Science Facts & Fallacies

Cameron English
Science Facts & Fallacies

From CRISPR gene-edited embryos to GMO crops, biotechnology is revolutionizing medicine and farming. Scientists are increasingly able to make targeted genetic tweaks to humans, plants and animals to combat our most urgent global challenges—including hunger, disease, aging and climate change. Sadly, scientific misinformation spreads like cancer through social media and partisan blogs. Where can you turn for trustworthy analysis of groundbreaking biotechnology innovations independent of ideological bias? Who can you trust? Join the Genetic Literacy Project and our world-renowned experts as we explore the brave new world of human genetics, biomedicine, farming and food.

Episodes

  1. 4 DAYS AGO

    GLP podcast: ‘You were going to watch 2-3 people die every day.’ ICU doctor recounts his harrowing pandemic experience

    In December 2019 US doctors began to hear anecdotes coming out of China about a novel respiratory virus that caused a strange combination of deadly symptoms. Less than a month later, the first confirmed case of this new infectious disease was diagnosed in Washington State and then rapidly spread across the country. The COVID-19 pandemic had reached America. Intensive care units (ICU) in some major cities began to fill up with infected patients experiencing everything from acute heart failure to severe pneumonia, many of whom lost their lives despite the best efforts of health care providers who scrambled to combat a disease they'd never seen before. "It was just crushing," one critical care physician says his experience during the pandemic. "You knew you were going to show up every single day and try to save somebody, and you knew you were going to watch two to three people die every single day." Follow the latest news and policy debates on sustainable agriculture, biomedicine, and other ‘disruptive’ innovations. Subscribe to our newsletter. SIGN UP While they were doing their best to save lives, these doctors took the brunt of the public's frustration during the pandemic, facing accusations that they killed patients with harmful treatments and denied them access to drugs like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, which never showed any efficacy against COVID-19. One pulmonary specialist and intensive care physician CoffeeBlackMD (who wishes to remain anonymous) tackled these criticisms in a viral X post, repudiating claims that he and his colleagues were to blame for the pandemic response. On episode 296 of the Science Facts and Fallacies podcast, CoffeeBlackMD sits down with Dr. Liza Dunn and Cameron English to recount his time in the ICU during the pandemic and break down the controversy that rapidly enveloped the COVID-19 response. Podcast: CoffeeBlackMD is a pulmonary medicine specialist and critical care physician. Follow him on X. Dr. Liza Dunn is a medical toxicologist and the medical affairs lead at Bayer Crop Science. Follow her on X @DrLizaMD Cameron J. English is the director of bio-sciences at the American Council on Science and Health. Visit his website and follow him on X @camjenglish

    49 min

  2. DEC 11

    Podcast: ‘Shot In The Arm’—documentary exposes anti-vaccine movement’s underhanded tactics during COVID pandemic

    When SARS-CoV-2 swept across the world in late 2019, nobody was prepared for the disaster that unfolded. Physicians tried to care for patients sick with an infectious disease they had never seen before, while scientists scrambled to develop effective treatments and vaccines. Although most people saw this worsening situation as a public health crisis, the anti-vaccine movement viewed it as an opportunity. Just three months into the pandemic high-profile figures and activist groups began to assert that COVID-19 was planned, the next step in a prearranged "global immunization agenda" meant to initiate a “techno-communist global government” and benefit the pharmaceutical industry. Most of us viewed these chaotic events from our living rooms, but filmmaker Scott Hamilton Kennedy had a closer view. In 2019 he was making Shot In The Arm, a documentary about the resurgence of measles, a vaccine-preventable disease that now spreads almost exclusively among unvaccinated children. Kennedy kept the cameras rolling as the same activists who lobbied against childhood vaccination glomed on to COVID-19 in a bid to expand their influence over public health policy. "They seemed to be excited, in a way, that there was this trauma that they could take advantage of," Kennedy observes. "They took advantage of a fragile situation to just become more and more cynical." Join hosts Dr. Liza Dunn and GLP contributor Cameron English on episode 295 of Science Facts and Fallacies as they discuss the making of Shot In The Arm with Scott Hamilton Kennedy. Podcast: Scott Hamilton Kennedy is an Academy Award nominated filmmaker. Follow him on X, read his Substack and watch Shot In The Arm on PBS. Dr. Liza Dunn is a medical toxicologist and the medical affairs lead at Bayer Crop Science. Follow her on X @DrLizaMD Cameron J. English is the director of bio-sciences at the American Council on Science and Health. Visit his website and follow him on X @camjenglish

    41 min

  3. DEC 4

    GLP podcast: Processed food doesn’t speed aging; Ozempic may treat addiction; When science journals won’t retract junk research

    Does processed food speed up the aging process? A recent study says yes, but we have our doubts. The blockbuster weight-loss drug Ozempic may also be an effective treatment for addiction. With so many fraudulent studies published in prestigious science journals, is it time to admit that peer-review has failed? Podcast: Join hosts Dr. Liza Dunn and GLP contributor Cameron English on episode 294 of Science Facts and Fallacies as they break down these latest news stories: * Does eating ultra-processed foods speed up aging? It seems that processed food has been blamed for almost every health problem under the sun: obesity, cancer, diabetes and depression—to name just a few. Now, researchers are suggesting that eating highly processed food could actually accelerate the aging process. It's a shocking result if it's true. But in all likelihood, it's more speculation than science. * Addiction: Yet another health problem Ozempic and other weight loss drugs might help address Ozempic and other weight-loss drugs are poised to make a sizeable dent in America's obesity rate. As an unexpected side effect, these medications may also discourage drug and alcohol abuse in the same way they reduce overeating. How this happens remains uncertain for now, but one possibility is that Ozempic blunts the pleasurable response that usually comes with drug use, incentivizing people to use less of a substance or just quit entirely. * Why ‘peer review’ is no longer the gold standard for quality, objective science research The peer-review process is supposed to keep low-quality and fraudulent research out of academic journals. But what happens when peer-review fails? One scientist has identified multiple cases of major science publications not only publishing fundamentally flawed studies but refusing to retract them because it would have unpopular political consequences. What do we do when peer-reviewed journals promote ideology at the expense of science? Dr. Liza Dunn is a medical toxicologist and the medical affairs lead at Bayer Crop Science. Follow her on X @DrLizaMD Cameron J. English is the director of bio-sciences at the American Council on Science and Health. Visit his website and follow him on X @camjenglish

    43 min

  4. NOV 20

    GLP podcast: From medicine to Monsanto—Why one physician left health care to work for ‘Big Ag’

    "Over the years, the bureaucracy began to grow. Before you knew it, you went from spending lots of time talking to your patients to spending all your time with your back turned to them sitting at a computer." That's how emergency medicine physician Dr. Liza Dunn summarizes the radical transformation of America's health care system that incentivized her to leave the field for an entirely different career. Beginning in the early 2000s, Congress began passing legislation that radically expanded federal regulation of health care. Though the laws were enacted to expand access to medicine, their actual effect was to raise the cost of providing care, forcing physicians out of private practice and into massive hospital systems. The regulations also empowered insurance providers, hospitals and regulators to interfere in the doctor-patient relationship like never before. Follow the latest news and policy debates on sustainable agriculture, biomedicine, and other ‘disruptive’ innovations. Subscribe to our newsletter. SIGN UP It became increasingly difficult for physicians to treat their patients without first getting the approval of some third party or another that now had a financial stake in the care that was provided. Dunn was finally forced out of medicine after she saw one of her patients charged $16,000 for relatively routine care in the ER, a moment she describes as an "existential crisis." That realization led her to a position with Monsanto (now Bayer) as the medical affairs lead in the company's crop science division. Join hosts Dr. Liza Dunn and GLP contributor Cameron English on episode 293 of Science Facts and Fallacies as they discuss Dunn's transition from medicine to Monsanto. Podcast: Dr. Liza Dunn is a medical toxicologist and the medical affairs lead at Bayer Crop Science. Follow her on X @DrLizaMD Cameron J. English is the director of bio-sciences at the American Council on Science and Health. Visit his website and follow him on X @camjenglish

    46 min
  • 4 Episodes

4.2
out of 5
23 Ratings

About

From CRISPR gene-edited embryos to GMO crops, biotechnology is revolutionizing medicine and farming. Scientists are increasingly able to make targeted genetic tweaks to humans, plants and animals to combat our most urgent global challenges—including hunger, disease, aging and climate change. Sadly, scientific misinformation spreads like cancer through social media and partisan blogs. Where can you turn for trustworthy analysis of groundbreaking biotechnology innovations independent of ideological bias? Who can you trust? Join the Genetic Literacy Project and our world-renowned experts as we explore the brave new world of human genetics, biomedicine, farming and food.

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