As I outlined in the last entry, sometimes the facts take you to a place you don’t want to go. Obviously the first thing to do is make sure you have your facts in order. But if the facts are truly “facts” rather than assertions, assumptions, or faulty conclusions, then you have a problem, and a decision to make. Do you accept that you now have to change your position, or do you decide to ignore the facts?
Interestingly, it isn’t necessarily a clear choice. Here’s a couple of examples.
Vaccines and autism.
Jenny McCarthy (among many others) believes that there is a correlation between vaccines (or more specifically, thimerosol, the preservative used for decades in vaccines) and autism; the contention is that the significant upswing in the number of autistic children today is caused (or at least worsened) by the vaccines given kids. There was a study that was published in 1998 in a respected medical journal by a Dr. Andrew Wakefield that apparently established this cause-and-effect relationship. So today many people have begun refusing to have their kids vaccinated for fear that they will develop autism as a result of exposure to thimerosol. These vaccines, by the way, are the reason that polio, whooping cough, chicken pox and other diseases that killed hundreds of thousands of kids in our past, are virtually nonexistent today. Or would be, except for this choice by a significant number of parents to not vaccinate their kids, which is making it possible that some of these terrible disease may resurface.
But here’s the thing: Wakefield’s study was unable to be replicated; even by him. His work was carefully reviewed by the journal that published his paper, which determined that he falsified the data. The study was withdrawn, he was exposed as a fraud and his license to practice medicine was revoked. Additional studies have shown no connection at all between exposure to thimerosol and autism; other models for the cause of autism are emerging. Yet the belief persists that vaccines cause autism. And many of the practitioners in my industry are strongly supportive of the anti-vaccination position. (Aside: my company takes no official position on the vaccination issue, but when the question comes up in my workshops I lay out the facts as we have them and let the audience decide.)
GMO (genetically modified organisms) in our food supply.
Scientists have figured out how to take genes from one organism and splice them into another. One of the first commercialized and perhaps best-known examples of this involves an herbicide called Roundup (glyphosate). A gene-spliced corn called “Roundup Ready” has been developed that is not affected by glyphosate, so it will grow in the presence of the herbicide. Whether glyphosate is as harmful as it is purported to be is not our topic here, but instead the gene-spliced corn. Lots of people in my area of business are concerned that the process of gene-splicing may have unintended (meaning: bad) consequences somewhere down the road.
Another modified food: there is a fish that resists freezing even when the water around it freezes, because of a specific gene found in its DNA. Scientists have taken that gene and spliced it into strawberries, making the strawberries freeze-resistant. The non-GMO crowd (again, largely in my area of business) is very concerned about foods like this, calling them “Frankenfoods” and trying to get them banned. Most farmers are against these bans, or even of labeling the foods as GMO for obvious economic reasons: they can get higher crop yields using GMO plants. (The irony here is that virtually all the food we eat has been genetically modified; it’s just been done over many years by grafting or selective breeding, rather than in a laboratory.)
But the science is fairly clear that GMO foods are safe. Study after study has shown no detectable difference in the food quality, nutrient content, use in the human body, or any other known variable in GMO foods when compared to non-GMO foods. I suppose it would be more accurate to say “there has never been any indication that GMO foods are any different from non-GMO foods in how they are metabolized,” since it’s a fairly new area in research. But the anti-GMO position then takes advantage of the inherent logical impossibility of proving GMO foods could never cause a problem. And while technically that statement is true, again, it’s a logical impossibility to prove.
So we have two situations where the facts seem clear: there is no evidence that autism is linked to vaccinations, or that genetically-modified foods are harmful. But my particular branch of health care insists on believing the opposite in spite of the lack of evidence.
I must also point out that, while there may not be any scientific support for avoiding GMO ingredients, the perception on the part of the marketplace that GMO ingredients are bad may still drive the decision to use all non-GMO ingredients. In point of fact that is exactly what my company is doing.
But it is a decision based on market demand and not scientific facts.
