Wasn’t it a march against this kind of stuff last saturday?

[oakfarm]

One thing with sitting at cafes and write is that there’s a lot of babies and their moms on maternity leave at cafes. The other day I couldn’t help but to overhear two mothers. They were anti-vaccine. That’s old news, you already know what that’s about. The new thing I heard them say was that they disliked the standard vitamin D supplement given to babies. They gave the babies other supplements.

Of course they can’t trust midwives and doctors. What does “Big science” know about vitamins? The only one you can trust is some hippy who sells supplements online. All those babies given standard vitamin D supplement will get rakitis. Or maybe they didn’t know what they were talking about.

Comments

[plicease]

There were lots of pro-vaccine signs at the rally / march in DC. Didn't see any anti-vaxers, but they definitely are out there :(

[cactus_rs]

what the fuck can you have against vitamin D???? especially this far north. better not let them know all the milk and flour has been fortified with it as well I guess . . .

[wantedonvoyage]

True confession, I am fine with vaccines and fortified food, but GMOs make me nervous. There is a young guy in the States (Zac Koppelin) who I really admired for taking on the Louisiana school system for teaching creationism (Despite being a Christian I do not at all think the biblical creation story was meant to be taken literally) and was really dismayed when he started conflating the anti-GMO movement with vaxxers.

I'm less concerned about things done to improve crop hardiness than I am to adding things like Round-Up to seeds.

[cactus_rs]

The vitamin D situation here is added "post production" (so to speak), I think. So it's not even a GMO situation.

Honestly though, the bulk (or at least loudest portions) of the anti-GMO movement is full of people who know about as much science as the anti-vax people.

I think things adjacent to GMOs, or related to their implementation, like companies being able to patent seeds/living things????, the potential for ecosystem fuckery by way of "oop this plant spread outside its niche and destroyed a vital link in the food chain," and our reliance on crop monoculture, should be evaluated and really seriously considered for their effect on the environment and our food production. But the process of modifying organisms has been demonstrated to be safe, so that really needs to stop being a talking point.

Do you mean the so-called "round-up ready" seeds? Or something else?

[wantedonvoyage]

Yes I should probably know more about it and I do understand that a blanket ban on any kind of this work would be counter-intuitive. That's why I said "It makes me nervous" vs. going out marching about it, because I don't know enough to even have a strident opinion.

I think it could be the round-up ready seeds, yes. IIRC hey do something to the structure to make them more receptive to the glysophates?

I generally trust corporations about as far as I can throw them so even though the effects of round up are still in debate, I pretty much assume that "research" on either side has the outcome it was paid to have. And like you I worry about unintended consequences of the way we produce food.

[cactus_rs]

I don't know much about those off the top of my head (and I'm heading out the door for a run otherwise I would nerd out about this and get sucked down the Google hole). Here's a look at the literature on glysophates (though not the round-up ready seeds specifically): https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2017/03/16/glyphosate-dangerous-chemical-anti-gmo-bogeyman/

Allowing corporations to operate for maximum profit instead of minimum harm is dangerous no matter what the industry. I'm 100% with you on that.

[conuly]

There's some evidence that it's not as useful to the body as the sort we produce naturally... but if you don't have enough of it in the natural way, it's a useful supplement.

[stormsong]

Yeah, why is vitamin D bad?

EDIT: And hold up, isn't vitamin D supposed to prevent rickets?

???

[justphoenix]

*facepalm*

[matrixmann]

That's why there needs to be quality public education accessible for everyone.
'Cause propper biology classes kill this nonsense off by teaching each and everyone as a teen how their body works, evidenced by science.
Even if you don't remember everything of it as an adult, but at least you've got a vague imagine in your brain to compare to what all the ratcatchers and hocus pocus gurus tell you as nonsense to make a quick buck.