science

About that Medical Freedom
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About that Medical Freedom

I’m just getting over a bout of influenza A right now and it has been a miserable ride to say the least. I did get the vaccination last year and I’m hoping it gave me some protection in that it could have been a lot worse.

I did need to see the doctor for managing to symptoms and needed a whole of supportive meds like a nasal decongestant, tamiflu, cough medication, fever reducer, antiemetic meds, and finally an antibiotic. I tried the non-medical interventions and nothing alleviated the suffering I was going through. No amount of hot tea, liquids, or hot showers cleared out the congestion and sequela that came with enduring the flu.

All I can say, that feeling miserable is just not a walk in the park. Without your health, you really can’t do anything. The ability to do things in life is what keeps us going and fulfills us. When that ability is taken away, there’s not much left.

Just prior to getting the flu, I had a wonderful opportunity to take a Comprehensive Automotive Mobility Solutions class where I got to see how there are so many options for mobility with disabilities. It was amazing to see the new technology out there that kept people with disabilities moving and independent. Despite changes in their function, they still go out and drive and be engaged in life. That is what leads to health and wellness.

The flu started off pretty mild so I was just laying around keeping up with news and what’s happening with the whole measles outbreak. Things are not looking good whether it be the economy or health in our nation. We have a crackpot of a man for DHS who has been actively spreading disinformation. Our own Hawaii legislature just failed to advance the removal of religious exemption for vaccinations also. I’m mad as hell.

As I read some of the comments online on the Hawaii Department of Health accounts as well as what is being spread by some of our own Hawaii Republican legislators like Diamond Garcia, I got even more angry at how a local person could be repeating the same mainland rhetoric that killed millions of Americans during COVID.

His schtick towards the masses of followers was he stood on the platform of medical freedom for people to choose. They had a right to decide what shots they wanted their kids to have and it was not up to the government to decide. This is all happening while West Texas is having the worst outbreak in 2 decades with a death of a 6 year old.

Why is this happening? It’s because those pockets of people have been given unscientific information and made bad choices that are leading to a tremendous amount of suffering that is spreading across the US.

Just looking at the comments on the DOH site where the scientifically illiterate just spread even disinformation that getting measles is not that bad because most survive and vaccinated people spread it, and so on. Like others have said, we have an infodemic going on from the the top down.

Medical freedom is not about being vaccinated. It goes beyond that. Let’s consider this:

This year is the worst for flu. Why? Low vaccination uptake likely contributed.

Measles cases are continuing to grow nationwide because of low vaccine rates.

Those refusing vaccinations claim medical freedom from injecting toxins and other claims of vaccine injury. Politicians like Marjorie Taylor Green are encouraging measles parties too which is absurd and dangerous.

Are these actions really “medical freedoms” when you look at other issues and see how it is being denied?

The babies who are just under the age of one deserve medical freedom from preventable disease and that will only happen when more in the community are vaccinated to protect them.

Women should have full medical freedom to decide on what their needs are for health including access to abortion care not decided by those who sit in a legislature, courtroom, or congregation. They deserve to have the ability to decided what they want to do with their body with their choice.

Those with immune issues deserve medical freedom from illness when responsible citizens do their duty to keep up their own vaccinations for those who cannot take it.

Transgender people should have medical freedom to access care to allow them to have “my body my choice” to live to be the person that they want to be.

Researchers and scientists should have medical freedom to continue their studies of the many issues that are affecting our lives regardless of the wording they choose to use in their funding.

Those in public health should have medical freedom to publish the pertinent health information that is necessary for us in the public to know to continually grow our body and knowledge.

So where do we go from here?

Many times, you have to suffer to realize how good you have it. That hit me like a brick this week with the flu and seeing everything going on in the national scene. I am still the science advocate that I was when I started this blog and am still the same but with many different views as life changes.

The catchy slogans like “Make America Great Again” or “Make America Healthy Again” is all talk when you look at the actions of those pulling the strings.

Making us great again means remembering our history as a nation and returning to our roots of what built it. Our nation was built upon the sacrifices of so many, whether it be veterans, slaves, women, men, children and immigrants. We learned tolerance for those of other religions and ethnicities when they came upon the shores looking for better opportunities. Every single person, worked in their communities and supported each other and many stood up against injustices that would impact so many other lives that led to quality of life for all. Just look at our communities and the diversity within them.

Making us healthy again is not just throwing out all prior vaccination data because it doesn’t fit your narrative or even just deciding that beef tallow is “healthy.” Nor is health going to come from the removal of food dyes to suddenly give us health. No solution is ever easy because it takes a lot of data collection to figure out what is going on. Putting the wrong person in the place of power worsens the likelihood of a real issue being addressed because he has no experience or background to have the adequate logic and critical thinking to move in the right direction.

Reducing the debt isn’t going to be helped either when you have someone who doesn’t even run the government put in charge of it. He’s doing everything he can chainsaw-style with too much power in his head to even think clearly on the impact he will have on others.

America has its own version of the flu right now. The entire nation is sick and there appears to be no end in sight against the set of viruses leading charge. From the Democrats to the Republicans to the president, everyone is infected with something and that disease is spreading fast and bad, worse than COVID did. We need to all sit down and hash things out while Chaos Captain is at the helm and plan for a mutiny with a better armed immune system, our communities, to get rid of flu once and for all with a good vaccination for good science literacy and evidence based information.

This whole infodemic was started using a base of people who didn’t thoroughly vet what was being said, Russian propaganda, combined with multiple attacks with low level cabinet viruses who came from the woodworks, a poor diet of Republicans that were spineless, Democrats who ignored the signs of issues of debt that was being screamed, people with terrible behaviors with no regard for the law, and oligarchs running the media outlets, and here we are now.

The most horrible thing about this is that we will have to land up in our lowest point before we realize that we have to change.

A Passion for Papaya is Not Propaganda
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A Passion for Papaya is Not Propaganda

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Dr. Marion Nestle referred to the film Food Evolution as “propaganda” and the other activists like Zen Honeycutt and the Food Babe are jumping onboard.  This implies that the content was misleading, and meant to affect opinions using less-than-honest means. I was really shocked when 45 academic signatories wrote the letter calling the film propaganda from the agrochemical industry.

I’m glad to offer you a taste of that propaganda, or should I say, papaya.

The film’s first part shows a horrible battle that happened here in my home state of Hawaii.  Non-farmers and well-financed mainland activists wanted my family to abandon a technology, the virus-resistant papaya.  The papaya was made resistant by genetic engineering, and it was done by universities and government to help the local papaya farmers. It was not the “agrochemical industry”.

Mainland activists riled up local agitators by carefully crafting a massive fear campaign in our communities and manipulated a vote against the papaya. Claims were made that it was poison, it caused tumors, it was increasing pesticide use and more diseases in the industry.  None of this was true, but in fear of retaliation, the majority of the council voted to ban it anyway.

The Food Evolution film crew was in Hawaii because it was the important national story at the time. They covered the story in great detail and presented it as it unfolded, giving plenty of time to the papaya’s opposition.

It also shows how farmers pushed back, and Margaret Wille and the County Council then grandfathered the papaya in, even though they believed (the propaganda) that it was carcinogenic and harmful.

They were caught in a hypocrisy when one tells the public improved fruits are dangerous but then exempt them with pressure.  This is fact.  This is hardly propaganda. The papaya works, it saved an industry, and is outstanding technology.

So it is very disappointing to me that Nestle, Pollan and 45 others go on record calling this story agrochemical industry propaganda, when it is a far cry from the truth.

It is especially disturbing because many of the people that refer to my family’s livelihood as propaganda are graduate students and professors. It seems like a bad career move to call the chronicling political resistance to successful technology agrochemical industry propaganda.

It is even more troubling that these are students and professors that claim to be in favor of small-holder family farms and sustainability.  The papaya allows my family to sustainably produce a local staple that would be gone if it was not for the technology.

If I was a student or faculty member I would think carefully before signing my name to a movement laden with false claims. It seems like the academic road is very difficult today, and when a search of your name shows you standing up against technology and small family farmers, it seems like a short-sighted career move. Your name on that letter symbolizes the rejection of science and the benefits it can have for small family farms globally, who face climate change and it’s consequences.  Do you really stand against that reality?

If you ever are over in the islands please let me know and I’ll personally introduce you to our “giant agrochemical industry”, which is me, my family and two dedicated farm workers, growing a delicious and valued fruit. The movie Food Evolution told our story, our fight, and our ongoing success very accurately.  I would think very carefully before calling my family’s reality throwaway propaganda.

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Joni Kamiya–The Hawaii Farmer’s Daughter

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The Anti-GMO Club Needs a Lesson in the Golden Rule

Remember as kids were were taught in school the Golden Rule?  I think that once again we have to go back to small kid time and remember that simple rule that kept the world more peaceful and civil.

The anti-GMO activists might benefit from taking a lesson in walking in another person’s shoes.  Remove those Monsanto goggles for just a few minutes and think on your own two feet.  It might do some good here.

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Imagine being a long time farmer.  We’ll call you Farmer Aloha.  Farmer Aloha’s parents and grandparents did it and now you have taken on the farm.  Your family has a proud heritage of farming and you want to continue it.  Well, one day, some disease crops up in your orchard and little by little it destroys it.  All that work you did to plant it, nurture it, are all gone despite much of an effort to control for this disease.  In a matter of months,  your entire family farm is decimated.  You are  pretty darn sad and depressed.  You don’t make a whole lot of money from farming but this is your life’s passion.

Soon, Farmer Aloha gets word that research is being done to help solve this disease and possibly restore your crops.  It is a glimmer of hope of continuing the family legacy to help bring back your farm.  You go on for years without a farm, taking on a different job, but it is in your blood to farm the soil and land.  You try different crops but the very one you want and love is still out of reach.  All your long time loyal workers and customers are at a loss because your farm is gone.  They know you and your product well and want it back.

Eventually, the research turns out be that hope indeed and within several years, you slowly start up your farm again.  Many years and tons of testing was done to get the fruit ready for market and then there is a press release that is sent out with very little hullabaloo.  No one really pays attention to it at the time.  So many a happy customers are glad to see their beloved fruit again from their favorite Farmer Aloha in the stores.  Your business continues to regrow again bit by bit from the initial losses that you are still recovering from.

All the meanwhile, a bunch of radicals starts to get together and decide that this new fruit of Farmer Aloha’s is the next best thing to protest and target.  These folks start hooking up with each other and start telling each other many a stories about this thing they don’t understand.  It is just too scary to consider that science can change plants.  The anti-Aloha group consists of a fringe scientist, surfers, sociologists, bus drivers, hotel workers, green people, lawyers, etc.  Because there are hundreds of ill informed frightened people around, the masses grow.  Even some of the politicians are fearful of the technology and don’t do their own research on the issue.  These people just believe and refuse to accept the evidence.  Pretty soon thousands are believing that Farmer Aloha’s crops are indeed a threat.  The small minority of other farmers and scientists are amazed at this horrible hate and wrath of misinformation.  If one of them should speak up, they instantly are targeted by the anti-Aloha club.

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Then comes the advent of the internet and the filth spews even more across the world.  More hateful things are being said all over the place and everyone and their grandma is saying the same thing about Farmer Aloha.  The hate is all the same things being said over and over but Farmer Aloha continues to work for your faithful customers and clients.  It gives you pride to be able to continue to feed them.  You hope that this issue will settle down in time.

Farmer Aloha decides to support other farmers too by going to the Farm Fair. You serve up thousands of samples of his delicious sweet fruits.  Lots of people appreciate it and will say so.  The true local people of course come up and pleasantly ask for a sample first and then take one.  Then come the anti-Aloha people who come up very defiantly and lift their noses up and ask, “Are these GMO?”  To which Farmer Aloha states, “Why yes they are.  Please enjoy a sample.”  Some of these anti-Aloha folks tip their noses to the air and stiffly walk away quite snottily or some crouch down to hide this special sweet sample and savor it secretly.  Other fearful anti-Aloha people will come up and say, “You are selling poison!”  That person starts going off in front of others clamoring for samples and eventually gets pushed away.  He never notices the weird looks that others are giving him.

Because of Farmer Aloha’s support of this new technology, the disease pressure is reduced and almost obliterated.  The anti-Aloha people discover that farming is the new thing to do after moving to Hawaii and start their own farms.  With no disease and a lot of people fearing Farmer Aloha’s fruit, they can sell aloha-free fruit to these folks.  These same anti-Aloha folks proudly go about the social media to talk stink about Farmer Aloha and his workers and family.  They even put their faces to their comments too so that you know who they are!  They even posted really mean and nasty comments on a picture of your kid wearing his aloha fruit costume too!  These anti-Aloha people are everywhere on the social media bombarding the whole conversation.  No one is listening to you, Farmer Aloha.  You are not even part of the conversations.  And that is where our stories ends at the moment.

So, lesson from this story is have you ever heard of Farmer Aloha ever saying something derogatory to these anti-Aloha farmers or even posting nasty comments on their farming pages?  Or has Farmer Aloha ever gone on the record to tell these anti-Aloha farmers how to farm and what to grow?  No, never, ever because he’s too busy working on his farm.  Farmer Aloha is all about aloha and education.  The anti-Aloha farmers and their club members are famous for this kind of behavior and tactics.  Easy to find all over the place sadly to state.  We have never seen any Farmer Aloha stooping down to that level.

Simply put, what if people started protesting organic foods?  Then spreading nasty rumors about the dangers of organic foods and scary pictures of what it can do to you?  Then it would make people really scared and irrational about this food that they consider organic.  The organic farmers would be subject to hate and unkind remarks as well as harassment over the social media and at farmer’s markets.  This would go on for years and years with no end in sight because more and more people start to believe these rumors as truths.  And what if that pretty green organic label incited fear in people to cause them to not buy it based on marketing of misinformation?  What if consumers started to demand the right to know how your grow and demand a label if it was fertilized with manure and had the potential for fecal contamination?  Would the organic farmers support it?  Then, would they like it if there was an organized march against them called MAO, March Against Organic?  I doubt it.

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I think that if we have others walk in the shoes of the farmers they are protesting and directing their hate and harassment at, it might just shed a different light on where and what we need to do for agriculture in Hawaii.  How would you like it if your livelihood was being targeted for completely baseless reasons?  You would not like it either!

The golden rule is no longer taught in Hawaii schools but there is something new called the 5 Rs that the anti-Aloha club might want to review in the conversations around agriculture and farming.  This is the direction that Hawaii agriculture has to move towards…  One of respect, responsibility, resourcefulness, relationships, and resiliency.  That is the future!

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