cancer

       Our difference here lies in what science and studies we believe and trust, as well as personal priorities. Should a study come along that suits my standards and supports your theory, I will accept it. Until then, I can’t place trust in the efficacy of any treatment, much in the way you don’t trust the foods produced above. My main fear appears to be that something will not do its job, your seems to be that something will do damage alongside its job.

       3:

       Harmonization

       I can find no evidence to support these holistic methods improving function of body systems in a way drugs cannot. I also believe that until I am presented convincing evidence, that the drug withdrawal is a necessary compromise.

       Fungicides (and antibiotics, etc)

       I believe they do their job effectively, and that the harm they confer to humans can be tested and optimized/reduced. Epidemiology and cell culture experiments are routinely used when looking into new drugs and treatments, and the overall goal is to do more good than harm. I don’t think you can realistically ask for something that does no harm whatsoever and still produces results, and I find the balance of costs and benefits worthwhile.

       Backtracking/health spectrum

       A person who is in remission is more likely to return to a cancerous state than a new cancerous case being created because they had the risk factors originally. Accumulated mutations (through natural process, exposure to radiation, inherited genetics, etc) don’t always lead to cancer, but are preserved in the person and the “straw that broke the camel’s back”, so to speak, may be but one mutation away. This lowers the cancer threshold, much as you would expect in an untreated person, they may develop new tumors even without the imposition of chemotherapy to potentially cause this problem.

       It’s another issue of correlation not implying causation. I do also feel this is a worthwhile compromise.

       Pharma

       Companies may fund studies, but peer review, public scrutiny, statistical analyses, and replication of experimental results help to expose the truth. I can pay you millions of dollars to show me that pigs do in fact have flight abilities, but you won’t be able to. It is in no way true that funding studies allows you to prove anything you want. Math doesn’t work like that.

       Vaccinations

       This is another one for our priorities issue. I feel the benefits outweigh the costs. You fear damage that they may cause. I fear the damage lack of vaccination can cause. There isn’t much more to discuss here.
     • 

       Noah Bonn says : May 25, 2012 at 5:34 pm

       I agree that our main disagreement at this point is the philosophical approach behind developing healthcare treatments. I will point out briefly that when this argument began, you described my scientific claims as “ridiculous,” and said that my “biology background was not showing through whatsoever.” I don’t want to hold those words over your head, just suggest that it’s worth keeping an open mind to advocates for holistic healthcare because some of them will surprise you.

       1. Sterilized Food

       Granted correlation does not prove causation, which is why I didn’t say I had the smoking gun variable behind bone cancer incidence increase (which is as a percentile btw). I really don’t buy the “our detection methods are just getting better,” argument though. Yes our detection is getting better, but 10 years ago, we could pretty well ascertain that it wasn’t a gremlin making you sick. That argument, I feel, is more applicable for comparing something like schizophrenia to the 16th century. At some point I really feel that it’s important for us to cut the devil’s advocacy and acknowledge the fact that cancer is not a natural thing to develop. It is increasing in incidence to the point where most people now live with the helpless fear that they will one day develop it in some form or another. I think it’s pretty obvious that we’re causing it. I can’t say 100% everything that’s behind it, but that question, I feel, should be the discussion, not “is it the sterilized food, or the one we’ve been eating for thousands of years.”

       This point of GMO or nothing is really the larger myth I wanted to address. I hate to belabor the same phrase, but this is the epitome of a false dichotomy. Yes, for some today, organic food is cost-prohibitive, but we are far from powerless in this situation. Every time you grow your own food, or buy non-GMO as you can afford it, you’re de-funding that model. We could feed the world many times over with organic food if that was truly our goal.

       Finally, about studies: I’m not against studies, I just consider who funds them to try to elucidate bias. I quote stats all the time.

       2. Cancer

       I don’t really want to argue against your assessment there, I think it’s about right. That being said, I don’t think you’ll see that kind of study so long as Pharmaceuticals are financially dominant over the industry.

       3. Harmonization

       I understand your reserve. That being said, it was not a scientific study that convinced me to start exploring acupuncture, for example. I’ll definitely try to share any hard data as I find it, but also think it’s good to be open to new ideas for their philosophical merit before hard numbers are available.

       4. Fungicides

       I wrote a whole article a while back about “doing more good than harm.” It’s called the Human Health Matrix, if you decide you want to read it. Suffice to say that in isolation, many conventional treatments pass that test. Cumulatively over a lifetime, however, that “side effect” starts to add up.

       5. Backtracking/ Health Spectrum

       Chemo is certainly not the only reason for remission, I was merely pointing out that it actually impedes a person’s ability to remain cancer free, the opposite of what most people assume.

       I think a really interesting question to explore is why we develop the kind of cancer treatment drugs we do. What if we had an inexpensive treatment that actually prevented remission? A multi-billion dollar industry would fall apart. If such a possibility did exist then, do you think Pfizer would be very eager to find it?

       6. Pharma-Studies

       Proving “anything,” was an exaggeration. I hope my point is not lost though. The truth can be selectively shared and spun to meet an agenda. Also, a disproportionate amount of study can be done on stupid drugs rather than investigating the cause behind real health issues.

       You might think that peer review and replication adequately control for those variables, but I personally do not.
     • 

       Michael says : May 25, 2012 at 6:34 pm

       I’d say this has been a pretty productive conversation. I’ll reply in short, but nothing serious.

       I pointed out that some of your arguments didn’t appear to be based in scientific understanding, I will admit. But I’m not the one who called you ridiculous, that was the user “Gavin”. Your point is taken about open-mindedness, though I would like to think I’m displaying at least some degree of it in having this discussion in the first place.

       1: In reference to your cancer stats, the biggest risk factor in cancer has been shown to be age, and as you get older, cancers will appear more frequently. this risk factor appears to dwarf any other, though you could argue it is from a lifetime of accumulated issues from foods and other things. It’s a possibility that I lean toward that most of the increase in cancer rates we witness has something to do with the fact that we live longer overall, which I think is still a good thing.

       For the population and feeding issue, I think that we can both be satisfied if birth control and family planning access and education were expanded worldwide. Then, we wouldn’t have as much of a population problem, and wouldn’t need to expand access to food in these same ways. I think I’m sacrificing food purity with the expectation that population growth will not slow.

       2 and 3: points taken, no discussion needed.

       4: I’ll look into the article, and I do believe a good argument can be made for your accumulation concerns there.

       5: Agreed. That’s why my issue was not with the corporate corruption component of your statements, but rather the criticism of the science itself.

       6: Your point is not lost on me. I understand people can play stories to their advantage, but if people read the studies themselves, rather than the media reports and press releases on said studies, a more accurate understanding would be achieved. I made a video on this a while back, bemoaning the entire lack of public understanding on many scientific issues, thanks in part the these influences.

       Thanks for the discussion, it’s been fun and informative.
5. 

   Jordan says : May 24, 2012 at 5:02 am

   Amazing blog brother. I’m 21 and over in Bremerton

   Reply
   • 

     Noah Bonn says : May 24, 2012 at 5:49 am

     Thanks amigo

     Reply

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