This week in What were they thinking…(#211) naturopathy, botulism, GMOs, fungi & planetary alignment

Diseases, mortality, healthcare and more all very complicated topics once you try to investigate them. This is why they are generally specialities in research. Unfortunately some people think they are simple and as a result use a simple explanation for very complex topics.

This week we have several examples of just this. Caffeine and cardiovascular disease, polio cases in Africa, increased maternal mortality in America.

Each of these is complex. They have multiple factors leading the increase.

On the other hand sometimes the answer is just one thing. In this week it the cause of botulinum poisoning. It is because Turkish hospitals were improperly administering botulinum toxin for weight loss when it was not approved.

Another example is when your court case is so weak and ridiculous the appeals court rejects it right away. This what happened to a Canadian naturopath who was administering faecal transplants for autism and should not be regulated as “naturopathy does not follow science”.

These and other news items can be found at the following time stamps:

00:00 Introduction
01:25 Caffeine protects against diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease
04:05 Maternal mortality rates rise in USA but the cause is complicated
06:08 The polio cases in Africa are not an epidemic yet
09:25 More than 60 cases of botulinum poisoning from Turkey due to injecting toxin to lose weight
12:05 Canadian naturopath loses court appeal over faecal transplants for autistic children
13:41 The oral contraceptive pill may be increasing breast cancer risk by a fractional amount
15:56 GI microbes could be making enzyme that breaks down estradiol in women causing depression
18:16 Longest viral tail now understood from practical application
19:31 England approves use of GMO crops with very large caveats
22:56 Farming fungi in forests could increase food yields considerably without loss of usable land
24:30 Australia sees millions of fish dead due to heat wave and drowning
24:56 Notre-Dame finds show building techniques that were thought only to develop decades later
25:48 Planetary alignment to occur this but not apocalypse
26:25 USA and Canada to see amazing Aurora Borrealis show soon due to sun activity

Relevant links:

Appraisal of the causal effect of plasma caffeine on adiposity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease: two sample mendelian randomisation study
https://bmjmedicine.bmj.com/content/2/1/1

Maternal Mortality Rates in the United States, 2021
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/maternal-mortality/2021/maternal-mortality-rates-2021.htm

The oral polio vaccine is not causing a polio epidemic
https://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/the-oral-polio-vaccine-is-not-causing-a-polio-epidemic/?fbclid=IwAR2QTQworPEp6sxLI7N85h-mqbb5aoBHGXESt4Qz4pwt6r2F15MUyNmFQIs

Botulism cases in Europe following medical interventions with botulinum neurotoxin
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/news-events/botulism-cases-europe-following-medical-interventions-botulinum-neurotoxin

B.C. naturopath banned from making fecal transplants for autistic kids loses again in court
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-naturopath-fecal-transplants-jason-klop-court-judgment-1.6782159?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar

Combined and progestagen-only hormonal contraceptives and breast cancer risk: A UK nested case–control study and meta-analysis
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1004188#abstract0

Gut-microbiome-expressed 3β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase degrades estradiol and is linked to depression in premenopausal females
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413123000530?via%3Dihub#sec2

Conformational dynamics control assembly of an extremely long bacteriophage tail tube
https://www.jbc.org/article/S0021-9258(23)00153-9/fulltext#secsectitle0010

Commercial development of gene-edited food now legal in England
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64596453

Edible fungi crops through mycoforestry, potential for carbon negative food production and mitigation of food and forestry conflicts
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2220079120#sec-1

Government investigates after another massive fish kill at Menindee, in NSW's far west
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-17/menindee-fish-kill-pictures-show-mass-deaths-in-nsw/102110570

Notre-Dame de Paris: The first iron lady? Archaeometallurgical study and dating of the Parisian cathedral iron reinforcements
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0280945#sec009

When​ where​ and how​to see​the rare alignment of 5 planets in the night sky this month
https://www.businessinsider.com/when-how-see-planetary-alignment-five-planets-visible-march-sky-2023-3

The Northern Lights could dazzle the skies from Washington to New York on Friday, blown by winds from a giant 'hole' on the sun
https://www.businessinsider.com/northern-lights-sky-friday-us-solar-winds-giant-hole-sun-2023-3