Fake Social Media Accounts

Be wary of fake Facebook accounts asking for friendship. There usually are tell-tale signs that it is fake, especially when all in combination. 
1. Low friend count (usually under 50)
2. Lives in another part of the world, but seems to have most of their friends from your area.
3. Their job description does not match their friends list
4. Has a lack of posts (usually because it's only a day old account).
5. The name is little strange and doesn't match their profile pic
6. Their profile pic of themselves is often of another person.

Few know that you can do a google image search by uploading the pic of their profile. I do this by first saving their pic and then going to google. Click "images" in the upper right hand corner. This brings you to another google search box. In the box in the centre click on the camera icon. Then click "upload an image" and then wait for results.

An example today for me was someone calling themselves Tom Jones who lives in Miami Florida (Originally from New York New York). He studied business administration at Harvard. 11 of his 20 friends are from Windsor, Ontario. When I put his pic into google search I get Chris Patton stunt artist. 

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2794184/

Friend request denied and FB account reported.

Is Tumeric as effective as 14 medicines?

A friend asked me about an article that was suggesting Tumeric was as effective as 14 medicines. It also made a lot of other claims.

My response:

Stuff like this (and other things claiming such and such an item is 10,000 times stronger than such and such a drug) have circulated the internet for years. It's a bunch of hype. While there is often some grain of truth in the stories, it's surrounded by so much bullshit that it's often hard for most to sort that out.

The article makes an appeal to longevity and ancient wisdom citing Ayurvedic Medicine. Ayurvedic medicine is considered psuedoscientific. It's at least 5000 years old. Of course just because something has been around for a long time doesn't mean it's good. In medicine we have to know if it works. This just does not fit the bill. It is part herbalism and part religion. Some parts of the herbalism do have a bit of medicinal value, but when compared to modern medical practices they fall incredibly short.

It is also prone to contamination. Since you are dealing with herbs, you cannot get the pure substances that are actually medicinal. You end up with a lot of filler material, which is ironic as the article advises to avoid medicine with filler. Ironically a study that looked at ayurvedic medicine sold on the internet contained high levels of lead, mercury and arsenic. ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2755247/ )

The article states that Tumeric has some anti-inflammation and anti-biotic properties. This is true. The amount though that you would have to consume would probably be a lot and that can cause some nasty side effects like vomiting, indigestion, liver problems and much more. Also most of the studies have been in vitro (in a petri dish) and in animals. Very few clinical studies on humans have been done. While its properties are interesting and worth looking into, making unsubstantiated claims about its effectiveness is unethical and dangerous in some cases as it can cause some people to believe misleading information and forego live-saving proven treatments.

“According to Ayurveda there are seven layers of tissues: plasma, blood, muscles, fat, bones, nervous tissue and reproductive tissue. Each tissue is nourished in sequential order based on how well food is digested, absorbed and assimilated. If you want the benefits of turmeric to touch all your tissues, a capsule just won’t cut it.”
This is just complete nonsense based on a belief system and not based on fact.

The article also states to make sure your spices are free of chemicals. This is complete idiocy as everything is a chemical! You can't consume chemical-free food. It doesn't exist.
Check out my apple meme from 3 years ago https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151729476902547&set=a.254588942546.149996.581407546&type=3&theater

To find a more indepth look at this article's claim, check out this article by my friend Harriet Hall
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/turmeric-tasty-in-curry-questionable-as-medicine/

eeeeh What's Up Doc?

So here's a quick one for the end of the year. I had a friend ask me this and I thought I'd share the answer with everyone.

The question was: A friend of this friend had a friend (did you follow that? wink emoticon ) tell her that she was told by someone at a cancer clinic that baby carrots had chlorine added to make them taste better (and that it made them carcinogenic). Was this true?

The quick answer: NO

The longer answer: First off, you have to realize that there is the telephone game happening here, so the information travelling along the line of people upon repetition is likely to have been changed somehow from it's original form. If this person at a cancer clinic was a worker, then they should be reprimanded if they did indeed give this faulty information.

You'll notice that baby carrots are bright orange and yes they taste better (subjectively to many people). This is because they have been bred to be so. These carrots have been bred to have a higher sugar content, and thus are more attractive to many people's taste buds.

There have been memes in the past suggesting that the white coating that happens to those baby carrots over time, is chlorine coming out. They have called it bleaching. This is simply not the case. That is just from the carrot dehydrating. A baby carrot's entire surface has been cut and exposed. If you took a regular carrot and cut it and put it in the fridge, the same white-blushing would occur on the cut surface.

Baby carrots (along with many other fresh cut ready to eat vegetables) are washed with chlorinated water to reduce contamination from microbes. Excess chlorine is then washed away with potable water and centrifugal drier. According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, this is an accepted practice: Section 3.4.1 http://www.inspection.gc.ca/food/fresh-fruits-and-vegetables/food-safety/minimally-processed-ready-to-eat-fruit-and-vegetab/eng/1413673339210/1413673388676?chap=4#s10c4

So baby carrots are perfectly safe to eat, do not have chlorine added to make them taste better and do not cause cancer. If someone is trying to tell you that, then maybe they got their information from a looney quack.

What John claims about GMOs

On Facebook a person from the USA, we will call him John, had claimed that there are many problems with GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) specifically referring to those in foods we consume. John claimed a variety of things opposing GM foods. These included:
1. "GMOs are unsafe. A rat study showed that they cause cancer."
2. "GMOs are banned in most other countries."
3. "All the pro-GMO studies are paid for by Monsanto."
4. " I have breakfast at a local restaurant several times a week with about 2 dozen farmers. Many have moved to Monsanto's seeds cause they have no other choice"

I will tackle each of these points and provide information as to why these positions are in error or flawed.

First, John mentions the infamous Seralini study to suggest as proof of the danger of GMOs. The first problem to note is that even if this turned out to be true, it would not mean that GMOs are unsafe. It would only mean that this particular one would be. GMOs are varied and all utilize different aspects and methodology. You can think of GMOs as tools. If you found a screwdriver unsafe, it wouldn't mean all screwdrivers are unsafe and most definitely it would not mean all tools are unsafe.

The Seralini study is concerned with the possible toxicity of Roundup herbicide and Roundup ready corn. The original 2012 study was retracted (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512005637 )due to various criticisms such as, but not limited to: Small sample size; ethics (letting the animals with tumours exist in such a state for an extended period of time); and the particular kind of rat used is naturally prone to tumours. The retracted study has since been republished by a predatory, not noteworthy and not respected journal(http://www.enveurope.com/content/26/1/14) amid much criticismagain(http://retractionwatch.com/2014/06/26/republished-seralini-gmo-rat-study-was-not-peer-reviewed-says-editor/).Suffice to say, using this study to suggest safety concerns of GMOs is highly problematic.

The next claim is that GMOs are banned in most countries. Before I provide proof thatthis is not exactly true, I'd like to point out a flaw in this type of thinking (which I will liken to an appeal to popularity logical fallacy http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-popularity.html ).  As we know, governments don't always act in a rational manner. Thusit can be reasoned that, if something is banned, it does notnecessarily relate to whether it is safe or not. What truly mattersis the scientific evidence of safety and the utilization of thescientific method (which includes peer review) as the gold standard.

So do most countries ban GMOs? In a word, no. Of course it's a little more complex then that. Some countries, yes, do ban outright. But many may allow consumption and imports but do not allow domestic cultivation. Some just require labeling of products containing traces of GMOs. Some only require labeling for foods that are directly consumed, but not for cattle that consume GMOs. You can see from this map (http://gmoanswers.com/global-adoption-gm-crops?gclid=CM3LoPjqi70CFbFFMgod5xoAmQ) that many countries do allow for the consumption of GMOs.

Thirdly, John claims that all pro-GMO studies are paid for by Monsanto. This is quite easy to debunk as Monsanto is not the only biotech company producing GMOs.  Other companies include DuPont, Bayer, BASF, Pioneer, Syngenta, Dowand and many more. The assumption that only Monsanto would pay for research is ludicrous. Even going further, it can be shown here (http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Ge-crops-safety-pub-list-1.xls) and also here ( http://genera.biofortified.org/viewall.php ) totaling over 2000 studies showing no harm to humans or animals.More than half of those studies, it should be noted, are alsoindependent studies.

Lastly John claims that he talks every week to 24 farmers in his township in which they claim they have no choice but to use Monsanto seeds. Now I can't directly debunk this with facts as no evidence was presented by John of the supposed claims of the farmers. So to handle this, I'll take a logical/rational approach. First off, if it's true they have no choice but to use Monsanto seeds, that doesn't mean they are bullied to do so. It could just be a choice of words to relay the notion that they have no choice in regards to better crops but again, without evidence I am just making a huge assumption here. Either way it'shard to draw a conclusion and that leaves me with doubt.

A more stronger case against the claims of John in regards to the farmers claims is that 24 farmers from one area are by no means representative of 2.11 million farms across the USA and the 70 million hectares of those growing GM crops (2014 report http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2012/Preliminary_Report/Highlights.pdf)(http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/agri_biotechnology/gmo_planting/506.usa_cultivation_gm_plants_2013.html).  Just like the Seralini study mentioned above, it is too small a sample size. Also this is an anecdote of an anecdote. I am sure lots of information is missing, exaggerated or even completely changed.Without evidence though, we can only point out the flaws with the lack of information.

So in conclusion,John's claims about these particular problems with GMOs are clearly in error or inaccurate. The links I provided and the sound reasoning are more than enough to prove that. It is my opinion that John may be a victim of his own confirmation bias. He probably will only listen to positions that support his and will dismiss and forget evidence to the contrary. The evidence presented shows that GMOs are studied well and are GRAS (generally recognized as safe) by the scientific community.