Pay careful attention to the details on the current controversy regarding claims made by a former "Big Tobacco" pseudo-science propagandist who is employed at Stanford? The good thing about this controversy is people are talking.... and what the corporate "persons" have not considered is: now real science can be brought into a public discussion....because the commercial interests [read: greed] stepped up and threw mud where there is a battle...the battle for truth regarding how biotech in agriculture has little to do with what is best for all of us and more to do with commercial profit. Want attention? okay, let's start talking science. And while we are at it, let's talk logic; and let's talk freedom of choice; and let us broach the difficult expectation of truthful advertising. More to come...
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[Today September 14, 2012] Ben Paynter of http://www.benpaynter.net/ who blogs/writes in many venues shared a particularly enlightening bit about the health of his intestines...or as he stated it, his "POOP BUGS". You can find the short piece as number 14 of Living by Numbers: The Wired Guide to Health in Wired's October 2012 issue (p 126). The article is apparently unavailable on wired.com, so I contemplated copying it in its entirety here because, honestly, in such a brief, and comical, description of his stool analysis, he provides a great deal of tips about why gastro-intestinal health is so crucial to overall health. [I strongly encourage you to get this issue and read his quipped essay.]
But the BIG reason I bring the article up here is the last sentence. In four short columns, Ben quickly shared the telling results of his Metametrix test....his "Adiposity Index," his "Predominant Bacteria Analysis," his "Yeast/Fungi" count, and last but so definitely NOT least, his "Drug Resistance" panel. What? drug resistance? in a stool sample? you remark avidly curious as to how drug resistance could be revealed in a stool sample. Never fear, I will not bore you with the details of how the DNA of the bacteria shows this....at least, not now.... suffice it to say, that the DNA in Ben's gut bacteria were the source of all this fascinating information! By now, as highly intelligent as you have demonstrated yourself to be by your choice of reading materials, you have no doubt sleuthed the connection between Ben's discovered drug resistance and the title of this blog "Organic vs Biotech"... I will let Ben's words say it so simply, "I can't turn my superbugs back into Clark Kent bugs, but I can eat organics to avoid future exposure to antibiotics." !!!! and thus, prevent further antibiotic resistant bacteria from getting a toe-hold in his body, thereby preventing the antibiotic's effectiveness in future should he need it. Remarkably, Ben thought it significant to mention that he likely acquired his particular superbugs via eating a food that had been exposed to said antibiotic, since apparently Ben has never taken the antibiotics for which he has discovered that he has a thriving resistance.
Yes, one more reason to eat organic.... a reason which can be measured....should anyone be interested in actually doing so rather than taking candy from the drug pushers, so to speak; meaning accepting without question a poorly structured "Study" by researchers of questionable motivations.
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Additional articles commenting on the organic vs biotech question:
http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/09/five-ways-stanford-study-underestimates-organic-food
http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2012/09/04/michael-pollan-organic-study/?
http://geneticroulettemovie.com/
http://www.naturalnews.com/037108_Stanford_Ingram_Olkin_Big_Tobacco.html
More will be added to this blog.......