A Quick RoundUp

A Quick RoundUp

   No pun intended here (well, okay, a little bit of one).  So many issues from earlier postings have gotten updated data or criticisms that I felt it was time to let you decide which (if any) you wanted to  pursue.  So, let's start with Monsanto, the maker of Round Up (glyphosate).  Popular Science did a somewhat favorable piece on genetically modified crops, mentioning the many plus qualities of some of the resulting research, and while not directly mentioning the large producers such as Monsanto, the readers seemed to feel that their report was sub-par for this general science-type magazine, causing the editors to reply: We were not all all surprised that "Core Truths," our July feature about genetically modified organisms (GMOs), garnered a large response--nor were we shocked that much of it was critical.  The breakdown of comments they received was thus: Popular Science is a puppet for Monsanto (27%), You call that science?! (23%), You downplayed the potential dangers (17%), You glossed over important details (13%), No, really, GMOs do cause disease (10%), The story presented the risks in a balanced light (10%)...(a quick glimpse of just how many of our crops contain GMOs (not all being from Monsanto) was featured in a graph in an article from Bloomberg Businessweek).

   Despite what the editors of Popular Science said in commenting back, it had to show them at a bit of a disconnect with its readers.  The editors likely felt that they had simply presented the facts as they saw them.  And if that were the case, then it must have frustrated them as to how to how much of their reading public appeared to have a different view (at least from the letters, this represented 90% of its readers).

   It was much the same criticism with the rising usage of nanoparticles which I wrote about sometime earlier.  Fortune featured a piece showing a powdered sugar donut, just one of the many products using such particles (many of these are so small that they are able to cross the blood-brain barriers, something even few medicines can do...as one example, the article put it this way:  If the width of a human hair were the size of the Empire State Building, a nanoparticle would be an ant.  We're talking small.  And one of the featured particles they mentioned was that of titanium dioxide, used in many sunscreens, food and  other products.  All told, nanoparticles are now used in over ten THOUSAND different products (as the article mentions in one caption:  Eight out of 10 of the leading beauty brands have been found to contain nanparticles that act as "penetration enhancers." ...and just as a reminder, cosmetics have no federal regulations or enforcement about what chemicals or materials contain). 

   The article goes on to elaborate on this burgeoning field of such particles and the changes scientists are noticing when a metal or chemical that is common and relatively harmless when used in a larger state, appears to change properties at the nano-scale: Exactly how an individual nanoparticle becomes toxic—what it does to a cell—is hard to predict and often varies particle to particle.  There are, however, a few properties common to a range of particles that appear to be responsible for a lot of toxicity.   Positively charged particles, for example, are more likely to disrupt cell membranes, because the membranes are very slightly negatively charged.  Nano-size rare-earth oxides, Xia (assistant medical professor at UCLA's nanotechnology lab) explains, are “even wackier” and enter the lysosome (an enzyme-carrier organelle within animal cells) and change shape from spherical to “sea-urchin-like.”  Xia smiles while describing what occurs when nanoparticles enter cells, his eyes wide with wonder over the tiny strangeness of it all.  “Weird things happen that we never even thought would be possible,” he says. 

    What might be even more concerning, hoever, is the appearance of nanoparticles in pesticides (see the earlier posting on bees): To illustrate what can happen to the toxicity of nanoparticles in the environment, Keller (chemist and environmental scientist at the University of California at Santa Barbara) likes to tell a story involving pesticides.  Several large companies, DuPont among them, explains Keller, have started using nano-capsules to deliver small amounts of pesticide over time.  It’s “a smart way to do it,” Keller says, safer and more targeted, as well as less wasteful.  But like a traditional pesticide, a lot of this nano-cide gets washed away, and wastewater-treatment plants can’t handle nanoparticles.  So the pesticide ends up in sludge, which is rebranded a “bio-solid.”  It’s then put back onto land, where it works its way into soil and attacks nitrogen-fixing bacteria, a crucial part of plant growth.  If we fully knew where nano-pesticides were being used, we might stop the cycle or alter it and save both the soil and the crops.  Nanoparticles are still considered a trade secret by the U.S. government and thus, little research is known or at least, able to be released.

   It's obviously difficult to just keep up with the changes, especially concerning such complicated subjects as GMOs and nanoparticles even as these particular items enter our foods and yes, our bodies and lungs.  But our bodies are amazing adapters to change, as one recent piece in Popular Science wrote that to try and explain how the human retina can follow movement, any human attempt to describe how it works, even with, "today’s cutting-edge modeling software, 100 people would have to work 24/7 for half a million years." 

   Still, it was my feeling that these two particular updates were important ones (there are many more updates on other subjects, of course) and the articles mentioned make for interesting reading.  Perhaps it's just easier to slather away that lotion or eat that avocado without being able to see what's inside or what was used in its production, a situation we have now and one being vigorously maintained in Congress by lobbyists.  But then, one also wonders why the big companies manufacturing these products, or Congress for that matter, does NOT want us to be able to make our own decisions, to decide to move on to another product if we wish.  Seems simple enough.  But perhaps, as with the nanoparticles, we are simply too small to matter, even as we change.