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ScienceBlogs is supposed to be a place for creative, and sometimes controversial, opinions. My favorite ones are Respectful Insolence and Tomorrow's Table, and all the time, you read things there that plenty of people would get all in a huff about. Does anyone think the Pepsi blog would do that? Do you think they would ever once mention the insanity of the anti-vax movement, or the senselessness of the 9/11 truthers, or call alternative medicine purveyors out on their incoherent conspiracies? Think they'd ever mention politics or evolution or anything else that might upset a customer? No, because this blog was not written by an individual, it was by a company, for a company. And besides, plenty of clueless conspiracy minded nutters would point to this as the link between a scienceblogger, and therefore believe them to be discredited, since no small amount of people already believe scientists to be in on the Big Pharma/Monsanto/Illuminati/New World Order genocide conspiracy, so this would kinda make ScienceBlogs as a whole look a little less independent and reputable if they're willing to put corporate interests there for money.

Natural News has the greatest goddamn webcomic ever:

http://www.naturalnews.com/021571_vaccines_vaccinations.html

If you consciously avoid eating GM foods, you're not only too fussy, but also have a mental disorder (orthorexia). In short, you'd be crazy to avoid GM foods!

the very same day that the Wall Street Journal announced that picky eating may be recognized in the 2013 DSM as a psychiatric disorder.

I am subscribed to the NaturalNews newsletter, which talks a lot about this kind of stuff. They even have a Disease Mongering Engine to make disorders up.

the very same day that the Wall Street Journal announced that picky eating may be recognized in the 2013 DSM as a psychiatric disorder.

I am subscribed to the NaturalNews newsletter, which talks a lot about this kind of stuff. They even have a Disease Mongering Engine to make disorders up.

... better get on this to make sure that this technology can't be used in the U.S. otherwise costs might go down. Similar to how we can't import drugs: medically, if it's cheap, it's dangerous.

Yes but the trendy growth area for Big Pharma these days is the use of common diseases that are usually just a nuisance to scare everyone into vaccination. Consider the language used here, concerning the individual decision to accept or reject a vaccination for common influenza:

"Now no one should say 'Should I or shouldn't I?'" said CDC flu specialist Anthony Fiore.

That's absolutely dripping with "we know what's good for you". Was that statement the result of a new medical breakthrough or discovery? No. It was the result of a panel of bureaucrats holding a vote. I'm sure they have our best interests at heart and are not at all influenced by the large, well-financed pharmaceutical industry. This part is also telling:

In the past, the advisory committee has been reluctant to recommend universal vaccination for fear that it might produce vaccine shortages that place members of higher risk groups in danger. Yet even with current recommendations, only 33 percent of the public gets vaccinated every year, leaving millions of doses to be disposed of.

How inconvenient. They have over-produced this vaccine and its finite shelf life will result in tremendous losses for them unless they can suddenly create demand for it. The fact that universal vaccination for this specific disease is now being pushed is completely unrelated to that, I am sure </sarcasm>. This is actually unusually blatant for them. They usually rely more strongly on the "don't question our motives, we are the experts" priesthood of the medical establishment that doesn't make it so simple to follow the money.

Plus I think they can fast-track the FDA approval process and simultaneously remove much of their liability if every little disease like the swine flu is now a big scary pandemic. The bothersome thing is that when the next real threat to life and limb comes along, the sensationalism that surrounded SARS, hoof-and-mouth, swine flu, West Nile, and bird flu will have created quite the boy-who-cried-wolf situation. If it has little or no chance of killing or crippling a healthy adult then I really don't want to hear words like "pandemic" -- is that such an unreasonable thing to ask?

I agree that they certainly don't want competition from foreign pharmaceuticals. They especially wouldn't want that from countries with weaker patent protections for drugs than the USA. It's just that this particular deck has been stacked in their favor for so long now that it is not a growth area for them.

Believe it or not I think the War on (some) Drugs set the stage for much of this. That's where the idea was legitimized that a citizen is not sovereign over his or her own body and does not get the final say on what may or may not be ingested into it. That's why we have a situation where it's "the FDA has not yet approved this substance, or does not consider its imported version to be safe, therefore we will use police power to make sure you may not have it at all" instead of "the FDA has not yet approved this substance, or does not consider its imported version to be safe, therefore you consume it at your own risk."

The first thing there is to understand about pharmaceutical companies is that they cannot make money from healthy people. The second thing to understand about them is that they make less money from sick people who are allowed to shop around in multiple markets.

Never drink anything that has phosphoric acid in it. I read the ingredient list when I was in my first year of college and have drank maybe a few dozen sodas since. It does the same thing to your bones as it does to your teeth, it leeches Calcium out.

First they came for the pedophilia collectors. . .

But seriously, you've touched on a really valid question.

I don't know about the guy in question, but psychopaths cannot be rehabilitated, and so to release them back into the wild is a bad idea. The problem is that the system itself is infested with psychopaths in suits and they're often the ones at the switch. Only the lowest level of psychopaths tend to be incarcerated, while many regular humans are simply those driven to prison via the mechanisms of economic and class warfare. I'd not feel confident at ALL allowing the state to simply lock people up and throw away the key because we know that power will be abused. We simply know it. -I don't trust the authorities because the authorities have proven themselves time and again to be unworthy of public trust. I'd like it to be otherwise; we all would I think, but it's simply not possible today, (not without a dose of permanent brain damage, that is!)

Also, given your points about definitions, this recent item gives me pause. (Shrinks broadening the definition of what it means to be crazy).

Hm. It just struck me how interesting it is that cigar smoking should be as illegal as it is today.

-FL

I mean, it's already caused tumours in mice and rats. Are we honestly going to entertain this violently dangerous idea (both by way of freedom and health)?

http://www.naturalnews.com/022467_RFID_implants_RFID_cancer.html

Just so you know, the key word in Union of Concerned Scientists isn't 'Scientists.' They may be perfectly right on that article, considering it is about nuclear weapons the chance isn't small, however, I've read so much fearmongering/anti-scientific/just plain wrong bullshit on their site I won't even bother to waste my time reading this one. Assuming you just pulled that up after a run through Google, FWIW, you might want to avoid links to the UCS in the future. You make a much more credible argument when you're not linking to crackpot sites. Posting to the USC about nuclear (or agricultural biotech) is like posting to NaturalNews for a link about medicine.

> if everyone jointly pays for healthcare and everybody gets treated health costs go down.

Only for those who already pay for insurance, and only assuming that the insurance companies will pass on the savings to you, which they won't. Except, they won't get any savings, because:

> This is because no one puts off going to the doctor because of expense.

When people don't have to pay for doctors, they go more often, raising the overall health care expenditures and cancelling any savings you may have incurred for increasing the insured pool. So, if anything, your rates will go up, and MUCH higher.

> Cancers are caught sooner, infections are treated before the victim starts coughing up blood.

Cancer screening is not
good for you. Yes, early detection can be helpful for some cancers, but false positives and
unnecessary treatments can cause a great deal of harm. Prostate cancer, which you mention, is an
excellent example. Very few men die from prostate cancer, treated or not, because it grows so slowly
that you are much more likely to die from other causes before it kills you. In most cases, treating
it will just cause you lots of misery that chemo and radiation create.

Even when you have some other cancer, you need to realize that with the exception of breast and
testicular cancer, nearly all of them are fatal. You might buy yourself a few years with treatment,
but you'll die anyway. It might be worth taking a hard look at your own life and see if you really
want to have an extra few years at the cost of pain and suffering that chemo will give you. (In
socialized health care, other
people may make this decision for you)

Other infections are also frequently overtreated. Your body really is very very good at fighting
diseases. Give it food and water, and it will kill the infection all by itself. For centuries,
people have got by just fine without ever seeing a doctor, and you would do well to try to do
the same. Doctors often cause more harm than not and avoiding them really is good for you.

> What selfish libertarians like yourself don't realise is that a persons health is mostly unrelated
> to their choices. No one chooses to get prostate cancer, no one chooses to get bitten by a rabid dog.

On the contrary, health is very much related to your choices. Smoking and obesity are both personal
choices and are the most damaging things you can do to yourself. Nearly all diseases, cancers, and
heart problems are manyfold more likely if you make these choices. Then there's the impact of
stress), which damages your
immune system and contributes to many disorders, possibly including cancer.

But it is not clear whether the internet causes depression or whether depressed people are drawn to it.

Exactly. And an earlier study showed a correlation between television watching and depression. Worth repeating: correlation is not always causation.

In this case, I could easily see the correlation as: depressed people are too depressed to do anything requiring activity, so they tend to sit around and watch television or surf the web.

In December of 2009 the FDA duped Interpol to achieve illegal kidnapping and deportation of herbal formulator Greg Caton: http://www.naturalnews.com/027750_Greg_Caton_FDA.html Whatever you may think of Greg Caton and his herbal products, this was an illegal kidnapping by US officials. This executive order was likely to cover their asses after the fact.

But, I want socialized health insurance!

Then lobby for it in your state. I do not want it, don't threaten me with violence if I don't want to be a part of it. Do it at the state level so I can choose not to live there.

There are actually a couple of related interesting stories. There was the accidental contamination of vaccines by bird flu http://www.naturalnews.com/026571_Baxter_New_Zealand_health.html And then there is the fact the same company filed a patent for h1n1 1 year before it broke out http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/276194

You are making the wholly unfounded assumption that half of the dead kids were obese. Where is your justification for that?

Over half the US population is obese.

It sounds like you have a personal issue with obese people. That's well and good, but that doesn't translate into "data"

Ya, but i'm not putting together the data, I'm just telling you about it. Really, is google now beyond the means of the average /.er?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-07-10-swine-flu_N.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/19/AR2009051902609.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601202&sid=aM.7Dg3Z_msI

http://www.naturalnews.com/006781.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/dec/11/medicalresearch.health
http://health.families.com/blog/a-link-between-obesity-and-your-immune-system

> Are you aware that getting the seasonal flu vaccine increased your chances of getting H1N1?[1]

This is from an article that has this article as a link
Vaccines cause autism: Supporting evidence

The actual article has this as its first paragraph
(NaturalNews) To hear it from the vaccine makers, their vaccines are perfectly safe and have no side effects. A person can receive an unlimited number of vaccines (10, 100 or even 1000) and have absolutely no ill effects, they claim. This is the quack science mythology upon which mass vaccination policies are currently based. But new evidence is emerging that people receiving a seasonal flu shot are made more susceptible to H1N1 swine flu as a result.

> Are you aware that getting the seasonal flu vaccine increased your chances of getting H1N1?[1]

Show me where the clinical trials for the vaccines went wrong and how everyone else who looked at the efficacy of the flu vaccine missed it.

Check out the following articles and there references contained therein: http://www.examiner.com/x-18425-LA-County-Nonpartisan-Examiner~y2009m10d14-Medical-research-of-the-flu-vaccine-zero-statistical-difference-in-death-rate, http://www.naturalnews.com/023902.html, http://www.whale.to/vaccine/ott.html, and http://www.whale.to/vaccines/gbs.htm

To understand what lies behind this, watch the following talk: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6890106663412840646&hl=en#

Ref diabetes: Have you seen anything about what's happening with the capsaicin treatments for diabetes? See e.g. http://www.naturalnews.com/021345.html (also previously discussed on Slashdot.)

The researcher that originally reported it don't seem to have made any publications that seem directly relevant, see his sickkids.ca page.

Eivind.

"That completely misrepresents the opinion of climatologists." Really? Like James E. Hansen, Nasa's lead climatologist. Oh, no, I guess not. How about atmospheric scientists from the University of Oxford? Hmm. No. Or maybe you mean Jonathan Overpeck, the director for the University of Arizona's Institute for the Study of Planet Earth who once said of climate change, "The results suggest the threshold is close to the end of this century, and it could come sooner. The Arctic is already warming much faster than we thought it would. To think we're not going to get 4 to 5 degrees warmer in another 50 years is wishful thinking." Oh, no, you don't mean him. How about Damon Matthews, from Concordia University in Canada, or Ken Caldeira, from the Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford ... no, not them. Perhaps you mean Roger Pielke Sr. of ClimateScience.org, who does at least say, "Policies that focus on CO2 by itself are ignoring definitive research results ... that humans have a much broader influence on the climate system."

I've not found a climatologist who has said that raising CO2 levels are a good thing or even a neutral thing.

I can find meteorologists, economists, physicists, and many other very clever people who say such things, but if there are climatologists out there saying "Ah, nevermind the CO2, it's no big thing," then they are outnumbered 100 to 1 at best. Is that "far less" consensus than the rest? No, I don't think so. Maybe a little less. But I'm giving you a hypothetical. I still haven't even seen one of these mythical pro-CO2 climatologists of which you write. Please enlighten.

Are you ready for the census 2010? Are you proud you legally bought your firearm and are on the registered database? What will you do when mandatory vaccinations come next (hint: swine flu pandemic level 6 by the WHO) and your on the list because of the census records and know to be armed because you registered your firearms? Extra credit for those who can tell us what happened last time the USA had mandatory vaccinations.

Clear is a domestic enemy. Just like the DHS and all this other fucking bullshit.

Monsanto has applied for a patent on pigs here and here

They are also seeking to enforce these patents on independant farms across the globe.

Don't just take my word for it - a small investment of your time will yield sufficient information to scare the hell out of anyone who can really see where this is going..

The RIAA was just the start - and all they wanted was our money - Monsanto wants nothing less that to dominate the worlds food supply. And our silence will allow them to succeed.

Preliminary evidence suggests that artificial sweeteners (sucralose, aspartame, saccharine, etc.) may be even worse than HFCS. At least in animal studies, consuming fake sugars results in a lowered metabolic rate, which results in weight gain even when consuming fewer calories. If you're trying to lose weight, stick with the regular Coke next time instead of the Diet Coke. Better yet, drink water....

We should, at minimum, ban the use of the word "diet" when referring to these beverages, as they are anything but a good choice for dieters.

http://www.naturalnews.com/022785.html

So it is a excellent idea for the state to monitor all a doctors prescriptions to ensure validity of those prescription as of course inappropriately prescribed medications can result in death http://www.naturalnews.com/009278.html and any state that doesn't take actions when that number of deaths is occurring is failing it's citizens.

Yeah, but obviously they're waging a "war" against Democracy!
Just like the War on Terror, or the War on Drugs, or the War on Poverty, or the War on the Middle Class!

Hell, you could even say organic farmers are waging a War on Monsanto! Clearly, Monsanto needs to defend itself!

TheGarggh

The reason the 1918 flu had high mortality among young adults is because sometimes when the body is presented with a new and particularly severe infection, there occurs a "cytokine storm", a positive feedback loop of the immune system which can pretty much destroy you. A healthy immune system becomes a liability.

That's speculative. Not even the official medical community states this as fact.

There is an article on this at http://www.whale.to/vaccine/sf1.html with some more detail.

Americano

I'm going to simply respond to your rambling, seemingly paranoid post with a single [Citation Needed].

Paranoid conspiracy theories require some verifiable proof, especially when they directly contradict peer-reviewed and verified science so conspicuously.

I'm on it, as you see.

TroyM

I can't understand why the tin foil hat people think vaccines are a scam to make insane amounts of cash by the pharmaceuticals industry.

Because it is so? Here is an article on the profit motivation part and the documented actions of the pharmacy industry to increase profits (bribes) http://www.naturalnews.com/024114.html Note: this one has a surprisingly mainstream origin.

The reality is the last thing the industry wants is a cure for a disease. What they want is a drug that treats without curing, and has to be taken indefinitely. Something like Prozac, statin drugs, Viagra - that's where the money is.

Thats something I fully agree with.

Microlith

Explain Smallpox, Polio, Hepatitis B, HPV, Chicken Pox, Measles, Mumps, and Rubella. It is not futile. You do it, or you risk dying from easily communicable diseases.

You're an idiot parroting "Vaccines are poison!" crap, who told you this, Jenny McCarthy?

Predjudice? No, that requires knowing nothing about you and making a rash judgment. You've plainly proved you're ignorant and little better than a wishful-thinking conspiracy theorist and deserve every flame fired against your dangerous spreading of mis-information.

Ok, granted, you have no prejudice. You have religion.

TempeTerra

In brief: please provide links for your paranoid delusions, I'd enjoy the read.

The flu variant believed to be responsible for the 1918 pandemic killed by causing a cytokine storm (wiki it yourself) - the host immune system overreacts and kills the host. Of course this is most effective against otherwise healthy people with a strong immune system that can really kick some ass... against their own body.

Thats a long comment of you. I did wiki cytokine storm and even there they write statements with "it is believed". No conclusive evidence. But yea, it's wiki, so lets leave it at that.

You suggest that the pharmaceutical industry has duped the entire medical profession into believing in a disease that doesn't even exist, and will inject the entire population with a potentially lethal disease causing agent, causing massive global economic collapse simply because they can get paid for every unit they produce? No comment.

Probably yes.

kklein ...

Get some manners, dude.

Now to elaborate some of the other points. Interestingly nobody asked what ingredients vaccines have, as I was hinting. There is quite a good description at

(NaturalNews) Nine state legislatures have either passed or introduced bills intended to reaffirm their state's sovereignty as laid out in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments of the Constitution. Another twenty states are expected to introduce similar measures this year. While the ramifications of these resolutions are still uncertain, one thing is clear. People are sick and tired of the federal government's usurpation of power not granted to it by the Constitution. They have had enough of fear based economic terrorism and underhanded promotion of policies and procedures that bypass public scrutiny and the will of the people.

From http://www.naturalnews.com/025638.html

Why not just regrow the tooth as the Canda researchers patented in 2006m care of Nature News:
"A group of researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton have filed a patent for a low-intensity pulsed ultrasound tool that can re-grow teeth and bones

I thought it had been nearly proven that peer review for highly specialized complex subjects was pretty much worthless, since most reviewers will not understand the subject matter and also won't be willing to admit that they don't understand it.

No. Speaking as a scientist involved in esoteric areas: That program was a farce, it was accepted for "review" at a scientific conference, a much lower standard. When it comes to a conference someone who is simply interested in the title might allow the paper in.

As for important research: If you are publishing in a good journal, something that has more citations than articles published, then you will have someone who knows enough about the subject to give it a reasonable review.

Sounds interesting, but the only such cookware I found after a cursory Google search also contained teflon anyway!

Much like the current economic crisis, shouldn't failure be allowed? As some banks should be failing for bad investments, some students should fail to allow them to do-over.
I blew off a year of math and I went to summer school, once. I'm not proud, but it was a motivational experience. Summer school sucks.

SMU Dean David Chard In support of DISD's new grading policy

On a more frightening note, public education now seems to be king, in California at least. Homeschooling Banned in California

Does anyone else notice that things are going downhill? And they're speeding up?

The National Toxicology Program of the National Institutes of Health concluded in April that there is "some concern" that BPA may cause problems in fetuses, babies and children, including breast or prostate cancer, early onset of female puberty, attention deficit disorder and other problems of the reproductive and neurological systems.

Bisphenol A Chemical in Plastic Bottles Harms Children, Feds Conclude

The FDA declared that BPA is safe based on two industry funded studies.

Chemicals in Plastic Shown to Cause Reproductive and Neurological Disorders

A University of Cincinnati (UC) research team, headed by Scott Belcher, PhD, reports in two articles in the December 2005 edition of the journal Endocrinology that BPA shows negative effects in brain tissue "at surprisingly low doses."
http://www.naturalnews.com/020334.html

Need I go on?

Keep using BPA products. And people wonder why girls are hitting puberty so much earlier now.

The National Toxicology Program of the National Institutes of Health concluded in April that there is "some concern" that BPA may cause problems in fetuses, babies and children, including breast or prostate cancer, early onset of female puberty, attention deficit disorder and other problems of the reproductive and neurological systems.

Bisphenol A Chemical in Plastic Bottles Harms Children, Feds Conclude

The FDA declared that BPA is safe based on two industry funded studies.

Chemicals in Plastic Shown to Cause Reproductive and Neurological Disorders

A University of Cincinnati (UC) research team, headed by Scott Belcher, PhD, reports in two articles in the December 2005 edition of the journal Endocrinology that BPA shows negative effects in brain tissue "at surprisingly low doses."
http://www.naturalnews.com/020334.html

Need I go on?

Keep using BPA products. And people wonder why girls are hitting puberty so much earlier now.

The National Toxicology Program of the National Institutes of Health concluded in April that there is "some concern" that BPA may cause problems in fetuses, babies and children, including breast or prostate cancer, early onset of female puberty, attention deficit disorder and other problems of the reproductive and neurological systems.

Bisphenol A Chemical in Plastic Bottles Harms Children, Feds Conclude

The FDA declared that BPA is safe based on two industry funded studies.

Chemicals in Plastic Shown to Cause Reproductive and Neurological Disorders

A University of Cincinnati (UC) research team, headed by Scott Belcher, PhD, reports in two articles in the December 2005 edition of the journal Endocrinology that BPA shows negative effects in brain tissue "at surprisingly low doses."
http://www.naturalnews.com/020334.html

Need I go on?

Keep using BPA products. And people wonder why girls are hitting puberty so much earlier now.

The National Toxicology Program of the National Institutes of Health concluded in April that there is "some concern" that BPA may cause problems in fetuses, babies and children, including breast or prostate cancer, early onset of female puberty, attention deficit disorder and other problems of the reproductive and neurological systems.

Bisphenol A Chemical in Plastic Bottles Harms Children, Feds Conclude

The FDA declared that BPA is safe based on two industry funded studies.

Chemicals in Plastic Shown to Cause Reproductive and Neurological Disorders

A University of Cincinnati (UC) research team, headed by Scott Belcher, PhD, reports in two articles in the December 2005 edition of the journal Endocrinology that BPA shows negative effects in brain tissue "at surprisingly low doses."
http://www.naturalnews.com/020334.html

Need I go on?

Keep using BPA products. And people wonder why girls are hitting puberty so much earlier now.

The National Toxicology Program of the National Institutes of Health concluded in April that there is "some concern" that BPA may cause problems in fetuses, babies and children, including breast or prostate cancer, early onset of female puberty, attention deficit disorder and other problems of the reproductive and neurological systems.

Bisphenol A Chemical in Plastic Bottles Harms Children, Feds Conclude

The FDA declared that BPA is safe based on two industry funded studies.

Chemicals in Plastic Shown to Cause Reproductive and Neurological Disorders

A University of Cincinnati (UC) research team, headed by Scott Belcher, PhD, reports in two articles in the December 2005 edition of the journal Endocrinology that BPA shows negative effects in brain tissue "at surprisingly low doses."
http://www.naturalnews.com/020334.html

Need I go on?

Keep using BPA products. And people wonder why girls are hitting puberty so much earlier now.

I don't think a pipe on the bottom of the ocean is your biggest concern when you put hundreds of thousands of computers on a man made island, exposed to possible tsunamis and hurricanes.

Usually tsunamis are not a problem for vessels in deep open water. Rogue waves, on the other hand, have been known to severely damage large cruise ships.

And while we're at it, have they thought of the possibility of terrorist attacks

Excellent point, I think there is this potential and even more potential for pirates to attack. Pirates are a serious problem nowadays, especially off the coast of Africa.

but our climate "experts" were claiming in the 1970's that we were destined for an ice age.

Except, no, they weren't.

There was much less data available three decades ago (duh!), but even still there 7 peer-reviewed papers in the 1970s predicting global cooling. There were 42 predicting warming.

And believe it or not, science tends to progress over the years. Decades ago doctors endorsed cigarettes, but no one even tries to cite that as a counter to the idea that cigarette smoking causes cancer and heart disease.

There was a brief spike of "OMG ice age!" stories in the popular press in the 1970s. Why? Because we had some nasty winters (at least on the East Coast) in the 70s, so the idea of an ice age (proposed in a minority of papers based on inadequate data) captured the popular imagination.

The idea that there was scientific consensus - or even a strong suspicion - in the 1970s predicting an ice age is pure bunk.

Unless we radically cahnge our economy-- empower government, and ultimately live life the way they want us to.

Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. Your right to pollute the air ends where my lungs begin. Neither of these concepts requires a overly-powerful government to enforce.

We now understand that CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels are a form of pollution that damages the biosphere.

In May 2008 the EPA decreed (http://www.naturalnews.com/023734.html) that a human life is worth 6.9 million...

and get held for polluting the outer space! unless you are international space station.

whatever function they have, it's probably not as important as not dying of AIDS

Upon what data do you base that assumption? Is not dying of AIDS more important than not dying in screaming agony?

okay.

In addition, the excessive Bt in the Bt Corn (20% of the US corn production, so far) has long-term repercussions to the soil.

Nope. See, in nature a single organism tends to be mutated and either passes on its genes or not, whereas in modern agriculture we create big monocrops and do our utmost to ensure that they survive, and (assuming they don't have the terminator gene or are otherwise sterile) pass on their genes.

Peanuts kill people through an allergy, but toxins kill people because they're toxic.

Dogs have similar effects on health.

http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3035327 [americanheart.org]
http://www.naturalnews.com/021483.html [naturalnews.com]
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/33677.php [medicalnewstoday.com]
http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/features/health-benefits-of-pets [webmd.com]

Please stop using studies like these to reinforce your prejudices.

"Apparently having dogs doesn't have the same effect. "

It has been long established that dog ownership improves long term health outcomes.

http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3035327
http://www.naturalnews.com/021483.html
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/33677.php
http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/features/health-benefits-of-pets

There are natural cures for Aids, Cancer, Heart Disease that save life's. This is no secret, but those natural cures won't make Big Pharma huge profits. I'm afraid this is profit above human life .. wake up folks. http://naturalnews.com/