How Can We Still Be Alive?

Great post! Well all of yours are great. Doesn't it seem like the more we learn about our science, the more we realize the randomness of it all. And yet we try to control it through needless laws and interventions.

Your younger reporting did have merit. It is obvious to me that bad food is the culprit behind most obestiy and chronic diseases. A diet of organic nutrient dense minimally-processed foods would cause an epidemic of health and productivity in this country and fix part of the health care crisis. I do not use a cell phone because the fields do penetrate your head. Your head also has a higher affinity for the fields due to the dielectric constant being much more than air. Electromagnetics is my area of expertise. I heat Teflon occasionally and I must vent the fumes when Teflon hits about 350 deg F (lower than your stovetop). Teflon outgases all sorts of toxic substances. We live longer because of inprovements in modern medicine, but the ride towards the end is a lot more painful than it has to be for so many people. I like most of your stances against big government, but your past work has some noteworthy stances.

Mr. Stossel, I'm sure you have a plethora of experts to choose from, but my husband is probably one of the most knowledgable people in the country when it comes to seafood. Email me if I can hook you up.

PS: There is absolutely no study that proves people can be adversely effected by eating fish. (Whale is different.)

Science would be better served by exploring the still mysterious reasons for that, then insisting that because it *should* be happening,and issuing warnings based on nothing.

PPS: another good source of information: http://foodscience.ucdavis.edu/people/academic-and-research-affiliates/ptom

How ridiculous is it that any reasonable reporter would suggest people can get brain damage from eating fish? It’s laughable. Can you imagine how much “brain damage” would be floating around in Japan if that were the case? John, what makes reporters print this stuff? Do they just have some strange fascination with trying to freak people out?

I am not a journalist but I clicked through and read the letter anyway. If you read it carefully it says the whole thing about limiting fish consumption has to do with fish like swordfish, shark and tilefish. I’m not sure who eats those or for the later what that is but I know one thing I don’t like being duped by the media.

GM still owes Money regardless of Bankruptcy.

Employees owe Child Support athat has not been PAID for Several Years

There are tons of kids who have never been included in the Father's benefits
aand have never ever received Child support.

and there are tons of kids who recieve child support without Benefits.
GM Employees need to Recover all Losses
any Arrearages are OVERDUE!!!!

Cc/o Vernez Vernell Harvell Hourly Employees has not PAID SINCE 1986

DNA has been Done,may prove he is the Father
Income witholding Order established
GM Timekeeping says they have never Received.
Prosecuting Attorney for Child Support Barbara Ham Completed Order for Child support
Court Records are inaccurate . Corrected Information has Been Forwarded.

John what you have missed is that "anything I am against is bad, anything I am for is good" and that is how laws and regulations are written. This is basic to all science courses taught today, political science that is.

As a matter of fact everything is bad for you. How do I know that? Because everyone will die and nothing we do or don't do will change that, so it follows that everything we do or don't do will kill us.

John:

Grist for the mill (i.e., future 20/20 material)--

http://naturallydangerous.com/

I would recommend you have Dr. Bill Wattenburg on your program as a guest. He has recommended that book many times and as a highly-regarded scientist, his views are anything but PC. He can be contacted at our local ABC affiliate: KGO in San Francisco.

John D
Pleasanton, CA

Grazie for the post, John!

As an Italian I am certainly not giving up fish in my diet. My grandmother lived to 98 and ate fish everyday. The only headache she got was from my Poppa talking her ear off!

Couldn't a journalist like Marian Burros get in trouble with her bosses? I mean, I know I signed an ethics agreement to work at my job as a receptionist.

Ciao!

Regarding eating fish, I'd expect farm raised fish to have less mercury than wild fish. When the water is privately owned, there are incentives to keeping it clean, and owners of the water can sue polluters of it. When it's not owned privately (an economic commons) it's more likely to be polluted and there's no one to sue. In fact, government organizations are often the biggest polluters.

Thank God for privately owned water and farm raised fish. We need more private ownership of water rights. In Britain, fishing clubs have sued polluters and as a result have kept the waterways clean.

You need to see the latest seafood calculator: http://www.HowMuchFish.com

Guess what: Fish is actually healthy (on balance). All this silliness about mercury doesn't measure up to all the good news about omega-3s.

Al - seriously? Laughable? Mercury causes brain damage. Wild fish contain ever increasing amounts of mercury. While the actual details differ, I'd say you using the word "laughable" is about as ignorant as it gets.

Jim, everyone I know eats fish all the time and none have brain damage from it. How many people do you know eat tuna sandwiches for lunch and end up with brain damage? I didn’t say mercury doesn’t cause brain damage I said mercury from fish doesn’t. Lighten up or live in a bubble—your choice.

This is a crock. You are exposed to more mercury by taking a flu vaccine or having mercury fillings in your teeth. According to Dr. Mercola at www.mercola.com, "An average filling contains an estimated 800 milligrams of amalgam, with the average middle-aged adult having 8 fillings. The average North American adult has 3.2 grams of mercury (8 fillings x 800 mg per filling x 50% of total amalgam is mercury) of potential mercury vapor to go into the lungs, blood, and brain from dental fillings alone -- an average of about three-millionths of a gram a day -- this does not include the amount of mercury we take in from vaccinations and from our food!"

Wake up, folks. This is all part of the UN eugenics program to reduce the earth's population by 80% (google UN population control)...

Jim, it isn't that cut and dry. There's no evidence that mercury in fish harms humans. What you're saying should logically be true, but it isn't. Think about Japan - academic results indicate they're certainly not brain damaged even though they eat, and have for generations, far more fish than the FDA would advise. There is no evidence that eating fish causes brain, or any damage, to humans. None. Zero. Zip. It's all propaganda. The reason for that is still being researched, but fish may metabolize mercury in a way we don't apparently understand.

Dan, farm raised fish aren't usually raised in private ponds. The water they're in is the same water that the wild fish are in. Their man-made environments generally mean they aren't as tasty as their wild counterparts.

The "culprit" behind the "obesity epidemic" is eating too much and sitting on your ass. PERIOD. It's interesting that none of the Nanny State activists has ever discussed the fact that the onset of the "obesity epidemic" also coincides with the complete removal of any physical activity of any kind from the schools in nearly every school district in the country, for fear of being sued if Little Herkimer or Vajayjay fell and skinned a knee, or (worse yet) suffered the "irreperable psychological damage" of being picked last for a dodgeball team.

It's a really, really simple formula: Calories in > Calories out = fat. And it absolutely doesn't matter what you're eating. If you're hogging down tofu and carrot sticks and sitting on your ass doing nothing, you're still going to get fat. This is a human evolutionary characteristic designed to help us surivive in times of famine.

The Food Stasi really can't stand the concept of personal responsibility, and have gone to a lot of effort to remove both that and the concept of exercising from the public discussion of the issues at hand. Imagine that.

Times Watch dealt with the Times' "scary sushi" story as well: http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2008/20080124110024.aspx

Even the public editor said it was unbalanced: http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2008/20080218152701.aspx

John,

Please continue to report on stories about seafood and tell the truth. This is refreshing. I'm happy to see the socialistic tree huggers have gotten to you.

Marty, Mercola is a quack who can't keep his answers straight on things like what causes autism.

Find a real doctor if you must insist upon appealing to authority.

Especially not some nutter who thinks the UN and Big Pharma are Out To Get Us with pills and jabs.