Showing posts with label glyphosate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label glyphosate. Show all posts

Thursday, April 14, 2016

WSU Professor launders Monsanto's glyphosate 'science' amazingly proving breast feeding moms must eat organic food

PLAYING FOOTSIE WITH MONSANTO







Professor Michelle McGuire of Washington State University and her husband, Mark, of the University of Utah published a crucial study that could potentially influence EPA's regulation of glyphosate.[2]    After a citizen science project by Moms Across America detected glyphosate in urine as well as breast milk of three of ten women tested, Monsanto- unsurprisingly- went on an offensive glyphosate-defense campaign to dismiss the findings- not unlike tobacco scientists publishing junk science to manufacture doubt about carcinogenicity of tobacco. 

 In fact Monsanto uses the identical laboratory established by Big Tobacco to this day --used by Michelle McGuire to "validate" this study.
If you scroll all the way to the bottom you'll find out about Covance previously called Hazelton--started by Big Tobacco. 


 Emily Willingham refuted the "independence" of study concisely with her headline in Forbes:  Monsanto Linked Study Finds No Monsanto Linked Herbicide Glyphosate In Breast Milk 
Let's, please, suspend our well-founded disbelief & give authors benefit of doubt nevertheless- let's check the veracity of author's remaining claims to see if the study's conclusions are as "scientifically sound" as the author and others like Kevin Folta ( one of the anointed science experts and communicators) claims 

 "McGuire and her colleagues: “our study provides strong evidence that glyphosate is not in human milk.”
This independent study used an appropriate, precise, and validated analytical method and arrived at a scientifically sound conclusion....." Civil Eats 



Were methods 1) Appropriate 2) Precise  &  3) Validated ? 

 But first, Monsanto's glyphosate laundering campaign in context.


Can you spot the spotlight fallacy?


 

Forty-One samples from Pullman & Moscow extrapolated to fifty states of the United States of A. 
Absurd!
Table 1. Characteristics of women participating in study
Caucasian -93% 
Average Age- 29 
Don't live on or near a farm -75%
Strictly or mainly organic consumer -42% 
College Educated -68%  
Since the biggest determiner of organic consumer seems to be the level of education,[7] researchers couldn't have hardly selected a more appropriate group of disproportionately educated women more likely to choose organic foods then in two Pacific Northwest College towns.
It would only be facetious to say that women were recruited in a Whole Foods parking lot-- mainly because there aren't any in Pullman Washington and Moscow Idaho.
For the sake of argument suppose milk was glyphosate free as the authors claim. It would support that a small number of  predominantly white educated mothers in two college towns in Pacific Northwest-- most likely to buy organic--didn't have detectable glyphosate levels in their breast milk.  Uneducated women were unlikely to be selected. Neither were Black, Hispanic, Asian and other non-Caucasian minorities, nor the segment of the population most at risk--farmers.
Does the study provide evidence to conclude glyphosate is absent in breast milk of women not represented in this sample- populations at highest risk of glyphosate exposure- farmers, farm laborers, poor, uneducated people?  Of course not! Not even in the cities of Pullman and Moscow, never mind the entire fifty states. 
So apart from the fact that a study of mere 41 samples is ludicrously statistically underpowered,  it was a  non-random unrepresentative sample. And since sampling bias wasn't accounted for and the sample size is statistically trivial --  failure to detect glyphosate could be a false negative, erroneously attributing the failure of detection to lack of bioaccumulation instead of the underpowered sample, technical difficulty and the biased method of sampling.
Although detection method used (HPLC- MS) [6] is precise, a study failing elementary statistical principles, suffering from selection bias, can not draw sound scientific conclusions.
So, statistical methodology was not "appropriate" or "precise"  

Was HPLC-MS methodology  "validated"? 
This study describes isolation of glyphosate from milk using very sensitive and precise techniques: High-Pressure Liquid Chromatography in tandem with Mass Spectrometry, but  even if it wasn't  designed by Monsanto scientists with conflicts of interestit is  prone to technical, experimental and human error
Milk is a complex fluid (matrix) composed of  water, lipids, proteins, carbohydrates and is thus it is more difficult to detect glyphosate in milk--which requires dilution--than in urine,  reducing the sensitivity of detection greter than ten fold. In fact, Michelle tacitly admits  her HPLC-MS glyphosate  detection method in  milk is ten times less sensitive than in urine, by not contesting it in the conversation below.

HPLC-MS  lowest level of detection (LOD)  in milk -1ppb

 while it was 10times lower  in urine- 0.1ppb






Analytical method was verified how?
If detection method developed for milk by Monsanto scientists were  accurate, and glyphosate was indeed not detectable in the milk--  the simplest verification method of  absence glyphosate in milk is assaying urine of babies nursing on sampled mothers. 
 Failure  of detection glyphosate in the urine of babies who nursed on the tested, and ostensibly negative-glyphosate  milk with a more sensitive detection method, would validate the milk methodology. 
Remember--glyphosate detection in urine is ten times as sensitive as in milk?
But urine detection test in babies wasn't done!
 
Instead, validation of the method of detection rests on the independence and legitimacy of an "outside accredited organization" 

Who is the accredited independent Organization that validated Michelle McGuire's methods? 
 The Accredited Independent Organization is none other than Covance Labs- a  contract research [5] organization (CRO) hired by tobacco companies, agrochemical, biotechnology, processed food industry to conduct animal toxicity testing for agrochemicals, petrochemicals, household products,  and toxins. 

Covance was associated with the Council for Tobacco Research and conducted animal testing for tobacco companies. Covance has a sordid history of chronic egregious animal abuse that includes "Striking, choking, screaming and cursing at "uncooperative," frightened and sick monkeys.Slamming the head of an escaped monkey against concrete. Injuries left untreated until they became necrotic. The Broken arm was untreated for 4 day.

Apart from the unbelievable cruelty and unforgivable inhumanity, this  "outside accredited organization"  was cited for lack of employee training and supervision, uncertified employees anesthetizing animals, knowingly using unhealthy animals in studies,  malaria-infected monkeys still used in studies for pharmaceutical and lying about the cause of death for three monkeys found dead in their cages, and intoxicated employees performing lab procedures on monkeys.[5]

This  is one reason any arguments Monsanto's surrogates raise about animal welfare ethics  ( as were raised against Seralini's famous staudy) as well as Alison Van E in arguing against animal feeding studies based on ethical concerns,  can be immediately dismissed.

This  profit- laboratory's  income is dependent on producing outcomes  paid for- otherwise its contracts and repeat business dry up. In fact, it admits to this being the case : " ...  a company with a customer base primarily made up of manufacturers rather than healthcare providers can help LabCorp mitigate reimbursement trends..." and “As a combined company, we will be well-positioned to respond to and benefit from the fundamental forces of change in our business, including payment for outcomes" [3]

  In other words, the McGuire study was  NOT verified


 It would be accurate to say that the only thing a study this flawed proves is that Michelle McGuire et al failed to detect glyphosate in breast milk of 41 women from Pullman and Moscow- not a great Monsanto soundbite. 

   

Overwhelming Majority of Germans Is Contaminated With Glyphosate


"A worrying three-quarters of the German population have in fact been contaminated by the controversial herbicide, according to a study carried out by the Heinrich Böll Foundation. The report analyzed glyphosate residue in urine, and it concluded that 75% of the target group displayed levels that were five times higher than the legal limit of drinking water. A third of the population even showed levels that were between ten and 42 times higher than what is normally permissible.
Glyphosate residue was recorded in 99.6% of the 2,009 people monitored by the study. 

 The most significant values were found in children aged from zero to nine 


and adolescents aged 10 to 19, particularly those individuals raised on farms. 
Meat eaters also displayed higher levels of glyphosate contamination than vegetarians or vegans".


It's impossible to know the glyphosate burden in Americans who often eat grains sprayed with glyphosate for ripening or dessication a week before harvest. Until  truly independent researchers publish rigorous tests on breast milk of women representative of US populations and particularly farmers, it's reasonable to assume that glyphosate burden is higher in the United States producing vastly more glyphosate-resistant GMOs than Germany. [4]

What's at stake here?



Bottom Line: Considering the outrageous deception in just this one vignette in decades' long public disinformation campaigns -if you are breastfeeding, which all experts recognize as crucial to babies' wellbeing-- it's safest to stick to organic. 

Footnotes

[1] Michelle. If I am so childish why does the discussion section of your paper listing limitations of your study echo my criticism?
[2] Civil Eats. Is there glyphosate in breast milk? 
[3]  LabCorp's Covance Deal
[4] Greens Warn Breast Milk Unsafe
[5] Covance Labs- Tobacco Portal
[6] HPLC-MS
[7] Who buys organics?












 




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Thursday, March 24, 2016

Monsanto's Politics. Part I Microbiome Mayhem.




Science Corrosion




Kavin Senapathy published a piece in the influential academic science journal- Forbes- igniting a  recent Twitter kerfuffle between myself and several prominent scientists. This blog post is my post-mortem.

 In case you don't know, Forbes, recently sold to a Hong Kong equity firm, offers a  promotional platform for some 1200 "contributors," some of whom paid to market there via a product called BrandVoice. It's a shell renting out space- Forbes brand name- for click-bait journalism. 

 Kavin's Forbes piece is writ in junk food industry lingo, smearing anti-GMO scientists, in this case,  Dr. Mercola and Dr. Hyman while unsurprisingly presenting more "suitable" alternatives-- friendlier to industry. 

  I'm familiar with Dr. Mercola to the extent that he is critical of GMOs and glyphosate, as am I, and he hosts a veterinarian on his website whom I like.  Please follow along and Drs. Hyman and Mercola will make an appearance.  

Can Forbes visitors differentiate one of  (mere) 45 journalists, a legitimate expert such as this here,  from shameless marketing twaddle by Aunt Martha from Covina? 


It's no accident that infamous Pesticide operatives-- Henry I Miller and  Jon Entine frequently publish Monsanto's propaganda in Forbes. In fact, Henry Miller and other Monsanto shills dwell on the sacred soil of Stanford University, from which Elizabeth Bik hails. 
Kavin's authoritative comprehensive knowledge and skills in science appear to derive entirely from a college degree in business marketing- which explains her fluency in junk food industry jargon, fervent evangelism for GMOs and rabid defense of  Monsanto, with requisite hate of anything organic.  
She is a science advocate minus any actual science education with an astroturf group dressed in really cheesy bright green astroturf shirts. Kavin has many science illiterate sisters, and mothers in arms,  to spread industrial junk science.




Shhh... don't tell Jonathan Eisen, the prominent, influential UC Davis scientist who believes that pointing out these blatant red flags is arrogant. 



A progressive professor named Winners


Held classes each evening for sinners
They were graded and spaced
So the very debased
Would not be held back by beginners

But, me, I have a medical concern about glyphosate and it's possible contribution to kidney stones. 

 So what does Professor Winners do about my medical questions, when it is clear he is defending a science illiterate who happens to be featured on Monsanto's own blog?
Well of course he writes a satirical blog post about it and censors my response from it. Why is that? Because he can't answer my questions--he is supporting Monsanto. 




A Detour into Kavin and Yvette's Land of Better Living through Chemistry


Kavin and her bookend, Yvette aka @TheSciBabe, appear to have been manufactured specifically to take down Vani Hari, the infamous serial killer,
a criminal wielding life- threatening juicing and exceptionally dangerous recipes. 

 Be vewwy vewwy scared of women wielding carrots!




In fact, Yvette owes her entire career to a vulgar Vani Hari "takedown"  in Gawker; Meanwhile Kavin is selling a book- a critique, take down of Vani Hari's book.

 

Monsanto's Underground Chemical Kitchen cooks up Cyberattacks

Between organizing Marches against Marches against Monsanto, Kavin made a brief appearance on my business Facebook page, during a GMOLOL cyberattack...after I posted this blog, about kidney stones, coincidentally. 









Monsanto's PR Person, Janice, started GMOLOL, whose erudite members felt that kidney stones are hilarious, or maybe not? 

 As much as I want to accuse GMOLOL of suffering from junior- delinquency, I found that several of Jonathan's parishioners, er,  "scientists," likewise thought this subject is funny. I am afraid our tastes in humor might be different because I don't find euthanasia of animals whose owners can't afford these surgeries very humorous. At all! Not even a little bit. 














 Kavin frequently partners with Dr. Tobacco Science personified, Henry I. Miller,  in astroturf campaigns on multiple social media platforms including  IWF described at the link to the left. Several right-wing think-tanks promote Kavin's trash. Henry I Miller was also outed as a ghost-writer from Monsanto and fired from that elite science journal, called Forbes

I haven't and don't intend to read either Vani's, Yvette's or Kavin's books. 
However, I've had the misfortune of meeting Kavin's book coauthors online. I can assure you; it wasn't pleasant. 







The interesting thing is- all three authors of this book haven't managed to scrape together one science degree collectively, between the three of them. 
Alsip wrote a silly blog post about me debunking my "bad science" while Draco-- bolstered by Kavin's sister in industry marketing, Yvette-- threatened me with a libel suit online and through harassing phone calls to my office. 


Kavin Senapathy, Yvette/ TheSciBabe with  CamiRyan of Monsanto.

When I failed to dignify the silly threats or insipid blog with a response, Yvette and Cami Ryan paid my hospital a visit, in person. Yeah, Monsanto people coordinate cyberattacks, and professional libel campaigns. 
They post fraudulent reviews,  professionally and personally smear people, and when the bullying and libel don't shut scientists up - Monsanto's "ambassadors" physically stalk people!  



"Dear Yvette.  Ears are made of skin, a very large organ very prone to allergies-- which means ear infections are addressed best by dermatologists, rather than toxicologists. 

If you call the ASPCA poison center for advice on ear infections toxicologists will hang up on you--they will think you are making a prank call. You know, like when people call dog veterinarians asking for advice for their pet giraffes with a pain in the neck. Just a little hint for the blissfully clueless. May I suggest you think for a minute or an hour or two about what exactly you expect a toxicologist to advise about a dermatology disorder?"    

 Dr. Ena  



But according to Jonathan Eisen, an influential UC Davis scientist, who took the time to pen a blog about this kerfuffle titled Degree Madness, it's arrogant to reject Kavin's medical advice (and by extension Yvette's, I presume). 




 In the Forbes piece, Kavin says of Dr. Mark Hyman
  
"Dr. Mark Hyman, for example, who recently hosted the “Fat Summit,” a seminar also hosted by Health Talks Online in January, has an online shop with products to optimize customers’ microbiomes", says Kavin (or the pupeteers pulling her strings).  


 Kavin, of course, isn't selling anything! 


But wait: "Kavin Senapathy’s book examining popular food myths, “The Fear Babe: Shattering Vani Hari’s Glass House,” with co-authors Marc Draco and Mark Alsip, is available now."

So who is  Dr. Mark Hyman and what crimes has he committed? 

 MARK HYMAN, MD, is a practicing family physician, a nine-time #1 New York Times bestselling author, and an internationally recognized leader, speaker, educator, and advocate in his field. He is the Director the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine. He is also the founder and medical director of  The UltraWellness Center, chairman of the board of the Institute for Functional Medicine, a medical editor for The Huffington Post, and has been a regular medical contributor to CNN and many television shows including CBS This Morning, the Today Show, Good Morning America, The View, Katie, and The Dr. Oz Show.  



 Minus Dr. Hyman's eight years of tedious didactic training, boards, a medical license and years of professional experience, and you get Kavin or Yvette. 











According to these folk, we can look forward to  Kavin, Elizabeth Bik, and Jonathan Eisen scrubbing in to perform a kidney transplant or a triple bypass and then scrub out to direct the next Mission to Mars.  

Don't worry; Yvette's pass-fail pseudo-degree qualifies her to perform cardiac and neurosurgery also, just like licensed medical doctors. [1]




"-If people don’t cite any scientific studies but instead cite anecdotes and testimonials and self-written books  question what they are saying. If people have a history of making misleading claims (e.g., Mercola and Chopra and many others at this meeting) then question what they are saying.

  A lot" 

Jonathan Eisen





For Monsanto's Politics Part II  <- click here please


Microbiome Guardians 




Footnotes

1. California Regulations and guidelines for medical practice. 

2. Interesting discussion about probiotics for kidney stone prevention


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