Developmental Timeline of Alcohol-Induced Birth Defects

- By: Erica O'Neil - Published: April 24, 2011

Maternal consumption of alcohol (ethanol) during pregnancy can result in a continuum of embryonic developmental abnormalities that vary depending on the severity, duration, and frequency of exposure of ethanol during gestation. Alcohol is a teratogen, an environmental agent that impacts the normal development of an embryo or fetus. In addition to dose-related concerns, factors such as maternal genetics and metabolism and the timing of alcohol exposure during prenatal development also impact alcohol-related birth defects.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) is the most severe collection of alcohol-related birth defects, and is defined by pre- and post-natal growth retardation, minor facial abnormalities, and deficiencies in the central nervous system (CNS). The effects of alcohol on prenatal development can include much more than those defining criteria, however, and prenatal exposure to alcohol can potentially impact normal development at almost any point in the pregnancy, from embryonic through fetal development.

Prenatal development has into two stages, the embryonic stage that comprises the first eight weeks of development after fertilization, and the fetal stage that encompasses the remainder of development. The embryonic stage is the period when body plans are laid out, and the precursors of what will become organ systems are determined. Alcohol introduced at this stage can have significant repercussions depending on the population of cells negatively affected. Those developmental deviations can result in a range of birth defects or may completely arrest the pregnancy if malformations are particularly severe. During the fetal stage, prenatal alcohol exposure still has the potential to negatively impact development, but much less than the massive developmental defects that can result from exposure during the embryonic stage.

In the first two weeks following fertilization, excessive alcohol consumption does not generally have a negative effect on the zygote and emerging blastocyst (pre-embryo). Maternal consumption of alcohol during this time can prevent proper implantation of the blastocyst in the uterus, resulting in an increased rate of resorption or early termination of the pregnancy, generally before a woman realizes she is pregnant. The potential for the cells in the blastocyst to become any cell lineage in the body generally confers protection against the negative effects that alcohol has on specific cellular populations.

It is in the third week after fertilization that specific alcohol-induced birth defects begin to affect the developing embryo. At this point in the developmental timeline, gastrulation commences and the three embryonic germ layers (ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm) are set. Between this point and the sixth week after fertilization, when neurulation occurs, the cranial neural crest cell population is vulnerable to alcohol-induced damages. The cranial neural crest cells compose the frontonasal process of the developing embryo, which interacts with the ectoderm to differentiate into facial features. Damage to this cellular progenitor pool can result in the minor midline facial abnormalities characteristic of FAS.

Precursor cells that give rise to the heart also begin to differentiate shortly after the third week and by the fourth week of development, the embryonic heart is already beating. During this rapid period of cardiac development, alcohol can impede the proliferation, migration, and specification of cardiac progenitor cells by prompting either a deficient or toxic levels of retinol (vitamin A) in the developing embryo. Defects that result from those impediments can include atrial and ventricular abnormalities, issues with valve formation, and a potential increase in the risk of heart disease later in adulthood.

The neural plate forms in the third week, the anterior portion of which gives rise to neuroectoderm, tissues fated to form the tissues of the central nervous system (CNS). From this point through the third trimester, the cellular progenitor pools, called radial glia, that will give rise to the CNS become vulnerable to the effects of alcohol. The radial glia signals the creation and migration of neurons and their support cells (glia) during development. Damage to this cellular pool can result in morphological abnormalities and an overall reduction in white matter within the brain. Alcohol also impacts the mechanisms and signaling pathways responsible for the creation of those brain cells, impeding cellular proliferation, differentiation, and survival.

During the third week of gestation, ocular development begins and tissues of the eye are the first component of the central nervous system compromised by the prenatal introduction of alcohol. During this time and continuing forward, the retina becomes vulnerable to the effects of alcohol. At about four weeks after fertilization, the neuroectoderm begins to interact with the surface ectoderm to create tissues that later give rise to the lens and cornea of the eye. In the fifth week following fertilization, the mesoderm surrounding the developing eye begins to give rise to the uvea (iris and other associated muscles), sclera (protective sheath surrounding the eye) and eyelids. The most common defects, microphthalmia and optic nerve hypoplasia arise when prenatal alcohol exposure compromises this developmental cycle.

Specific damage to the brain can continue in the sixth and seventh week following fertilization, after the brain has begun to divide into vesicles. At that point, the corpus callosum, a midline structure responsible for the communication between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, becomes vulnerable to alcohol. Prenatal alcohol exposure can result in the underdevelopment or complete agenesis of that structure, which is composed primarily of myelinated axons, and is therefore extremely vulnerable to ethanol’s impact on radial glia progenitor pools.

The eighth week after fertilization is the end of the embryonic stage and the beginning of the fetal stage of pregnancy. Prenatal alcohol exposure still has the potential to negatively impact normal development, but as the majority of organ systems have been determined by this point in time, organ-specific birth defects are not normally expected. The developing central nervous system remains vulnerable to the prenatal exposure of alcohol, particularly in the formation of the cerebellum, and the fetus remains vulnerable in terms of prenatal growth restrictions.

The cerebellum is one of the last structures of the brain to differentiate during development, with the majority of structures in the brain having begun development earlier. Most cellular proliferation, migration, and synaptic regulation in the cerebellum occur in the third trimester, 24 weeks after fertilization through birth. This period of intense neuronal creation, organization and connectivity is called the brain growth spurt. While the radial glia progenitor pool has already been established by this point in time, alcohol can still impact neural migration and synaptogenesis.

The fetus is not as sensitive to the effects of alcohol as is the embryo, and in the third trimester the fetus begins to self-regulate and redirect resources to cope with environmental damages. Self-regulation is observed in the pre-natal growth deficiencies that accompany FAS, which fall into two broad categories, symmetric or asymmetric intrauterine growth restrictions. If alcohol impacts cellular proliferation in the first and second trimester, or consistently throughout the entire pregnancy, then the growth deficiencies will be symmetric and observed across all parts of the developing fetus. Asymmetric growth restrictions, which result in a normal-sized head but smaller than normal abdominal cavity, may result in the third semester. The head is a normal size because in the third trimester the fetus can redistribute cardiac resources to the command centers of the body, like the brain and heart, at the expense of other less vital processes like digestion.

There is no point during development when prenatal alcohol exposure lacks consequences, the occurrence of the more severe birth defects correlates with exposure to alcohol in the embryonic stage rather than the fetal stage. FAS and related alcohol-induced birth defects are an example of what can happen when a mother heavily imbibes alcohol during the course of the pregnancy. In the United States, the Surgeons General caution women against drinking while pregnant and require warnings be displayed on all alcoholic products.

Sources:

  1. Armstrong, Elizabeth M. Conceiving Risk, Bearing Responsibility: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome & the Diagnosis of Moral Disorder. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2003.
  2. Bookstein, Fred L., Paul D. Sampson, Paul D. Connor, and Ann P. Streissguth. “Midline Corpus Callosum is a Neuroanatomical Focus of Fetal Alcohol Damage,” The New Anatomical Record 269 (2002): 162–74.
  3. Dikranian, Krikor, Yue-Qin Qin, Joann Labruyere, Brian Nemmers, and John W. Olney. “Ethanol-Induced Neuroapoptosis in the Developing Rodent Cerebellum and Related Brain Stem Structures,” Developmental Brain Research 155 (2005): 1–13.
  4. Gilbert, Scott. Developmental Biology, 8 ed. Sunderland: Sinauer, 2006.
  5. Golden, Janet. Message in a Bottle: The Makings of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005.
  6. Grewal, Jagteshwar, Suzan L. Carmichael, Chen Ma, Edward J. Lammer, and Gary M. Shaw. “Maternal Periconceptional Smoking and Alcohol Consumption and Risk for Select Congenital Anomalies,” Birth Defects Research Part A: Clinical and Molecular Teratology 82 (2008): 519–26.
  7. Guerri, Consuelo, Alissa Bazinet, and Edward P. Riley. “Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders and Alterations in Brain and Behavior,” Alcohol & Alcoholism 44 (2009): 108–14.
  8. Rubert, Gemma, Rosa Miñana, Maria Pascual, and Consuelo Guerri. “Ethanol Exposure during Embryogenesis Decreases the Radial Glial Progenitor Pool and Affects the Generation of Neurons and Astrocytes,” Journal of Neuroscience Research 84 (2006): 483–96.
  9. Saito, Toshikazu, Boris Tabakoff, Paula L. Hoffman, Kim Nixon, Masaru Tateno, and Consuelo Guerri. “The Effects of Ethanol on Neuronal and Glial Differentiation and Development,” Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 29 (2005): 2070–75.
  10. https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/developmental-timeline-alcohol-induced-birth-defects

Mexico to Ban Glyphosate, GM Corn Presidential Decree Comes Despite Intense Pressure from Industry, U.S. Authorities

Published: March 04, 2021

Welcome to New World Next Week - the video series from Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news. https://www.corbettreport.com/...

Interview 1433 – Patrick Wood on the Hard Road to World Order

Published: April 02, 2019

Author and researcher Patrick Wood joins us to discuss his latest book, Technocracy: The Hard Road to World Order. SHOW NOTES AND MP3: https://www.corbettreport.com/?p=30723

Mexico to Ban Glyphosate, GM Corn Presidential Decree Comes Despite Intense Pressure from Industry, U.S. Authorities

- By Timothy A. Wise - Inter Press Service - February 24, 2021

Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador quietly rocked the agribusiness world with his New Year’s Eve decree to phase out use of the Monsanto's toxic, carcinogenic herbicide glyphosate and the cultivation of genetically modified, or GM corn. His administration sent an even stronger aftershock two weeks later, clarifying that the government would also phase out GM corn imports in three years and the ban would include not just corn for human consumption but yellow corn destined primarily for livestock. Under NAFTA, the United States has seen a 400% increase in GMO corn exports to Mexico, the vast majority genetically modified yellow dent corn.

The bold policy moves fulfill a campaign promise by Mexico’s populist president, whose agricultural policies have begun to favor Mexican producers, particularly small-scale farmers, and protect consumers alarmed by the rise of obesity and chronic diseases associated with high-fat, high-sugar processed foods.

In banning glyphosate, the decree cites the precautionary principle and the growing body of scientific research showing the dangers of the chemical, the active ingredient in Bayer/Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. The government had stopped imports of glyphosate since late 2019, citing the World Health Organization’s warning that the chemical is a “probable carcinogen.”

The prohibitions on genetically modified corn, which appear toward the end of the decree, have more profound implications. The immediate ban on permits for cultivation of GM corn formalizes current restrictions, ordered by Mexican courts in 2013 when a citizen lawsuit challenged government permitting of experimental GM corn planting by Monsanto and other multinational seed companies on the grounds of the contamination threat they posed to Mexico’s rich store of native corn varieties. The import ban cites the same environmental threats but goes further, advancing the López Obrador administration’s goals of promoting greater food self-sufficiency in key crops. As the decree states:

“[W]ith the objective of achieving self-sufficiency and food sovereignty, our country must be oriented towards establishing sustainable and culturally adequate agricultural production, through the use of agroecological practices and inputs that are safe for human health, the country’s biocultural diversity and the environment, as well as congruent with the agricultural traditions of Mexico.”

Chronicle of a decree foretold

Such policies should come as no surprise. In his campaign, López Obrador committed to such measures. Unprecedented support from rural voters were critical to his landslide 2018 electoral victory, with his new Movement for National Renewal (Morena) claiming majorities in both houses of Congress.

Still, industry and U.S. government officials seemed shocked that their lobbying had failed to stop López Obrador from acting. The pressure campaign was intense, as Carey Gillam explained in a February 16 Guardian expose on efforts by Bayer/Monsanto, industry lobbyist CropLife, and U.S. government officials to deter the glyphosate ban. According to email correspondence obtained by the Center for Biological Diversity through Freedom of Information Act requests, officials in the Trump Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture and office of the U.S. Trade Representative were in touch with Bayer representatives and warned Mexican officials that restrictions could be in violation of the revised North American Free Trade Agreement, now rebranded by the Trump Administration as the U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA).

According to the emails, CropLife president Chris Novak last March sent a letter to Robert Lighthizer, USTR’s ambassador, arguing that Mexico’s actions would be “incompatible with Mexico’s obligations under USMCA.” In May, Lighthizer followed through, writing to Graciela Márquez Colín, Mexico’s minister of economy, warning that GMO crop and glyphosate matters threatened to undermine “the strength of our bilateral relationship.” An earlier communication argued that Mexico’s actions on glyphosate, which Mexico had ceased importing, were “without a clear scientific justification.”

Nothing could be further from the truth, according to Victor Suárez, Mexico’s Undersecretary of Agriculture for Food and Competitiveness. “There is rigorous scientific evidence of the toxicity of this herbicide,” he told me, citing the WHO findings and an extensive literature review carried out by Mexico’s biosafety commission Cibiogem.

And even though most imported U.S. corn is used for animal feed, not direct human consumption, a study carried out by María Elena Álvarez-Buylla, now head of CONACYT, the government’s leading scientific body, documented the presence of GM corn sequences in many of Mexico’s most common foods. Some 90% of tortillas and 82% of other common corn-based foods contained GM corn. Mexico needs to be especially cautious, according to Suárez, because corn is so widely consumed, with Mexicans on average eating one pound of corn a day, one of the highest consumption levels in the world.

While the glyphosate restrictions are based on concerns about human health and the environment, the phaseout of GM corn is justified additionally on the basis of the threat of contamination of Mexico’s native corn varieties and the traditional intercropped milpa. The final article in the decree states the purpose is to contribute “to food security and sovereignty” and to offer “a special measure of protection to native corn.”

The ban on GM corn cultivation has been a longstanding demand ever since the previous administration of Enrique Peña Nieto granted permission to Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta and a host of other multinational seed companies to begin experimental planting in northern Mexico. Such permits were halted in 2013 by a Mexico court injunction based on a claim from 53 farmer, consumer and environmental organizations – the self-denominated Demanda Colectiva – that GM corn cultivation threatened to contaminate native varieties of corn through inadvertent cross-pollination.

“It is difficult to imagine a worse place to grow GM corn than Mexico,” said Adelita San Vicente, the lead spokesperson for the plaintiffs who is now working in López Obrador’s environment ministry, when I interviewed her in 2014 for my book, Eating Tomorrow (which includes a chapter on the GM corn issue). Such contamination was well-documented and the courts issued the injunction citing the potential for permanent damage to the environment.

As Judge Walter Arrellano Hobelsberger wrote in a 2014 decision, “The use and enjoyment of biodiversity is the right of present and future generations.”

Mexico’s self-sufficiency campaign

Mexico’s farmer and environmental organizations were quick to praise the decree, though many warned that it is only a first step and implementation will be key. “These are important steps in moving toward ecological production that preserves biodiversity and agrobiodiversity forged by small-scale farmers over millennia,” wrote Greenpeace Mexico and the coalition “Without Corn There is No Country.”

Malin Jonsson of Semillas de Vida (Seeds of Life), one of the plaintiffs in the court case, told me, “This is a first step toward eliminating glyphosate, withdrawing permits for GM maize cultivation and eliminating the consumption of GM maize. To end consumption we have to stop importing GM maize from the United States by increasing Mexico’s maize production.”

Mexico imports about 30% of its corn each year, overwhelmingly from the United States. Almost all of that is yellow corn for animal feed and industrial uses. López Obrador’s commitment to reducing and, by 2024, eliminating such imports reflects his administration’s plan to ramp up Mexican production as part of the campaign to increase self-sufficiency in corn and other key food crops – wheat, rice, beans, and dairy. Mexican farmers have long complained that since NAFTA was enacted in 1994 ultra-cheap U.S. corn has driven down prices for Mexican farmers. The proposed import restrictions would help López Obrador’s “Mexico First” agricultural policies while bringing needed development to rural areas.

Will Biden Administration block action?

Industry organizations on both sides of the border have complained bitterly about the proposed bans. “The import of genetically modified grain from the U.S. is essential for many products in the agrifood chain,” said Laura Tamayo, spokeswoman for Mexico’s National Farm Council (CNA), who is also a regional corporate director for Bayer. Bayer’s agrochemical unit Monsanto makes weedkiller Roundup and the GMO corn designed to be used with the pesticide.

“This decree is completely divorced from reality,” said José Cacho, president of Mexico’s corn industry chamber CANAMI, the 25-company group that includes top corn millers like Gruma, cereal maker Kellogg, and commodity trader Cargill.

Juan Cortina, president of CNA, said his members might sue the government over the bans. “I think there will need to be legal challenges brought by all the people who use glyphosate and genetically-modified corn,” he told Reuters, adding that he also expects U.S. exporters to appeal to provisions of the USMCA trade pact to have the measures declared illegal.

Industry sources also warned that Mexico would never be able to meet its corn needs without U.S. exports and that U.S. farmers would be harmed by the presumed loss of the Mexican export market. Others quickly pointed out that Mexico was not banning U.S. exports, just GM corn exports. U.S. farmers are perfectly capable of producing non-GM corn at comparable prices, according to seed industry sources, so the ruling could encourage the development of a premium market in the United States for non-GMO corn, something U.S. consumers have been demanding for years.

Such pressures may present an early test for President Joe Biden and his nominee for U.S. Trade Representative, Katherine Tai, whose confirmation hearing is scheduled for February 25. Tai won high marks for helping get stricter labor and environmental provisions into the agreement that replaced NAFTA. Will she and the Biden administration respect Mexico’s sovereign right to enact policies designed to protect the Mexican public and the environment while promoting Mexican rural development?

Victor Suárez certainly hopes so.

“Our rationale is based on the precautionary principle in the face of environmental risks as well as the right of the Mexican government to take action in favor of the public good, in important areas such as public health and the environment,” he told me.

“We are a sovereign nation with a democratic government,” he continued, “which came to power with the support of the majority of citizens, one that places compliance with our constitution and respect for human rights above all private interests.”

***

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Timothy A. Wise is a senior advisor with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and the author of Eating Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food.

Featured image: Tractor caravan to Mexico City farmer protest demands “Mexico Free of Transgenics”. Credit: Enrique Perez S./ANEC

The original source of this article is Inter Press Service

Copyright © Timothy A. Wise, Inter Press Service, 2021

Vaccine Lawsuit, Cyberwar On, Fukushima 10 – New World Next Week

Published: March 12, 2021

Welcome to New World Next Week - the video series from Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news.

This week:

Story #1: First Case Against Mandatory Vaccination Filed In New Mexico https://thehill.com/regulation/labor/...​

It’s Here: First Court Case Against Mandatory Vaccination, Attorney Interview https://odysee.com/@Spiro:e/First-Cou...​

Canadian Doctors Speaking Out https://www.libertycoalitioncanada.co...​

Video: Canadian Doctors Speaking Out https://www.bitchute.com/video/nQgq0B...​

Story #2: US Preparing Cyberattack Against Russia Over SolarWinds Hack https://news.antiwar.com/2021/03/08/r...​

Preparing for Retaliation Against Russia, U.S. Confronts Hacking by China https://archive.vn/PKGvg​

At least 10 hacking groups using Microsoft software flaw - researchers https://news.trust.org/item/202103101...​

Story #3: U.N. Finds No Adverse Health Effects From Fukushima Disaster https://japantoday.com/category/natio...​

Japan Nuclear Plant Owner Confirms First Deaths as Workers Fail to Contain Leak https://www.foxnews.com/world/...​

573 deaths 'related to nuclear crisis' https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20...​

No. of children at time of Fukushima disaster diagnosed with thyroid cancer hits 160 https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/...​

Fukushima today: “I’m glad that I realized my mistake before I died.” https://thebulletin.org/2021/03/fukus...​

Radiation levels at Fukushima plant far worse than was thought http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/140...​

10 years after Fukushima disaster, Japan's nuclear industry stalled https://japantoday.com/category/natio...​

The #NYC Lockdown​ is About to Begin - Here is What You Need to Know

Published: March 18, 2020

Jason Bermas joins James for a powerful interview about the seriousness of the situation that America is just starting to wake up to. From lockdowns and quarantines to the US military and medical martial law, things are getting real. Are you prepared for what's coming? SHOW NOTES AND MP3: https://www.corbettreport.com/?p=35488

The Sugar Conspiracy

- By James Corbett - corbettreport.com - December 9, 2017

An explosive new study in the PLOS Biology journal confirms three things that independent health researchers have been saying for years:

  1. Sugar-heavy diets are worse for your health than fat-heavy diets.
  2. Researchers have known this fact for decades.
  3. The sugar industry actively covered up the research supporting this fact.

The study—bearing the typically unwieldy title "Sugar industry sponsorship of germ-free rodent studies linking sucrose to hyperlipidemia and cancer: An historical analysis of internal documents"—reads like an unlikely pairing of crime thriller and academic article.

At the heart of this medical thriller lies the mysteriously named "Project 259," a research study which ran from 1967 to 1971 to examine the link between sucrose consumption and coronary heart disease. From the outside, the project, headed by Dr. W.F.R. Pover at the University of Birmingham, appeared to be just another clinical study in nutritional science. It involved a feeding experiment in which lab rats were separated into two groups, one eating a high-sugar diet and the other eating a so-called "basic PRM diet" of cereal meals, soybean meals, whitefish meal, and dried yeast.

But this was not the passion project of an impartial scientist trying to get to the truth. This was a study sponsored by the "Sugar Research Foundation" (SRF), which (in case you couldn't tell) has organizational ties to the Sugar Association, the trade association of the US sugar industry.

The results of the SRF's experiment, according to an interim assessment issued in 1969, were extremely interesting:

"Among [Project 259’s] observations was … that the urine from rats on the basic diet contained an inhibitor of beta-glucorinidase activity in a quantity greater than that from sucrose-fed animals. This is one of the first demonstrations of a biological difference between sucrose and starch fed rats."

Having been a point of scientific inquiry and debate for decades, the first experimental evidence that sugar and starch are actually metabolized differently was significant enough. But, as the PLOS Biology article explains, the way in which this difference manifested was even more significant:

"This incidental finding of Project 259 demonstrated to SRF that sucrose versus starch consumption caused different metabolic effects and suggested that sucrose, by stimulating urinary beta-glucuronidase, may have a role in the pathogenesis of bladder cancer."

So, surely these results were published to much fanfare and became the touchstone for a thoroughgoing scientific inquiry into the possible sugar-cancer link, right?

Wrong.

"After supporting the project for 27 months, [the Sugar Research Foundation] did not approve the additional 12 weeks of funding needed to complete the study."

Yes, exactly as you would have predicted, the breakthrough study demonstrating a biological difference between sucrose and starch-fed rats was shelved and none of its results were ever published.

But do you want to guess what was published? An article in the New England Journal of Medicine singling out fat and cholesterol as the dietary causes of heart disease and downplaying the risk of sugar consumption. That study, too, was sponsored by the SRF, but (surprise, surprise!) the sugar industry's role in funding the article was not disclosed when it was published in 1965. It took 61 years for that little factoid to be dug up by researchers and published.

As I say, the fact that the sugar industry has been actively working to cover up sugar's role in coronary heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer and numerous other ailments will come as no surprise to my regular readers, and even the most fluoride-addled victims of the mainstream fake news will have heard something of this story by now.

The New York Times of all places broached the subject in 2011, when it dared to ask "Is Sugar Toxic?" It was obediently followed by fellow MSM lapdog 60 Minutes asking the very same question the very next year.

In 2015, Time Magazine upped the ante considerably: "Sugar Is Definitely Toxic, a New Study Says."

And by last year, the jig was up. As the Huffington Post informed us: "Sugar Is Not Only a Drug but a Poison Too."

So what broke the dam? Why did the fake news dinosaur media suddenly open the floodgates on the sugar conspiracy? As always, it was a handful of brave independent researchers who really broke the story and single-handedly championed it in the face of an all-out assault from the Big Sugar lobby until the public finally caught on to the scam. Only then were the MSM (and the nutrition industry itself) forced to finally admit the obvious truth. Dismissed as "cranks" and "quacks," these researchers held firm for decades under incredible pressure.

Just ask John Yudkin. He was the British nutritionist who began ringing the alarm on the dangers of sugar consumption in the late 1950s. His 1972 treatise Pure, White, and Deadly: How Sugar Is Killing Us and What We Can Do to Stop It pulled no punches in its fight against sucrose: "If only a small fraction of what is already known about the effects of sugar were to be revealed in relation to any other material used as a food additive," he writes in his opening chapter, "that material would promptly be banned."

The book, written for the layman and aimed at getting people to understand the health dangers of sugar consumption, was a huge success. Published in the US as Sweet and Dangerous, Yudkin's work was also translated into Finnish, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese and Swedish, with a revised and expanded edition was issued in 1986.

But despite this popular success (or, more accurately, because of it), Yudkin became the target of Big Sugar and its well-funded lackeys in the field of nutritional "science." The industry tried to prevent the publication of the book at all, and, failing at that, set to work attempting to destroy Yudkin's reputation. In that task, they were successful. By the time of his death in 1995, Yudkin was largely consigned to the dustbin of nutritional history.

It wasn't until Yudkin's work was rediscovered in 2008 by Robert Lustig, a pediatric endriconologist at the University of California San Francisco, that things really began to change. Lustig made a presentation on the hidden dangers of sugar consumption, "Sugar: The Bitter Truth" that became a bona fide viral video, a rare unicorn indeed in the field of 90-minute academic lectures on nutritional science. From that point on, medical researchers and the MSM were forced to admit the piles of evidence that had been staring them in the face (and/or actively suppressed by the sugar lobby) for decades.

As satisfying as Yudkin's posthumous vindication may be, it poses the larger question: How could it possibly have taken so long for such an obvious and undeniable truth—that sugar is the key culprit in a range of diseases and disorders—to be acknowledged? After all, sugar had been a suspected cause of obesity and diabetes for decades before Project 259 and other studies began to collect the hard data on the subject. Even the most uninformed layman can't help but note the incredible correspondence between the rise of sugar in the average diet—going from 18 pounds per capita per year in 1800 to a staggering 150+ pounds today—and the rise of obesity in the general public.

The answer to that question goes to the heart of "The Crisis of Science" that I identified in this column last year. As I observed in that article:

"Modern laboratories investigating cutting edge questions involve expensive technology and large teams of researchers. The type of labs producing truly breakthrough results in today’s environment are the ones that are well funded. And there are only two ways for scientists to get big grants in our current system: big business or big government. So it should be no surprise that large corporations and politically-motivated government agencies are paying for the types of science that they want."

Indeed it is no surprise whatsoever to find intrigues like the sugar conspiracy at the heart of the fetid, decrepit, institutionalized, fossilized, centralized halls of the modern-day academy. It also explains why the GMO conspiracy continues to thrive despite the overwhelming (and mounting) evidence of the ill effects of genetically modified food consumption.

So, on the plus side, the unraveling of the sugar conspiracy shows us that even the most well-funded and institutionally-protected lies can, eventually, be exposed.

On the other hand, it draws attention to a deeper question: How do we change the system so these types of conspiracies don't happen again?

That is a very important question, and one that has some surprisingly simple answers. But that exploration will have to wait for another time.

Until then, I bid you bon appétit. May I suggest you skip the sugary dessert tonight?

If you compare a low fat item to its regular fat equivalent, you will always see that salt and/or sugar have been increased to compensate. Similarly, low sugar items usually have more salt and/or oil.

As a manufacturer, I don’t think there is any conspiracy, if it doesn’t taste as good, people won’t buy it.

The produce section is usually at the entrance of most North American grocery stores. But the consumers buy / eat too few fruits and vegetables simply because they don’t taste as good as the processed stuff, and not as convenient.

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