Foresters and farmers want to combat health and science disinformation too
Insights from my presentation at the Oregonians for Food and Shelter Annual Conference
Hi everyone - it’s been a week. I hope everyone is practicing self-care as best you can. I am going to write about the election outcome and some implications of some of the people close to Trump being given positions of power (e.g. RFK Jr., Mark Hyman, the Means’ siblings) but I have been traveling since Sunday for non-work work. (Science communication work through my organization ImmunoLogic - not my full-time job in biotech)
I’m currently in Oregon as an invited speaker at the Oregonians for Food and Shelter Annual Conference. This is a conference that brings together local farmers, foresters, state government officials, regulators, scientists, and others that are involved in agriculture and natural resources.
It is an incredibly diverse audience. Rural farmers and foresters, suburban policy experts, academic scientists (Oregon State University is very active in ag and forestry research), and more. And yes, that means Democrats and Republicans in the same room talking about science and community issues - and because of that, it was a fascinating experience. So I want to share some of the data I presented but also some of the feedback and discussions that I had throughout the day.
Oregon farmers and foresters are impacted by science disinformation
If you haven’t read my previous newsletters on misinformation about organic food, pesticides, & genetic engineering, I encourage you to do so.
When these topics are demonized, it’s usually by people who don’t have a direct connection to these topics: influencers like Vani Hari, charlatans who make money off lawsuits like RFK Jr., anti-science activist groups like Moms Across America, the Environmental Working Group, etc.
Those spreading disinformation aren’t people who understand the science or who understand how farms or natural resources operate. They are also people who are coming from a place of privilege, and are very far removed from the fact that farms produce our foods, and natural resources produce our housing (and other materials).
They also don’t understand that there’s an incredible amount of science involved in these industries, and that the farmers and foresters live where they work. That they’re involved community members, and care about the land that they use and exist on. Beyond that, there are incredible layers of safety guardrails and regulations to ensure that what is being used to grow these crops and trees aren’t impacting watersheds, ecology, and the planet. Most of the talks yesterday discussed those exact topics.
The disconnect we see when biomedical scientists are accused of poisoning people with vaccines and medications is the same disconnect when people claim farmers are poisoning people with pesticides.
Why would farmers and foresters produce food and lumber they also eat and use that is harmful? They wouldn’t.
These people live where they work. They know the watershed that feeds their land. They certainly wouldn’t want to harm their families or their communities. So we need to approach our critical thinking about these topics with this in mind.
Fear-based messaging about pesticides and modern agriculture tools cause harm.
In Oregon, health activists have fallen prey for the false belief that organic food is better: for your health, the farmers, and the environment. As a result, there is loud and public outcry about pesticide use - but only conventional pesticide use.
Remember: organic farming uses pesticides - many of which are less effective, have worse ecological impacts, and can be more harmful to the farmers who apply them.
But these same misconceptions have impacted the berry industry in Oregon - a state which produces significant percentages of our national supply of blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, and marionberries.
Public push to have organic (or even pesticide-free) berries leads to reduced yields, more land use needed, and more expensive and labor-intensive methods of controlling things that want to eat our foods.
I know the question some of you might ask: why do we need to use pesticides at all?
Well, because these plants we find tasty are also tasty to other organisms. And the rich nutrients in the soil are rich for invasive plants (weeds) too. So if we want to produce food for people, we have to control the organisms that will destroy those foods. That means fungal pathogens, insects, weeds, even viruses and bacteria.
On organic blueberry farms in Oregon, chemicals like elemental sulfur and copper sulfate are used as fungicides. Conventional blueberry farms use fungicides like mancozeb (a combination of 2 dithiocarbamates: maneb and zineb).
In order to control fungal pathogens on blueberry crops, these chemicals - whether in organic or conventional farming - need to be applied periodically at specific concentrations in order to protect the crops.
Ironically, copper sulfate needs to be applied more frequently and at higher concentrations to effectively control fungal pathogens compared to mancozeb. It is also at least 15-times more toxic to mammals.
Copper sulfate is applied at a rate of 1-4 lbs of active ingredient per acre of blueberry crop. It has a 50% lethal dose (LD50) of 300 milligrams/kilogram (mg/kg) of body weight (LD50 is a common toxicological measurement of chemical safety, which I’ve discussed previously).
Mancozeb is applied at a rate of 1.5-3 lbs of active ingredient per acre of blueberry crop. It has an LD50 of 8,000 mg/kg - which means that you can be exposed to much higher doses of mancozeb before a risk of toxicity compared to copper sulfate. In fact, copper sulfate is roughly 26-times more toxic than the synthetic mancozeb.
If you’ve believed that organic pesticides are safer because they’re natural, that is the appeal to nature fallacy. Lots of natural substances can be harmful at low doses, and lots of synthetic substances can be safe at high doses.
But the story doesn’t end there. Because copper sulfate is also less effective at controlling fungal pathogens, it needs to be applied more frequently during a crop season. Often, it needs to be applied 3-6 times per season. In contrast, mancozeb only needs to be applied 2-3 times per season.
That means that cumulative application of mancozeb is lower, the overall exposure is lower, and it is a much safer chemical for both the farmers and the consumers.
And - mancozeb has less ecological impacts than copper sulfate, particularly when looking at the cumulative application of each throughout a growing season. Copper sulfate - while used as an organic farming pesticide - is an inorganic chemical (don’t get me started on this) - but it does not biodegrade in the environment readily. That means it can accumulate in groundwater and the environment long term and can be toxic to fish, humans, and other species as well.
On top of that, organic blueberry farms have yield reductions by 30-40% compared to conventional counterparts.
So: farmers can’t grow as much food on the same land, they have to use less effective and more harmful pesticides in greater quantities, which also increases their costs as well. Plus, organic blueberries have no health or nutrition benefits to you.
The demand for organic foods is solely based on misinformation that they are superior, when the science does not demonstrate that.
Anti-biotechnology rhetoric also harms farmers and foresters.
In Oregon, farmers are banned from planting GE crops in Jackson and Josephine counties - where they grow crops like sugar beets and alfalfa. Sugar beets are used to make sugar (sucrose, table sugar), and alfalfa is grown primarily for animal feed.
The US has approved genetically engineered versions of these crops that are herbicide-tolerant. That means that if farmers need to treat their fields before planted or at early emergence, they can use a broad-spectrum herbicide to target invasive weeds that would strangle crops, but it won’t harm the crops themselves.
One of the herbicides this has allowed farmers to use is glyphosate, which has been vilified for 30 years, even though it is one of the most extensively tested and safest pesticides used. Glyphosate interferes with an enzyme (EPSPS) that plants have that allows them to synthesize amino acids needed to make proteins (because plants don’t eat food like we do, so they need to make their own amino acids).
All plants have EPSPS. Interestingly, a bacterial version of the EPSPS enzyme isn’t impacted by glyphosate. Scientists swapped out the plant version for the bacterial version in order to create glyphosate-tolerant plants. What this means is that these crops can now be grown in the presence of one herbicide, glyphosate, which has broad-spectrum impact on invasive weeds, but the crop plants won’t be harmed.
The development of these tools have been game-changers for farmers: it means they’ve been able to halt the use of more harmful herbicides that often need to be used in combination in order to effectively control weeds.
Often, you hear claims that “glyphosate use is skyrocketing” - which, sure, glyphosate use HAS increased. But they leave out the other half: that the use of OTHER herbicides has plummeted.
Farmers have been able to eliminate the use of other herbicides that pose greater risk and would need to be used in combination.
Glyphosate has replaced other herbicides like Alachlor, Metolachlor, Fluazifop, and Cyanizine because of the development of GE crops that can be grown in the presence of glyphosate. While glyphosate use has increased, other herbicides have decreased. What that means is that glyphosate has replaced other herbicides, so farmers aren’t just applying glyphosate for fun, they’re doing it to protect crop yields.
Glyphosate is SAFER for farmers and the planet than these alternatives.
So while misinformation runs rampant because of organizations like Moms Across America, Environmental Working Group, Consumer Reports, and even the American Academy of Pediatrics, glyphosate has substantially lower toxicity than other conventional herbicides AND chemicals used as herbicides in organic farming (YES, organic farming STILL uses pesticides. NO, they are not inherently better).
So if your objection to glyphosate is because of concern for farmers, I can assure you, they would much rather use lower toxicity glyphosate than some of these alternatives. Which is why they are doing that.
RFK Jr. led the charge on demonizing glyphosate and agriculture biotechnology.
Yesterday, I intentionally didn’t call out names or specific political parties, because I knew the audience at this conference ran the gamut: rural conservative Republican family farmers to urban liberal Democrat researchers. So when I opened the Q&A session at the end of my talk, I was taken aback by one of the first questions I got, which came from a potato farmer: “what are your thoughts and concerns about RFK Jr. being installed in the upcoming administration?”
And it underscored the common theme that everyone has when it comes to combating science misinformation: the bad actors don’t discriminate.
RFK Jr. fabricated and profited off anti-agricultural disinformation.
RFK Jr. has demonized public health interventions like vaccines and fluoride, but he’s also demonized agricultural science like the development of GE crops and pesticides like glyphosate.
Did you know that RFK Jr. was actually the orchestrator behind many of the lawsuits alleging links between glyphosate and cancer? That’s right. He was a primary driver into the widespread adoption of this belief, when there is actually no causal evidence to support any relationship between glyphosate and negative health outcomes, even with over 40 years of data?
Just to be clear: glyphosate is one of the safest herbicides that are used in order to ensure farmers can grow foods to feed the planet. Over 20 safety and expert scientific agencies globally have come to the same conclusion. (read more here, here, here, and here).
Ironically, residential homeowners use glyphosate to indiscriminately kill weeds at far higher concentrations than farmers use to selectively control weeds. But that point wouldn’t play well with his audience.
But lawsuits are lucrative. And RFK Jr. leveraged the fear about glyphosate into broader fear about GMOs.
Why are farmers and foresters worried about him in the upcoming administration even while many of them are Republicans?
RFK Jr. has undermined the implementation and adoption of GMO crops that benefit farmers and could improve health outcomes. RFK Jr. perpetuates falsehoods about the risks of genetic engineering technology and downplays data behind them. True to form, he relies on fear-mongering as opposed to empirical evidence, exploiting the risk perception gap among the public.
RFK Jr. spouts anti-GMO rhetoric that has no science to support it.
RFK Jr. perpetuates falsehoods about the risks of genetic engineering technology and downplays data behind them. True to form, he relies on fear-mongering as opposed to empirical evidence, exploiting the risk perception gap among the public.
RFK Jr. has lobbied against implementation of GE technology, which would improve the sustainability of agriculture and reduce environmental impact of farming. These myths that he fabricates erode public trust in biotechnology that could actually help solve environmental challenges he publicly claims to care about. This cognitive dissonance as it relates to genetic technologies is not unique to him, but his public persona amplifies it.
GE crops serve a benefit to all of us: farmers, consumers, and the planet. Over the last 20 years, GE crops have reduced pesticide use by 8.6%, decreased environmental impact of pesticides by 17.3%, and increased crop yields by 22%.
These impacts could actually be greater, if it weren’t for anti-science rhetoric that impacts the implementation of policy. And this impact is global. Because of anti-biotechnology rhetoric, life-saving GE crops are being banned in developing nations.
A GMO was created in the 1990s that could save lives, particularly kids in developing nations.
Golden rice has been engineered to produce beta-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A. Vitamin A deficiency can lead to malnutrition & childhood blindness. It is estimated to kill more children than HIV, tuberculosis, or malaria in developing regions of the world. Regular rice is relatively devoid of this nutrient. Countries who subsist on rice have malnourishment risks, so golden rice is a safe and effective way to provide vitamin A in the diet.
Golden rice was approved for cultivation in the Philippines in 2021. But this year, a judge (not a scientific expert) revoked the permit for farmers to grow it, putting children’s lives at risk.
Why? Because of anti-science activism from groups like Greenpeace. These organizations are NOT scientific experts, yet they lobby hard and loudly and influence politics and laws that harm people’s lives.
This is not what farmers want. And it is not what people who would see improved health want either.
The technologies and tools we use to create biomedical interventions for cancers and rare diseases are the same approach that is taken to create GE plants and crops.
If you are all in on gene therapy for sickle cell disease, or CAR T therapy for cancer, but you’re opposed to GE crops, ask yourself why?
The same scientific principles we use in biomedical science are used in agriculture and natural resource science. Yet misinformation spreads because of intentional disinformation, personal beliefs, confirmation bias, and echo chambers.
And the outcomes when misinformation impacts policy? Higher costs, worse economic impact, reduced yield of foods, increased climate impact, more pesticide use, and inferior science. I think we can all agree that this is antithetical to our collective goals of society.
Conservative farmers are just as frustrated as liberal public health champions.
RFK Jr’s beliefs are not shared by people who actually do the work to produce our foods. They’re also not shared by people who actually do the work to produce our medical interventions. Because his lies and false claims do not improve health. They do not improve the environment. They do not save money. They do not improve economic benefits. All they do is benefit him, his bank account, and the unfettered wellness industry that he and his peers profit off of.
There is much more to say on this topic, but I will leave you with this:
The common enemy is science and health disinformation. In order to overcome it, we have to work together to combat falsehoods that spread by bad actors with ulterior motives.
And that’s what I will continue to do, here, and in my professional capacity as a scientist. We all deserve a society that makes decisions based on evidence and objective reality, no matter our personal and political beliefs.
Thank you for supporting evidence-based science communication. With outbreaks of preventable diseases, refusal of evidence-based medical interventions, propagation of pseudoscience by prominent public “personalities”, it’s needed now more than ever.
Stay skeptical,
Andrea
“ImmunoLogic” is written by Dr. Andrea Love, PhD - immunologist and microbiologist. She works full-time in life sciences biotech and has had a lifelong passion for closing the science literacy gap and combating pseudoscience and health misinformation as far back as her childhood. This newsletter and her science communication on her social media pages are born from that passion. Follow on Instagram, Threads, Twitter, and Facebook, or support the newsletter by subscribing below:
I feel the weight of sadness in this article. How much disinformation truly impacts everyone on this planet. It’s great to know that people on both political parties in one room understand and related to the negative impacts RFK Jr and the like. Information is power. Especially evidence based info. Thank you! Your last name has such meaning to who you are and just how much you care. 💚
What I hear - both from friends and family members, an in my clinical practice - is often appalling. I do not have your credentials, but do all I can to disseminate accurate information, hoping it makes a dent.