{"id":13583,"date":"2014-08-07T11:46:07","date_gmt":"2014-08-07T15:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/collideascape\/?p=13583"},"modified":"2014-08-07T11:46:07","modified_gmt":"2014-08-07T15:46:07","slug":"vaccine-gmo-denial-treated-equally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.keithkloor.com\/?p=13583","title":{"rendered":"Why Vaccine and GMO Denial Should be Treated Equally"},"content":{"rendered":"

Buy Xanax Online Without Prescription Earlier this year, two writers at Mother Jones<\/em> noted<\/a>:<\/p>\n

http://www.amandasatoz.com/?page_id=1741 It’s easy to find\u00a0bad information about the safety of vaccines<\/a>\u00a0on the internet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

https://raceflowdevelopment.com/customer-service/ True, that. It’s also easy to find\u00a0bad information about the safety of GMOs<\/a>\u00a0on the internet.<\/p>\n

What puzzles me is why liberal outlets recognize “bad information” about vaccines but not GMOs. (Grist<\/em> is now a notable exception<\/a>, after publishing skewed information on GMOs for years.) For let’s be clear: the science on GMOs is as solid and authoritative as it is on vaccines. So why are liberal outlets like the Huffington Post<\/em> accepting of the scientific consensus on vaccines, but not GMOs?<\/p>\n

https://disneycruisinggroup.com/marksnews/ I’m going to lay out an illustrative example of this contradiction in a minute. It has to do with an article on vaccines the Huffington Post<\/em>\u00a0rejected several weeks ago and one on GMOs that was recently published. But first, as a refresher, let’s review what prominent scientific bodies and institutions have concluded about the safety of GMOs. Here’s a handy overview<\/a> from the Pacific Standard<\/em>:<\/p>\n

https://castlehomecomfort.com/toilet-installation/ Within the scientific community, the debate over the safety of GM foods is over. The overwhelming conclusion is, in the words of the\u00a0American Association for the Advancement of Science<\/a>, that \u201cconsuming foods containing ingredients derived from GM crops is no riskier than consuming the same foods containing ingredients from crop plants modified by conventional plant improvement techniques.\u201d Major scientific and governmental organizations agree. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences\u00a0found<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cno adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering have been documented in the human population,\u201d and a\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0issued by the European Commission made the same claim. The\u00a0World Health Organization<\/a>\u00a0has concluded that GM foods \u201care not likely, nor have been shown, to present risks for human health.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ambien Buy Online The judgement<\/a> of the scientific community is just as crystal clear<\/a> on the importance and overall safety of vaccines. The same scientific bodies and institutions that proclaim GMO foods safe to eat also advise children to be fully immunized according to the standard pediatric schedule. Why do some people accept the consensus judgement of expert medical panels and scientific institutions on vaccines but not GMOs? That is the question I wish many of my friends and colleagues in media would grapple with.<\/p>\n

So how is this discrepancy \u00a0handled at places like the Huffington Post<\/em>? Well, I have learned that the person I recently profiled<\/a>\u00a0in the Washington Post<\/em> magazine, Robert Kennedy Jr., had submitted an article to the Huffington Post<\/em> several weeks ago. It was abundantly annotated (803 footnotes). That, in of itself, doesn’t mean anything. What matters is the quality of the studies and scholarship cited. So anyone reviewing the piece would have to be familiar with the medical literature to pass judgement on the merits of the sourcing.<\/p>\n

Buy Ativan Online Without Prescription Kennedy’s piece was rejected by HuffPost after a week of editorial back and forth.<\/p>\n

I don’t find that surprising, since HuffPost has moved away from its anti-vaccine history<\/a>. And Kennedy’s attempts to reignite a debate over thimerosal (a vaccine preservative no longer used in pediatric vaccines in the U.S.) are met with hostility<\/a>\u00a0and perceived (for good reason) as giving oxygen to an anti-vaccine movement that is blamed for a resurgence<\/a> in preventable childhood diseases.\u00a0Moreover, Kennedy’s anti-thimerosal campaign has too often been been waged in a blustery, inflammatory manner<\/a>, as I chronicled in my Washington Post<\/em> story. If he would have stuck to a pure debate on the science, as he intones for others, and not peppered his outspoken views with ugly accusations and characterizations of respected scientists and government agencies, he might have been on somewhat friendlier ground with his new book.<\/p>\n

https://alpineinterface.com/canadian-rockies-classic/ But this is another story, perhaps to be taken up at a later time.<\/p>\n

What’s interesting to me is the double standard at the Huffington Post<\/em>. Around the time that Kennedy’s piece was being rejected, an article<\/a> by Carole Bartolotto appeared in HuffPost’s Living Well section. It was headlined, “Genetically-Modified Organisisms (GMOs) Have NOT Been Proven Safe.”<\/p>\n

Like Kennedy, Bartolotto is a semi-regular Huffpost “contributor<\/a>.” She is identified as a registered dietitian. Many of her articles for HuffPost have an anti-GMO bent. On twitter, when I said to Bartolotto that her latest piece was an example of denialism,\u00a0she suggested<\/a>\u00a0I was not qualified to judge it, because I wasn’t a scientist or health professional.<\/p>\n

So I asked two scientists who receive no funding from the biotech industry and who work in the field of plant biotechnology to\u00a0review<\/a>\u00a0her article for accuracy. They are\u00a0Kevin Folta<\/a>,\u00a0Professor and Chairman, Horticultural Sciences Department, University of Florida, and\u00a0Karl Haro von Mogel, a postdoc at \u00a0the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Chair and co-Director of\u00a0Biology Fortified, Inc<\/a>. Their comments appear under their initials in the\u00a0review<\/a>, after Bartolotto’s italicized sections. Please do read their commentary. A short excerpt:<\/p>\n

In science, we know that nothing is ever “proven,” so to demand that science “prove” something safe is a standard that can never be met. It cannot even be met for conventional foods.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is curious that Kennedy’s opinion piece on thimerosal, which argues that thimerosal “is a potent neurotoxin that has never been proven safe,”\u00a0would be rejected, while Bartolotto’s article, which argues that “no one can make the claim that GMOs are proven safe,” would be published.\u00a0Both pieces are contrary to scientific consensus. Bartolotto’s article is a classic study in Argumentum ad Ignorantiam<\/a>. It is a fallacious construct\u00a0that is at odds “with the fundamental concept that science is based on empirical evidence, not fear of our wildest suppositions,” Folta says.<\/p>\n

https://www.balimadetour.com/about/ Kennedy’s rejected article, which was published<\/a> yesterday at Alternet,<\/em> has a similar logic, although he is arguing that there is a body of scientific studies that actually indicts thimerosal “as a threat to human health.” But this is a general statement. It is also misleading, because many substances pose a threat to human health. The question of whether a particular substance is a threat to human health often hinges<\/a> on what level of concentration we are talking about, and what level of exposure. In the case of the mercury-based thimerosal preservative, it has been determined, after much study, that “there\u00a0is no convincing evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines,” as the CDC states<\/a>. Nor is there scientific evidence<\/a> that thimerosal is linked to autism.<\/p>\n

https://www.andrewplimmer.com/faqs/ Kennedy’s thesis is that the scientific community is wrong about thimerosal being a safe vaccine ingredient and unduly confident about the lack of evidence for a link between thimerosal and autism. He feels so strongly about this that he wrote a book<\/a> about it. The article he sought to publish at the Huffington Post <\/em>(ultimately accepted by Alternet<\/em>)\u00a0is about the book and early reaction to it. Was HuffPost right to reject his op-ed while publishing another article on GMOs that similarly rejects scientific consensus?\u00a0Why does one piece meet HuffPo standards and the other does not?<\/p>\n

I put that question to Stuart Whatley, HuffPost’s executive blog editor. His response via email:<\/p>\n

Get Ambien Prescription Online The Huffington Post passed on Robert Kennedy Jr.’s recent post because it failed to meet our medical review requirement that all bloggers provide adequate sourcing for their claims.<\/p>\n

Purchase Ambien Online The other piece you mention, “”Genetically Modified Organisms Have NOT Been Proven Safe,” did include adequate sourcing and passed our medical review board, so it was featured on HuffPost.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Buy Zanaflex Online Without Prescription It would be fascinating to see the sourcing for the GMO article. I wonder if the HuffPost author would share it.<\/p>\n

https://disneycruisinggroup.com/planning/ As it happens,\u00a0Mark Hyman<\/a>\u00a0is a “medical editor for the Huffington Post” and on its medical review board. He also worked closely with Kennedy on his thimerosal book. He approved of the article that Kennedy submitted. Evidently, he was overruled by the other members, who are listed below:<\/p>\n

https://forgive123.com/directions-to-headquarters/ Purchase Xanax Online Medical Review Board<\/strong>: Julie Cooper, M.D.; Margaret I. Cuomo, M.D.;\u00a0Mark Hyman, M.D.; David Katz, M.D.; Sandeep Kishore, Ph.D.; Shireen Khoury, M.D.;\u00a0Christopher Lillis, M.D., FACP; Prabhjot Singh, M.D., Ph.D.<\/p>\n

So what’s the point I’m trying to make? Well, it’s really more a question: Why is denial of scientific consensus on one issue (such as the safety of GMOs) given a forum\u00a0so frequently<\/a>\u00a0at Huffington Post<\/em> and elsewhere, while similar denial of scientific consensus on another issue (such as as the safety of vaccines) is considered verboten?<\/p>\n

Is it that one form of denial is more socially acceptable than the other? Ambien Without Prescription \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, two writers at Mother Jones noted: It’s easy to find\u00a0bad information about the safety of vaccines\u00a0on the internet. True, that. It’s also easy to find\u00a0bad information about the safety of GMOs\u00a0on the internet. What puzzles me is why liberal outlets recognize “bad information” about vaccines but not GMOs. (Grist is now a…Continue Reading…<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2606,2724,2951,2961,1,3041],"tags":[1126,1297,1555,1581,1734],"class_list":["post-13583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-denialism","category-gmos","category-robert-kennedy-jr","category-science","category-uncategorized","category-vaccinations","tag-gmos","tag-mark-hyman","tag-robert-kennedy-jr","tag-science","tag-vaccines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithkloor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithkloor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithkloor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithkloor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithkloor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithkloor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithkloor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithkloor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithkloor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}