Debunking RFK Jrs Most Dangerous Health Myths (Food Dye, GMOs, Endocrine Disruptors & More) & How to Actually MAHA with Dr Andrea Love

In today’s episode of Bite Back with Abbey Sharp, I will be chatting with immunologist and microbiologist, Dr. Andrea Love of immunologic.org, a science and health education organization committed to debunking health wellness misinformation. Andrea will be going deep into the science on the safety of vaccines, fluoride, endocrine disruptors in tap water, food dyes, pasteurized vs milk, GMOs, glyphosate and more. Andrea will be sharing why RFK Jr.s recommendations may be financially motivated, not science motivated and I’ll be closing off with some of the most evidence based changes and goals (albeit lofty to achieve) that would actually Make America healthy again. Check in with today’s amazing guest Dr Andrea Love: Instagram: @dr.andrealove X: @dr_andrealove Website: www.immunologic.org References: https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996570855/disinformation-dozen-test-facebooks-twitters-ability-to-curb-vaccine-hoaxes https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/11/15/rfk-jr-views-conspiracies-false-claims/ https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2275444 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa021134 https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/03/health/rfk-jr-fluoride-science/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/13/politics/robert-kennedy-jr-chemicals-water-children-frogs/index.html https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/media/releases/2012/p0221_raw_milk_outbreak.html https://www.pgpf.org/article/how-does-the-us-healthcare-system-compare-to-other-countries/ https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/insur202305_1.pdf https://nchstats.com/million-americans-are-still-uninsured/ https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/may/mental-health-conditions-substance-use-comparing-us-other-countries https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/27/1-in-8-us-households-struggle-with-hunger-food-insecurity-usda.html https://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4866586/ https://aflcio.org/what-unions-do/social-economic-justice/minimum-wage from this report https://www.cbo.gov/publication/55410 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7144438/ https://ergobaby.com/blog/post/paid-family-leave-in-us?srsltid=AfmBOoqrin9Wgq0MX0fQN5uMFCNfH0fEimq0A3eiZeBmsnD8MPRL3vPu https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/27/maternity-paid-leave-women-work-childbirth-us https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7367791/#:~:text=Using%20an%20event%20study%20design,adoption%20of%20paid%20maternity%20leave. https://publichealthreviews.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40985-017-0067-2 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5137920/#:~:text=Diseases%20whose%20development%20has%20been,as%20depression%20and%20anxiety%20disorders https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8725649/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2732004/ Disclaimer: The content in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is never a substitute for medical advice. If you’re struggling with with your mental or physical health, please work one on one with a health care provider. If you have heard yourself in our discussion today, and are looking for support, contact the free NEDIC helpline at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or go to eatingdisorderhope.com. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •✨ Reach Your Weight & Health Goals — Without Dieting! Pre-order The Hunger Crushing Combo Method, Abbey’s revolutionary additive approach to eating well. Learn how to boost satiety, stabilize blood sugars, reduce disease risk, and improve your relationship with food — all while getting the best nutrient bang for your caloric buck. With 400+ research citations, cheat sheets, evidence-based actionable tips, meal plans, and adaptable recipes, The Hunger Crushing Combo Method is the only nutrition bible you’ll ever need. 👉 Pre-order today! 🛒 Where to Purchase: Amazon Barnes & Noble Amazon Kindle Apple Books Google Play Kobo Apple Books (Audiobook) Audible abbeyskitchen.com/hunger-crushing-combo • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •✉️ Subscribe to My Newsletters: Abbey’s Kitchen Newsletter 📘 Check out my FREE E-Books: Hunger Crushing Combo™ E-Book Protein 101 E-Book 👋 Follow me! Instagram: @abbeyskitchen TikTok: @abbeyskitchen YouTube: @AbbeysKitchen Blog: abbeyskitchen.com Book: The Mindful Glow Cookbook • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 🎧 Don’t forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen — and leave us a review! It really helps support the show ❤️ 💬 If you liked this podcast, please like, follow, and leave a review — and let me know who you’d love to hear about next! ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  RFK Jr., people don't realize his long history in anti-science profiteering. And it didn't start with anti-vaccines. It really started with misinformation about food and farming. And the end goal is to make a lot of money. So basically scaring people about things that don't actually pose a risk and often have a benefit so that he, his law firm, his organizations can profit off of those falsehoods.

• 0:34Abbey Sharp?

  Welcome to another episode of Bite Back with Abbey Sharp, where I dismantle diet culture rules, call out the charlatans spinning the pseudoscience, and help you achieve food freedom for good.

• 0:49Abbey Sharp?

  Today's episode is a very timely one, although seeing as RFK Jr. has already been confirmed, it appears maybe it wasn't timely enough. But today, we're going to be addressing and debunking some of the most dangerous claims made by RFK Jr. and the Maha movement in the lead up to his confirmation, and how these serve as a distraction from initiatives that actually matter. Joining me today is Dr. Andrea Love, a PhD immunologist and microbiologist and founder of Immunologic.org, a science and health education organization committed to debunking health and wellness misinformation. Andrea and I are going to be dismantling some of the most problematic Maha claims

• 1:34Abbey Sharp?

  related to vaccines, fluoride, endocrine disruptors, food dyes, raw milk, GMOs, glyphosate, and so much more. And I'll be closing off with some harrowing truths about what it would actually take to make America healthy again. Spoiler alert, it's not banning seed oils. Before we get into it, I want to highlight that this is not about politics. It doesn't matter if you're Republican or a Democrat, denouncing the claims made by RFK Jr. is simply what unites us science communicators and evidence-based

• 2:10Abbey Sharp?

  Healthcare professionals because we know the damage this misinformation does to erode public health and trust in health authority. So just keep that in the back of your mind as you listen. Also, I would love if you would give Bite Back a follow wherever you listen to your podcasts and leave me a five star review and comment. It really, really does help me out and it ultimately just makes my day. All right, friends, let's get into it.

• 2:43Abbey Sharp?

  Okay, Andrea, I'm so excited to speak with you. I'm such a fan of your content and I just learned so much from your posts. So thank you so much for taking the time to chat about this. I mean, it's a stressful time to be a science communicator.

• 2:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, thanks for having me, Abbey, and could not agree more. I feel like we've all expressed similar frustrations about information outlets really not doing their due diligence when they present information to the public. So really appreciate you stepping in to help with that.

• 3:16Abbey Sharp?

  Hundred percent. Yeah, of course. And it's hard to know where to even begin with RFK Jr.'s misinformed statements, but I do feel like we want to set the stage with vaccines because it's obviously so important. But RFK Jr. is often known in the science community as one of the disinformation dozen, meaning him and 11 other people are solely responsible for spreading like 65% of all vaccine misinformation. He's been quoted as like equating the COVID-19 vaccine mandates to the Holocaust, and then of course, has been perpetuating the consistently debunked

• 3:55Abbey Sharp?

  claim that vaccines cause autism. And yet, it is being reported like that RFK Jr. is allegedly vaccinated himself and has vaccinated his kids. So if RFK Jr. isn't even taking his own advice, can you paint a picture for us on maybe his likely intentions and motives for these public anti-vax statements?

• 4:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, it's, there is a lot to unpack and it's, it's so fascinating to me and I know we've chatted about this, that people don't realize his long history in anti-science profiteering. And it didn't start with anti-vaccines, right? It really started with misinformation about food and farming and, and I, you know, we'll get into that, but, but, but he really picked up the mantle of the anti-vaccine. The vaccines are filled with toxins and the toxins are giving you autism. Shortly after Andrew Wakefield published his entirely fraudulent study in The Lancet in 1998. And so a lot of people in the US and I would say globally are like,

• 5:01Speaker 00

  oh, well Jenny McCarthy, she really like amplified this. And yeah, she definitely did. But she was after RFK Jr. started his rhetoric. And, and it's shocking that most people don't actually know this. So RFK Jr. had already started his kind of anti-science rhetoric, profiteering, essentially making money off speaking about misinformation, lawsuits about misinformation, because that's what he is. He's a lawyer and he makes a lot of money on these civil lawsuits where you can convince a jury of this emotional story

• 5:42Speaker 00

  that isn't inherently evidence, right? But he, you know, heard of these musings after Andrew Wakefield's paper and he, starting in 1999 even, was like, yeah, this sounds like a good idea. I'm gonna run with this. And he really leveraged this misinformation about vaccines, especially that the ingredients in vaccines caused autism and caused neuro developmental issues. And he used that to

• 6:15Speaker 00

  Essentially accumulate all of his anti-science activism to that point into a cohesive organization which became Children's Health Defense, which was officially founded in 2016, but the behind-the-scenes work had been going on for many, many years before that through other organizations that RFK Jr. had been working on. And so he kind of started all of this, he really, he formed his own law firm in 2000 after, you know, this, this kind of Andrew Wakefield thing. So Kennedy and Madonna, the goal of his law firm was

• 6:57Speaker 00

  to sue chemical companies under the guise of pollution and toxins. And then, of course, that coincided with him publicly adopting the fallacy that vaccines were also toxic and causing autism and really grew from there. So he paved the way with a lot of these lawsuits targeting pharmaceutical companies, lawsuits targeting agriculture companies. And, you know, you could make the argument that once upon a time, maybe in the 80s and the 90s, he did do some things that did help remediate individual pollution instances. But then he

• 7:40Speaker 00

  took that whole idea of, oh, I can scare people about chemicals writ large and use it. And the end goal is to make a lot of money. So basically scaring people about things that don't actually pose a risk and often have a benefit so that he, his law firm, his organizations can profit off of those falsehoods.

• 8:04Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah, it's truly so scary. I mean, here in Ontario where I live, we are currently having a measles outbreak. And I am so grateful, both my boys are fully vaccinated, have the MMR vaccine, but I'm worried sick for my nephews and niece who are too young to be vaccinated. And then those are the people we need widespread vaccine uptake to really protect. It's just, it's just so selfish and terrifying, really.

• 8:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's exactly right.

• 8:30Abbey Sharp?

  I want to talk about the American water supply for a second because RFK Junior thinks that everything in tap water is going to cause harm. Again, it comes down to the chemicals, the toxins. And I want to start with fluoride because we have added fluoride to our water in developed nations to help prevent dental caries. And it works. We have great evidence that it's it's work. It's one of the, you know, an amazing public health initiative. But of course, according to RFK Junior, the fluoride in our water is again, causing neurodivergence, thyroid disease, bone cancer, arthritis, making us dumber. Where are these statements coming from? And like, do we need to worry about our tap water and our toothpaste?

• 9:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a great question. And it's, you know, it's very frustrating that these claims are really being given legitimacy by media outlets now where they're like, whoa, RFK wants to talk about fluoride and he wants to explore this. And it's like, we've actually explored this for over 75 years, right? We have really robust evidence that, you know, fluoride, the levels of fluoride that are in our public water supply are safe and beneficial. And I think here's maybe a great opportunity to remind anybody listening that with everything, the dose makes the poison.

• 9:52Abbey Sharp?

  Yes.

• 9:52Speaker 00

  And that means that anything could be toxic at a certain exposure, including things that you need to survive, right?

• 10:02Abbey Sharp?

  Water.

• 10:03Speaker 00

  Oxygen. Yeah, water can be toxic. If essentially, if you drink five liters at once and you're a human adult, you could die from water intoxication.

• 10:12Abbey Sharp?

  Yep.

• 10:12Speaker 00

  Oxygen can be toxic at a certain dose. All of the things that we think nothing about can be toxic at a certain dose. And the problem is, is that People and media outlets often mischaracterize by putting that phrase toxic in front of, you know, the, the, the chemical that they're talking about and then causing people to essentially stop listening because now they have this fear that's been evoked and they don't want to listen to logic. So

• 10:39Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 10:39Speaker 00

  First of all, fluoride is a natural substance, right? And so you actually will find fluoride naturally in different environmental sources, including groundwater, the soil, plants, because they suck up everything in the soil. And so you're also going to find it in foods you eat. The really fascinating thing about fluoride in this ionic form is that when it interacts with the structure of your teeth, the enamel, it replaces a hydrogen with a fluorine. And what that does is it changes the natural tooth enamel structure from hydroxy appetite to

• 11:19Speaker 00

  something called fluoropetite. And what that does is it actually improves the durability of the enamel so that your teeth can withstand a 10 times more acidic environment before they start to demineralize. And that demineralization is what leads to cavities and tooth decay and so on. And so, you know, this has been done, this has been tested, we fluoridate public water at point seven parts per million, so point seven grams of fluoride per one million grams of water. So it's a tiny, tiny amount. And that level is perfectly safe and it reduces the development of cavities primarily in children. It reduces complications associated

• 12:04Speaker 00

  with poor dental health and, and it poses no health risks. The problem is, is that people mischaracterize high exposures of fluoride with these low levels that you're going to have in your water. And again, this is why understanding toxicology and the fact that the dose matters is really important. And, and so they'll, you know, people will cherry pick these studies that are like, oh, well, at level That were twofold higher, threefold higher, fourfold higher, then you saw some adverse effects, or then you saw some skeletal bone issues, or then you saw, you know, something in a mouse. But the reality is, is that's not what's actually happening in our fluoridated water.

• 12:47Speaker 00

  And ironically, RFK Junior actually used to sell bottled water as part of his Riverkeeper organization that had double the level of fluoride that he's now vilifying as supposedly being toxic. So I guess the dose doesn't matter when he's trying to sell something.

• 13:07Abbey Sharp?

  When you're selling it, of course.

• 13:09Speaker 00

  But for context, right? So when people are like, oh, fluoride's a neurotoxin. Well, I mean, I guess theoretically at a high enough dose, maybe, but there isn't really even evidence of that. But how much fluoridated water you would have to drink to actually hit that? So for kids, typically, well, typically with people, you might see adverse skeletal effects at above an acute consumption of four milligrams per kilogram of fluoride per day. So hypothetically speaking, if you had a kid that was, you know, 22 pounds, you're talking about 40 to 100 milligrams of fluoride per day. At that 0.7 parts per

• 13:54Speaker 00

  million, that means that kid has to drink 57 liters of water in a day to hit that threshold. So, and that's for maybe some skeletal effects. So think about the plausibility of that actually happening. The child would die of water intoxication way before they would hit that threshold.

• 14:15Abbey Sharp?

  Way before. I think when people hear that math, they're like, oh, but that's not what gets communicated in the media headlines.

• 14:22Speaker 00

  No, absolutely not. They're, they're often cherry picking and I've seen like that, well, Japan doesn't fluoridate or Europe doesn't fluoridate their water. But in Europe, they fluoridate their salt. So they're getting fluoride from salt, whereas in the US, we don't have fluoridated salts. Sometimes we have iodized salt, but a lot of salts are not augmented. And so everyone knows that fluoride offers a benefit for dental health and dental health offers a benefit for overall health. And, and we have

• 14:56Speaker 00

  Over 75 years of data that show that these fluoride levels are not causing any harm.

• 15:03Abbey Sharp?

  Right. Yeah, I mean, he also suggested that endocrine disruptors are caused in the waters are causing gender confusion, which has then perpetuated this conspiracy theory that tap water is making people gay. And it's like, obviously, there's zero evidence that tap water affects or impacts sexual orientation or gender. But of course, like, what is the legitimate risk of endocrine disruptors in our everyday food supply at this point?

• 15:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a great question. Endocrine disruptors is really like the hot buzzword now. And there's a lot of misunderstanding of what that actually means. So the endocrine system is your hormone system, right? And we have two big classes of hormones. We have steroid hormones, and we have peptide hormones. And there's a lot of things that are technically hormones that people don't think about, like insulin is a peptide hormone that is part of your endocrine system. But typically, when they're talking about endocrine disruptors, they're talking about the steroid hormones that are typically considered your sex hormones. So your estrogen, your progesterone, your testosterone. And so essentially, what this

• 16:10Speaker 00

  phrase means is that there's something out there that interferes with the normal process of the hormone itself binding to the receptor on a cell that it's going to have an impact on, and it's interfering with that. So there's two main ways that that could happen. The first is the substance is bind so strongly to that hormone receptor that it outcompetes the actual hormone that you're producing. So it interferes because it's outcompeting. Or it doesn't bind as strongly, but you're exposed to so much of it that your body is just soaking in this endocrine disruptor, and that eventually, some of it will bind to this receptor instead of the hormone, and it will exert some effect.

• 16:56Speaker 00

  The reality is, a lot of the content about endocrine disruptors, whether we're talking about chemicals that might be in the water, or components of plastics, there's no actual human data that these are having a measurable impact on hormone signaling in any capacity. But the problem is, is that the studies that you'll find, including on government websites that are citing, they're using Petri dishes, or they're using mice. And in a Petri dish, you have a single cell type that's grown on a piece of plastic. It doesn't have all of the organ systems you have, and all of the guardrails that your body has. And when they put a lot of that substance on those cells,

• 17:40Speaker 00

  they're like, hey, the estrogen receptor genes are like, they're messed up. So therefore, there's some theoretic plausibility that it could interfere with hormone signaling. But in a human, there's no actual evidence that that's happening, because first of all, most of these substances, like BPA or parabens, they bind thousands of times more weekly to the hormone receptor than the actual hormone would. And on top of that, the amounts of these substances that you're exposed to are so tiny that there's no theoretical way that they're actually gonna outcompete your actual estrogen, your actual progesterone.

• 18:22Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah.

• 18:22Speaker 00

  So it's a legitimate term. It's a legitimate phenomenon. But are, do you need to be paranoid that everything you're exposed to is disrupting your hormones? No, I think, I think that is really kind of displacing where you should be focusing your efforts, especially because there isn't human evidence to suggest any of those claims.

• 18:45Abbey Sharp?

  So helpful.

• 19:02Abbey Sharp?

  Okay, so this is when I've talked about ad nauseam, but RFK Jr. is on a mission to legalize raw milk, which is currently not allowed to be sold for consumption in, I think, 20 different states at this point, and for good reason. What's the risk here?

• 19:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, it's pretty much all risk, no reward.

• 19:21Abbey Sharp?

  Yes.

• 19:22Speaker 00

  And I don't, I still don't fully understand the logic with this, but it really, I think, just plays into this whole like concept of like

• 19:30Abbey Sharp?

  Natural.

• 19:30Speaker 00

  medical freedom means we get to do whatever we want without consideration of other people in our society. And then, of course, yeah, the appeal to nature fallacy. But raw milk is milk that has not been pasteurized, right? So I don't know if people who are listening have ever been to a farm, have ever seen cows and how they hang out and how much messiness is around their udders, but

• 19:56Abbey Sharp?

  Poop, everywhere.

• 19:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's poop everywhere. And cows just shit wherever they want, whenever they want, all over the place, and it splashes and it splashes and the udder is hanging down. I mean, if you haven't seen a cow in its natural state, you should go and experience that. Now, so, so there's a reason that things are going to end up in that milk, and that is partly because of, you know, where the milk is produced, right? The udder and the proximity to the environment, which is filled with fecal bacteria and environmental bacteria. And also, the udders themselves have their own skin microbiome, and the cow has its own microbiome, and those are not necessarily compatible with people, right? Then you have

• 20:43Speaker 00

  the added layer of, once you milk a cow, it has to go into all these different vessels and get transported, and it has to be stored at a right temperature, because things can grow, because milk is filled with nutrients. And in addition to people needing nutrients, and other animals needing nutrients, and milk being a really rich source of nutrients, well, bacteria also like those nutrients. And so sugars and fats and proteins, those are things that bacteria like to eat, too. And so if they get inside, it's really easy for them to grow. And so Milk is a very, very risky source of foodborne contamination. Meaning if you consume that, that has not been treated in ways to reduce the presence of these disease-causing pathogens, you can get sick.

• 21:26Speaker 00

  And that's actually the case, right? Before, we had national ordinances to regulate the pasteurization of milk. Milkborne food illness accounted for 25% of all food and waterborne disease outbreaks in the early 1900s. And after the pasteurized milk ordinance was passed, was implemented in 1924, that level dropped to less than 1%. So dairy products account for less than 1% of food and milkborne illnesses nowadays. Now, the problem is, is that there's been a concerted movement in recent decades to

• 22:09Speaker 00

  loosen the regulations on raw milk. And so as you mentioned, there are states that have essentially passed individual state laws that relax the sale of raw milk, or the distribution, right? Sharing, or, you know, farm setting. And so if you look at the last 20 years of foodborne disease outbreaks, raw milk products have been the cause of over 200 of these. And if you look at where they're occurring, 78% of raw milk outbreaks are occurring in states where it is legal to sell unpasteurized milk.

• 22:48Speaker 00

  And so, there's no reason that we should be going 150 years back in time. Because pasteurization, it's so simple. You're essentially heating milk, not even to boiling, 161 degrees Fahrenheit, so it's not even to a boil, for 15 seconds. And then you cool it back down, and then, and then, and then you've inactivated viruses and you've killed bacteria that could cause disease. It doesn't deteriorate the milk proteins, it doesn't impact the nutrition, it doesn't affect the taste. But what it does is it makes it safe for consumption, and it allows it to be shelf stable, and it reduces... Diseases that people would be getting from milk otherwise.

• 23:32Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah, yeah. And, and you know, when you look at the data, it's not better for your gut as a lot of these, you know, charlatans will suggest it's not easier to digest. It not less likely, you know, to cause allergy, not more nutritious. And yet, raw dairies, uh, you know, are associated with eighty four percent of all dairy-related foodborne endless hospitalization. So it's

• 23:53Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 23:54Abbey Sharp?

  Like, this is not gonna make America healthy again.

• 23:57Speaker 00

  No, it's gonna, it's gonna make us sicker. And, and on top of that, a lot of the rhetoric is like, well, if you don't want to drink it, don't drink it. And this just demonstrates that people don't understand like supply chain and how our food is produced. Because if a farm is no longer pasteurizing a portion of their milk product, that increases the risk of it cross-contaminating their, you know, their equipment, the other milk. And then if you're drinking raw milk, then anything that you've consumed is going to be shed in your waste, which means now it can get into wastewater, it can get into the environment. So you're creating more environments for these pathogens to reproduce, to mutate, to spread.

• 24:39Speaker 00

  Um, and there's zero reason to do this, aside from the fact that some people decided that they want to promote this false claim in order, again, to make money.

• 24:52Abbey Sharp?

  Right, yeah. I want to talk about agricultural disinformation. Um, because he's been very vocal against the use of genetic engineering and non-organic farming. And then, of course, has been perpetuating this false claim that glyphosate causes cancer, which, by the way, we have like fifteen hundred studies proving that glyphosate does not cause cancer. And that GMOs are not only safe, but often make food more nutritious and accessible to, you know. Why is this all a farce? Like, what is his motive here? You kind of alluded to it earlier on, but what, what's his motive specifically with this anti-agriculture? Uh, with this disinformation?

• 25:29Speaker 00

  I'm so glad that we're talking about this because this is the thing that with a lot of healthcare providers that I talk to who aren't as immersed in like scientific research, this is like the thing where they're like, "Well, he wants to like improve healthy food." And I was like, "He actually doesn't. He actually wants to do the opposite." Mm-hmm. And, and, and so I think it's really important for people to understand that RFK Jr. spearheaded the lawsuits against Bayer, formerly Monsanto, claiming that glyphosate caused cancer. So, his motive in spreading that falsehood is because by convincing the jury that this is real, by making an emotional appeal, by having a plaintiff who's like,

• 26:14Speaker 00

  "I swear I got cancer after touching glyphosate," Mm-hmm. which is not proven, he can make a lot of money on these lawsuits. And so, it is not in his favor to give up those claims. He's been spreading those longer than he's been spreading anti-vaccine disinformation. He started by targeting farming pesticides and agriculture companies. He started his anti-science career in this scope. And his claims, his lies, have been picked up by all of the anti-agriculture activist groups, like the Environmental Working Group, like Mavs Across America, and they're even being

• 26:56Speaker 00

  touted by medical professional organizations. And so, first of all, glyphosate does not cause cancer. There have been thousands of studies, and every single scientific expert agency around the world, including Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, US, etc., have all reasserted over and over and over again that there is no evidence that glyphosate, whether

• 27:28Speaker 00

  Exposer from farm workers who are going to be exposed to higher levels, or in consumers who might be exposed to teeny, teeny, tiny levels as traces in food products have any relationship to any sort of cancer. There's not even a mechanism in which it could cause cancer, because glyphosate is a substance that acts specifically on an enzyme in plants. Humans don't have that enzyme, because this enzyme is something that plants use to make amino acids, because plants photosynthesize. Humans don't photosynthesize, so we don't have to make these particular amino acids. And so, there isn't even a pathway in our body that glyphosate acts on.

• 28:14Speaker 00

  And so, there's no evidence. But by keeping up this story, and by saying, "Well, I won this lawsuit, therefore it must be true", he is able to keep up this narrative. Now, where it interacts with genetic engineering is because glyphosate is used in the context of genetic engineering in very specific instances. So, as I mentioned, glyphosate acts on this enzyme that plants have, and all plants have it. And that means that glyphosate is broad spectrum. It's used as an herbicide, meaning it kills plants when you treat plants with it, because it interferes with the ability to make these amino acids. The plants can't make their structural proteins, they wilt, they die, right? That's how it works.

• 28:58Speaker 00

  So, in the context of farming, scientists were like, "Hey, we can replace that enzyme with a different version from bacteria that glyphosate doesn't interfere with, and therefore, in the presence of glyphosate, those particular plants with the bacterial enzyme won't die, but the weeds that are trying to strangle them will die." So, they were able to essentially genetically engineer by transferring the bacterial version of the enzyme for the plant version into six different food crops that are now what we consider glyphosate tolerant. And what that means is that farmers can now control weeds with just glyphosate, instead of having to use combinations of other herbicides to target the grasses, or the broadleaf weeds, or the other things, because...

• 29:44Speaker 00

  You know, I hate to break it to you, but we have to use herbicides to control weeds. Otherwise, we won't have food. Farmers won't be able to grow food, right? You can't just like pull up the weeds like you do in your backyard garden. It does not work like that when you're growing thousands of acres of food. And so glyphosate replaced these other herbicides that are actually way worse for you, for your health, for farmers, and for the environment. And it has an incredible safety profile because it's been scrutinized because of people like RFK Junior. And we know how safe it actually is. But because it's used in the context of this genetic engineering, now genetic engineering is also considered to be harmful and evil and so on.

• 30:26Speaker 00

  But people also don't realize that homeowners use glyphosate really often. And they actually use it at higher levels, higher concentrations than farmers use. Farmers are using the equivalent of two soda cans over an acre, so a football field of land of glyphosate. It's a really small quantity and they're using it like before they plant things or right after things have emerged. They're not like treating your bananas with glyphosate at the store. This isn't happening. But, but, but again, because you know, this genetic engineering is used in combination with glyphosate, now genetic engineering is bad because you're making these mutant foods and these Frankenfoods.

• 31:08Speaker 00

  But in reality, genetic engineering actually allows farmers to grow foods that can produce more nutrients, as is the case with golden rice, or can resist spoilage, which reduces food waste. And it allows us to address food deserts in places where people don't have access to food. Or it can improve yields, or it can allow them to grow in more hostile environments, which all allow farmers to grow food more stably, which means that you have a more stable and nutritious food supply. Right. And the irony is, this also gets conflated with organic and conventional because organic farming is a marketing certification that prohibits the use of genetically engineered crops.

• 31:53Speaker 00

  And that's again- Again, playing into this appeal to nature fallacy because people believe because of clever marketing that organic is pesticide free and all natural and super healthy and great for the soil. But in reality, organic farming uses a lot of pesticides. They're merely not synthetically altered, but that doesn't mean that they're safer. In fact, many of them are worse for the environment. They have broader effects on non-target species. They don't biodegrade as quickly. They can be more toxic. And because they're less effective, usually, they have to be used in higher quantities. And so you're using a lot of pesticides in organic farming, and they're not better. And, you know, natural has nothing to do with it.

• 32:35Abbey Sharp?

  Yep.

• 32:35Speaker 00

  But what organic farming is, is more profitable. It's 32% more profitable than conventional farming. And so when RFK is, and it's usually about double the price to the consumer. So that's, that, that upcharge is not because of it costs more to make. It's, it's pure profit. And so when RFK Junior is saying, well, we need to target pesticides and we need people to eat organic. Well, he's basically saying, well, we want only people that are affluent to have access to nutritious foods. And we want to scare everyone else about the more affordable, more sustainable, perfectly safe food production and food sources that everyone could afford.

• 33:15Speaker 00

  And, and this is why, not only do I not buy organic, but I, I don't want to because it's supporting this anti-science rhetoric that people have been told that if they're not feeding their kids organic, they're poisoning them. And that's coming from people like RFK Junior. He's telling people that conventionally grown foods are covered in toxic pesticides, which is absolutely not true.

• 33:41Abbey Sharp?

  Right. Yeah, I, I often try to remind people that, you know, at, at the end of the day, this kind of rhetoric really just harms people who are, you know, not in a financial place to be able to buy, you know, a thousand dollars of organic produce every other week. When I would far rather people eat way more conventional produce than have to kind of like, you know, purse out their, their produce budget because they can, they believe that they should only be buying organic. That is not going to make America healthy again.

• 34:15Speaker 00

  Absolutely. And on top of that, you know, when we talk about, you know, these, these impacts, we talk about environmental impact and these sorts of things because people also believe that he's an environmentalist. Well, organic farming has lower yields, which means that you're using more land to grow the same amount of food, which is also contributing indirectly to an increased carbon footprint. And so there's, there's not ecological benefits either. And so when we're talking about like chronic health and making people healthy, well, we should be talking about the fact that 90% of Americans aren't eating enough fruits, vegetables and fiber.

• 34:51Abbey Sharp?

  Right.

• 34:51Speaker 00

  It has nothing to do with the parts per billion or parts per trillion of a trace pesticide that is well below safety threshold. And it's definitely not about red dye.

• 35:02Abbey Sharp?

  Yes.

• 35:02Speaker 00

  It's about the fact that people are not eating produce in part because people like RFK Jr. have told them that if they can't afford organic, then they're poisoning their family. So what are they going to do? They're going to opt to not eat produce.

• 35:19Abbey Sharp?

  Hundred percent.

• 35:35Abbey Sharp?

  And you just mentioned Red 40, which I think is a good segue here because there have been a number of attacks on specific ingredients in more highly processed foods, especially things like seed oils and the food dyes, Red 40. With, you know, him and Food Babe or whatever have just spent so much time lobbying against, like, are there not, again, it's a distraction, right? It's a distraction from what matters. But I think this argument that we often see online that sows greater overall distrust in health authority is that things like food dyes are banned in places like the EU, but not here. So Americans, you know, America's regulations must be faulty and therefore, you know, you can't trust anything. Can you speak to why that argument doesn't hold up? And like, what are the politics

• 36:20Abbey Sharp?

  involved and what is banned versus what is not?

• 36:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, it's great, great question. And yeah, there's multiple layers. But the first thing is, is that these food dyes are not banned in those countries.

• 36:36Speaker 00

  It's, it's kind of horrifying that like media outlets and politicians like don't even do the bare minimum of fact checking this. But the, the, the names that we know food dyes to be like red 40, red three, blue one, blue two, and so on. They're called that because the entity that names them is the FDA. Basically, it's, it's using designations called FDNC, which stands for food, drug and cosmetics. So it's an FDNC red three, FDNC red 40. Now, people don't realize that the FDA is, is only in the US. So in other countries, they have a different food safety agency. So for example, in Europe, we have the European Food Safety Authority.

• 37:21Speaker 00

  And so they use an entirely different naming system. So they're not calling it blue one, they're calling it E133. They're not calling it red three, they're calling it E127. They're not calling it red 40, they're calling it E129. And the same is true in Japan and in Canada and Australia. In Japan, they call red 40 217. And so if you actually go to the regulatory agency websites of all these other countries, and I've actually listed them all, they're not banned. And, and on top of that, all of these food safety agencies conduct safety studies. They, they conduct toxicology studies. And based on that, they set what we call an acceptable daily intake.

• 38:05Speaker 00

  An acceptable daily intake is the maximum amount that a person could ingest every single day for their entire life without any sort of health risk. So this ADI level. Because you're assuming that this person is eating this every single day for their entire life. It's super conservative. It's usually at least a hundredfold to a thousandfold lower than any level ever seen in any scientific study to show evidence of harm because we want to account for high-risk populations, right? And so, these acceptable daily intake levels are defined by a no observed adverse effect level and no AL. And then also something called the human equivalent dose. So, the

• 38:48Speaker 00

  no observed adverse effect level is something that's been determined by toxicological studies in animals, where they do acute toxicity, reproductive toxicity, developmental toxicity, and then chronic toxicity like cancer. So, they determine this no AL level, and then they take that and say, okay, well, this was done in rats, or this was done in monkeys, or this was done in mice, and they convert this to a human equivalent dose based on the relationship between that species and humans. And so, there's a species conversion factor, and there's a lot of math that goes into this and physiology and so on. But that's how we get this acceptable daily intake level. So, if you actually look at

• 39:30Speaker 00

  what those ADI levels are for these food dyes in other countries, in almost all instances, they're exactly the same as the ones in the US. In some instances, they're higher in other countries. So, for example, for yellow five, the US acceptable daily intake is five milligrams per kilogram per day, but in Japan, Europe, Australia, and Canada, they're seven and a half milligrams per kilogram per day. Or something like yellow six, it's 3.75 miggs per gig per day in the US, but everywhere else, it's four milligrams per kilograms per day. So, first of all, they're not banned. Second of all, the ADI levels that are based on the actual scientific studies all show pretty similar. And red forty, it's the same across the board. It's seven milligrams per kilogram per day for

• 40:14Speaker 00

  all of the countries. And so, you have this legislation coming out of like California, where they're banning all these food dyes and claiming that they're banned in other countries and claiming that they have all these health- But in reality, that's not actually the case. But the sponsor of that bill is the Environmental Working Group and Consumer Reports. And they have a long history of spreading fear about chemicals that don't actually pose a risk to your health while undermining things that do impact your health. And so when these things get put into law or when they get picked up by media outlets, it gives these things legitimacy. But people don't understand that even if you said something is banned in one country and it's allowed in the US,

• 40:58Speaker 00

  that doesn't go to the scientific safety of it. Because whether something is banned in another country is a direct reflection on their politics. It's why California has Proposition 65 and now these bans on food dyes. Because it's influenced by the elected officials that are not scientists. Who's lobbying them? What they think is going to be popular for their voting bloc? And it doesn't automatically reflect what the scientific data is. Now, if you want to make that argument, there's actually a lot of things that are permitted in Europe but are banned in the US, including more food dyes that are allowed in Europe than are allowed in the US.

• 41:41Speaker 00

  But you never hear that part of the conversation. So interestingly, because now the FDA was kind of pigeonholed into banning RED3 because of anti-science activist groups and this really antiquated legal loophole that has nothing to do with safety, but it's a holdover from when we would blast animals with 5,000 times doses of things and maybe you could cause a tumor in one of them, which spoiler, you can do that with anything. You can cause tumors in mice with cinnamon. But anyway, so they're banning RED3. So now the US will actually be the country that has banned RED3. Whereas in other countries, it isn't banned.

• 42:24Speaker 00

  It's, the ADI is 0.1 milligrams per kilogram per day, but it's used in things that you eat. And so it's really just this conflation and distraction. It's this risk perception gap, right? Get people really up in arms and outraged about this singular food substance that...

• 42:44Speaker 00

  Has no impact to your health and when they ban it, they're going to replace it with something else and that something else might not be safer, it might not be as inexpensive, it might not be as stable, it's probably going to be something like cocaine, which actually has allergy risks because it's derived from insects. But aside from that, it legitimizes this fear of chemicals when there's no context there and there's no actual evidence. And it's not focusing on the things like addressing food deserts and addressing healthcare access that actually do impact health.

• 43:16Abbey Sharp?

  Amen. Yes, 100%. Thank you so much Andrea. This was a brilliant conversation, albeit kind of depressing considering where we're at right now. But I really do hope it reaches the people who, you know, may be tempted by all of this persuasive anti-science messaging that is unfortunately picking up quite a lot of steam. So I will of course be leaving links in the show notes to where people can find your incredible content. So thank you again.

• 43:46Speaker 00

  Thanks so much for having me.

• 44:03Abbey Sharp?

  This is such a critical conversation to be having right now. As a Canadian watching this all unfold from the sidelines, I am admittedly just like so scared for what's to come. Not just for my friends to the south who will undoubtedly be the most immediately affected by these recommendations and movements, but to folks across the world because the virality of these false statements have already done real harm at chipping away at the public's trust in evidence-based public health initiatives. So I'm certainly not qualified to be like a health secretary of anywhere. I am quite confident that these tactics of RFK Jr. are

• 44:48Abbey Sharp?

  not what is required to make America healthy again. In fact, the vast majority- Of RFK Junior's initiatives focus on performative non-issues as a distraction from the real drivers of poor health. Yes, I'm talking about systemic inequalities. So here are just a few of the changes that we know would result in the greatest outcomes for Americans' health.

• 45:16Abbey Sharp?

  Number one, implementing comprehensive healthcare reforms, including universal coverage and preventative services. The US spends nearly twice as much as other high-income countries on healthcare, around $12,500 per person, which is solely a reflection of inflated service costs, not of actual health outcomes. In fact, compared to other wealthy countries, the United States performs dead last in critical outcomes like life expectancy, infant mortality, unmanaged diabetes, and safety during childbirth. This is compounded by the fact that 1 in 10 Americans lack health insurance,

• 45:58Abbey Sharp?

  and 50% of those uninsured adults won't see a doctor even when in need. And studies suggest that this lack of health insurance is associated with 45,000 excess preventable deaths in the United States per year. Improved preventative services also needs to extend to mental health, since a quarter of American adults are experiencing some form of mental illness, yet only half of those affected are able to access treatment, largely due to the cost of uninsured services and lack of providers. And when compared to countries like the UK that do have far better access, the United States has twice the suicide rate per capita.

• 46:43Abbey Sharp?

  So investing in better mental health care would absolutely not be in vain. Number two, addressing the growing rates of food insecurity.

• 46:54Abbey Sharp?

  When it comes to diet-related risk factors for disease specifically, the top dogs aren't seed oils or Red 40 food dye as RFK Jr. might make you believe. It's the fact that 1 in 8 American households are food insecure and reside in low-income food deserts where they have limited access to adequate amounts of safe nutritious foods. Folks living with food insecurity may find themselves only able to afford higher-calorie, lower-nutrition ultra-processed foods. And I know that reducing ultra-processed foods is one of RFK Jr.'s mandates, especially when it comes to school lunch programs.

• 47:36Abbey Sharp?

  But without a strategy in place to replace those foods with more nutritious alternatives, it's just going to further the food security divide. Ditto for his obsession with the so-called dangers of things like glyphosate. Because without safe crop-protection strategies like glyphosate, food prices would be predicted to rise another 40%, making access to things like fruits and vegetables even more out of reach. So maybe instead of spending all those government dollars on regulations that would like force Kellogg's to replace Red 40 with beet juice in their Fruit Loop recipe, maybe we could focus on the long-term game of getting actual beets into the hands of more Americans

• 48:21Abbey Sharp?

  via SNAP benefits, produce subsidies, and improved access to rural communities. Finally, how about addressing income inequality and workers' benefits? Economic stability is one of the strongest predictors of health outcomes. Yet the US has the highest level of income inequality among all wealthy nations. So much so that there is a 15-year life expectancy gap between the poorest Americans and the wealthiest. Simply raising the federal minimum wage to keep up with inflation would be expected to lift over 1.3 million Americans out of poverty. We're not even talking about making people rich here.

• 49:04Abbey Sharp?

  We're talking about just meeting the rate of inflation. Worker protections are also badly needed to support workers who want to grow a family, which, if you're to ask Elon Musk, is pretty important to the country's economic growth. Yet, as it stands, the US is the only wealthy nation without a federally mandated paid family leave, which means that one in four new moms in the US have to return to work within two weeks of giving birth. As a Canadian mom, I truly cannot imagine this being my reality. And when we look at the research, this situation seems all the more misguided,

• 49:49Abbey Sharp?

  as studies have found that paid parental leave results in lower infant mortality rates, longer life expectancy, and higher productivity. And it's not just new moms who are affected by lack of government support. Chronic stress from the necessity of overworking because there's no time off, benefits, or fair wages is linked to increased rates of mental illness, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and substance abuse, just to name a few. So like, it sounds like a kind of important area of focus if you actually want to make America healthy again. Now, I'm not blind to the fact that these are big problems that are not going to get

• 50:32Abbey Sharp?

  solved overnight by signing a simple bill. I also acknowledge that taking any one of these steps might be met with significant resistance from corporate businesses and individuals with influence, because it would fundamentally shift economic power in ways that are unfavorable to them. So it's a real shame that America has ended up with a health secretary who has far more financial incentives to push anti-science mandates than any actual experience in science. But that might be another rant for another day. I obviously could chat with Andrea all day long, so stay tuned, because Andrea and I have enough- Another episode coming out about cancer misinformation.

• 51:17Abbey Sharp?

  And the learnings from that are truly wild. But I would love, if you're not already, to subscribe to Bite Back and give us a five star review and a little comment because it really does help me get this critical information to the masses. Signing off with Science and SaaS, I'm Abbey Sharp. Thanks for listening.