Show #113: Jonathan Latham on understanding genetics, GMOs, roundup and the food movement

It's a brilliant science nerd alert this week for you on the show as I bring you Jonathan R Latham, PhD who is co-founder and Executive Director of the Bioscience Resource Project and the Editor of Independent Science News. Dr Latham is also the Director of the Poison Papers project which publicizes documents of the chemical industry and its regulators. Dr. Latham holds a Masters degree in Crop Genetics and a PhD in Virology. He was subsequently a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Genetics, University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has published scientific papers in disciplines as diverse as plant ecology, plant virology, genetics and genetic engineering. Dr Latham talks frequently at international events and scientific and regulatory conferences on the research conducted by the Project. He has written for Truthout, MIT Technology Review, the Guardian, Resilience, Salon.com, and many other magazines and websites. 

It's so important that if we're going to be ‘pro' a certain type of food that we need to truly understand what we're ‘against' so that when challenged we don't just heatedly say “it's toxic”. It's not enough and we need to meet curiosity with science so that people understand the informed position we're taking. Here's the frame work for the chat Jonathan and I had:   

QUESTIONS 

Re the food movement: the 'feed the world' debate / your views / solutions that don't involve gmos in their current usage / soil depletion / ecological disruption etc... And what you're most excited about right now with the grass roots ground swell happening all around.  

The poison papers - how they came about / what the objective is / As a contributor - what does your role entail? / The records date back to the 1920s, so in looking back do we see - as with so many things supposedly 'safe' then found harmful - timelines of examples (ddt / other chemicals)... Glyphosate / RoundUp got bumped back up to the top of conversation with the recent court ruling ordering Monsanto to pay $289USD to the groundskeeper of a school, finding that his cancer was caused by RoundUp usage: What can the poison papers reveal about RoundUp / Glyphosate? We can nut this section of the chat out more precisely before we hit record...  

Understanding genetics - What do we need to understand about the current GMO paradigm that isn't  working for our health / planet's health? How does what's going on now negatively impact our health (BT toxin / Glyphosate ) and the planet's (monocropping / high herbicide / pesticide use etc) Is there any circumstance / example / technology that you've seen either in the works or currently used, which GMOs might work in our food system? And then more on what you want us to understand... dangers / evidence that's come to light etc. 

And of course, the usual tangents and twists you've come to expect on the show.  

Hope you love the show and as usual you can access the show notes over at lowtoxlife.com/podcast Alexx x 

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