OK, can we stop blaming vaccines yet?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/26/AR2009012601831.html

Mercury in high-fructose corn syrup. Nine of twenty samples.

One in three brand-name foods contained mercury.

The use of mercury-contaminated caustic soda in the production of HFCS is common. The contamination occurs when mercury cells are used to produce caustic soda.

OK, how many of you are happier knowing that the manufacture of high-fructose corn syrup involves a substance called “caustic soda”?  How many of you wouldn’t be any happier about that even if the caustic soda never contained mercury? 

Was there a person who said, “you know, it’ll probably be just fine to use the caustic soda with the mercury in it?”

Shades of leaded wine in ancient Rome.  History will not be kind to us, if anyone’s left around to write it.

Posted in Writing Comments
  • SkepticalOfHippies
    The levels of mercury found in the study, even in the highest amount found, was around 1/6th the levels considered safe for drinking water. And you probably don't consume nearly as much HFCS as you do water. We are talking about extremely trace amounts here, and not nearly enough to cause any sort of physiological effect.

    The group that did the study (Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy) is a progressive organization whose primary goal in life is to take down Big Agra, making specious claims about food safety is just one of their tactics.

    Read over the study, it's mostly fluff and ideology.
  • skottk
    Thanks for stopping by!
    On one level, I am completely prepared to believe what you say. I wrote
    this more out of my long-time frustration with anti-vaccine idiocy than out
    of any specific concern with mercury in HFCS.
    However, I have to say - finding out that HFCS has measurable mercury is
    kind of like finding out that some Ford Excursions are upholstered with baby
    seal skins. We're talking about a high-calorie artificial sweetener made
    with industrial chemical processes that's only economical because of
    pointless and expensive agricultural subsidies, incidentally impoverishing
    tropical island economies that would otherwise be able to sell us the cane
    sugar that we'd really prefer.
    As a sensible skeptic, you're probably aware of the corrosive and distorting
    effects of agricultural subsidies that create artificially low prices for
    commodities like corn.
    Your particular skepticism of hippies probably inclines you against using
    taxpayer dollars as welfare for specific industries and in favor of the
    power of the market to determine what crops are grown and how they're
    prepared, cooked, consumed, cracked with caustic chemicals, and contaminated
    with heavy metals.
    Your disdain for fluff and ideology probably leaves you nervous, however at
    the prospect of the Schumpetrian creative distruction that would inevitably
    accompany the elimination of agricultural subsidies. Many ideologues will
    hasten to reassure you, though, that it's the kind of pain you forget.

    SK
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