Government (Junk) Science Advances 100 Million Funerals At A Time

According to University of California pediatric endocrinologist Robert Lustig, the US had 6 million “seriously overweight” kids in 2001. Since then that number has skyrocketed to over 20 million.

Worldwide there are 366 million people with diabetes. By 2030, if trends are not curbed, 165 million Americans will be obese and by 2050 100 million will have diabetes. Lustig calls it “a standard pandemic” The related health costs will be astronomical – and unaffordable. No modern civilization can survive that.

Tragically these are the numbers that were necessary to finally get the US government to concede that its longstanding dietary guidelines (once solidly and irrefutably confirmed by the “vast consensus of scientific experts”) had been severely flawed for decades. Read here and here.

Why did it take so damn long for the government to wake up? It gets down to obstinate egomaniacal scientists, greedy food and pharmaceutical industries, and governments corrupted by the same industries. See here.

Because established scientists have a long habit of insisting their pet theories are right and scoff at those who challenge them, renowned German physicist Max Planck once wisely remarked, “Science advances one funeral at a time.” he noticed that false theories don’t die until their founders do. Sadly, as the case of nutritional sciences shows, hundreds of millions of people have gotten or are about to get early funerals. Hence, government science advances 100 million funerals at a time. Such is now the case with the science concerning saturated fats and human health.

The very same tragedy has begun in earnest in climate science today. Just as the saturated fat theory was founded on the junk science and phony 7-Country chart of Ancel Keys, the CO2 global warming theory was founded on the junk science of NASA scientist James Hansen and the dubious hockey stick graph of Michael E. Mann. And just as dissenters were ignored, marginalized and cut off from funding in the nutritional sciences, so are skeptic global warming scientists experiencing the same today. And just as a consensus among all scientists was claimed endorsing the saturated fat theory (fully backed by the National Academy of Sciences and virtually every American medical association), an illusionary 97% consensus is also being claimed in climate science today. And just as the American Dietary Guidelines were promoted and made official by a Democrat Presidential loser candidate (George McGovern), the global warming science and proposed energy dietary guidelines are being promoted today by Democrat Presidential loser candidate Al Gore. The parallels between the two sciences indeed could not be more stunning.

It would be nice if the parallels ended there, but it is unlikely they will. Just as the case has been with the saturated fat theory, the CO2 climate change theory now risks killing hundreds of millions in the future – thanks to energy poverty and starvation. Without energy, people die horrible deaths from exposure.

All of this could be avoided, of course, if only governments were honest in their interpretation of climate data and stopped making up excuses for colder and colder  winters, and 18 years of zero warming. Unfortunately that does not appear likely to happen anytime soon. Tragically it’ll probably take tens of millions of unnecessary premature deaths resulting from energy deprivation to get the governments to realize they have made a horrible mistake. Instead of making a course correction on the climate issue, the US government, led by NASA, is now altering the historical temperature data in a manner that would even make Ancel Keyes blush.

People can argue about the impacts of faulty science on human life. But one thing cannot be argued: Truth leads to life; lies lead to death.

Clearly the US policy will likely have to see another 100 million or so early funerals before it allows climate science to advance.

 

19 responses to “Government (Junk) Science Advances 100 Million Funerals At A Time”

  1. Jimbo

    Here are some more articles and papers on this matter of consensu.

    BBC – 14 October 2014
    Should people be eating more fat?
    …..Scientists from Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard, amongst others, examined the links between eating saturated fat and heart disease. Despite looking at the results of nearly 80 studies involving more than a half million people they were unable to find convincing evidence that eating saturated fats leads to greater risk of heart disease.

    In fact, when they looked at blood results, they found that higher levels of some saturated fats, in particular a type of saturated fat you get in milk and dairy products called margaric acid, were associated with a lower risk of heart disease……

    A recent study, this time published in the Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care, “High dairy fat intake related to less central obesity“, certainly questioned the link.

    In this study, researchers followed 1,589 Swedish men for 12 years. They found that those following a low-fat diet (no butter, low-fat milk and no cream) were more likely to develop fat around the gut (central obesity) than those eating butter, high-fat milk and whipping cream.
    http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29616418

    Wall Street Journal – 2 May, 2014
    The Questionable Link Between Saturated Fat and Heart Disease
    Are butter, cheese and steak really bad for you? The dubious science behind the anti-fat crusade
    “Saturated fat does not cause heart disease”—or so concluded a big study published in March in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. How could this be? The very cornerstone of dietary advice for generations has been that the saturated fats in butter, cheese and red meat should be avoided because they clog our arteries……..

    Our distrust of saturated fat can be traced back to the 1950s, to a man named Ancel Benjamin Keys, a scientist at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Keys was formidably persuasive and, through sheer force of will, rose to the top of the nutrition world—even gracing the cover of Time magazine—for relentlessly championing the idea that saturated fats raise cholesterol and, as a result, cause heart attacks.

    This idea fell on receptive ears because, at the time, Americans faced a fast-growing epidemic. Heart disease, a rarity only three decades earlier, had quickly become the nation’s No. 1 killer. Even President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack in 1955. Researchers were desperate for answers……

    Critics have pointed out that Dr. Keys violated several basic scientific norms in his study…..
    http://tinyurl.com/m8sczes

    Annals of Internal Medicine – 18 March, 2014
    Dr. Rajiv Chowdhury et al
    Association of Dietary, Circulating, and Supplement Fatty Acids With Coronary Risk: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
    Conclusion: Current evidence does not clearly support cardiovascular guidelines that encourage high consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids and low consumption of total saturated fats.

    Primary Funding Source: British Heart Foundation, Medical Research Council, Cambridge National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre, and Gates Cambridge.
    http://tinyurl.com/q3hqfvc

  2. Jimbo

    Here is something else considering on consensus.

    BBC – 23 January 2015
    Scientists slow the speed of light
    A team of Scottish scientists has made light travel slower than the speed of light.

    They sent photons – individual particles of light – through a special mask. It changed the photons’ shape – and slowed them to less than light speed.

    The photons remained travelling at the lower speed even when they returned to free space……

    The speed of light is regarded as an absolute. It is 186,282 miles per second in free space.

    Light propagates more slowly when passing through materials like water or glass but goes back to its higher velocity as soon as it returns to free space again.

    Or at least it did until now……

    1. DirkH

      Looks like a complicated double slit kind of experiment. Forcing the photon to go through all the rings at the same time, interfering with itself. Would be interesting to know whether this only works/can be measured for some critical focal distance. This is probably not “light that stays slow forever” but an effect that only exists in this experimental configuration. (non-local effects, Bohm-de Broglie interpretation of QM, wave function never collapses)

      1. Ulrich Elkmann

        Has the experiment been REPLICATED? – or are we looking at N-rays?

  3. Henning Nielsen

    “Worldwide there are 366 million people with diabetes. By 2030, if trends are not curbed, 165 million Americans will be obese and by 2050 100 million will have diabetes.”

    But why should we trust in linear projections about obesity, when we don’t concerning climate change?

    “There is increasing evidence that obesity rates are stabilizing for adults and children — but the rates remain high, putting millions of Americans at risk for increased health problems.”

    http://stateofobesity.org/obesity-rates-trends-overview/

  4. Peter Whale

    You are looking from the wrong perspective the absoloutists regard the populace as a hindrance and want them culled. This they will bring about by any means they feel necessary,nutrition or shelter hit them where it does most harm. Water is the next logical step, watch who controls this and we will get the answer. Science with all its wonder is also the scourge of mankind.

    1. DirkH

      No, they regard the populace as cattle, and they want to spend as little on the upkeep of the cattle herd as possible, while maximizing the use they get from it. Decisions regarding how to feed and water the cattle, how to control their movements and communications, and how to regulate their numbers, are made after very careful consideration, and enacted by more or less subtle broadcasting of instructions, cloaked as science or ethics or moral duty or whatever works.

      The faction that wants to reduce the number to 500million as demanded in the Georgia Guidestones is currently not in a position to push through their demand, obviously.

  5. Don B

    Conventional wisdom can last far beyond its “use by date.” In the US it is reported that Germany’s separation from coal and embrace of wind and solar have been a tremendous success.

    “Renewables now supply fully a quarter of Germany’s energy needs — a dramatic transition that is the result of deliberate, courageous choices by its leaders. The country’s ambitious energy goals were ridiculed by critics, who predicted dire economic consequences. Indeed, the nation absorbed the initial costs of creating a new industrial market. Energy planners from around the globe watched with interest as Germany has mastered a learning curve onmany renewable technologies, including significant lessons in offshore wind. ”

    http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/232365-lessons-for-the-us-in-germanys-energy-transition

    1. DirkH

      “The country’s ambitious energy goals were ridiculed by critics, who predicted dire economic consequences.”

      Well, at least we have a booming lignite industry, because SOMETHING has to keep the lights on.

  6. Robin Pittwood

    i have to say that my meat pie at lunch tasted so much better … whilst I read your article. Thanks Pierre.

  7. Curious George

    “if trends are not curbed.” Please don’t fall in the Limits to Growth trap.

    1. DirkH

      IF a THEN b. Assuming a is true, b follows.
      Simple logic. Nothing to do with Malthusianism (which is based on the assumption that population grows exponentially while agricultural output grows linearly – Malthus never presented evidence for that).
      Similarly, limits to growth assumed that no new mineral reserves would be found beyond the known reserves of the time – again an assumption as flimsy as that of Malthus.

  8. John F. Hultquist

    Pizza with pepperoni tonight!
    The thing not getting much attention regarding “seriously overweight” kids is the changing lifestyle and restriction of unorganized exercise. Many years ago kids would “go out and play.” We were, in fact, ordered to do so by our mothers. We did physical activities, such as ball-type games, swimming, –- the list is long.
    In many places now, going outside is not an option, even going into one’s own yard or to a nearby park requires supervision. Sports are “organized” and for most this involves more standing around than it does moving about. Games are more likely to be “on-line” games that do not burn lots of calories. Good luck with reducing obesity.
    A little regarded aspect of the “reduce meat” part of the food guidelines is the role played by those that believe people should not eat animals. Someone with some time can trace support for the subtle ‘anti-‘ campaigns to the folks that are obsessed with vegetarianism (the Wiki entry on that is a place to start; or PETA).
    Got to go – pizza is calling.

    1. DirkH

      That “no meat, no eggs, no milk” movement… That looks so much like a state-run cult in a blockaded nation with little resources to go around, or top it up with some psychopharmaka and it’s like the Gammas in Brave New World.

      Maybe the leaders said, hey, our slaves don’t need to work hard physically anymore, let’s try whether we can keep them on water and bread in their office jobs and see how long they will last.

  9. Bob Johnston

    The parallels between the two branches of science (and it’s really difficult to call them science) are eerie but you left out the most important part – you can and should eat foods with saturated fat and cholesterol, just don’t accompany it with carbohydrates like sugar and wheat. You show me a person with a chronic health issue – heart disease, diabetes, obesity, most cancers and I’ll show you a person with high blood sugar, insulin resistance and chronic inflammation due to a diet containing more carbohydrates than that person can handle.

    Insulin is the hormone that controls the storage of fat in your body – over a lifetime of eating carbohydrates your body becomes inefficient at metabolizing glucose, it has effectively gummed up how your body operates. The upshot is that it takes more and more insulin to take care of excess blood sugar. When insulin levels are high your body is unable to access stored fat for energy, even though a person may be carrying 100 excess pounds of fat they can’t use it for fuel and they are constantly hungry. The same excess blood sugar that drives obesity also causes chronic inflammatory respponses that drive disease. In arteries that high blood sugar causes heart disease, in the pancreas it causes diabetes, in mitochobdria it causes cancer – all the disease we consider to be normal due to old age are actually caused by chronically elevated blood sugar levels.

    Your body attempts to tightly control blood sugar levels – the normal amount is 80-90 mg/dl. This works out to about a teaspoon of glucose in your blood if levels are optimal, that’s nothing. A single whole wheat bagel will have 50 grams of carbs – that’s the equivalent of 10 times the glucose your body actually wants. If you eat 50-100 grams of crbs at every meal and every snack you are bathing your cells in elevated sugar for all your waking hours. That causes serious damage over time.

    The “experts” in nutrition are just as jacked up as the “experts” in climastrology – as Pierre noted in his post out nutritional foundation was based upon awful science by Ancel Keys and we have never recovered. Dogma, cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias are the rules in this discipline, don’t be fooled by government guidelines and expert opinion. As always, keep an open mind, do your own research and let the actual data drive your conclusions. If you can do this it’s easy to see how poor the nutritional advice we receive on a daily basis actually is.

  10. DirkH

    Another very good lecture by Lustig.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

  11. Lionell Griffith

    “People can argue about the impacts of faulty science on human life. But one thing cannot be argued: Truth leads to life; lies lead to death.”

    But what if your goal is death?

    I suggest the goal of those who use false science have the goal of death. They don’t want to live and don’t want you to live either. They feel they have a moral obligation to lie in service to their goal and would ague that to lie is to tell a “higher” truth (aka. The end justifies the means)

By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. more information

The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this. More information at our Data Privacy Policy

Close