My only trip to Panera was four years ago. Think I may have had some kind of salad and pasta dish, but whatever it was, I was, according to the chain’s advertising, consuming “clean food.”

But this term is a marketing gimmick that carries no legal or culinary meaning. CEO Ron Shaich said that his company has completed “removal of all artificial flavors, preservatives, sweeteners, and colors from artificial sources.”

But nothing about this means that the food is any healthier. Natural is not necessarily good and artificial is not synonymous with harmful. Still, the latest Panera commercial self-righteously asks, “When did mixing food with nonfood become acceptable?” But this isn’t what happens with artificial additives are used. Nor is very much food today genuinely natural. It has been cross-bred and refined by farmers and scientists for 10,000 years, giving Panera, Arby’s, and home chefs access to options that are more durable, tasty, and nutritious.

Panera’s fabricated definition of clean food is “Food as it should be, with no artificial flavors, preservatives, sweetening, or colors.” The commercial making this pronouncement features a syringe-like object being injected into a tomato, a deliberate misrepresentation of how additives are employed in food production. The actual process involves identifying and removing genes with desirable traits, then placing them in a petri dish where they are incorporated into a plant genome. It is not the dangerous experiment with your oatmeal and organs that Panera is insinuating.

Besides fallaciously appealing to nature, the company website also pays homage to antiquity:  “Chances are good that your grandparents or great-grandparents never talked about eating clean. Instead, they just did eat clean, because clean food—food that’s simple, natural, unprocessed, and whole—was, well, all food.”

In truth, very little if any of the food that was eaten in these gastrological glory days was natural or unprocessed. The food eaten then had been taken out of its natural state millenniums before and was continuing to be improved. And short of acquiring it from a garden or local farmer’s market, your grandparents’ food likely underwent some type of processing. Drying, cooling, freezing, boiling, salting, smoking, pickling, fermenting, Pasteurizing, canning, jellying, and sugaring are all means of unnatural food preservation or processing that have been around for centuries. As to the “whole food” claim, I’m not sure what Panera is talking about, and I doubt it does either.  

The company also plays on chemophobia. Here’s what executive John Taylor had to say: “If I go to my pantry to grab ingredients to make salad dressing, I don’t want to reach for potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate.” And one of its commercials shows a laboratory where colorful liquids are added to test tubes, resulting in a strawberry – another deliberate misrepresentation of how preservatives, sweeteners, and colorings are added.

The preservatives inhibit the growth of bacteria and fungi, and are used to prevent oxidation.  They reduce the risk of foodborne infections, decrease microbial spoilage, and preserve a food’s freshness and nutritional value. That sodium nitrite and potassium hydrogen sulfite that are in your chili mac are there for a good reason.  

The whole spectacle leaves the normally mild-mannered Kevin Folta fuming. The University of Florida horticulturist considers the Panera campaign a character assassination of the farmers and agricultural scientists whose mission is to give the world a safe, reliable food supply.

“At a time when all of our affluent-world food is produced with tremendous care and regulation, and 21,000 people will die today from lack of nutrition, it is disgusting to see safe food demonized. Every calorie represents tremendous time, labor, fuel, water, fertilizer, and crop protection that is safe, affordable, and abundant.”

By highlighting its so-called “clean” food, Panera implies that other food is unclean, dirty, unhealthy, and inferior. But Folta writes that there is no inherent danger in artificial additives, and in fact, they are used precisely because they make a food tastier, more nutritious, more aromatic, more colorful, and resistant to drought and pests. Also, Folta said the chemical makeup of an artificial additive and its natural counterpart can be the same: “Many additives are identical to natural flavor compounds, they are just produced in more efficient ways.” 

As to the horrors that Panera wishes to shield us from, Folta writes that, “Preservatives are trace compounds that retard spoilage, maintain product quality, and retain color and texture. They slow the degradation that begins immediately after fruits and vegetables are picked. Meats and dairy products begin a similar path and all become hosts to bacteria and fungi that participate in the breakdown process and may pose threats to human health. The addition of safe, reliable preservatives means food is of higher quality.”

The focus, then, should be on the right kind of food, not whether it contains artificial additives. A diet high in fruits, vegetables, and legumes, is preferable to one favoring preservative-free pizza, French fries, and ice cream.

Panera will gladly serve their customers spinach that contains formaldehyde, an ingredient in embalming fluid. And this is perfectly fine. But it highlights something Panera would prefer you not know: That the same chemical can be used safely and efficiently in multiple products.

So when they warn about azodicarbonamide in another chain’s food, they are engaged in fact-resistant fearmongering. They rely on the multisyllabic nature of the additive to instill worry even though the chemical is merely a dough conditioner that improves bread’s texture and elasticity. In short, it safely makes for a better loaf.  

Panera also gloats of not serving food without potassium sorbate, which it says, “can also be used in personal care products. Instead, we use clean ingredients like rosemary extract and cultured sugar to maintain freshness.”

Statements like this rely on most diners being unaware that potassium sorbate occurs naturally in edible plants. Moreover, it prevents the growth of microorganisms that can make the product go bad and cause the consumer to painfully regurgitate clean food.

Anti-vax arguments are heavy on the fear factor, light on the fact factor.
The most unhinged anti-vaxxers assume some sort of plot between the government, pharmaceutical executives, and Bohemian Grove. Or they insist that vaccines don’t prevent diseases, but rather cause them owing to the shedding done by the vaccinated. This point fails to address how these diseases could have existed before the advent of vaccines and the subsequent nefarious shedding. Or why those injected with the dangerous vaccine are not suffering from the disease that is being pumped into them.

But we will look today at some seemingly more reasonable arguments, usually made by those who are 90 percent anti-vax. These folks would probably would not vaccinate themselves or their children, but still paint themselves as advocates for choice while tossing out reasons why their choice would be to not vaccinate.

One of the more frequent arguments in this category is that children are receiving too many vaccines. While it is true that the number of VACCINES has increased, the number of vaccine INGREDIENTS has gone down. During World War I, children were vaccinated for smallpox, that’s it. Today, they are vaccinated against 14 diseases, which can include 26 inoculations before they turn 7. Getting three to five vaccines at once is common.

Anti-vaxxers trumpet these numbers, along with the unstated assumption that this means children today are injected with between 14 and 26 times more scary stuff than they did a century ago. Leaving aside the issue of vaccine safety, which has been addressed in other posts, let’s address the accuracy of the more scary stuff claim.

Dr. Paul Offit has noted: “Immunological challenges from today’s 14 vaccines are less than the challenge from that one vaccine given a hundred years ago. The smallpox vaccine contained about 200 viral proteins. The number of viral proteins, bacterial proteins, and complex sugars on the surface of bacteria contained in the 14 vaccines given today adds up to about 150.”

So despite receiving 13 more vaccines than what children did 100 years ago, youngsters today are receiving fewer immunological components than they did then. Plus, those additional vaccines mean no more iron lungs, no more instances of first-graders attending the funeral of their classmate who died a miserable death from measles, and far fewer toddlers doubled over with Whooping Cough.

Note that Dr. Offit spoke of the smallpox vaccine in the past tense. This is because it may be vaccination’s greatest success story, completely eradicating a disease that had killed 30 percent of those contracting it.

The elimination of smallpox and its relevance to Offit is important for another reason. Offit, who co-discovered a rotavirus vaccine that has saved millions of lives, is one of the most frequent anti-vaxxer targets. They are unable to challenge his science, so they are left with ad hominem attacks that include claiming he is a Big Pharma stooge. However, following the 9/11 and anthrax attacks, there were concerns that terrorists may get ahold of the smallpox virus and unleash it as a weapon. There were calls to reintroduce the vaccine.

Offit was the only member of the CDC’s advisory panel to encourage caution on this and who voted against reintroduction. He felt the risks outweighed the rewards since there had been no new smallpox cases. Had he been the Big Pharma whore that anti-vaxxers portray him as, he would have used his position to help the industry makes hundreds of millions of dollars selling superfluous inoculations.

Another anti-vaxxer claim is that children are too young to be vaccinated. But Offit noted that babies are bombarded with bacteria the second they enter the delivery room.

“People have about 100 trillion bacteria living on their skin as well as on the lining of their nose, throat, and intestines,” he said. “Each of these bacteria contain between 2,000 and 6,000 immunological components, to which children make an immune response. They make large quantities of immunoglobulins every day to prevent these colonizing bacteria from causing harm. Vaccines are a drop in the ocean of what children encounter and manage every day. The proof that young children can respond to these vaccines is that many of the diseases that commonly crippled or killed young children have been virtually eliminated.”

Which brings us to the final argument, that some vaccines are unnecessary.
This argument is an example of vaccines being a victim of their success. Rubella, diphtheria, and polio are almost unheard of in the United States, so some wonder why we are still vaccinating for them.

We do so because these diseases exist elsewhere, and were a person to experience exposure to them overseas, they could return and spread the disease. This is especially true if the exposed person entered an area where there was a cluster of unvaccinated persons fondly recalling the golden era when children received just one shot.

Arguments against GMOs fall into two main categories. The first warns of potential harm for tampering in nature’s domain. The second is to level an accusation that, while possibly true, also applies to conventional and organic crops and therefore is not a good reason to oppose genetic modification.

Some anti-GMO types are extreme enough to be dangerous, such as when Greenpeace eco-terrorists destroyed farmers’ fields in the Philippines. Worse, activists convinced Namibian and Zimbabwean governments to prohibit import of GMO corn during a famine. An organic food enthusiast featured on Penn & Teller’s Bullshit! defended this by saying that if the victims lived, the GMOs would have given them three heads.

While not making that claim, professor Nassim Taleb warns of unspecified dangers that GMOs may bring. One of GMO’s most zealous opponents, Taleb mostly confines himself mostly to Twitter and Facebook. He was scheduled to debate Reason science correspondent Ronald Bailey but backed out a week before. Had Bailey been afforded the chance to debate, he may have raised these points, which he did in a Reason column about the cancellation:

• “In 2014, a group of Italian biologists did a comprehensive review of the last 10 years of research on biotech crops that encompassed 1,783 different scientific studies. These studies dealt with such concerns as the crops’ impacts on natural biodiversity, the possibility that they’ll exchange genes with wild relatives, and their effects on the health of people and other animals. In the review, the biologists concluded that the scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazard directly connected with the use of GM crops.”
• “In a 2014 meta-analysis of 147 studies, a team of German researchers reported that the global adoption of genetically modified crops has reduced chemical pesticide use by 37 percent, increased crop yields by 22 percent, and increased farmer profits by 68 percent. They conclude that there is robust evidence of GM crop benefits for farmers in developed and developing countries.”

Taleb would have been very unlikely to have answered these points with facts or contemplation. He lashes out at anyone who disagrees with him and calls opponents “non-thinking animals.” His recommendation for debating GMO proponents is not to cite a scientific study or raise a point related to the chemistry of agriculture. Rather, he advises his followers to “deeply insult them” and “get them angry.”

He reserves most of his venom for University of Florida horticulturist Kevin Folta, as Folta has arguably done more to raise the profile of GMO safety than anyone else. When Folta offered to discuss GMOs over pizza and beer, Taleb refused and called Folta a “lowly individual” and a “disgusting fellow.” He also leveled the Monsanto shill accusation at him, even though Folta has never received a dime from the company. Taleb based this on Folta attending a conference which Monsanto helped pay for. Of course, even if Monsanto was paying Folta $10 million per annum that would have no bearing on whether what he was saying about GMOs was true.

Folta has hosted many podcasts and given hundreds of presentations on GMOs, and Taleb has never highlighted a possible error in Folta’s conclusions. Being unable to attack the science, he attacks the scientist, and as we’ve seen, the 56-year old Taleb does so in a manner benefiting a petulant grade schooler not getting his way on the playground.

Taleb pretty much concedes there are no known dangers and his beef with GMOs is based on the precautionary principle. He feels they are too much of a danger to take a chance with. Exactly why he thinks that is anyone’s guess. A Twitter user who requested from Taleb more information on how the precautionary principle would apply to GMOs was told to “fuck off.” 

When applying the precautionary principle, the danger would actually seem to be in ignoring GMOs’ proven and potential benefits. As we have seen with the African famines, failing to take advantage of the technology can be fatal. Also, genetic modification saved the Hawaiian papaya, has given us synthetic insulin, and could prevent Third World blindness if bureaucratic roadblocks to Golden Rice could be overcome. GMOs also give farmers better crop yields and reduce the need for fertilizer and pesticides.

Then there’s the work of 1970 Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaugm, whom the Nobel Committee credited with saving one billions persons from starvation. He did so by pioneering the use of hybrid and genetically modified crops through the development of strains that could thrive in arid places without pesticides or herbicides. Why would anyone oppose this substantial technological progress? Let’s look at some of the arguments raised by Greenpeace and counters to them.

1. The insertion of foreign genes can produce proteins that may prove toxic or allergenic.

Response: One of the main reasons research is done is to ensure food with toxins and allergens don’t reach the market. When a prospective genetically-modified food is shown to produce these, they cannot be sold.

2. Scientists add genes that confer resistance to common antibiotics.

Response: What is actually happening is that researchers are making crops resistant to harmful bacteria by incorporating the right toxins into the crop. This eliminates the need to apply the toxin in pesticide form.

3. Genetically engineered crops represent new and potentially invasive forms of life.

Response: All plant species are potentially invasive, which is why farmers apply sound management techniques. While invasive species sometimes occurs, this can happen with crops that are genetically modified, traditional, or organic.

4. Non-GMO stocks are contaminated due to cross pollination, either through seeds being carried or by being mixed up during handling. 

Response: This has always been true of all plants. Cross pollination has nothing to do with GMOs. Calling it “contamination” when it happens with GMOs is unnecessarily raising the alarm about a normal process that has always been part of agriculture.

5. Because genetically engineered seeds are patented, the seed company can maintain strict control over how the seeds are used.

Response: This is true of all patented products and irrelevant to the safety or efficiency of GMOs.

A final argument is that GMOs are unnatural. But so too is all food, which has been modified for millennia. Food crops have always been hybridized, but with traditional methods there was a limit as to how different the species could be. With genetic modification, scientists can move individual genes from one species to almost any other. The goal is select specific genes that possess a desirable trait such as disease immunity or the ability to thrive in dry conditions and transfer it to another plant. Genetic modification allows this to be done much quicker and with much more control.

While these are all solid facts, fear sometimes wins out, with resulting famine, crop vandalism, and import bans. We largely don’t have those issues in the United States. But I see orange juice in the grocery store labeled “non-GMO,” even though this is a redundancy since there are no genetically-modified oranges. These labels are slapped on many other foods that have no GMO counterpart and the only reason is to take advantage of the fear. For reference, the only GMO crops sold in the United States are corn, sugar beets, soybeans, papayas, canola, arctic apples, alfalfa, cotton, innate potatoes, and summer squash. So Taleb could have had that pizza and beer without having to worry about growing three heads.

The Truth About Cancer website is a clearinghouse for pseudoscience and quack cures that provides enough fodder for 10 posts, but we will concentrate today on its claim that WiFi causes cancer. The main promoter of this idea is Lloyd Burrell, a man whose online biography informs us that he “was running a successful small business when one day in 2002 he began to feel unwell when using his cell phone.” Burrell claimed he noticed this happened whenever he was near his phone, computer, or other type of electromagnetic device.

Critical thinkers will recognize as post hoc reasoning, but rather than trying to find out if there was a connection, Burrell merely assumed there was and, per the website, “has made it his life mission to raise awareness about the dangers of electromagnetic fields.”

There are indeed dangers associated with electromagnetic fields. For example a gamma ray burst from close enough could end life on Earth, although Universe Today reassures us that “astronomers have observed all the nearby gamma ray burst candidates, and none seem to be close enough or oriented to point their death beams at our planet.”

But there are still Earth-bound hazards, with the danger increasing the shorter the EMF wavelength gets. Going across the spectrum, we start with the longest waves, radio, then proceed to microwave, infrared, visible, ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma ray.

WiFi operates in the microwave portion, while the danger only starts toward the high end of ultraviolet light, when skin cancer becomes a risk. That’s because that’s the point on the EMF spectrum where ionizing begins. WiFi, meanwhile, is on the non-ionizing end by a wide margin.

Extensive exposure to ionizing radiation is the only type we need fret over, as even low exposure over time can significantly increase one’s risk. That’s why X-ray patients are covered with lead shields while the operator giving the X-ray (and 15 others that day and every other day) steps out of the room when the electromagnetic radiation is released.

Phoning your spouse to let them know your X-ray appointment is over requires significantly less radiation exposure than what the X-ray emitted, and more importantly, the cellphone’s radiation is non-ionizing.

But Burrell and many others have convinced persons they are at risk for cancer, especially of the brain, for repeated use of phones and other WiFi devices. Truth About Cancer is correct when it writes, “A multitude of studies found damage and cancer promotion from high frequency electromagnetic fields.” But it leaves out that none of the products whose use it is campaigning against are low frequency devices. Also, none of these websites or advertisements offer a biological mechanism by which non-ionizing radiation would induce tumors.

Radiation is associated with 1950s Sci Fi movies and theoretical meltdowns at nuclear power plants that would render adjacent areas uninhabitable. But it has a much-less sinister side that includes sunlight and Walkie Talkies. Radiation even helps Dr. Oz broadcast a satellite TV program about WiFi dangers. 

But if Oz were telling the truth, we would be seeing an exponential increase in brain cancer. Twenty years ago, cell phone use in, say, grocery stores was anomalous. Today, not taking a cell phone to the grocery store is the anomaly. Yet during this time, brain cancer rates have remained steady, even though we have become even more slavishly devoted to phones and other ever-present technology like iPads, personal computers, video-game consoles, and digital audio players.

Still, Oz, Joseph Mercola, Mike Adams, and others churn out misinformation about the supposed connection between these products and cancer, which perpetrates a self-replicating cycle. The more people that share articles about WiFi dangers, the more ad revenue is generated, and the more incentive these websites have to instill more unjustified worry.

The people who believe them and act on these fears give themselves the illusion of control. We also see this when people refrain from swimming after eating, refuse to sit close to the TV, or look for that non-GMO label.

By believing WiFi dangers are real, people have something to avoid and a hazard to guard against. So they follow Burrell’s recommendation to buy “Low EMF Routers” even though this is a redundancy that describes all routers. Also for sell are EMF shields, radiation meters, WiFi harmonizers, neutralizers, and similarly silly counter-weapons. The emissions they seek to protect from are incredibly low and the only way these devices will make a person’s exposure even less is if the persons goes to the store to buy these shields, and is therefore are away from their home modem.   

Meanwhile, radiationeducation.com suggests having your children write a radiation-free snail mail letter to your wireless-happy neighbors. The recommended message reads, “Our mom discovered that we are getting WiFi coming into our house and our bedrooms because of our neighbor’s wireless Internet service. Radiation hurts me. Please consider the effect of your choices. We are begging you to consider switching your Internet access to something hard wired, like cable or dial up, instead of wireless.”

While the overarching idea behind all this is to avoid health problems, this last recommendation would likely be counterproductive. Falsely accusing someone of harming children would be pushing it, but telling someone to use dial-up, that could definitely get your hurt.  

Our distant ancestors who dined on a true Paleo diet had no control over how much sugar they consumed. Whatever amount occurred naturally in the wild plants they found while foraging or in the animals they corralled provided their daily intake by happenstance.

The first sugarcane cultivation probably began in New Guinea 10,000 years ago but sugar only came to be a European food ingredient in the 11^th Century. Then European powers established sugarcane plantations in the Americas in the 16^th Century and by the end of the 19^th Century sugar consumption had skyrocketed. According to Scientific American, this included a whopping 1,500 percent increase in England.

Today, sugar is added to most processed foods and I for one sprinkle it liberally on my Shredded Wheat. In fact, I find it improves the taste of whatever it’s added to except for iced tea, where it transforms a right dandy drink into a plum awful one.

But some say all this sweetness has a sour impact on our health. Pediatric endocrinologist Robert Lustig and journalists Gary Taubes and Mark Bittman have argued that sugar is a toxin that hampers our organs and disrupts hormones. They equate sugar with obesity, metabolic disorders, and cardiovascular disease. Taubes called it “uniquely toxic” and “the principal cause of the chronic diseases that are most likely to kill us.” He even equated sugar consumption with smoking, but for this to be true, even half a teaspoon per week would have to be detrimental since there is no amount of tobacco use that can be deemed safe.

There are different types of sugar, the best-known being the white granular table variety, sucrose. When alarming claims such as those in the previous sentence are made, the speakers are referring to the fructose form. That’s because the role of metabolizing fructose is handled almost entirely by the liver and eating exceptionally large amounts of fructose will tax the organ most responsible for exorcising toxins. Overburdening the liver produces uric acid, which leads to gout, kidney stones, and high blood pressure.

Bad stuff, indeed, and a good reason to limit the intake of fructose, but an insufficient reason to declare it the primary cause of disease. Dose matters. Concern about fructose is based primarily on studies in which persons consumed 300 milligrams a day, about five times what most persons ingest and equal to about eight sodas. Other studies involved subjects for whom high-fructose foods and drinks were almost the entire diet. Very few persons not being tested for this specifically would consume massive amounts of fructose while avoiding all glucose and other non-fructose forms of sugar, so this study has little bearing on reality.

There have also been rat studies that suggest fructose causes harm, but these are flawed for a different reason. Scientists have learned that rodents metabolize fructose in a vastly different way than humans do. Our livers convert less than one percent of consumed fructose into fats, while rats convert fructose into fat at a rate 50 times that.  So while the studies show that fructose consumption leads to clogged arteries, fatty livers, and insulin resistance in rats, it is not logical to conclude that humans would suffer the same fate for the occasional blueberry Pop-Tarts. 

In an interview with the Evolving Health Science blog, Dr. John Sievenpiper said, “A lot of this debate has been underpinned by the animal literature and ecological studies without recognizing the flaws and translating that information into real-world human scenarios. The problem has really been with someone like Lustig who can run through the pathways at very impressive clip and can convince someone that, OK, there’s so much biological plausibility, it must be true.”

But when Sievenpiper analyzed the effect of normal fructose consumption on humans, he learned there was none of the reason for worry the Sugar Kill Gang suggests. In his meta-analyses of dozens of studies on humans, he found typical fructose consumption resulted in no harmful effects on body weight, blood pressure, or uric acid production. Additionally, Archer Daniels Midland scientists collected data from more than 25,000 persons for seven years and found no connection between fructose consumption and levels of triglycerides, cholesterol, or uric acid. So moderate fructose consumption is fine. And one can safely ingest even higher levels of other sugars without any negative impact beyond spoiling tea.

One day when I was seven, I painted my nails. My reason for doing so was that I was seven. It seemed harmless enough until I realized it wouldn’t just wipe off like mud or magic markers. I spent a few mortified days venturing outside only when necessary and, even then, with hands in pocket.

Were this to happen today, the dangers according to some would be more serious than embarrassment and self-imposed social withdrawal. There is hardly any area of life so trivial as to be immune from fear-mongering and pseudoscience and today we’ll look at how this applies to nail polish.

Most of this stems from the results of a study concocted conducted by the Environmental Working Group and Duke University. The finding highlighted for alarm was that within 12 hours of polish use, subjects experienced a six-fold increase in their bodies of an endocrine system disruptor.

This tidbit seems disturbing taken by itself. The endocrine system controls metabolism, growth, tissue function, reproduction, sleep, and mood, so screwing with it would seem a steep price for slapping on some Max Factor Glossfinity.

Seizing on this, Healthy Holistic Living fumed, “This is particularly harmful to the young girls who use nail polish regularly since healthy hormonal development is an essential part of their growth.”

They also drew attention to most polish containing formaldehyde and toluene, which they say can produce asthma and impede childhood development, respectively. Similarly, Joseph Mercola objected to the presence of dibutyl phthalate. He wrote, “This is known to cause lifelong reproductive impairments in male rats, and has been shown to damage the testes, prostate gland, epididymis, penis, and seminal vesicles in animals.”

But these are blanket statements that fail to consider the chemicals’ dose, concentration, form, or use. Mercola’s words are horrible news for male rodent test subjects exposed to large doses, but none of these criteria apply to your typical Claire’s shopper.

The most demonized chemical in the Environmental Working Group study was triphenyl phosphate (TPhP), which indeed can mess with someone’s endocrine system. However, this is only in large amounts, such as what was endured by zebrafish who were made to swim in water heavy with it during one experiment, or rats who were fed large amounts daily in another study.

More fear-mongering from Holistic Health Living came in the form of this ad populum: “In Europe, more than 1,300 chemicals are banned from personal care products, compared to the U.S. where just 11 are banned.” This is made to make readers think that their medicine cabinets and vanity tables are hazardous waste sites. But governments and regulatory agencies pass laws and impose regulation based on misinformation or corrupt lobbying all the time. Banning ingredients should be the result of experiments and double blind studies, not something done because everyone else is doing it.

The logical fallacy train rolls ahead with more chemophobia: “The average U.S. woman uses 12 personal care products or cosmetics a day, containing 168 different chemicals.” Chemicals are in literally everything and the idea that they are inherently dangerous is a folly that pseudoscientists and fear-mongers get away with because large swaths of the population are unfamiliar with basic chemistry. 

That’s how we end up with this quote from EWG Executive Director Heather White: “The conclusion is inescapable. Any girl who paints her nails stands a chance of coming into contact with a potential hormone disruptor. The federal laws meant to regulate toxic chemicals in cosmetics and other consumer products are broken.”

There are no toxic chemicals, as toxicity is determined by dosage. Some have higher thresholds than others, but the chemicals that pseudoscientists rail against are usually found in tiny doses in food and clothing, including those that tailored to the Natural News and David Avocado Wolfe crowds. 

Challenging White for most hyperbolic warning is Mercola, who freaks out thusly: “Chronic exposure to toluene is linked to anemia, lowered blood cell count, liver or kidney damage, and may affect a developing fetus.” This is true, but chronic exposure occurs when auto repair and construction workers use products containing concentrated toluene for days at a time without wearing a protective mask. It’s not happening when a tween tries Revlon hot pink for the first time. 

But people who read the likes of Mercoala don’t understand this. That’s why Deepak Chopra sidekick Kimberly Snyder goes unchallenged when she blogs, “Toluene is used to manufacture paints, rubber, gasoline, airplane glue, and shoe polish. I’m pretty sure people wouldn’t smear this all over their skin, but when you apply it as an ingredient in finger polish, that’s exactly what you’re doing! Effects include vertigo, coma, seizures, cerebral degeneration, decreased cognition, and blindness.” What good is that nifty new neon orange on your nails if you can’t see it?

The detractors’ primary accusation contains a grain of truth, as TPhP levels will rise sixfold in the body 12 hours after use. Left out of this is how minuscule the amount is even after this sextupling, and what happens after another 12 hours. 

Doug Schoon, author of Nail Structure and Product Chemistry, explained, “The test subjects’ urine before applying nail polish was 0.00000000097 grams per every milliliter of urine and 0.0000000063 grams per milliliter of urine after.” And this infinitesimal amount is absorbed, metabolized, and excreted within a day.

While TPhP is commonly employed as a fire retardant, Schoon said it is used in much smaller doses when incorporated in nail polish, where it is used to give the polish flexibility and make it easy to apply. 

“They suggest that furniture fire retardant was added to nail polish, but that’s not accurate,” he said. “TPhP is used at 20 times the typical concentrations found in nail polish when used as a flame retardant. When used in nail polish, TPhP is a softening agent or plasticizer, not a flame retardant.”

Another scary tale was spread by veteran chemophobe Food Babe, who targeted D&C nail polish for including ingredients derived from coal tar. This is technically correct but outrageously incomplete. The derived product is added to other chemicals, changing its molecular structure and properties. The resulting product is then tested by the company for safety and subjected to FDA approval. But Food Babe knows her scientifically-challenged audience will interpret her words to think they are smearing coal tar on themselves. Bad Science Debunked pointed out the nail polish Food Babe sells contains the same extract she terrifies her customers with, but the focus here is on her claims rather than her hypocrisy, so let’s look at what she said.

She conducted an “experiment” in which she applied her nail polish and some D&C to a Styrofoam plate. The rival’s polish ate through the plate while Food Babe’s did not. She gleefully held up both plates, satisfied that she had Nailed It, so to speak.

But this happened because most nail polishes, including D&C, have a solvent that helps keep the polish in liquid form until is applied. Once it is put on, the solvent evaporates, leaving a solid film of color on the nails. Food Babe’s polish does not contain this solvent, which probably makes for a less efficient polish and certainly does nothing for safety.

Styrofoam is 95 percent air and a small amount of a polymer called polystyrene. The plates have little substance to begin with and polystyrene is soluble in nail polish solvents. This allows the solvents to dissolve the polystyrene strands and for air to escape. Therefore, the result of this experiment is not the “melting” that Food Babe described. The only thing it proved was that if one had the bizarre inclination to apply most nail polish to Styrofoam plates, the results would be deleterious. But it is safe to apply it to nails, as they are not mass-produced temporary dishware.

By the way, after about a week I was able to find some nail polish remover at my grandmother’s house and end my gender bender ordeal. I could once again play hide-and-seek without fear of ridicule. Then again, Snyder said the remover left me vulnerable to kidney failure.

I understand how a person could be misled by the contents of an inaccurate TV news health segment or a Friend’s Facebook link. There are many demands on our time and society offers information in quickly-digested nuggets.

That’s part of the explanation for how long-discredited ideas can refuse to be extinguished. Even when an idea if publicly and repeatedly refuted, such an Andrew Wakefield’s vaccine-autism link, the claim can still find life in extremist circles. Another example still making the rounds is a study in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology by molecular biologist Gilles-Eric Séralini. He concluded there was a clear link between consumption of genetically modified corn and cancer in rats.

If one only had time to a glance at the headline or to skim a few paragraphs from an article, a person might well believe this. Compounding the problem is that such stories aren’t always limited to unscientific sources like Joseph Mercola, Food Babe, and Modern Alternative Mama. The mainstream press can also be taken in, the result of both a race for readers and a scientific illiteracy among journalists that is a microcosm of the culture.

As to the specifics of Séralini’s study, he used 100 male and 100 female rats that were divided into groups. Some were fed various amounts of GMO corn, either zero, 11, 22, or 33 percent of their diet, with the rest of their food being standard lab rat fare. Another group was fed GMO corn plus had RoundUp added to their water. Séralini’s study was redacted after heavy criticism from regulatory agencies and scientific bodies, then republished by Environmental Sciences Europe even though no further review of it had been done.

When Séralini announced his findings, he sent a press release that contained an unusual stipulation. Reporters could only see the study if they agreed to not confer with other scientists until this embargo was lifted. This preempted any criticism and eliminated any chance of balanced treatment. This was a red flag with an especially strong scarlet hue. Someone doing genuine science seeks scrutiny, not security.

Augmenting this strange request were shouts of alarm from the researcher, which is almost always a giveaway that the findings are based on an agenda, not analysis. Séralini also released a book and documentary in conjunction with the press conference, two more suggestions that his motivations were name recognition and financial gain.

At the conference, Séralini also circulated photos of treated rats with large tumors. As Science Based Medicine pointed out, “It is standard practice in such studies to establish an endpoint, such as tumor number and size, at which point the animal will be euthanized.” SBM suspects Séralini allowed the tumors to grow in order “to have the intended effect on public opinion.”

Of course, one could self-promote, make a buck, and even treat animals unethically and still produce sound results. It would be a genetic fallacy to dismiss Séralini’s findings only because of the source and its sense of self-importance. Rather, we must look at the substance. And in so doing, we find several problems with the study. Dr. Steven Novella highlighted some of these, which include:

1. The strain of rats that were used are highly susceptible to tumors and are likely to produce a false positive.
2. There were only 20 rats in the control group, just one-fourth as many as were in exposed groups.
3. Séralini’s data reported that “some” of the test groups had a higher tumor incidence. This cherry picking is usually done by biased sources scouring a report, not by an impartial researcher announcing it.
4. Rats fed GM corn had the same negative effects as those who drank water with RoundUp added. It is very unlikely that two vastly different items like GM corn and RoundUp-laced water would have the same effect, and this is a strong indication of a false positive.
5. There was no dose-response mentioned, a glaring omission when looking for a toxic effect. The dose–response describes the change in effect on an organism  caused by differing levels of exposure. In fact, there did not seem to be the connection Séralini asserted since rats that ate 11 percent GM corn developed more tumors than did those rats who were fed 33 percent GM corn.
6. Researchers did not control for the amount of food consumed, a huge error since excess consumption of any food can increase tumors in this type of rat.

Because of such deficiencies, the article was redacted. Anti-GMO groups were quick to insist this was a cover-up, but peer review is about more than releasing information, it is also about further testing and investigation.

Novella also noted the issue with publishing preliminary research. Studies such as Séralini’s should only be meant to be an indicator of what further research may confirm. Most journalists won’t understand the difference between a preliminary research finding and a confirmatory one. Throw into the mix an emotional issue and an embargo to prevent balance and one arrives at this headline from a French newspaper: “Yes, GMOs are poison!”

But let’s examine what the newspaper would have found if it had dug deeper and performed real journalism. For starters, the Sprague-Dawley strain of rats Séralini used have a two-year lifespan and are always at high risk of cancer. Three out of four of these rats develop cancer under normal conditions, and this study covered the normal lifespan for this strain.

Second, even if Seralini’s findings resulted from sound research, they would be an outlier. Scientists at the University of Nottingham reviewed 24 long-term studies and found that none of them concluded that consuming GM foods put rats at increased risk. Anti-GMO groups highlighting Séralini’s result is what science journalist Andrew Revkin dubbed the “single-study syndrome,” where anomalous results are heralded if they fit the desired narrative.

The response from the anti-GMO, pro-Séralini camps consisted almost entirely of logical fallacies. Pop quiz time, critical thinkers. See if you can identify the fallacy used in these instances:

1. Gmoseralini.com answered attacks on the methodology by writing, “Many of the charges that have been made against the Seralini study could be leveled against the studies that have been used to approve GM crops.”
2. Seralini responded that 75 percent of the scientists who criticized his work were working on GMO patents or for Monsanto.
3. From GM Watch: “The decision to retract the paper followed the journal’s hiring of a former Monsanto scientist to its staff.”

The following are from Holistic Health Living:

4. “If we are to accept the argument that Séralini’s study does not provide substantial evidence that genetically modified food is dangerous, then we must also conclude that the short-term toxicity studies funded by the agriculture industry on GM foods cannot prove that they are safe.”
5. “It would be nice to believe that Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson would never accept money from biotech to change their opinion. But both of them visited Monsanto’s headquarters, and both of them began singing GMO’s praises immediately after that. Thankfully, not every scientist is for sale.”
6. “Many countries all over the world ban the cultivation of GMOs, and many countries mandate that GMOs be labeled.”
7. “Health problems are rising along with increased GMO consumption.”

Answers:

1. Tu quoque, or the Appeal to Hypocrisy. Even if studies that arrived at pro-GM conclusions used faulty methods, this does nothing to advance the notion that Séralini used proper protocols.
2. Ad hominem. Extra points if you identified as a specific type, the genetic fallacy. Séralini’s accusation is almost certainly untrue, but even if accurate, would be irrelevant to the legitimacy of the scientists’ criticisms.
3. This is also an ad hominem and genetic fallacy since the focus is not on the challenge but on the person making it. This type of genetic fallacy is so common in the GMO debate that some skeptics put this subcategory its own subcategory, the Monsanto Shill Gambit. This is employed even when the person has no connection to the company.
4. False Equivalence. Seralini’s faulty methods were outlined above and trying to throw all GM studies into the same category is nonsensical.
   
5. Another ad hominem, specifically the Monsanto Shill Gambit again. Being unable to refute what Nye and Tyson have said about GMOs, they must resort to attacking the persons and fabricating a say-for-pay relationship.
6. Ad populum. How many countries have done anything says nothing about whether it’s good or bad. An action’s legality is often unrelated to its fitness. Lunch counter protestors were criminals and SS members were enforcing the law. There are only two countries where women are a majority of the legislators, while nearly 40 percent of the nations punish blasphemy and extramarital relations. Applying the anti-GMO logic in these cases, we should only vote for men who endorse sodomy and apostasy legislation.
7. Post hoc reasoning. Health problems are rising mostly because people are living long enough to experience them, thanks to scientific advances. Skeptical Raptor pointed out, “There are precious few ways to prevent cancer and avoiding GMOs is not one of them. “

Séralini was afforded the chance to publicly defend his research in a debate with University of Florida horticulturist Kevin Folta, but he withdrew two weeks before the event on the flimsy pretense that Folta was not a toxicologist. That is another example of committing a genetic fallacy, though mostly it’s just being a wuss.