Category: Science

Seed Diversity is not a serious concern. Ignore the Seed movie?

In 1983, the Plant Genetic Resources Project of the Rural Advancement Fund, Inc. (RAFI) circulated a paper describing their study of the availability of varieties of vegetable seeds in 1983 compared to a study of 1903 seed catalogs. Their study, summarized in this 2011 National Geographic chart concluded that there had been a substantial loss of seed genetic diversity: only 16 out of 285 cucumbers remained; only 79 out of 408 tomatoes and so forth, suggesting that 93% of vegetable varieties had gone extinct. Mooney and Fowler published the entire RAFI study in their book Shattering: Food, Politics and the Loss of Genetic Diversity in 1990.

This report was considered gospel for years and is referred to in popular press articles all the time including the National Geographic chart. Now if you are into gardening and get a blizzard of seed catalogs in the mail, this just doesn’t sound reasonable. You see so many varieties in these catalogs, there must be something wrong somewhere.

Well there is. There have been several studies refuting the RAFI study, showing that vegetable varieties are as diverse as ever. For example Heald and Chapman published an extensive review article called Veggie Tales: Pernicious Myths About Patents, Innovation and Crop Diversity in the Twentieth Century. They point out that the RAFI reports counted seeds in 1903 seed catalogs and compared them to the seeds in the USDA seed bank in 1983, rather than to current catalogs.

In fact, they found that while there were 7262 varieties of 42 vegetables in 1903, there are now 7100. This is all summarized clearly in David Tribe’s article. Further in a paper by van de Wuow found that

…no substantial reduction in the regional diversity of crop varieties released by plant breeders has taken place.

Seed, the Movie

Since all available research indicates that there is not a decrease in crop diversity, it is surprising that anyone believes the contrary. And this brings us to the movie “Seed, the Untold Story,” soon to be shown in a few selected theaters. It opens in New York and Los Angeles on Sept 23 and Sept 30, respectively. The directors are Taggart Siegel and John Betz, who were responsible for the misinformation about bees in Queen of the Sun, often summarized as “Naked German hippies dancing with bees.”

In this film’s PR, they admit being misinformed by the 2011 National Geographic article and present a number of non-experts who have no idea what the science actually says. These include serial agriculture fabulist Vandana Shiva whose degrees are in the philosophy of science rather than in actual science.

The film also features commentary from non-scientists such as economist/activist Raj Patel, human rights activist Winona LaDuke, anthropologist (and plagiarist) Jane Goodall, and anti-GMO activist and attorney Andrew Kimbrell. None of these people have any scientific training and their support of the misguided thesis o f this film is laughable

To see what this film is about, let’s look at a claim from the press kit:

Farmers from Minnesota to Madhya Pradesh, India toil in economic thrall to the “Gene Giants,” paying hefty licensing fees to plant their patented crops. If they attempt to save their own seed at the end of a season, following a tradition practiced by humans for over 12,000 years, they face ruthless prosecution. (Suffering under this indentured servitude, over 250,000 farmers in India have committed suicide in the last 20 years.)

Farmers are not in “economic thrall.” They can purchases any seeds they want from any company. If they choose to buy patented seeds, which cost more, it is because they find them more profitable.
Farmers do not save seeds. Farmers, for the most part, do not save seeds, preferring to delegate seed cleaning and storage to experts. If they buy patented seeds, they agree not to save or replant them without paying the license fee.
This is not “indentured servitude.” Farmers are free to select new seeds each year from any of a number of vendors.
Indian farmers have not committed suicide because of GMOs. Several studies (by Herring and Guere) have shown that since GMO cotton came to India, farms are more productive and profitable than before, and suicides from economic problems have decreased.

The central thesis of this film is that farmers should be able to save seeds and that 94% of seed varieties have been lost. Of course, farmers can save seeds if they are not patented. They usually do not. And we have just shown there is no lost in diversity. This is a film made to spread misinformation and attack biotechnology companies that have made farming more productive and reduced the use of pesticides.

It is worth noting that independent scientists Klumper and Qaim reviewed published literature and concluded that

On average, GM technology adoption has reduced chemical pesticide use by 37%, increased crop yields by 22%, and increased farmer profits by 68%. Yield gains and pesticide reductions are larger for insect-resistant crops than for herbicide-tolerant crops. Yield and profit gains are higher in developing countries than in developed countries.

This film cites no science and interviews no scientists. It is a misinformed political tract aimed at the gullible.

‘Queen of the Sun’ beautifully photographed utter nonsense

Taggart Siegel’s 2010 film “Queen of the Sun” about honeybees has been getting a lot of play lately by green, crunchy groups where facts are of little concern. It appears to be a film about how important bees are to our lives, and is made with endless close-ups of bees and honey. Oh, and bees crawling over some naked German hippies.

To some extent, the film is about bee colony collapse, but Siegel never interviews any scientists about the problem, relying instead on beekeepers, farmers and various activist alarmists with little scientific background.

In fact, many of the beekeepers and farms shown in the film practice biodynamics, a kind of farming mysticism based on anthroposophy, which believes in an “objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world” as advocated by German pseudo-mystic Rudolph Steiner. This is the sort of practice that advocates farming by astrological positions and burying skulls in your fields. It might be better to have consulted with some entomologists and agronomists.

One of the practitioners of this mystical approach to beekeeping is Gunther Hauk, who appears frequently throughout the film. He is the proprietor of the Spikenard Farm Honeybee sanctuary. While preserving honeybees is important and Hauk cares deeply about it, there does not seem to be a single scientist on his staff or board of directors.

The premise of the film is that Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is the “bill we are getting” (for the way we farm?). They clearly seem to believe that modern farming practices are somehow to blame, ignoring that fact the bee colonies have been collapsing intermittently for over 1000 years. This is not a new problem, and at this time we do not actually know if there are new contributing causes but just recurrence of the same events as before. As we noted in a recent article, it does not seem the bee colonies are “newly endangered.”

You know the film has dipped deeply into mystic pseudo-science when we are told that honey contains “forces of the hexagonal” and that honey contains silica, which has “beneficial influences on our evolution.” We also learn that “pollen is materialized light.”

The film also features celebrity non-experts popping up from time to time. Journalist Michael Pollan comments on feeding HFCS to bees in new colonies as “viscerally offensive,” when even he has admitted any number of times that HFCS is just sugar, which is what bees feed on in any case.

We also get Cassandra-like appearances by Vandana Shiva, whose degrees are in the philosophy of science rather than in actual science, where she makes incomprehensible pronouncements about seeds worthy of Peter Sellers’ character Chauncey Gardiner in “Being There.”

One of Shiva’s points is based on her irrational opposition to transgenic crops (“GMOs”) which thus must somehow be the cause of CCD, even though careful research has shown this not to be true. And Bt corn is wind-pollinated in any case.

And of course anti-GMO activist Jeffrey Smith pops up making some of his trademarked dire but completely unscientific pronouncements. Smith has no scientific training but hopes to scare us with preposterous lines about “experimenting with the soul and body of human beings.”

There are some actual issues discussed in this film which are worth understanding, however. It shows us vast California almond orchards which are pollinated each February by imported hives of honeybees, since there is no other plant nearby that could feed the bees the rest of the year. The film suggests that interplanting some rows of flowers would provide the almond growers with their own bees, although of course the cost of giving up tree space versus the cost of renting hives has to be considered.

However, the film does suggest that trucking hives all across the country can hardly be good for the health of the bees in the hive, and this may well be true. It does not note that honeybees are not native to the Americas and that in their absence there are local bees that would also do the job.

One serious problem for honeybees is the varroa destructor mite, a tiny mite that lives on the bee’s body. The pesticides used to keep these mites at bay have become ineffective and it is difficult to find newer insecticides that are safe for the bees but toxic for the mites. One farmer suggested that we should just let the bees and mites evolve together and began such an experiment, although he did not report any results in the film, nor does it seem likely that this would work. There are no published papers on this approach.

While the newer neonicotinoid insecticides are being blamed for CCD, the evidence is not clear that they are to blame. For example, even the film notes that organic beekeepers also suffer from CCD.

Overall, the film wants us to appreciate the beauty and majesty of bees, and this is easy to do, but as a documentary on the problems of honeybees, it is not particularly accurate or successful.

We watched “Queen of the Sun” for free, streaming on Netflix, where it is available through September 24 (at least), but if you watch the trailer on the film’s web site, you’ll have had enough.

‘Fed Up’ movie review: it gets a lot wrong

Last night, the Wilton Library presented a screening of the film “Fed Up” by Laurie David which takes the view that excess sugar added to just about everything is a main cause of the world wide obesity epidemic. The screening was followed by a discussion featuring chef Michel Nischan of Wholesome Wave (and formerly of the now closed Dressing Room restaurant) and Ceci Maher of Person2Person, a local food bank and assistance organizaion, with local filmmaker Megan Smith-Harris as moderator.

The film was partly supported by the local Jesse and Betsy Fink foundation Moral Ground, and was introduced by Jesse Fink. It was directed by Stephanie Soechtig and narrated by Katie Couric.

The central thesis of the film’s scattered interviews and visuals is that of Dr Robert Lustig, who is interviewed throughout. Lustig, in his book Fat Chance presents the thesis that added sugar is the cause of all our dietary woes. The trouble is that Lustig’s views are considered outliers and have not really been scientifically tested. And the idea that sugar is “poison” is just not accurate.

The film follows three morbidly obese young teenagers who struggle with their weight quite unsuccessfully. All are clearly from fairly low income families and the film skirts the issue of class and obesity even though it is clearly part of these youngster’s problems. One of the three ends up having lap band surgery, although as the surgeon clearly notes, such surgery is really not advisable for 14 year olds, and that the potential side effects might be worse than the possible weight loss outcome.

The film shows kids eating fast food and greasy, starchy school lunches and suggests that far too many school lunch programs have contracts with fast food suppliers like McDonalds and Pizza Hut. It really doesn’t show them consuming much that is sugar laden. And in fact, it is these greasy, starchy foods which are most likely to be at the root of their obesity.

Most of the speakers interviewed in the film are writers, politicians and pseudo-scientists like Mark Hyman and Lustig. We also hear from Michael Pollan (of course), food writer Mark Bittman, and pediatrician Harvey Karp. Nutritionist Marion Nestle is one of the few credible speakers, but most of the rest are just opinionators.

The film also denigrates research in the area as having been “paid for by food companies,” which shows a pretty poor understanding of how peer-reviewed science actually is carried out and checked.

Well-intentioned and produced though this film is, it does not really talk to many actual scientists who support its thesis. And it does get a number of things wrong: notably that the current generation’s life expectancy will be lower than their parents. As noted in the review in Science-Based Medicine the CDC projects continuing increases in life expectancy.

The film also claims that more people die of obesity than starvation, but this isn’t true either as Food Insight’s review points out. The WHO claims that 2.8 million people die from overweight and obesity but Oxfam estimates that over 8 million a year die from starvation.

The film also tries to make us believe that obesity isn’t caused by just too many calories, but by the sugar itself. However, this is one of Lustig’s off-the-wall ideas that isn’t supported by science. A calorie is a calorie, and too many of them will lead to obesity: it is that simple, and that difficult.

In fact, the whole idea that sugar causes obesity is wrong. Calories cause obesity, and obesity can lead to diabetes. Sugar is not a cause, but it is definitely part of the problem.

The film also groups diet soft drinks with sugary soft drinks and fruit juices as leading to obesity because it claims that diet sodas initiate a craving for sugar. This has been discredited by any number of papers. It ain’t so and they should know it.

The depressing part of this film is that it presents no hope and no solutions. One child had lap band surgery. Another family changed their eating habits to emphasize fresh foods, which the film called “sugar detox,” and indeed all of them lost weight while they cooked that way. And they regained it when they stopped! They class/income issue is not touched on, but none of these families have a lot of money, and cooking with fresh ingredients is much more expensive, and unlikely to be supported by their budgets long term.

The film, which seems overly long when sitting on hard chairs finally concludes, offering little positive outcomes, and led to a lively panel discussion.

Chef Michel Nischan’s Wholesome Wave is now active in 30 states, helping provide nourishing fresh food to low income areas, and Ceci Maher’s Person2Person provides both food and assistant to families in the Fairfield County area. They noted that local farmers’ markets now double the value of food stamps, and that the most recent Farm Bill provides $100 million in funding to help support this program.

Overall, this is a well-meaning if disorganized film, but it offers little that is positive and gets a lot wrong.

Originally published on Examiner.com on 12/13/14

The New York Times endorses acupuncture?

acupuncture The New York Times today had an editorial “by the editorial board,” asserting correctly that overuse of opioids for pain relief is a serious problem. They say that Doctors Will Play a Critical Role in the Opioid Epidemic. They cite Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy’s web site Turn the Tide and suggest that doctors need to look for pain relief without so much emphasis on opioids.

So far, so good. But the Times goes on to say that for back pain and surgical pain doctors have many other options, including, “physical therapy, anti-inflammatory drugs, acupuncture, exercise and so on.”

They even note that “A further problem is that some insurance plans do not cover alternative treatments like physical therapy and acupuncture…”

Well these are not the same thing at all. Physical therapy is well recognized by the medical profession as a significant contributor to patient’s well-being.

Acupuncture is the one that is “alternative.” And guess what”

Alternative medicine is made up of things we don’t know work and things we know don’t work.

Acupuncture is not an accepted medical treatment because there is no freaking evidence that it works! Mark Crislip has written about the failures of acupuncture studies in detail. And so has David Gorski.

They note that there is no evidence that it releases endorphins in a large number of cited studies, suggesting that it is essentially a placebo effect, or “the same as beer goggles.”

The explanation of acupuncture and its “meridians” has nothing to do with science based medicine and the New York Times editorial board or some of their writers must surely know this!

And the Australian group ScienceInMedicine asks the rhetorical question “Is there any place for acupuncture in 21^st century medicine?”

Following Betteridge’s Law for headlines, here is their conclusion after an extensive research review:

“Acupuncture has been studied for decades and the evidence that it can provide clinical benefits continues to be weak and inconsistent. There is no longer any justification for more studies. There is already enough evidence to confidently conclude that acupuncture doesn’t work. It is merely a theatrical placebo based on pre-scientific myths.”