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Suzanne Somers Reveals That Science Is Hard, Even With A Thighmaster's Degree

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When will we stop listening to celebrities when it comes to objective matters of fact over fantasy? “Today our food is often loaded with hormones, pesticides and genetic manipulation,” laments the intro to Suzanne Somers’ January 26th episode of “Suzanne Speaks,” the former Three’s Company star’s weekly video blog.

“Today I’m going to talk about the hijacking of our food,” the Thighmaster spokeswoman began. “Back then, food was not organic,” she said of the vague idea of food in “our grandparents’” time. “Know why? Because it was organic. Nobody had ever thought of spraying poison onto our food.”

A simplistic yet fallacious notion, we know that not only had humans “thought of” using chemicals to repel pests, but that we have done so since making the transition from hunter-gatherer to agrarian societies. And by definition, pesticides like herbicides, insecticides and fungicides are poisonous to something, hence the suffix “cide.” All of these “cides” kill something today as they did back then; think homicide and suicide. But today, the chemicals used in farming are more efficient, specific and safe than those used in the olden days.

“But today our food, all that beautiful food that you see in the supermarket, unless it’s organic, it is loaded with chemicals and pesticides,” continued the author of books like Tox-sick, which the Center for Accountability in Science criticized as sparse on citations, and Ageless, which a group of physicians and researchers lambasted as “detrimental and dangerous.” Perhaps Somers should lay off the chemophobia if she can't be held to the lofty standard of knowing that everything is made of chemicals, including the most expensive of mountain stream-sourced bottled water.

Apparently the star also doesn’t know that although most synthetic pesticides are prohibited in organic farming, most “natural” ones, which are just as toxic as their synthetic counterparts, are permitted as per United States Department of Agriculture rules. It’s a common misconception; one the organic industry hardly refutes.

It looks like Somers has bought into this organic industry deception hook, line and sinker. A viewer comment on the “Suzanne Speaks” video expressed concern that even foods labeled organic can be farmed using pesticides. “Yes, there may be pesticides blown in the wind, etc, but [certified organic is] the best verification we have right now,” replied the actress. Either Somers is clueless about chemicals used in organic agriculture, or she’s reciting less-than-truthful lines; not a far cry for an actress.

“[W]orse yet, genetically engineered food,” Somers continued, ranting about what many people call “GMOs,” a term often used to describe crops bred with modern molecular genetic engineering techniques. Her use of "genetic manipulation" as something that only applies to "today's" food proves Somers' woeful lack of science literacy.

Our grandparents' food, and their grandparents' food before them, were very much genetically manipulated. Like so-called “non-GMO” breeding methods, including wide cross hybridization, which “forces” organisms of different species to produce offspring, and mutation breeding, which exposes plants to radiation or chemicals to induce mutations, molecular genetic engineering is simply another set of breeding techniques. Indeed, humans have genetically manipulated the vast majority of our now commercially-available food for generations, including almost all organic and "non-GMO" varieties.

But the author doesn’t seem to understand that the term “GMO,” which applies to diverse techniques that have led to foods like virus resistant papayas and non-browning apples, isn’t synonymous with pesticides that some transgenic crops are engineered to resist.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a movie called Genetic Roulette but it explains how we eat GMO food and we get a little insecticide factory in our gut, that’s where all all your gut problems are starting,” she prattled. Directed by “yogic levitator” and anti-GMO activist Jeffrey Smith, the film Somers mentions is chock full of anecdotal evidence, and ignores the weight of hundreds of studies, many of which aren’t industry funded, showing that genetic engineering poses no more or less health or environmental risk than other breeding techniques.

Barely a scientific term, Somers' “little insecticide factory” may refer to crops engineered to express insecticidal proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis (or Bt); a trait that prevents widespread damage from insects that can cause crop loss and infestations of fungi that release disease-causing toxins.

Far be it for Somers to rely on facts in her alarmist rhetoric. “I choose organic and non GMO food because I know what toxins do to the lining of the GI tract,” she said in the comments section of her video. “Dr. Mercola told me that cancer begins in the stomach.”

While we should look to doctors for sound medical advice, Joseph Mercola, a popular alternative medicine advocate and vaccination opponent who sells unproven homeopathic and organic supplements at Mercola.com, proclaimed the “#1 most visited natural health website,” is hardly a credible source.

No doubt cancer is a horrific scourge with more than a million Americans diagnosed each year. But unless it’s stomach cancer, the disease doesn’t begin in the stomach, as Somers claims the celebrity doctor told her. Cancer is cells growing out of control, caused by genetic mutations that mess with cells’ normal signals to stop growing or die. And while obesity is a known risk-factor for certain types of cancer, it's a far cry to say cancer "begins in the stomach." 

Having claimed that sugar is a “happy meal” for cancer, another thoroughly-debunked fallacy, Somers is known for her irresponsible public rejection of chemotherapy, asserting that it’s unnecessary and harmful. But as surgical oncologist and alternative medicine opponent Dr. David Gorski explains on the Science-Based Medicine website, Somers had a stage I cancer with a favorable prognosis, treated with lumpectomy and radiation. In a nutshell, though chemotherapy isn't always necessary, it's often the only shot at beating cancer, and Somers’ sparse anecdotes spun as gospel are misleading and harmful.

Celeb opinions don’t count when it comes to matters of health, medicine and science when based on propaganda and one-off studies rather than fact and the weight of scientific consensus.  Somers joins the ranks of anti-genetic engineering celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Neil Young, John Mellencamp and more, all of whom should know better than to parrot unscientific propaganda, but perhaps have lived too long having their egos stroked to know the value of reason.

"Always tell the truth," Somers said when asked her secret to successful selling at a 2014 San Diego event. "The public is smart, and they can smell BS."

Excuse me while I crack a window.

Kavin Senapathy’s book examining popular food myths, “The Fear Babe: Shattering Vani Hari’s Glass House,” with co-authors Marc Draco and Mark Alsip, is available now. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.