Abstract
In recent years, we have witnessed a decline in civility in the public arena when various socially sensitive issues are being presented. Those of us engaged in the publishing of scientific papers and in our comments on these papers, need to be cognizant of the social graces, courteous demeanor, and chivalry. Debates are essential to our learning and in being able to ferret out the essentials of various scientific issues that are of value. Because of the amount of time and effort connected with analyzing the complex problems and the years invested in such endeavors, we often resort to the behavior, that is, contentious and at times even quite insulting to our opponents during our defense. This is the part of human nature but as civilized human beings, we must strive to maintain the courtesy and a calm demeanor during such discussions and debates. I have yielded to such temptations myself but am striving to repent of my sins. The medical and scientific history should have taught us that in defending our ideas we learn and sometimes come to the realization that our paradigm or hypothesis is wrong, either in part or whole. Such debates allow us to fine tune our ideas and correct our errors in thinking, which are easily, consciously, or subconsciously sublimated by our enthusiasm. The glyphosate papers presented ideas that, while well supported by the scientific studies and logical conclusions, also contained some possible errors in its suppositions. Dr. Miguel Faria challenged some of these concepts and was met with some degree of derision by one of the authors. This editorial comment is in response to these issues.
Keywords: Dr. Faria, glyphosate, publishing civility
Dr. Miguel Faria has been a friend of mine for over 30 years. During that time, we have discussed many issues, and I have read his books and scholarly papers with intense interest. There are few who understand the human history, philosophy, moral history, and principles as well as Miguel. I have known him to be a man of impeccable integrity, honesty, virtue and who lives by the principles based on these virtues. His main purpose in writing his comments on this paper was to express his concerns with extreme environmentalism – mainly to caution against the mistake of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
I also agree with Miguel that the ad hominem attacks on his personal integrity were uncalled for, and Dr. Samsel's comments should have been limited to the scientific issues at hand. The concerns that Miguel expressed were not a defense of the Monsanto Company, but rather reasoned the personal arguments concerning the issues pertinent to the dilemma faced by the African populations, that is, how to increased crop yields in the face of existing conditions of the extreme poverty and unending wars that surrounds them daily.
Personally, I think that the main problems these populations face are a lack of irrigation technology and methods and, as stated, having a safe environment in which to build an agricultural community. I am a proponent of organic farming, that is, utilizing the methods that allowed our ancestors to feed our growing population for centuries. One of the major problems in America is we grow such a huge excess of the wrong kinds of food that we store tons of these crops in silos, only to be fed to cattle, turned into high fructose corn syrup, and to be shipped overseas.
I have studied the environmental toxicity for many years and I think, there is no question that we have reached a critical endpoint in tolerability to the toxicity to our population. We have filled the atmosphere and water with so many toxic substances, agrichemicals and industrial chemicals, that we are now seeing the mass health problems as a result. Recent reviews have shown that neurological conditions, especially neurodegenerative disorders, have increased drastically over the past three decades. Certain cancers are also increasing at a rapid rate, primarily lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and leukemia, all of which are strongly linked to the agrichemical exposure.
A number of studies have also found that a great number of these chemicals are now being detected in human fat and breast tissues, where they are known to accumulate. We cannot continue to ignore these findings. When Ifirst read Dr. Seneff and Samsel's paper, I was concerned as was Miguel, with the rather loose link they were making with so many human disorders. They seemed to ignore a great many other triggers to these diseases and that in many cases, we are seeing toxic synergy rather than a single toxin. The link to manganese as the primary toxic insult was of concern as well, but should not be ignored.
Humans are exposed to a great number of dietary substances and events that can impact health such as a diet high in sugar and oxidized polyunsaturated oils, exposure to excessive vaccinations, exposure to toxic metals (mercury, lead, tin, and cadmium), excessive stress, and internally generated toxins. We also know that a subset of individuals has impaired the detoxification mechanisms that can greatly increase one's sensitivity to toxic substances. In all such cases, the combination of exposure to the glyphosate, as well as other classes of agrichemicals, would greatly increase the toxicity risk.
Personally, I’m convinced that glyphosate and especially when combined with its adjuvants constitutes such a significant danger to the population that it should be a band until further independent testing can be done. As for the link to autism, I am less convinced. I have done a great deal of studies of autism spectrum disorders, and while some of the agrichemicals can increase the risk by acting as microglial activation agents, overall I think other factors predominate. The projections of the future rates of autism are purely speculative and of little value.
Dr. Samsel's remarks about hormesis as alluded to by Miguel were presented in a rather condescending manner. This is uncalled for. The hormesis is an established scientifically based mechanism. A great number of studies have shown that very small concentrations of a toxic substance can stimulate a defensive mechanism in cells and tissues such as glutathione production and membrane transport mechanisms that then allow the cell to tolerate much higher concentrations of the toxin. We see this in resistance to chemotherapy, so-called multidrug resistance.
Yet, for some toxic substances and in some individuals, hormesis is not operational. This is because some toxic substances operate by mechanisms that involve cell signaling that bypass detoxification mechanisms. In addition, some toxins can inactivate the protective systems by inhibiting the enzymes necessary for generating the protective molecules. For example, mercury can inactivate glutathione reductase necessary for functional glutathione activation and do so in very small concentrations. Some of these toxic substances are operating at nanomolar concentrations.
A subset of individuals ha inborn defects in detoxification systems and others develop them in association with disease states. This means that they will be infinitely more sensitive to the toxicity of these substances than will the healthy individual and have less hormetic defenses. We are finding that a much larger population lives with these defects in detoxification than previously thought.
As for the idea that “the dose makes the toxin,” this is true for some substances but for a growing list of toxic substances, this principle no longer holds true. Several studies have shown that very small concentrations of certain toxins can produce a significant toxicity, either generally or to specific tissues and organs. At these very small concentrations, the toxin is acting on specific cell signaling or membrane mechanisms that can disrupt the cell function and trigger apoptosis or other cellular disruptions. At higher concentrations, the toxin destroys the cell by necrosis, that is, we see two separate mechanisms of toxicity that are concentration dependent. We see this with both mercury and lead toxicity, for which there is no known safe level for either.
A good illustration of this newer toxicity principle was reported in the journal neurology about a decade or so ago. The case involved a couple that decided to free their house of bugs by spraying an insecticide around the house. The wife rapidly developed what appeared to be a case of far advanced Parkinson's disease. She was treated in hospital with the usual anti-Parkinson's medications and in about a month recovered sufficiently to go home. In the mean-time, the family scrubbed the house thoroughly in an effort to remove the insecticide. Upon entering the house, all of her Parkinsonian symptoms and signs returned and she required re-hospitalization. The couple decided to move out of the house. After leaving the hospital to their new home, she seemed to be doing well. Then she asked a family member to retrieve a blouse from her old home. Once she put on the blouse, all of her Parkinson's symptoms returned. Interestingly, the husband was never affected, despite having been exposed to the same level of insecticide.
The amount of insecticide on the blouse was incredibly small, yet it produced full-blown, advanced Parkinson's disease in this woman. It was surmised that she had a defect in her detoxification system within the substantia nigra/striatal system. Until this event, she was considered healthy.
Miguel also makes a very important point about environmental radicalism. Mainly, that one must approach the subject of environmental dangers linked with particular agents with right reason, logic and based on good science–all of which the authors of the glyphosate paper did. Yet, it is also critical that we always remain civil in our exchanges with our opponents and avoid ideological rigidity and acerbic attacks. My involvement with environmental issues has taught me that this mistake, ideological purity, affects both the right and the left. The right sees all the environmental issues as an attack on the capitalist system (the free market) and the left sees all the rejections of the environmental concerns as a defense of capitalist profit making.
It was the historian and social philosopher Richard Weaver who pointed out that historically, the first to be concerned with protecting the environment were the conservatives, as they saw the world as being created by God and that it was our role as good stewards to protect the environment. Only later did the left conscript environmental concerns as its sole property and concern. In my dealings with a lot of these environmental groups, I have come to learn that many are sincerely concerned about the environment and human health and they use good reason and scientific principles to voice their concerns. I have also come to know and work with many highly regarded scientists involved in such projects and respect their dedications and careful research. Almost, all hold leftist opinions. This includes several Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) scientists. My problem is not with their observations; it is with their solutions. They make a huge leap from recognizing a problem to a solution that in almost every case makes the problem worse. What I mean by this is that they propose a collectivist solution (socialism or greater governmental involvement) as the ultimate answer – as if we were ruled by angels.
A careful examination of this history will clearly show that business alone cannot produce the environmental disasters that have occurred in our time, – it requires the hand of government and the handmaiden of government and bureaucracy. In the capitalist system businesses, in general, respond to the wishes of the people – if the people are informed. The public, as it is the only source of funding, has absolute control over what business does. Only when they can depend on government relief (bailouts and special loans) can businesses ignore the public or they are able to hide the health dangers by using the media and government.
Government, on the other hand, can and does ignore the public's concerns at large by a number of mechanisms. The most important method it uses is bureaucracy. Bureaucracies are created under a pretense – cleaning up environmental waste dumps (such as the superfund) – and ends up a complicated, wealth consuming monstrosity that not only fails in its intended role (that bought it into existence), but it is able to protect and in many cases do protect the very industries that were causing the pollution problem to begin with. Because of the nature of bureaucracies, they eventually target the innocent individuals who are never involved in the original environmental problem. One of the characteristics of all bureaucracies is that soon the people's representatives (Congress) lose control and the bureaucracy comes to act as an independent government all its own. The economists and social critics, Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek contributed a number of scholarly studies on the problems of bureaucracies that are well worth studying.
The ideological left, with its hatred of capitalism, uses every environmental issue, real or imagined, to attack and call for the abandonment of the free enterprise system. While many members of these radical environmental groups are completely sincere and truly are driven by a concern for health, the leaders are far left ideologues using the issue for nefarious purposes – mainly attacking the capitalism and promoting the collectivism.
Miguel is correct when he says that despite its many problems, the free enterprise system is the most productive economic system, the world has ever known. Only the free market protects and encourages the individual creativity, expansion of wealth, and the protection of private property, the essential element in individual freedom. Before capitalism, 90% of the public lived in abject poverty and millions starved and died of preventable diseases every year. It was the free market system that led to an end of this institutionalization of poverty and unleashed the creative spirit of millions of individuals. The main weakness in this system is that it also requires the individual moral behavior, discipline, hard work, and respect for the environment, all of which has been under attack in this modern world for a number of reasons.
The social critic, historian, and conservative scholar Russell Kirk makes the point that the true conservative is not concerned with ideology; he is concerned with a society based on moral truth, civility, god-centered religion, and right reason. The progress comes by careful debate, an appreciation of the value of tradition and respect for individuals as well as community. The change must come only after all aspects of the change have been carefully considered and all sides have had an opportunity to debate the issues involved in a civil and open manner. One should also have built into such plans and escape clause that can reverse the program should things go awry. The environmental radicals demand an immediate action without the debate and as a result, we end up with the mess, we now have the EPA, the FDA, and other bureaucratic entities.
One need, only listen to the shrill cries over “global warming” (now renamed “climate change”) coming from the environmental left. Several of their leaders have called for an end of all debate and even suggestions that “climate change deniers” are imprisoned. Every invective has been hurled at dissenters, no matter their credentials and expertise in this area of research, such as comparing them to “holocaust deniers,” referring to them as psychologically impaired, unscientific, and murders of millions. In one such case, it was announced by the proponents of one side of an issue that no further research was needed – to them, the issue had been decided. This defies, one of the cardinal principles of science – no issue is settled until all of the scientific evidence has been exhausted, – we are nowhere near that point.
One characteristic of today's world is that all issues are subjected to the ideological litmus tests. Those who do independent thinking, no matter how carefully conducted, are denied academic positions, fired from their positions, their writings are rejected by major journals, they are no longer invited as speakers and they are shunned and treated as pariahs among their colleagues. This has to end. Von Mises has noted that in a socialist society, the greatest enemy is the independent thinker – such a person is a danger to all ideologically rigid systems. Come, let us reason together.