She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie

An apparently patriotic company is marketing a new energy drink called “Cocaine”. Branding an energy drink full of sugar and caffeine as a dangerously addictive controlled substance…well, I don’t know if you can get me to argue too much about that. However, I am not worried about Redux Beverages simply sullying caffeine and sugar’s good reputations.

I am not the only one who does have a problem with their name choice because it makes light of cocaine use. Redux Beverages has created a MySpace site to defend themselves against the attacks of the “liberal media”, which is apparently ABC News. (I think complaining about the “liberal media” qualifies them to put an American flag behind an energy drink named after an illegal scourge.)

If you skip “Dealers”and “Wired Science” and click on their ”Rumors” link on their main site, you can read that they answer the question: “Does Cocaine contain cocaine?” with: “No, we don't advocate drug use. What you do with your drink is completely up to you!” While they make a point to tell people to avoid drinks with high fructose corn syrup, apparently drug use is “up to you”.

Advocating drug use can take other forms than sneaking illegal drugs into drinks. For example, wearing a shirt with a picture of a marijuana leaf, even if the shirt isn’t made out of hemp, can easily be considered advocating drug use. Calling a song “Cocaine” like Eric Clapton, ”Hits from the Bong” like Cypress Hill, or ”Heroin” like Velvet Underground was and is easily argued to be promoting drug use. The interest groups who complained about these songs weren’t typically labeled liberal.

Apparently even being more blatant about not actively promoting drug use isn’t good enough, although it isn’t hard to beat a MySpace account created after the fact. The United States Government Accounting Office released an official report stating that the current administration’s anti-drug campaign actually encouraged more drug use in the group of children that viewed the ads than the group that did not. In their report clearly entitled ”Contractor’s National Evaluation Did Not Find That the Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign Was Effective in Reducing Youth Drug Use" the government investigators conclude that these ads “may have promoted perceptions among exposed youth that others’ drug use was normal.” The only statistically significant results they found was increased initiation of marijuana use among groups that watched the ads.

So, if anti-drug ads seemed to imply that others doing drugs is normal, what does naming and marketing an energy drink called “Cocaine” say? Redux, wave the flag, say the “L” word and defend free speech if you want, but please admit that your free speech is encouraging cocaine use. But, that's "up to you".

But officer, I didn't know the rice was illegal!

I hope some of you have been keeping abreast of the latest chemical and technological threats here at my not-so-obviously named blog "Mom's Tinfoil Hat". (Our tech team promises that making the title of our blog actually visible on our blog is "on the list". *edit* It is such a joy to be using a FREE service like Blogspot that can give me better technology than all the money at Viacom!)

I have already covered conspiracies against our health and peace of mind have been hidden in the seemingly innocent form of rice.
Well here's a new one: the recent discovery of an illegal, unapproved, genetically-modified rice called LibertyLink or LL601 from the US firm Bayer on the international market. According to Arkansas Secretary of Agriculture Richard Bell, LL601 has been detected in virtually all milled long-grain rice supplies that have been tested.

No wonder the Bayer homepage has the quote “We want to more intensively exploit the opportunities for growth in the areas of innovation, new technologies and seeds” on it no less than twice.

This has prompted many international markets, including Japan (no, they don’t eat a lot of rice!) and the EU, to refuse some or all of our rice at the border.

So, what does the USDA do? Reprimand Bayer for knowingly selling an illegal and unapproved new technology disguised as food to the global markets? They claim they didn’t knowingly release it into the food chain. Well, one of the biggest complaints about GMOs is how easily the altered genes can irreversibly contaminate the regular food supply. Hmm, maybe we weren't just paranoid after all.

Are they going to recall the rice? Are they planning on fining Bayer for not taking efforts to prevent its experimental and unapproved genes from spreading to the international food supply?

If you answered, none of the above, in fact let’s just retroactively rubberstamp this all as OK, you are our tinfoil hat winner of the day.

The USDA is inviting public comment on this decision. If you would like to comment, you can go through the simple process of going to http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main, you have to know the name of the document is “APHIS-2006-0140-0001”, and you can either click on the little speech balloon and make a comment (which is not readily apparent), or mail your forms in QUADRUPLICATE to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

Too bad Bayer didn’t jump through hoops like this to get their Frankenrice approved.

What does the P stand for in EPA?

(Originally posted August 3, 2006)

If any of you caught my comment on Erin’s question about organics, you may have been holding your breath for my full blog post on the latest collision between science and special interest money. And you may have guessed it...yes, yes, it’s true. Our health and the health of our children and unborn babies has been sold out again.

The Environmental Protection Agency was charged ten years ago by the Food Quality Protection Act to find out if these more than 200 chemicals we were using on fruit, vegetables and grains in countless combinations and sequences had any effect on the health of people, especially children and pregnant women. Deadline: August 3, 2006. I bet some of you thought they had to be tested before they were used! Ahhhh, I guess it’s not only that crazy alternative medicine stuff that is "unregulated."

The official position of the EPA, now that it is ten years later, is that their work is done here, nothing to see, please go about your business feeding your family our marvelous bounty.

Now, I know I may have a, shall we say, mild distrust of the chemical industrial complex. But, I am not a lone voice saying...huh?

There is a shocking and beautifully written letter (pdf) from the local presidents of EPA unions representing scientists and risk managers that say that approving some of these chemicals, including neurotoxins banned in several European countries, would “betray the public trust by violating the intention of the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) to protect the Nation’s infants, children, and susceptible population”. The letter implores the EPA to use “sound science” and insists there is “compelling information that these neurotoxic pesticides damage the developing nervous system of fetuses, infants and children (an effect known as “developmental neurotoxicity”).

There are some tinfoil hat inspiring studies on pesticides found in umbilical cord samples and children’s bloodstreams. Proudmama, one of my favorite new posters, mentions one of them on that thread, and she links to a good Consumer Reports articleon the subject.