Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Nonsense multiplies

With the internet, intelligence is truly revealed. Lately I've heard some outstanding and stupid claims. When I was driving and listening to the radio I heard someone rant and rave about the amount of blocked up fecal matter in the intestines. They repeated all the same old myths: that John Wayne had 44 pounds of fecal matter in his intestines when he died and the FDA claims that each person has an average of 3-4 pounds of fecal matter.

John Wayne had no such thing
and the FDA has said no such thing. Snopes is sometimes wrong (as I mentioned before) but they are not wrong in this case. How can anyone possibly believe this stuff?

The latest myth was brought to me by my roommates, and it concerns the WTO. The WTO is a very bad organization in that they don't allow countries to restrict products based on environmental and health risks, but in this case my roommates was way off. He was taken in by the claims of HealthFreedomUSA, which claims that there is a document callled Codex Alimentarius which classifies nutrients as toxins. This is an obvious exaggeration. I don't think this Codex Alimentarius is a good idea, and I don't think it will serve the interests of health for people, but it does at least on the surface claim to protect consumers from pesticides, contaminants, and adulterants. It says little that I can find about nutrients being toxins.

Sadly, people like these give health-conscious environmentalists (who DO recognize the danger of the WTO and Monsanto) a bad name.

Sometime I will start a weekly profile of a WTO ruling and show how ridiculous it is.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

We're all full of shit one way or the other, then, huh? Zing. :D

The sheer ridiculousness of most rumors or false statements people believe as fact is astounding.

The idiots will always give good, well-intentioned groups or concepts a bad name. Sadly, they're the loudest.

(hahahaha I can't pass word verification, third try now!)