Now that the World Health Organization
has determined processed meats fer shure cause cancer, will the
anti-ag folks expand their call for a ban on glyphosate (Roundup) —
deemed by WHO as a mere probable carcinogenic — to include Spam,
bacon and Vienna Sausage, too?
Will we now see a spate of class action suits against Hormel by people who claim they were harmed by
eating their products?
And if west Kauai residents are, indeed,
suffering health problems, how will we be able to determine whether
it's due to pesticide exposure or a lifetime of Spam musubi and
Portuguese sausage?
The conclusion puts processed meats in
the same category of cancer risk as tobacco smoking and asbestos.
This does not mean that they are equally dangerous, says the
International Agency for Research on Cancer — the agency within the
WHO that sets the classifications. And it's important to note that
even things such as aloe vera are on the list of possible
carcinogens.
Aloe vera? Yes, despite these highly-publicized announcements, it seems the real world comprises many shades of gray
— and blasts of vibrant color, too.
But in the stale, stagnant, soporific
world of Babes Against Biotech, it's all black and white, good and
bad. And now the misnamed “Babes” have decided that bananas
genetically engineered to resist the destructive banana bunchy top
(BBT) virus are evil incarnate.
They're rallying the other knee-jerk
no-nothings to flood the inbox of the state Board of Agriculture, which
today is considering the University of Hawaii's request for a permit
to import genetically engineered, BBT-resistant, tissue-cultured banana
plants for greenhouse and field research.
Lead Babester Nomi Carmona wasn't even
in Hawaii when BBT devastated banana plantations across the state,
especially Kauai. But some of us can still remember guys having their
entire farms wiped out, their livelihoods destroyed with no
compensation, during the state-mandated eradication, which I covered for the Honolulu Weekly.
Currently, farmers use pesticides —
including the aforementioned dreaded glyphosate — to control BBT
and kill diseased plants. With a BBT-resistant banana, pesticide
use would decrease. So which will it be, girls? GMO or chem? Or should
we just say nevah mind, and keep importing most of our bananas from
Central America? So much for improving food security and minimizing
carbon footprints.
Ever notice how many ethical and
logical conflicts exist in their warped world view?
In yet another example of the odd
alliance between self-proclaimed greenies and tourism, the Babes are
also urging non-residents to contact Hawaii Tourism Authority to say
they're not sure they want to visit a state with GM bananas or other biotech. Fine. Then
stay home. We've got enough misinformed whiners here already.
Hector Valenzuela, who disingenuously
claims he's not anti-GMO, helpfully provided the Babes with their
“scientific” talking points, since they're not really bright or
educated enough to suss it out themselves. But Hector dished his own
bullshit with his claim: “Little research has been conducted by
UH to find alternative ecologically-based, low input, practices to
manage the bunchy top virus in Hawaii.”
Isn't that part of your job, Hector? Or are you too busy running to anti-GMO rallies to actually conduct research? And what is more "ecologically-based and low input" than a BBT-resistant variety? As for managing the virus, two very effective, low-cost methods are cutting down
diseased plants and not moving infected keiki. But the general public
isn't willing to do even that.
Hopefully the state BOA will tell BAB to stick to what it knows — meme-making and fear-fostering — and leave the agricultural decisions to the experts.
Speaking of silly memes and fear, I noticed that GMO Free USA employed both to totally twist what happened on Molokai when Ashley Lukens and the Center for Food Safety showed up to lecture folks there. As the group posted on Facebook:
What
happens when someone does a presentation about pesticides and health
on the Hawaiian island of Molaka'i in the heart of GMO
experimentation? Dr. Ashley Lukens, of the Hawai'i Center for Food
Safety found out. 100+ employees of Monsanto, et al showed up to
bully, intimidate and harass her. Thank you, to Ashley for being
brave enough to take this on. Hawai'i is on the front line of the GMO
and pesticide battlefield. Watch the video to the end to see the true
colors of the agrichemical industry.
Yeah, and check out the true colors of
the anti-GMO crowd, writ large in the comment thread:
Beba Hojt You can make money
without selling your soul to the devil. If they have sold their soul
to the devil they should be forced to eat the crap they produce in
jail. That is where they all belong.
This woman also has stuff on Facebook about how 90%
of breast cancers are linked to root canals and vegetarian hot dogs
contain human DNA. Uh, OK, sure...
Joanna Wheeler I feel so bad for
this workers. It is the only job they can get in Molokai and they go
there MADE by their bosses, come or else. It is heart breaking to see
how their bosses do not care for them. They are truly victims
of the chem cartel.
Yes, Joanna, but you and the rest of
the Kauai anti-GMO contingent are so compassionate in calling for the complete elimination of all their jobs. As in, "Let them mow lawns for rich folk if they want to eat!"
Pamela Gardiner Johnston The
GMO/Agrichemical industry is afraid of an INFORMED PUBLIC!!
Well, given the comments on that thread,
there's no danger of that happening any time soon.
Charley Watkins They are afraid
of the pure white light of the truth
Which he, no doubt, has a lock on.
So does Ashley, knowing the photo and
text is all a lie, make any attempt to correct it? Nope:
Ashley Barbara Lukens Mahalo
for sharing!
And Ashley and her cohorts claim they
want to have a civil discourse on these issues.
Ya might want to start with a little of that "pure white light of the truth," Ashley. If you can stand the brightness, that is.
In fact WHO said all meat causes cancer and implied that the threat from processed meat was absolute, However looking at their statistics, the threat seems marginal. And even these statistics are based on very suspect 'studies' from very agendized sources. The cancer mentioned is bowel cancer. Hawaii eats five times the national average in processed foods. Yet it is in the second lowest tier of States with bowel cancer, with a very low rate. If one takes into account all cancer, Hawaii stands at the lowest of all.
ReplyDeleteI suspect this is another attempt to keep third world aspirations of a richer life style in check, as are so many other programs initiated by the UN's social engineers.,
Beba, Joanna, Ashley, Charley, Pamela etc... "They are afraid" "I feel bad for them" "they are going to hell". "They are afraid of the truth", "they are afraid of the informed public".
ReplyDeleteWow! It's so condescending how they speak about other people who don't agree with them. Notice how much they say the word afraid. Just because people are sick of all your bullshit agenda doesn't mean they are "afraid if the truth". Get real already. Nobody is afraid of you or "the truth" and we're not "from the devil". Listen to how stupid that sounds.
I was harmed by Hormel who made tasty foods I was powerless to avoid. Now I walk leaning forward as my belly fat forces me to do. I'm suing as soon as I can see to get my shoes on.
ReplyDeleteHa! Somehow I don't think #savebananas is going to be quite as popular as #wearemaunakea. Good luck with that. Maybe this is just an excuse for the "babe" to post pics of herself with big bananas on Instagram. How bout #savebananasfromnomi
ReplyDeleteWhore, Mel?
ReplyDeleteOh Hormel.
Both sides of this debate are out of line.
Neither is trustworthy.
But 9:52 certainly YOU are!
ReplyDeleteWe live in a chem free world. Women use eyeliners, glossy lip gloss, eye shadows with every color you can think of. These so called cosmetics are definitely organic, Ha! People I know live with mosquitos and flies and other nasty insects. They don't spray or use insect repellents. They see roaches, they let them crawl all over the place. Germs, no such thing. Most of the things in our life is chem free. We smoke chem free cigarettes. We drink chem free sodas. We use chem free sugar additives for our sweetners. Yep there is no chem in our lives. Who scrubs the toilet bowl with a scrub brush with bare hands - no chem free gloves? The people who believe this chem free world...........try walking to work. Chem free gasoline.
ReplyDeleteSo just like the tobacco and oil industries big ag has been making people sick with their polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and in our food no less. I guess "science" proved those no nothing vegans correct.
ReplyDeleteRight. blame big AG for BBQ.
ReplyDelete"I was harmed by Hormel who made tasty foods I was powerless to avoid. Now I walk leaning forward as my belly fat forces me to do. I'm suing as soon as I can see to get my shoes on."
ReplyDeleteOctober 27, 2015 at 8:55 AM
____________________________________
Ha! Love it.
warning that smoking causes cancer, but when it comes to big meat they meekly say cut back on eating processed foods. IMHO all these processed meats should have the same warning label smoking products do like WARNING: THIS PRODUCT CAUSES CANCER IN HUMANS.
ReplyDeleteThese processed meats/animals are feed GMO feeds.
DeleteGrass-Fed Matters
ReplyDeleteDavid PerlMutter MD
Red Meat Causes Cancer?
This week, a study published in the British Medical Journal showed that younger women who ate red meat had a slightly increased risk for developing breast cancer. The study involved close to 90,000 women followed for 20 years, meaning that, from a statistical perspective, it was respectable.
So how is it that I am comfortable maintaining my recommendation that eating red meat in small amounts is good for health? After all, here is a study pointing to an increased risk for breast cancer in women.
Let’s go back to the actual recommendations I’ve made in Grain Brain and have reiterated on this web site. You’ll recall that I’ve been quite specific in recommending grass-fed meat as opposed to grain-fed meat. And that matters a lot when considering a study such as this.
More than 95% of the meat consumed in America is highly inflammatory as it comes from grain-fed cattle. This is meat that is high in pro-inflammatory omega-6 fats, often laced with antibiotics, and keep in mind that the grain used to fatten these animals is typically a genetically modified product (GMO). This is the meat that generates these statistics related to breast cancer. No surprise here!
The typical meat consumed in Western countries is thus highly inflammatory and inflammation is a key player in the genesis of cancer.
Studies such as these make for great headlines. Isn’t it interesting that the same study revealed a significant risk reduction for breast cancer in women eating poultry, eggs, nuts and fish?
You don't think chickens eat GMO feed too?
ReplyDeleteThe problem with self identified studies subjects is that subject groups often have other factors involved in health other than target substances. Smokers drink in higher proportion. Meat eaters often engage in more dangerous conduct than vegetarians. Vegetarians often eat much more vegetables toxics than others, even among themselves. (They do not live longer as a whole, only when isolated for certain mortal diseases). On and on. This is now only being given serious attention. Particularly after The Mediterranean Diet was found to be based on entirely fraudulent information.
ReplyDeleteNope, the anti-GMOers are gonna come up with grass-fed chicken.
ReplyDeleteI've seen un-turned compost piles so hot and smoking they have almost burst into flame. Thanks for providing the match to this pile of manure.
ReplyDeleteIARC is clearly missing the big tuna, the big prize; the risk of cancer is well known to increase with age, so clearly they should just come out and declare that old age causes cancer. It is so much better documented than the case with bacon, hot dogs and spam. And then we can organize to ban old age, a true threat to all of us whether vegetarians or meatatarians.
"Stop GMO Bananas!" reminds me of Gilda Radner's SNL skit "Stop the Violins!" According to the Babes (via Hector), if these disease resistant bananas were to get loose it would be a disaster - who knows, they might accost our children on their way home from school, attack the elderly at bingo parties, leave slippery peels at night on dark sidewalks, or just cause general banana mayhem.
And of course Ashley. Can you image going to Molokai and trying to tell the locals the way things really are? When you have no background in ag or science (sorry, political science doesn't count)? Oblivious? Ignorant? Culturally tone deaf? Wow.
Again, thanks for gathering up and setting fire to this pile.
Kudos to the Board of Ag for doing the right thing, relying on rational thinking and science rather than hysteria, and approving the request.
ReplyDelete6:10
ReplyDeleteCould you tell us what the "slight increase" was.
This way I can decide if your post has any merit or just plan BS.
For processed meats it was a risk increase of 18%. But the incidence report is far less. In other words, WHO moved 18% more people into the open risk pool. That does not translate into a numerically similar incidence. The reporting is deceiving.
ReplyDeleteFor example, an American has about a 4% chance of developing colon cancer by age 60. So an 18% increase, translates to an overall increase of a mere 1% of incidence. However that is not spread evenly among the populace. Tall people, people with vitamin D deficiency, hard liquor alcoholics, and most importantly genetics take up a great deal of the incident populace. In fact cured meats, which this study intentionally mislabel, are not even in the first seven causation factors.
ReplyDeleteThese are reasons to why Kauai needs a qualified county manager instead of some good Ol boy Mayor.
ReplyDeleteLetters for Oct. 29, 2015
County priorities are mixed up
Here we go again.
I can’t help but shake my head as our county officials, state and federal representatives shake hands and proudly extol receiving the “Tiger” grant of $13.5 million for yet another absurd attempt to “revitalize” the Rice Street area of Lihue. Let’s face it. Lihue is place most of us avoid if we can. We go to shop mostly and, when necessary, to deal with the county bureaucracy. To spend this amount of money on that area is ridiculous when so much of the island is in desperate need of maintenance and upgrading. Remember the Rice Street widening project of 2002? That disrupted traffic and business for over a year and accomplished nothing. Now they want bike lanes and cute landscaping that you and I will have to pay for to be taken care of.
Meanwhile, the buffalo grass encroaches on all our roads, the pavement gets more potholes every month, the traffic gets worse by the day and people in Anahola, as well as many other places, still sit in the rain or blazing sun to take the bus.
If our representatives focused on the real problems instead of trying to have no term limits, arguing about barking dogs and wasting time on projects like “revitalizing” a place that doesn’t need anything but cleaning, we would actually have some improvements in our day to day lives on this island.
John Humphrey, Hanalei
And can anyone tell me why is it that TGI prints March arrests log when we are already in practically November? TGI is just plain garbag'e
And can you tell me why you persist in submitting articles from TGI that have nothing to do with my posts? Is it just so you can comment on them?
ReplyDeleteIf you live long enough, you will be overexposed to something. As for bananas, I had to dig up my patch because of the virus and worse than that was the farmers who lost their crops. What's wrong with these anti science people?
ReplyDeleteActually I believe that a lot of Kauai's people are not reading local news and so this blog is a better platform to raise concerns and also open a dialogue where people can come up with ideas.
ReplyDelete