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From:
Peter L Borst <[log in to unmask]>
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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 3 Jun 2013 09:43:22 -0400
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> The first red-flag comes right away in the article’s title: Glyphosate’s Suppression of Cytochrome P450 Enzymes and Amino Acid Biosynthesis by the Gut Microbiome: Pathways to Modern Diseases. The terms "modern disease" and "gut bacteria/microbes/flora/etc" have been used and abused by pseudoscientific practitioners that promote fad diets (paleo and such), anti-vaccination people, anti-genetically modified food people, and other groups which employ the naturalistic fallacy. The term "modern disease" is a loaded term, with the claim that all diseases and conditions (cancer, autism, MS, Parkinson’s, etc) are all caused by our modern lifestyle and modern medicine. It is also very popular to connect all things disease to the intestine. While there is a kernel of truth in a few of the claims, too often the terms get pseudoscientific treatment. 

> Kevin Kloor writes about the poor reporting done on this study (and poor science reporting as a whole). For example, Reuters called the paper a "study," which it clearly is not – it is a review – but really should be treated more as an editorial commentary since the literature review is very biased and incomplete. Hank Campbell at Science 2.0 talks a little about this paper and the dangers of an open-access journal such as Entropy. Even though it carries a label of "peer-review," it is merely a small editorial board looking for certain gross errors, but not truly peers in the field looking at the science itself. Hank Campbell does offer hope that some science reporters did actually look at the study, and showed it to be nonsense ...

> The bold conclusions reached by the review are not supported by the evidence. The authors did include many citations, but did not look at followup to many of the citations or willfully ignored them. There are many leaps of correlation to causation that do not fit their own hypothesis, but they force fit them anyway. The connections to a popular topic among pseudoscientists, gut bacteria, are very shaky at best. The review is easily dismissed, and already has been by science writers with expertise and good science sense.

Roundup and Gut Bacteria
5.4.2013 by Eric Hall
http://skeptoid.com/blog/2013/05/04/roundup-and-gut-bacteria/

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