Beating Trans Fats One Fact At A Time

"Imagine this. A killer is put on trial, and the jury, in a surprise verdict, finds him not guilty. Afterwards, reporters interview this killer. He says, “The jury freed me. It’s up to them. They decide. That’s what justice is all about.”

Then the press moves along to members of the jury, who say: Well, we had to take the defendant’s word. He said he was innocent, so that’s what we ruled.

That’s an exact description of the FDA and Monsanto partnership.

When you cut through the verbiage that surrounded the introduction of GMO food into America, you arrive at two key statements. One from Monsanto and one from the FDA, the agency responsible for overseeing, licensing, and certifying new food varieties as safe.

Quoted in the New York Times Magazine (October 25, 1998, “Playing God in the Garden”), Philip Angell, Monsanto’s director of corporate communications, famously stated: “Monsanto shouldn’t have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA’s job.”

From the Federal Register, Volume 57, No.104, “Statement of [FDA] Policy: Foods Derived from New Plant Varieties,” here is what the FDA had to say on this matter: “Ultimately, it is the food producer who is responsible for assuring safety.”

Bill Nye the Science Guy has long been an ambassador for science to the television-watching […]

The Cost of 30 Years of Unsustainable Health Spending Growth in the United States

14 December 2014

Anti-cancer Tuberculosis Treatment

The bacteria that cause tuberculosis are excellent at avoiding destruction by host cells. Indeed, the immune system’s only recourse is to surround infected cells (coloured cyan) with a huddle of immune cells – called a granuloma – in an attempt to prevent the infection spreading. But the bugs have another trick according to research performed in a fish model of the disease: They need oxygen to grow, and as oxygen levels drop (indicated by red staining) at the core of the granuloma, new blood vessels start to infiltrate. These vessels provide not only oxygen for growth but escape routes for the bacteria to spread. It’s very like what goes on inside tumours, where low oxygen levels promote blood vessel infiltration allowing cancer cells to escape (metastasise). So similar are the processes in fact that anti-cancer treatments designed to stop blood vessel growth prevented the spread of bacteria within the infected fish.

Written by Ruth Williams

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Image by Stefan Oehlers Duke University, USA Originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0) Research published in Nature, November 2014 

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Youngest Nobel Peace Prize Winner Asks Why Giving Guns Is Easier Than Giving Books

The Pakistani teenager who was shot in the head by Taliban militants two years ago, stood before dignitaries, celebrities, and fellow activists from around the world to accept a Nobel Peace Prize.

“This award is not just for me. It is for those forgotten children who want education,” she said in her speech.

Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian children’s rights activist with whom Yousafzai shared the prize looked on approvingly as the his fellow newly-minted Nobel Laureate gave a speech that was poignant as well as powerful — and the 17-year-old managed to be playful too.