Mutant Shrimp and Fish in Gulf of Mexico

From Fox News:  On April 20, 2010, the BP oil drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded and released 152 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.  During the cleanup, BP released at least 2 million gallons of chemical "dispersant" into the gulf to break up the floating oil.  The chemical dispersants released are solvents that are quite toxic in their own right.

Commercial fishers have since been discovering large numbers (hundreds of pounds) of eyeless shrimp and crabs and malformed fish in the gulf.  

SLAPP Suits, Oprah, and Pesticides

Picture by Todd Wiseman (The Texas Tribune)

When Oprah Winfrey said on her show in 1996 that "mad cow disease" had convinced her not to eat beef, she was sued by a group Texas cattlemen for $12 million in damages.  That suit is one of the most famous examples of what are known as SLAPP suits, which stands for "Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation".

According to a Texas Tribune article from 2010, the purpose of these lawsuits is not to win anything but . . . 

SLAPP plaintiffs use the court system to bury opponents in a crush of legal fees and paperwork of Bleak House proportions. They are not about winning damages. They usually don’t expect to be successful, and their targets often don’t have the money to defend the case. [For]corporations equipped with teams of lawyers and swollen legal budgets, the cost-benefit analysis is easy: Foot the expense of a lawsuit through whatever means available — usually a defamation or libel claim — and enjoy the benefit of intimidating current and future critics into silence.

Oprah won her suit after a six week trial and $1 million spent in legal fees, but she refuses to discuss the case to this day--even after Texas passed "Anti-SLAPP" legislation in 2011.

When 60 Minutes did a story in 1989 on the pesticide Alar, its use in apple growing, and its carcinogenic properties, apple farmers sued the show for . . .

Diet soda not making us fat

Evil?

Health related journalism makes me crazy.  It's so often filled with generalizations and inaccuracies and half-formed ideas that are presented as fact.  Nutrition and fitness related reporting is the worst.  Publishers of websites and magazines know that "the latest science secret to help you get thin!" is nearly the ultimate bait to get readers' eyes on their publications.  (There's only one other topic that works better).

Recent reports suggesting that diet soda could cause weight gain have always seemed questionable.  While I'm not a huge diet soda fan, I'm also not the only one to wonder if the correlation between diet soda and weight gain might not equal causation.  

Well, a ground breaking study (#sarcasm) by researchers at the University of North Carolina has answered the question.

FDA "orders" farmers to (volunteer to) stop antibiotics

Cow

From USA Today:


The FDA has issued a "final rule" asking farms to stop giving antibiotics to animals for the purpose of fattening them up.  The guideline is not a law, and the FDA is asking farming businesses to voluntarily comply.

They will gather data for the next three years, and then decide on further action at that point.  Well, that's that, then.

Click inside for a side note on how this story is being misreported in the media.