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"Environmental Wars"

The Central Scrutinizer said:
Correction. They won't buy anything that's not exactly the size and shape the consumer wants.
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I think it is slightly more complex than that, as consumers have shown that they are prepared to pay much more for foods which are of non standard sizes and shapes.
 
Godmode said:
I buy organic vegtables from a local farmer. It's not because I'm worried about pesticides so much as I find it tastes better. Particularly things like tomatoes, which actually HAVE flavour, unlike the ones from the supermarkets. Also, supermarkets only carry usually one or two varieties, bred for size and colour. I don't care about size and colour, and the amount of waste these stores produce is insane. They won't buy anything that's not exactly the size and shape they want. It's crazy. (This is in the Uk)
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Save yourself some money and by locally from non-organic producers of the same product. It isn't the "organic" part that makes them taste better, it's the type that you're buying. Certain types are good for wide distribution but flavor is lost in the balance. Other types are good for local distribution but shelf-life is lost in the balance. Organic or inorganic plays no part in that. Organic does increase the cost of the product because more are lost to pests. That cost must be passed on to the consumer.
 
The Central Scrutinizer said:
But it is the same for the US. The store buys stuff that is exactly the right color and shape, not because they think it is fun, but because the consumer demands it.
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actually not strictly true, with "fresh" produced that is packages in certain ways, uniformity of size makes it easier for automated packing. However consumers will but from "farmers markets" which are not necessarily organic, but do offer food which has been selected for taste rather than uniformity of shape and size. yes consumes demand is an important factor in all cases, but it is not a simple relationship.
 
aargh57 said:
One other thing. I'm only up to page 95 or so in his book but in it he says "Am I missing something? Why is it a good thing to spend 10 times more on AIDS than on breast cancer or prostate cancer? Or, for that matter, 25 times more than on Parkinson's, which kills more people?"

Compare that with FAIR's quote of Stossel:

"Stossel's errors are often so obvious that one wonders how they could have ended up on the air. In a 20/20 report on medical research (10/11/99), Stossel complained that too much funding was going to AIDS research, claiming that spending on the disease was "25 times more than on Parkinson's, which kills more people."

Notice that FAIR quotes him as stating that Parkinson's kills more people. Isn't it very possible that he said the statement just like in the book, as a question?
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First of all, I agree that FAIR is wrong about Parkinson's Disease. The CDC does list it as a direct cause of death (14th overall in 2003). (On the other hand, some sources say things like "Parkinson disease reduces the length of your life, but it is not fatal." Somebody who read any article like that might not bother trying to look up death statistics, since they wouldn't expect there to be any. Also, I don't know if the CDC listed Parkinson's as a cause of death in 1999 or not. But now I'm just making excuses.)

However, just because the sentence in which it occurs is a question doesn't change the fact that Stossel made the claim. If I say "Why don't we go to the store on Main St., which is closer than the one on Third St.?", I'm explicitly making the claim that the store on Main really is closer than the one on Third.

aargh57 said:
Anyhow, I agree with Stossel. If we're going to give funding for reasearch it shouldn't go to the disease that gets the most media attention/senators/celebrities.
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I'm a bit disappointed in FAIR, not just because they got the facts wrong about Parkinson's Disease, but because they failed to address Stossel's implicit argument that the raw mortality figures are the most important criteria in allocating funds for medical research. There are a number of reasons to spend more on AIDS research that Parkinson's research. AIDS is contagious, for example, while Parkinson's is not. In the mid-1990s (which would be the most recent data available when Stossel made his claim), there were more new AIDS cases in the US each year than new Parkinson's cases. 85% of people diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease are over 65, and they typically survive another ten to twenty years. Only about 25% of people with AIDS live past age 45. And these are all US figures. Neither disease is an American-only phenomenon, and the worldwide incidence of AIDS does affect American interests, however much that may bother the isolationists among us.

And finally, yes, allocating public funds is a political process. There's no way around that.
 
Anyway, all this stuff about organic food and Parkinson's Disease is rather beside the point. The fact remains that Stossel touts Crichton's novel as if it were a science text.

Inviting Michael Crichton and John Stossel to a conference on the environment is like inviting Dan Brown to a symposium on medieval European history.
 
I thought the point was that Stossel "lied and distorted" things. I guess I was wrong.
 
SH,

You're right about the fact that research shouldn't be given based just on one statistic. I would also say that research into certain disease could have a greater chance to save lives even if less people died each year. If it took 1 million to save 100 lives from disease X and 10 million to save the same amount from disease Y then reason would dictate we allocate more for X even if more people die per year than Y. (Of course I'm sure that things like this aren't as easy to quantify). However, Stossel's point is that it shouldn't be allocated on how much publicity a disease gets. Shouldn't we allocate resources based on reason rather than on emotion? I realize it's a political process. I would argue that this is not a good thing.
 
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