Illumination 2.0

Several times a year I find myself exiting the Florida’s Turnpike at Yeehaw Junction and heading south.  When I get to the small town of Okeechobee I take a left and head down Route 98 through Florida’s extensive agricultural backyard.  Flanked by Lake Okeechobee on the west and the affluent cities of the Atlantic coast off to the east, the small towns nestled in this sliver of land support vibrant production of sweet corn, cattle, lettuce, and sugarcane. Cane-derived sugar ends up in many cupboards as table sugar, and also is found in many consumer products.   As reported on NPR , candy companies are caving in to consumer demands that the sugar they consume does not come from a GMO plant.  To the scientist this is curious, because table sugar coming from sugarcane (which never was a GMO) is chemically identical to table sugar from GMO sources like sugar beets—it is sucrose.   Sugarcane and sugar beets are partners in pleasure, together satisfying America’s sweet tooth.

Last week I was spending a lot of time on flights, so I picked a few podcasts outside of my normal queue to fill my head with new ideas.  I read on Twitter about Take Out , a podcast hosted by Robyn O'Brien and Ashley Koff RD, so decided to give it a listen. One of the episodes features Carey Gillam.  Ms. Gillam works for US-RTK, the activist organization claiming to be looking for crimes and collusion between Big Ag and university scientists, while they really are a well-financed front group for Organic Consumer Association that is out to facilitate the libeling of scientists that teach about evidence-based food technology. While serving on the activist payroll, she writes for several outlets trashing scientists and technology, ironically, calling them paid shills.  She's been especially harsh on me, reiterating especially Eric Lipton's lies from his article.  But that will be fixed with time.  Let's see what's up here...  The Take Out podcast makes cl

She has my emails, I held up my end of the deal in full transparency and compliance. It is in her court. Will she do the right thing?  One follower over on Facebook does not think so, and provided the most eloquent statement about the situation. I'm done now. Let's focus on science. 

Public records requests are an important tool for journalists and other investigators to obtain information to check public employees' for episodes of wrongdoing.  Today there are two alarming trends.  1. Politicians with deep pockets and plenty of attorneys find ways to make sure the records are not made public. 2. Scientists that do not have deep pockets and attorneys are seeing abuse of the system for elaborate witch hunts, expeditions that find no evidence of wrongdoing, yet result in potentially career-damaging manufactured narratives.  In other words, when you teach a scientific topic or do research that some find objectionable, your records can be used to harm your career. It has been seen by researchers in climate, vaccines, animal research, genetic engineering, and most recently, fisheries .   Last year my institution received a Public Records Request from Vani Hari, The Food Babe.  It was indeed curious, and it didn't take long to realize that this was re

This week's Talking Biotech Podcast features Dr. Jayson Lusk. We discuss his new book, Unnaturally Delicious and cover a huge range of topics from what "natural" means to GMO labeling.

I was not going to post any of the emails sent to Vani Hari, but I changed my mind.  Here is the first one.  It shows how screwed up this process is and how wide my personal correspondences are turned over to others, just because we had to search, at taxpayer expense, and turn over all emails with the word "babe". This is number 1 of 2707.  The BABE 2014 Conference looks like a hoot. Bioavailability and Bioequivalence! Email 2 of 2707 was from a woman I never met. She sent me an unsolicited email looking for a position in my lab.  In her CV she shows that her MS advisor's name, and his first name is "Hari".  Her CV, her interest in my program, is now part of an email sweep that will be turned over to someone hostile to science.  These are the first two.  Your dollars at work to satisfy nuisance, vanity requests-- because it is easier than discussing the science. 

IMPORTANT.  I was reluctant to make this information public because I do not want anyone to harass, intimidate, troll, or give any grief to Ms. Hari.  That's her game.   Those who condemn her tactics are not to use them.  We must define the high road.   I provide the information in this blog because I want everyone to understand the ongoing abuse of public records laws at incredible public expense.  I want everyone to see the scope of innocent people that will be potentially affected if/when she makes this information public. There are consequences of handing over 2707 pages of private correspondence to someone that has a goal to destroy you-- because you dared to challenge her with science and evidence.  Share the story.  Don't flame her or her followers.  Share it with science journalists, science enthusiasts. Let others know that this is happening, but NO RETALIATION, NO ABUSIVE COMMENTS, please LET HER CONTINUE TO SINK ON HER OWN. Today at 9AM EST over 257 MB of