Organic Production, Conventional Agriculture, Health Anxiety, and Social Media Disinformation

Hi everybody, and welcome to this week's Talking Biotech podcast. We've talked about different subjects in biotech over the years, and one of the places where biotech still isn't allowed is in the organic food space. And that's despite the fact that it actually could do a lot of good stuff there. And, and we haven't had a lot of conversations about what is the difference between organic and non-organic or conventional cultivation. The reason this is important is because we're seeing more and more reference to this in the influencer space. And I've noticed a rash of of reports come up lately that really target conventional farming and pesticides and genetic engineering in ways that are really not supportive of agriculture in general. And this is happening at a time when we're seeing limited opportunities for food access, where we now know not to eat lettuce. And there's many things that are happening, which are driving these decisions. And most of it is fear-based. A lot of the old standby of you're going to eat pesticides, you're going to get cancer. So we really need to have this conversation again and remind people of what these different production techniques are and what their strengths and limitations are. And to do this, I have my former co-host of— well, actually, I was the co-host. You were the host of Science Facts and Fallacies podcast, who he still does today with Dr. Liza Larkwood. This is Cameron English. So welcome to the podcast, Cameron.

Hey, Kevin, thank you so much for having me. Got the band back together. It's very exciting. I'm glad to see you still doing this after how many episodes you got of this podcast now?

500 and something. 504. I don't know, somewhere like that.

That's impressive.

But it's in the 12th year of almost weekly podcasts, and it's getting more and more challenging to find guests. And it's, you know, which is surprising because we're in this boom of biotech, but everybody's keeping their cards a little close to their chest, you know, and they're not as excited to put a lot of stuff out there, especially talking about technology. Everybody wants to do an infomercial. Here's my peptide, you know. But it is really nice to talk to you. It kind of feels like old times. And, you know, that's good. That's really good. And I still appreciate Science Facts and Fallacies. It's still very good. I still catch with you and Liza every week and just about every week. So you should check that out, everybody. And so anyway, um, so, you know, let's talk about this. The last one you had was kind of my inspiration because you, uh, spoke a lot about Rhonda Patrick, who had been making some, you know, kind of somewhat science-based claims that kind of, uh, went a little bit off the track. And it really was a reminder that we need to revisit this topic. So could you give us a quick summary of What she said and why it was weird.

Sure. So I know you're familiar with the frustration of finding topics to discuss for a podcast because you have a constant stream that needs to come out, right? You have an audience that wants to hear what you're talking about. And so a little while back, I was going through Twitter looking for topics, and the algorithm fed me this little clip from Dr. Patrick's podcast, which I think is called Found My Fitness. This whole brand she started up like over, over a decade ago. Now where she talks primarily about nutrition and, and fitness and those kind of topics. And that's her expertise. And in my opinion, when she talks about those things, she's, she's a pretty solid resource. Um, she's been on Joe Rogan several times. Um, that's where I first found out about her. And I remember listening to her talk, and she clearly understands the topics that are within her field. Um, but in this clip, she was responding to some of the criticism that would come from people like us. Um, about the, the, the overhyped benefits of switching to organic food. And in particular, she's responding to, um, the claim that switching to organic is not gonna spare you exposure to pesticides. And this is a common debate. I mean, going back, we were just talking about this, Kevin. Uh, you know, when I, you know, jumped into science journalism, I don't know, 15 years ago, this was like the fight was, it was like this and vaccines and evolution. That's what everyone talked about. And one of the, One of the back and forth arguments was, you know, go organic, reduce your pesticide exposure, and that's going to reduce your risk of cancer. And all of these, you know, I would just call them tropes because they're not substantiated, but they're having a resurgence. And that's what she was talking about. And I decided to respond to it with Dr. Lockwood, who's a toxicologist who knows this topic very, very well, because she was bringing up abstracts. So in this clip, she's bringing up, you know, Little, little abstract. It's a classic tactic. And she says, you know, according to this study, according to this meta-analysis, you know, if you switch to organic produce, you're gonna— there's less glyphosate metabolite in your urine. And I'm like, here we go, the greatest hits. Now that's what I call silliness. Or what, you know, it just— so I saw it and the clip, what struck me is the clip had only been online for like 2 hours, but when I saw it and it had over 160,000 views.

Wow. Geez.

So it just exploded. And what that tells me is X, the algorithm, is feeding people this, right? This is hot right now. People are talking about this coming out of COVID People are inherently skeptical of, you know, what they consider the consensus or mainstream science. Maybe we can talk about that in a little bit. I find it confusing that people are mad about a public health issue, and so now they're taking it out on agriculture. I don't understand that one bit, but Nevertheless, she's making these claims, you know, there's pesticide metabolites in your urine. There's a higher risk of cancer if you are exposed to synthetic pesticides. Just, we can go down the list and address these as much, in as much detail as you want to. But I just saw this and I said, you know, let's keep talking about it. I get we're going to go back to this until people, you know, stop falling for this. It's very frustrating. And I know you have young children. And once I had kids, this stuff became very personal to me because, no, it wasn't just an internet debate. Because now when I go to the grocery store, sometimes the stuff I buy my kids, it's all organic certified, which means it's an extra $2 or $3 for no benefit. And so I find that frustrating. And I find it frustrating that there are new parents that are being bamboozled because they get on Instagram, they get on X, and they go, well, I don't want to poison my children. I guess I better, you know, fork up the extra $5 for the USDA. Organic certified lettuce, you know. So I see that and I just— it gets me frustrated, especially when it comes from someone like Dr. Patrick who should know better.

Yeah, and I share your frustration there because my biggest concern is access. And I think that— and not for me, I'm saying for the people who are really— who can barely afford the food that's there right now, for them to pass on especially things like fruits and vegetables because they can't afford organic or because like where I live, there's no organic section. You know, you get the stuff that at the grocery store by me that, you know, is either seconds or some stuff that was going to go bad in a large grocery store that goes down to this other one. You know, that you can get— everything is on the edge of going bad. So if you buy a bag of potatoes there, you got to eat potatoes for a few days because otherwise they end up sprouting. I mean, it's in And I can drive, I can drive to the good grocery store. But people in that town, 75% of them are on public assistance and they end up having to buy the lowest end stuff. And if they choose to be, well, if they're afraid of what's being presented in this kind of rhetoric, they're saying, well, we don't want fruits and vegetables, which is the most important thing they can be eating. And even when you were discussing this the other day on your show, I think she mentioned something like carrots and other stuff that has glyphosate, but you— there's very little that glyphosate is used on. It's used on field corn, soybeans, sugar beets, and canola. And if, if there's any residual left over, it's exceedingly small amounts. And then if— and that would be used like in the high fructose corn syrup. It might be there in Cornstarch maybe, but really, really small amounts. And then they're finding it in the urine, which is where you want it, you know. And, and, and, and if you go outside and pee on the grass, it isn't like you write your name with your pee and you can see where the grass is dead. Its levels are so small they don't even work as an herbicide anymore, let alone a personicide. So, right, you know, so those are my big concerns.

Yeah, you know, I, I think people with expertise who have an audience have an obligation to tell the truth. Everyone has that obligation, right? No one should be lying. Or if, or if you don't understand a topic, then just don't talk about it, right? I've never publicly discussed particle physics because I don't know anything about it, right? So I don't pontificate about it. I don't, you know what I mean? And a lot of that comes from hanging out with people like you and Liza. You're right. You like, you know more, you probably forgot more about molecular biology Than I'll ever know, and so I hang out with you guys and I learn things and I share that on the platforms that I have. And I, and I, I'm frustrated by the fact that a lot of what people discuss today—it's driven by the desire for virality. It's driven by what's trending on X or on Instagram, and that leads people—even people with credentials—to say things that are just wrong. And and I, I mentioned this in our discussion or the discussion that I had with Liza—is that what I'm willing to bet she did, and I'd love to have a conversation with her. If she'd be open to it. But I think what she did is she was looking at what people were talking about online, and she went into PubMed and she found some papers that seemed to validate the concerns that she was seeing, or that were responding to the criticisms that she wanted to address. Yeah. And it looked conclusive to her. Now, in reality, and to her credit, she mentioned that some of this research wasn't very good, that it was associational, or that it was an animal model or whatever. Um, but she did that at the end, right? She didn't talk about the quality of the research up front, which I think was telling. That implies to me that she understands this better than most people. And then she put the qualifications in there after the message is on the front end, right? You know, I think that's, um, that's troubling. And that's the, that's the biggest problem, right? She went into, basically she went into a field she does not understand. And she started talking about the research, not realizing that, or I hope not realizing that she is promoting a very fringe view that anyone that deals with agriculture or regulatory science knows, uh, knows better.

Yeah. And it's an interesting point because so many folks are getting out of their lane, um, for the question of virality, all that stuff. Um, it's important to know what your lane is, and it's also important to know as an observer of these things, what someone's lane is. And you see more and more folks operating outside of their expertise or outside of their domain of expertise, as it said. And but when we're looking at the question of food and its safety, I think we're seeing more and more examples of this, which is where that we're vilifying specific types of food. Or specific methods of production. I never really see much about the GMO question as much as I used to. I see that if you go on Bioengineered Food Awareness, that's where all the craziness happens. And that seems to be pretty much sponsored by external interests. So that admin is in Morocco and who knows?

Always a good sign.

Yeah, I think his name is Eugenie. You know, I have no idea. He's But it seems like they're— that they have some interest in this. But when you look at other topics, like even seedlessness is getting— like, don't eat seedless watermelons because the seeds are about the life force. And, you know, you see all these claims that are being made online that people who don't know better are falling for, and that it's skewing their shopping decisions. Have you seen any other ones that particularly resonate with you that you know, really ring a bell in the last, you know, chunk of time?

There's so many goofy ones, you know, that I, I, and they're not just about food. They're the, they're crazy questions and they tend to be connected, right? So it's like, it's, you don't get one bad grape, you get a whole bad bunch of bad grapes, right? So you'll see people say, you know, switch to organic and also sunscreen causes cancer. And, and I'm like, what? Like, that makes no sense. I see that all the time. I see the ultra-processed food shtick all the time, right? And it's foolish because there's just a bit of truth in it, right? Like, if you subsist on Doritos, you're going to have a bad time, right? You are going to, at minimum, you're going to be obese and your risk for diabetes is higher. Your risk for heart disease is higher. There's truth in that. But what people focus on is, oh, see, it's ultra-processed. It's all these ingredients that you can't pronounce. And those are uber scary. Now, if you look at the peer-reviewed literature on this, you can, you can see very clearly there's, there's almost no correlation between the nutrient content of a food and its processing. Right. And there's arbitrary standards in here. So, for example, a product like milk is, is highly processed. If you look at all the steps it goes through to get from the cow to your grocery store, there's a lot that has to happen and it has to be done with precision and has to be done very carefully. But everyone rightly recognizes that milk is highly nutritious, and you can give it to your kids. You're supposed to give it to your kids at an early age, you know. And on the flip side, I can take an entirely natural, in quotes, natural food like almonds. I love almonds. I'll take a bag of almonds, and if I'm not careful, I can polish that thing off, man. And that's that's hundreds and hundreds of calories. And and and in other words, so there's no there there, right? It's it's just bogus. So I in answer to your question, I see. Things that don't matter being used as metrics for health and nutrition. So ultra-processed food, pesticide exposure, whatever. That's what I'm seeing is people coming up with these substitute standards that no scientist really uses unless they're trying to, you know, go viral on social media.

Yeah. And I've noticed that this has become a bigger problem. I've also seen a lot of targeted attacks on specific entities. And I don't know how much you've seen the ones on Driscoll's, but there were about 4 reports that came out the same time on Instagram and the Twitters and everything else that said, oh, look at the dangers in Driscoll strawberries. Another one said that there were 373 pesticides used under— I don't think there are that many. And then, and then if you do the math, that strawberry is on the plant from time of pollination to harvest is probably 25 days. And so 373 pesticides would be spraying like 20 a day. Wow. Which no farmer in the— on this planet is going to do. Um, you couldn't afford it, you know, on a strawberry thing that's $2 a quart. Um, it's, it's just crazy, the statements they're making. And then, uh, and then another one came out saying, well, look at the cancer rates in Santa Cruz County compared to others around it. And another one came out there. All these different claims came out at exactly the same time. One which says, oh, we found 12 pesticide residues on strawberries. They tested one carton out of one store and compared it to organic where they didn't see any, but they didn't test for any organic ones because you got to use something on strawberries. I mean, whether you're copper or sulfur or whatever, spinosad, you're using something. And so this was just this huge campaign that went out against targeting Driscoll's in particular. But in general, there's no, there's no there there. But it was on— you had Instagram Reels of people taking a quart of strawberries and dumping it down a garbage disposal. And, you know, here you're taking food when so many people can't afford strawberries, or if they might be able to afford it, don't have access to it in their town. And, you know, and here you are dumping them down a garbage disposal. So, you know, it's that kind of stuff that really grinds my gears.

Well, what's fascinating too, and this is not a new point, right? We're just going in circles here, I guess, because we have to. The same, the same people who complain about chemicals on their food, they're using microphones. What are these microphones made out of, Kevin? Right. These are made out of plastic. Yeah. You know, your entire existence is made possible by chemistry, right? You're exposed to these constantly. People get in their cars and drive on the freeway, orders of magnitude more dangerous than eating strawberries treated with a synthetic insecticide. They drink booze. They'll go from, don't eat these strawberries, to, check out my organic whiskey, or whatever. I see the craziest things.

Yeah.

And I think it betrays— in some people, it betrays a cynicism because they do know better. And then in their audience, I think it just betrays a lack of understanding of risk, right? Like, intuitively, we understand risk-benefit when it comes to certain things. But when it comes to these issues where our fear, where our emotions are provoked, that goes right out the window. And we go, well, yeah, of course, you know, of course the strawberries are dangerous. I can't eat the strawberries. I guess I better eat the strawberry Starburst instead. You know, it's just— It's just, it's just wild to me.

Yeah. Yeah. Very similar thought. And I love the one with the, you know, just the, the guy who tells me that we have to stop doing all this pesticide stuff and return to the ways of the Amish. And I realize you're telling me this on Twitter on your Amish computer. And, you know, the other big hypocrisy, you mentioned alcohol, which, you know, I'm a fan of. But they— if that someone will tell me that they're going to avoid strawberry, which might have a— well, let's, let's go a better example that— what was it that they tested that had glyphosate in it recently? I didn't even keep track.

Bread.

Yeah, the bread test in Florida, which was kind of bogus. One test, no idea what was there, but they find 72 parts per billion. So 72 seconds in 31.7 years on, on Dave's Killer Bread, which I never ate because it was really expensive. And plus my wife bakes everything. So, but then, and, but they're saying we have to avoid that bread, but then they'll have a glass of wine.

Yeah.

So, so 72 parts per billion of a, of a debatable Class 2A, maybe probable carcinogen at super high rates when you even know, whatever, or 130 million parts per billion of wine. Yeah. Of alcohol, of ethyl alcohol, which is a class 1 carcinogen that we know causes cancer. And it goes back to your point about risk. We're very comfortable with that glass of wine, but freaked out about Dave's Killer Bread, which says killer right in the name.

Right. Coincidence? I think not.

Yeah. I've had Martin's Lethal Bagels before. Oh man, be careful of those. But that just frames that same concept of risk that we're just not sure about what— that people are so chemophobic that we let our true understanding of the risk get away from us. And I know it's how we behave. You know, we're afraid of shark attacking us in the ocean, but you drove to the beach.

Yes.

You know, after a glass of wine, you know. And so this is the the risk ecosystem that people misinterpret. So, you know, that's just another thought.

I was flying to work cross-country just last week. And again, after having kids, I got scared of flying. It just— I don't know where it came from. But, but like on takeoff now, I'm like, this thing could just fall out of the sky and it's all over. You know what I mean? That thought started to occur to me. Even though air transportation, it's one of the safest ways to travel. If you just look at the number of airplanes that go out of every airport in the United States every day, every half hour, it's remarkably safe.

Yeah.

And nevertheless, even me, right? On takeoff, I get scared because I'm not used to being 35,000 feet in the air. It's just intuitively your human mind goes like, I'm not supposed to be here, right? So it doesn't— I guess what I'm saying is, statistically speaking, it doesn't matter, right? Like, sometimes you just can't process that your risk is very low. One other anecdote I love to bring up in these instances is a webinar I was watching from some, you know, Mothers Against Chemicals or, you know, one of those NGOs. And the woman starts the webinar and she goes, all right, everyone, this is going to be a really tough discussion about dangerous industrial chemicals, so pour yourself a glass of wine. And I just You know, I slap my head and I'm not— I'm not there to participate. And they wouldn't let me even if I wanted to. But I just— it just strikes me that even the people that are leading this, they just don't grasp or they're just brilliantly cynical. It's one of the two. Neither one is acceptable. But that's just what we're dealing with.

Yeah, that's where— I mean, my, my, my airbag light has been flashing for about 7 years in my truck. And, you know, and what am I going to do, go get it repaired? You know, I mean, come on. You know, but because it's like, I won't get in a wreck, you know, But it really does show. And the big problem for me too is just when we start adding a price tag to the perception of risk. And we go back to our first topic, this idea of organic versus conventional. And I know that I'm a lot softer on this topic than you are because I know a lot of organic farmers. I appreciate what they do. I see them doing what they're doing and coming to a farmer's market with a great product with one hand tied behind their back. And I kind of am a little bit in awe of this Because I can see, I know from doing this conventionally how much it sucks to try to farm in Florida and all the things we have to battle in terms of pests and pathogens. And I can only imagine the folks who are doing this organically and how much more labor it is, how much more scouting you have to do, how much more preemptive treatment you must do. And I just see how much work goes into it. And they put a product that is on the table that is as beautiful as ours, if not better. And they charge a little more for it, and I think that's rightfully appropriate. But what bothers me is this whole idea of the halo that goes along with it in terms of safety. Because if you compare my product versus their product, theirs took a lot more effort to make. They use very different inputs. Potentially. I use a lot of organic inputs too, but at the end of the day, someone saying that my stuff is poison and theirs is safe is really the thing that bothers me. So, you know, any thoughts on that angle?

Yeah, um, well, a few things come to mind. So the first is that the people that I really have a problem with, they fall into a category, um, that's often called organic at any cost. And I learned that term from a great website called AgDaily that I— that people should visit if you want to understand agriculture. I think you've written for them on occasion too, KF.

Sure. Yeah.

Yeah, great website. It's just good for understanding these kinds of topics. Um, but those are the folks I have a problem with, right? They see organic— it almost has a religious connotation for them, and it's this grand struggle against corporations and capitalism. And you have to, you know, this is a David Werth versus Goliath battle. And you gotta, you gotta, you know, those are the folks that I have a problem with. I actually don't have a problem with organic food or organic agriculture. I think, as you just said, and as I alluded to at the top, you know, when I have to go buy something and I don't have a choice, right? When the, when the food companies are so scared of a public backlash that they slap a USDA label or a Non-GMO Project label on everything, and my grocery bill is inflated, that's a problem. Now, I've been blessed. I'm not struggling financially. I can afford groceries, not a king or anything, but I live comfortably. I'm grateful for that. But as you said, there's a lot of people that aren't in that situation. And that's what I object to, right? It's when Environmental Working Group comes out every spring and they say, your blueberries have these many strawberry— or excuse me, these many pesticides on them. Excuse me. Excuse me, dad brain. That's what bugs me. It's the false claims that are used to deceive people, right? So, if people want to buy organic, that's excellent. I'm in California. We've got all kinds of organic agriculture. I don't have a problem with it. It's the same thing with vinyl records. I started collecting vinyl. The records today sound really, really good, but they don't sound better than Spotify. They just don't, right? The technology for digital music, it's incredible. The quality of audio is, is unparalleled. Nevertheless, I still like to buy vinyl because it's a very tactile experience, you know, taking the record out of the sleeve and dropping it on and hearing the needle scratch. And it's— there's something to that experience. It's entirely subjective. I'm not going to pretend that it sounds better or that, you know, I'm getting smarter because I'm listening to, to, you know, analog audio, you know, like No, no, that's true, but it's just the experience and I enjoy that. And I don't mind spending $20 or $30. And actually it's often cheaper, but I don't mind spending a little extra money to own a physical record, even though I could listen to the same album a billion times on Spotify, right? It's that experience. And I think it's the same thing with organic. If people want to buy it, if you want to support a local grower who maybe you're just friends with, right? You appreciate what they do. I'm fine with that. It's just the deception that you primarily see online that I'm bothered by.

No, perfect. That's a great explanation. Yeah. I mean, I buy what looks good and what I want to pay for, and if I can support a local farm, that's totally cool. And there's the ones that, you know, I know some people who are— I just love the stuff they make and they do a beautiful job here, you know? So, well, let's take a break here. We'll come back on the other side of the break. We're speaking with Cameron English, who's a journalist for the— well, Give me all your places you write for right now. It's still ACSH or—

Yeah, I'm the executive vice president at the American Council on Science and Health, and I do a podcast for them called the Science Dispatch. And I also do the Facts and Fallacies podcast that Kevin mentioned earlier through the Genetic Literacy Project.

Yeah, but you guys got to take my picture off of that.

I know. I got to hit up iTunes. You're right. You're right. Thank you.

It's been like— it's only been like 6 years since I've been on there, but it's But I do occasionally show up there. But it's kind of funny because I listen to it and I see my picture on there. My and my son looks at the phone and goes, "Dada." No, no, it's not Dada. It's Dr. Lockwood. So we'll be back with the Talking Biotech Podcast in just a moment. Podcast. We're speaking with Cameron English. He's the associate vice president. What was it? Associate vice president.

Executive Vice President.

Executive Vice President at the American Council for Science and Health, and also just a very prominent writer and journalist who does a lot of work in the area of science meeting health and society and technology. And one of the things that, you know, another place I really noticed a difference is that people used to beat up on agriculture all the time. And it was mostly big ag, it was Monsanto, it was all that stuff. But now that Monsanto's been gone for 8 years, And, and they're really, and the labeling question is out of the public eye that everybody got this bioengineered label that no one understands and no one cares about. So, the total non-issue that agriculture in general, just kind of all the genetic engineering arguments kind of slid off to the side. So did a lot of my speaking gigs. But agriculture still is a punching bag. And what's going on post-COVID, from your vantage point, with what exactly is going on there? Like, who's causing the trouble? And why are we biting the hand that feeds?

Yeah, quite literally, huh? I think what happens is that people had— and we've talked about this a little bit— I think people have some reasonable complaints about how the pandemic was handled. You know, how, how, how policy was communicated, how the vaccines were promoted. There was some hypocrisy. And I think people translated their justified complaints in those settings to anything science-related is, is, you know, not to be trusted. Right. So, you know, I, I didn't like the COVID vaccine and therefore Driscoll strawberries are bad, right? We just made this leap to, you know, anyone with a PhD at a university is a bad person, unless of course they're trying to sell me a water filter or they're trying to sell me a multivitamin, then they're trustworthy. But if they're part of the mainstream or the consensus, whatever, then I'm going to not only ignore what they say but actively attack their credibility, and I'm going to call them evil on social media. And, I find that most frustrating because they're just not related at all. And I think what people think they're doing is they're attacking quote unquote big ag and they're, they're attacking big food. And what you do when you promote these anti-chemical arguments online, you're hurting the farmer, right? Like Bayer's going to survive. Syngenta is going to survive. These are, these are enormous companies. They make lots of different products. They're not— they're probably not going to go anywhere, right? But when you say the strawberries at the grocery store are contaminated, and if you feed them to your children, their risk of cancer is going to go up by a clinically significant percentage, you're harming the people that grow those products. And farmers, their margins are razor thin, you know what I mean? It's incredible. As you were talking about with organic growers, and it's true with conventional too, it's really difficult work. And it's very expensive. The machinery you need, the chemistry you need, the skills you have to accumulate over years, over decades, it's extensive. I mean, like most people, you go to work in an office or you go to work in a job and you get on-the-job training, but you don't have to learn the same skillset that growers do. And those are the people that are most directly harmed by these attacks, right? Because you can measurably affect people's willingness to buy a perfectly nutritious, delicious piece of fruit or vegetable, you know? And that, that bugs me. It just, it's just really frustrating that, that out of ignorance you would attack people who have nothing to do with what you're mad about. And in fact, they probably agree with you on quite a bit, you know what I mean? They probably share your frustration with some of what's going on in the academy, but nevertheless, they're the punching bag. For, for your frustration. And that's, that's outrageous, frankly.

Oh, and when you take out Driscoll's, so let's just use that as an example. Driscoll's is not Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta, right? It's not a big ag company, though it's a significantly large company. They're, they are not part of the big ag complex. Now, if you manage to have a successful campaign against Driscoll's, and you can cut their market share and change the way people are eating their product, let's say you affect to the point where they don't do it anymore. They're farming on very expensive land in California. How— who do you think is going to step into that market? Is it going to be, you know, Rhonda and Dave's strawberry farm, or, you know, smaller producer? Or is it going to be the Seminis, Baers, big BASF? Are they going to be the strawberry folks who are gonna see that niche and capitalize on it and buy Driscoll's IP strawberry lines and sell them under the Bayer banner or the Syngenta banner. You know, that's— so it's, if you want to force consolidation, further consolidation, which I don't think is a good idea, and I've always been against. If you don't want to have further consolidation, then quit trashing the folks who are trying to, trying to do this. And just to add to that point, this is a Driscoll's farm. They contract with growers who are good at doing what they do. And those farmers grow, uh, uh, Driscoll's berries and they do it a certain way with certain genetics. Driscoll's is contracting the farmers who grow them with the pesticides that Driscoll's approves, with the frequency that they approve it, with the, um, amount of water and fertilizer and methods that go into those berries and the genetics that Driscoll's uses. So all of that is, is done by contract. And so when you say we are gonna stop eating Driscoll's berries, or you target them or say they're toxic. You're not hurting— you may affect the big company, but you're really hitting that family farm because they're the ones who have actually been contracting by the bigger company to produce the products in that way, which is safe.

We saw the same thing when, um, the new breeding techniques started to come online, when we started to see their applications in agriculture. You know, a lot of people don't realize that some of those new seed traits that were developed with CRISPR and these other technologies, those were startups that developed those tools. And the way they get to market is they're sold to bigger companies. And so when the— they haven't succeeded, I think, as well as they wanted, which is good. But when the NGOs started attacking the new breeding techniques, I don't know if they knew or not, but you're attacking smaller firms, right? They come up with great ideas, but they have a small staff of scientists and a couple of administrators. They're very small companies.

Yeah.

And so, when you attack their lifeblood, you are leaving the market to the bigger firms. Now, the bigger firms are good. I don't have a problem with Bayer, Syngenta. They're great companies. Sorry, that hurts people's feelings, right? But they last because they make good products. But if your concern is consolidation or monopoly or oligopoly or whatever term you want to use or economic fascism, whatever scary boogeyman, if that's what you're concerned about, then you need to stop attacking what these smaller companies produce. And that's what you see everywhere. It's very perverse. And I don't think the people on Twitter that are piling onto this and retweeting and, you know, calling people corporate shills or whatever, I don't think you realize that that's what you're contributing to.

Yeah. So, so, you know, with all this said, we— so we're talking about the problem of how disinformation— basically saying how disinformation that's present inside the food space is limiting access, raising prices, Causing confusion and derision around what food is safe. All this is really the problem that we've framed. What's the solution? How do we fix it?

You know, I wish there was an easy answer that we could just snap our fingers and say, ta-da! I don't think that's going to happen. I think the biggest thing is communication, right? Doing shows like this or like, you know, Rhonda Patrick's Audience is what, 50 times mine probably? I don't know. But I saw that and I went, well, I'm going to respond to that. And I've got a bona fide expert who knows more about this than her. And we're going to talk about this and we're going to put out clips, right? So if you have some expertise, if you can string together a sentence and stare into a camera, then you should be talking about this because that's how this, this changes, right? You need to get the message in front of a lot of people. And That's the key, right? You, like, you can influence an audience. Most people are not, they're not ideologically dug in on this. And if you can communicate with them, enough of them, you can influence how they think about these in the right way. And, and again, we're not saying, Kevin, you've never said this, I've never said this, you believe exactly what I say and don't ask any questions, right? You know, I, like, I've made a comment about Dr. Patrick searching through PubMed. You should do that. Go through PubMed and actually try to read the paper, right? Don't read the abstract and stop when you find the sentence that validates your assumption. Read the whole paper and ask questions about it critically. Think a little bit, right? If you're on X or you're on Instagram and you see a video and it gets you riled up and your blood starts boiling, take a deep breath and go, wait a minute, is this true? Right? Right before you hit retweet or before you say you're a corporate whore or whatever, you know. Just think, and my feelings aren't hurt. I monetize our haters, right? If you make fun of us, we will profit from your mockery. So you can keep doing that. It's fine. But I think that's where the ultimate answer is, right? You have to influence a mass audience. And I think sadly, Kevin, and I don't want this to be the case, but I think people might have to feel a little bit of pain before they go, oh, This is a problem, right? Like, and I don't want to see this. I'm not, I'm not any, in any way advocating for this, but I really think you're gonna, you're gonna see the people, you're gonna have to see the people either promoting this or, or falling for it suffer a little bit before they realize it. And I think that's tragic because, you know, I don't want to see kids suffer. We see the same thing with the anti-vaccine rhetoric. I saw Um, a physician who we've had on our show recently, he works, um, it's a respiratory specialist, and he sees people in his clinic, they buy into the ivermectin plus this or that drug, and they forego, um, oncology, right? They, they forego cancer treatment.

Yeah.

And they're, they're at the end of the line, right? It's too late to do anything. It's, it's a last-ditch effort. And he's like, you know, there's not much I can do for you. And that's the tragedy. Right. But I think it's going to— hopefully it doesn't come to that, but it's going to take people seeing higher prices at the grocery store and it's going to take people experiencing a little bit of difficulty. And I hope, I pray that when that comes, they go, they start looking around and they go, what the hell happened here? And then we'll be standing here going, come on back. It's okay. Right. Here's what you need to know. Here's why this happened. Right. That you can trace this line very carefully. You scare the hell out of people.

Right.

And there's less food to go around. Prices are higher. You know, you, you tell people not to take medicine, there's more sickness, you know, so that— so again, hopefully it doesn't come to that, but I think it just might, you know, so we'll see.

You know, it's about rebuilding trust in institutions, and that's been so shattered since COVID for reasons we've discussed before. You know, during COVID we were, we were talking to each other a lot then. And also the question of all how it's eroded because of the current administration and the way that that's come about. really broken trust in institutions, and that's been very deliberate. And to start to rebuild the institutions around science, the trust in science, by talking about the good things that science does, which is the point of this podcast. And when you say, tell people, you know, stick your face in a camera and tell the story, I think there's a lot to this, and for 2 reasons. One is that folks who have no clue Or who are making up inflammatory statements get big views. It gets shared because it appeals to the reptile brain that your food is poisoned and your kids are going to die. So share, share, share, share, share, right? When Folta comes on and says, "Hey everybody, don't worry about it. It's perfectly safe. It's 18 parts per billion." Like that's 18 billion parts per million too many. You know, and then and that's dead end, right? Right, right. But that's dead end. And so the fearful message translates. To more views. And so what it means is, is that those of us who are advocates for science, who are talking about the ways to build trust in science, need to be more active in establishing that trust and be more active in those spaces. And there's a lot more of us than there are of them, but there's a lot more of them than us in the spaces where people are getting information. And so what it means is, if you're listening to a podcast and you hear something that is marginally clever or interesting, Share it through your social media networks, and we don't do that automatically. We're not so good at sharing other people's stuff, and and I try to be. You know, I amplify you. I amplify Liza. I amplify Andrea Love. I amplify all. I mean, all the folks who I follow, who I really think are doing a great job with messaging, and so it's a question of us amplifying each other more, or even participating in the space and adding your two cents. the conversation to engender more trust. So all of these things are really important. And I think hopefully we will have more people in this space having these really important conversations. So.

Well said.

As always. So where do people find you these days?

I'm on X @CamJEnglish. The organization is @ACSHorg. You can go to the website acsh.org. We're very active on X. We're putting out videos almost weekly. We do weekly podcasts. We've got all kinds of written content. Also on Instagram @ACSHScience. We're doing a new podcast series called The Moms Takeover where we get a scientist who's a mom and then we have our video reporter. We have a science teacher, a public high school science teacher, and they come together and they're, for summer especially, they're talking about sunscreen, sun safety, drowning, Nutrition, all of these topics that young mothers and young parents are being exposed to. So if you have questions about that, we're tackling that. I'd love for people to benefit from that content as well.

Very nice. And I've been really active on Instagram. I've been doing— it took me a while to kind of get used to it and figure out how to do it, but now I can kind of hammer those things out pretty quick. So 3 minutes goes out really fast. I had one a couple of weeks ago get 83,000 downloads, so that's good.

Yeah.

I've been covering a lot of topics from mRNA vaccines to vaccines for cattle, for genetic engineering, and, you know, all the usual suspects. But, you know, staying in my lane, I've been a little bit out of my lane in that I still can read a scientific paper and understand it if it's a little bit out of my lane. But a lot of stuff on pseudoscience and cancer and how, like you were mentioning, you know, about what What you were talking about, how pseudoscience and how alternative medicine is really wreaking a death toll. And with all the beautiful new things that are happening with cancer therapies, which are really showing promise, the number of people who are trashing the good stuff and asking for some ivermectin and bendazole, despite it being maybe the crappiest paper I've ever read. Yeah. I show up my classes. We talk about it. I go, we're going to talk about this today. Here's how you're being deceived, and students can't believe it anyway. But so check it out at Kevin Folta on Instagram. I do a little bit still on X Twitter, but not too much, and a little bit over on Blue Sky. But you know that's pretty limited just in and of itself. But Instagram seems to be the medium these days, and of course the talking biotech. Podcast. I still got to do Vern Blazik.

You got to break it out, man. It's so funny. I get a kick out of it anyway.

Well, so that's the ultimate answer here, folks. Continue to engage and play a role in the public discussion and help clarify these issues. Remember, you're not talking to the idiot online who's making inflammatory statements and throwing, throwing, throwing bombs. What you're trying to do is talk to the people who don't know who to trust, and you have to try to be that person. So thanks a lot to Cam English, and we'll talk to you again next week.

Bye.