The UNICEF is trying for years to warn against excessive sugar consumption. But only their latest report speaks out: https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/IWP_2016_13.pdf
The Soda industry with the help of politicians did effectively destroy all sugar warnings and turn the carb problem into a fitness and fat issue.
Regarding gmos, thats not really true. While a lot of the research was done by industry (which is how its supposed to, why should the public pay for safety testing of products ?), there is also publicly funded research that confirms that GMOs are no more risky than traditional breeding and mutagenics.
Update: Replying to some of the comments, just want to clarify that company should pay for the testing, but the actual scientific research should be done independently. Of course the company will probably have done some initial research of their own (at least you would hope so), but it would need to be replicated independently.
Similar with cellphone radiation research that is funded by industry, medical research etc. If the taxpayer is paying, it will be seen as a hidden subsidy, if the industry pays, it will be seen as conflict of interest.
On top of that, it can be true that industry funds research that is potentially biased to a certain conclusion where the conclusion is actually true.
I think the way its done in biotechnology is that the company pays and some 3rd party lab (e.g. university) then does the experiment.
There is also a positive bias from industry studies due to the fact that products tested internally that don't work will not be pursued and therefore that research is not published.
Doesn't look like one-sided research, just missing evidence. So unless you can come up with clear evidence that this radiation is harmful, I'll guess we have to live with
"to date, no adverse health effects have been established
as being caused by mobile phone use"
> While a lot of the research was done by industry (which is how its supposed to, why should the public pay for safety testing of products ?)
Actually, no, this doesn't make sense to me. If a manufacturer is in charge of safety-testing its own product, there is an obvious conflict of interest and incentive to interpret the test result as favorable for the product as possible. (Or to tailor the product to the test)
To put it bluntly, you wouldn't put the wolf in charge of safety-testing the chicken pen either.
So especially for safety tests a publicly funded, independent institution would make sense to me. (Of course, keeping that institution independent is another problem)
If you're thinking of just one round of testing this is true. But if a 3rd party tester gets a reputation for being tough then everyone tests with another tester. This creates a race to the bottom, where the is an implicit competition to get a reputation as the least stringent tester. This is essentially what happened with the credit rating agencies during the financial crisis.
> why should the public pay for safety testing of products?
Because private companies have strong counter-incentives to ignore or obfuscate safety issues with their products? Counter-incentives that have been shown repeatedly to have caused companies to lie, cheat, steal, and corrupt the scientific, political, and social processes in place to prevent unsafe products from being sold to the public?
> GMOs are no more risky than traditional breeding and mutagenics
It can be argued the risks are adequately protected against, but to say they are equal just seems like intransegence. As technologies advance the potential utility and risks raise together. Would you not be more concerned by an adversary weaponising modern GE than traditional breeding?
I think they were referring to unintended risks. There's probably less chance modify a plant in an inadvertently bad way with GE as its more precise. But yes if you want to weaponise an organism, it easier with GE.
However, from my understanding, the regulations of GMOs are much more stringent than for other types of breeding.
You can traditionally breed a potato to have high levels of solanine and i'm not sure whether regulations would stop it from going to market.
Modern GE may be achieving degrees of precision in certain biochemical contexts, but in other biological contexts essential to establishing GMO safety we still face confounding complexity and mystery. We should recognise life on Earth is vulnerable to human error (CFCs, Global warming ...) and respect the process and fruits of natural history.
"and respect the process and fruits of natural history"
sounds to me like an appeal to nature fallacy. The crops we grow have been modified beyond recognition from their wild counterparts. Add to that use of mutagenics to randomly mutate plant dna and that hasn't ushered any cataclysm.
That doesn't mean that there aren't any danger and you can't prove beyond doubt that any food is safe, at the end of the day its a risk vs benefit decision. The evidence shows that GE crops lead to less land use via better efficiency and reduced pesticide use.
I can't agree that "That Sugar Film" is the best documentary outlining the subject. It's overly dramatic! The lead actor is obviously rich (a house around which he can go for a jog, a personal gym... all that). Most people don't have such environments and choices. His way of experimenting can also be easily challenged.
similar also with magarine / chemical industry vs butter / farmers - for decades they paid for favorable research to say that magarine is better for you than butter.
Makes you wonder how many other studies are bought and paid for, such as the recent studies highlighting the evils of allowing cash (or at least high denomination notes) in our society.
> Calls for the eradication of cash have been bolstered by evidence that high-value notes play a major role in crime, terrorism and tax evasion. In a study for the Harvard Business School last week, former bank boss Peter Sands called for global elimination of the high-value note.
What prevents people from withdrawing all their money in 500€ notes from the bank, trading them in for 550€, exchanging the money for 500€ notes at the bank and repeating this until they're filthy rich?
Well, maybe there is a certain Risk attached to selling 500€ notes to a total foreigner in a shady suburb of Paris. Might be that you lose a 500€ notes every five transactions if you are just a casual guy.
On top of that it is not that easy to acquire 500€ notes: going to your regular ATM will not work because nobody has a use for these large notes except to store money.
500€ notes are not officially available in France. Usually people bring them back from Luxembourg. And then, it's rarely legal to boot -- Luxembourg is a tax haven, and French customs roam the Thalys (high speed train) looking for people carrying too much money back to Paris to be perfectly honest.
I'm pretty confident that these notes are only there for shady if not criminal uses and nothing else. The legal uses are merely justifications for the real, forbidden ones.
Folks who do not trust banks/governments may want to do cash transactions. Even if it seems highly unusual to pay for a car/vacation/house in cash this is not a reason to outlaw it.
Second, with inflation, what seems to be a high sum today may not seem so 15 years down the road.
Third, many suspect that after outlawing largest bills we will go to prohibiting largest remaining, etc.
> Even if it seems highly unusual to pay for a car/vacation/house in cash this is not a reason to outlaw it.
It's already outlawed in most EU countries. In Italy the maximum cash payment is 3000 euro. In France, 1000 euro. Especially real estate is great for laundering money if cash payment is allowed.
> Second, with inflation, what seems to be a high sum today may not seem so 15 years down the road.
the french example is a bit beyond ridiculous - all the people I know that had to do home reconstruction recently myself included, or some bigger shopping (ie car), ended up fed quite a few times when their basic credit cards were blocked for rest of the month (visa classic has 10k/month limit) and you cannot then proceed and pay rest of the expenses in cash (withdrawn ahead).
I am all for curbing criminal activities (somehow suspecting big ones are few steps ahead anyway), but these things have consequences for rest of the folks too.
Considering how cheques are usually welcomed in France, I strongly disagree with you. And, if a normal cheque isn't accepted, you can step into your bank and ask a bank-cheque, which is the top. Sure, you have to go to the bank, but it's just for big payments, so not that often.
What does that regulation stop other then people not using bank accounts?
How could this possibly stop any real crime?
Is there example usages of this law?
I've bought computer hardware here that totaled more then 1k when k was setting up a few services. How would that even work since it was online in France?
> What does that regulation stop other then people not using bank accounts?
In France, if you don't have a bank account, you don't exist :-) Seriously, everybody just assumes you have a bank account. Otherwise, it looks fishy.
> How could this possibly stop any real crime?
Directly: hold-up is pointless with no cash. Cheques are useless and credit cards can be easily blocked.
Indirectly: the whole point of banning cash is to prevent untraceable financial transactions from being performed. This is supposed to be annoying for criminal activities.
> How would that even work since it was online in France?
I'm not sure I got your question. Please keep in mind that the threshold is on _cash_ transactions, not on every transaction. As far as it is traceable, no amount is forbidden.
People may grow unfavorable feelings if the government because if regulations like these. Considering these feelings is still important for a government of it still cares in some way about its people.
One reason would be to store your savings yourself instead of entrusting them to a bank. Why would you not entrust them to a bank? Because of negative interest rates, capital controls (e.g. Greece) and concerns due to bank liquidity and bail-ins.
That said, the €500 note thing is a bit of a red herring (I've never seen one in my life BTW). This is just the thin end of the wedge. The greater goal is to make cash as unattractive as possible to nudge (or force) people to use surveilled electronic cash, so as to better enforce negative interest rates, bail-ins and redenomination.
Still a 300 000 000 000 € thin end. There are nearly two 500€ notes printed for each euro-area citizen [1]. That seems a lot to me. I have never seen one too.
It makes it easier to keep your money in a personal safe if you would rather not trust banks with it. It is not illegal or immoral to avoid using banks. It is your right as a free citizen. Governments don't like it because they want to have control over your savings.
Is this paranoia? I don't know, ask the people in Cyprus, Greece and Portugal.
Because you are afraid that you will either lose a significant amount of your life's savings (Cyprus) or you will no longer have unrestricted access to your account (Greece).
Jokes aside cash is (IMO) very important. If you have cash in your pocket you are not vulnerable to.. how to say this.. "being fucked over" by your government or, as is the case lately, someone else's government or corporation (my mother had this happen with her paycheck). This obviously ensures the basic freedom that is more and more threatened in the modern "civilized" world.
And, again, it feels good to have cash with you. That cash represents your hard work and that hard work is quantifiable by the quantity (and color) of bills.
On a more personal note, i'd like to get paid in cash 'cuz banks are the biggest pieces of.. they are bad people doing (mostly) bad things legally.
edit:
Here's a story;
We had a debt with a company. That debt we settled quid pro quo as that company did some damage to our apartment. After a while that company got bought by another company and soon after we got a letter that said that we owe them money (with interest calculated in, ofc). That fell on my mother as her name was on the contract. She, being the "don't make trouble" kind of person, didn't want to sue them (and we didn't have much money to pay lawyers at the time), although she would probably win. The way those kinds of debts are payed in my country is by them sitting on your paycheck (you can pay them in cash, ofc). That goes through the government financial agency. Thing is that the amount payed shouldn't go over 2/3 of the pay you get, for obvious reasons. But said agency took her whole pay.
In other words: To whoever downvoted without explaining why s/he downvoted, you are probably a financially safe person that knows what to do (or your lawyer knows what to do) when stuff like this happens. Or in yet other words: go f yourself.
Did you have the agreement regarding the settlement of the debt in writing? If so you should have taken that to court (or indeed, just presented it to them), if not then that was your problem.
Indeed, exactly the same thing could have happened if you'd paid the debt in cash with no record of the transaction, whereas a recorded bank transfer would be hard for them to conveniently forget about.
It has high value in small volume - this is the point. It allows you to keep significant sums of money outside of a bank with relative ease. The abolition of high-value notes makes this significantly harder both for the 'good' guys and for the 'bad' guys.
Yeah 500€ notes are pretty useless. Most shops here in Finland don't accept 200€ or 500€ notes at all.
Basically any time I've had to use 200€ or 500€ notes they have basically gone quite directly from bank -> my wallet/envelope -> give some guy (buying an used car for example). The same operation could have been done easily with 50€ or 100€ notes. 500€ notes just makes it easier use/harder to spot usage of large amounts of cash. If you are doing it legally you aren't loosing anything by using 20, 50 or 100€ notes.
FWIW: I used to pay my rent in cash to my roommate. (€1,000) and the ATMs happily handed out €500 notes in Finland.
But I also like to keep an "emergency fund" of high denomination currency in a spare hidden wallet, in that wallet I have 10x£50, 1x€500 and 10x500SEK.
My wallet would be easier to carry if I had just one of each note type instead of 10.
I don't think that anywhere requires particular denominations to be accepted by law. If you're referring to "legal tender" laws, or similar, that's to do with settlement of debts.
Several countries in Europe undoubtedly require businesses to accept all denominations of euros with the qualification of denying change (for obvious reasons, try paying 10EUR with a 500EUR bill).
Some places limit the number of coins you can use (there were people paying fines with hundreds of coins).
Stuffing as much in as possible does make sense. In to ATMs. Central banks have crazy trouble bringing new notes into circulation, and it costs as much to fill an ATM with 1000 €5 notes as it does to fill it with as many €20 notes.
Why should a bank fill in ATM with 5s when it can fill it with 20s? Incentives, for sure. IIRC 5s had an average life of 3 months in circulation, though the linked article suggests is is now 6 months. Larger value notes have a longer life (because smaller notes exist).
Banks have a lot of incentive to push higher value notes into ATMs, while central banks have a big desire no not let this happen all of the time.
If you're a larger business and have a good relationship with your bank, you're likely able to gain a discount on fees or the price of cash for your effort to get smaller value money into circulation. For example, if you operate machines that give paper cash in change (depending on country and regulatory environment).
I've seen reports putting the number of adults without a bank account/credit card/etc. in the UK at 1.5 million. Probably it's similar or even higher in the EU as well.
So these people pay everything in cash. While removing the €500 note might not impact them much, I think the €200 and lower notes are very convenient for them.
There is nothing inherently wrong with a briefcase, but I think the ideal use of large internationally recognized notes is to sew your life savings into your clothes before you sneak across the border to try to start a securer life.
The alternative to flight is fight.. The more you deprive someone of options in one direction the more often they take options in the other direction. But what kind of cold, sick people would like small arms skirmishes so much that they would fund bias towards them in international policy over decades under the guises like a pathological fear of chemicals?
This is the "if you have nothing to hide" argument against (one type of) large-scale surveillance of citizens through metadata collection.
If you're OK with the government keeping track of all but the most trivial financial transaction to protect against tax fraud and organised crime, why would you not be OK with them keeping track of your phone calls and where your car is (ANPR)?
We have had CHF 1000.00 (~1000 USD) notes for a long time (since 1907) and it was never an issue until now. It is convenient if you make a larger purchase to not have to carry around a giant bag.
«Is it really true that food companies deliberately set out to manipulate research in their favor? Yes, it is, and the practice continues,” Nestle added, noting that Coca-Cola and candy makers have both tried recently to influence nutrition research.»
Universities need to be held accountable for researchers' ethics. The article suggests that the Sugar Research Foundation merely followed the standard procedure of any other trade group, that is, this was not an isolated incident. Maybe Harvard would be more inclined to avoid such malpractice if its brand and credibility suffered from it. Universities should not act like a PR firm.
«Trained as a dentist, Kearns said she was shocked to hear a keynote speaker at a 2007 dentistry conference — on diabetes, no less — tell her there is no evidence linking sugar to chronic disease. She quit her job and devoted herself full-time to uncovering documents that show the sugar industry’s influence over public policy and science.»
If the the research grant process wasn't already screwed up, it would be the perfect place to enforce ethics. "Sorry we can't approve your grant proposal due to ethical lapses at your institution." It wouldn't take long for universities to wise up and take ethics seriously.
Sure, but only if those in charge of approving/denying grants (at the NSF, NIH, etc.) also have high ethical standards. And they happen to be researchers and research managers.
At least that kind of thing doesn't happen today. Take this study that says eating lots of pasta doesn't make you fat. Oh wait. (Note the two funding sources in the right-hand column)
I hope this revelation does not only have consequences for the parties involved, but that the systemic problems in science and its relation with industry are addressed. For example, there is no or little incentive right now for researchers to reproduce/validate existing results; even if those results are highly cited. Also, the article speaks of "influential journals", but the source of a publication should not matter in the end.
Having heard of various crazy class action lawsuits I wonder if someone can sue them for trying (and succeeding) to mislead the public on the health problems due to sugar consumption?
Something to keep in mind when people point to GM studies that concluding that everything is perfect (or "pop-sci" apologetics, with arguments like "farmers did it for millennia anyway" conveniently forgetting the several orders of magnitude increased volume, speed, targeting, and the ability to do arbitrary matches -- nobody combined insect genes with fruits in the 12th century...).
Back in the day tobacco was a-ok by similar studies. Same for sugar.
Of course it's even worse for softer sciences (economics, social studies, urban development studies, etc.).
I think appropriate labelling is a must. Label things correctly and let the people decide, just like cigarettes.
I think regulation is a must only in countries with free healthcare, where sick people are treated with taxpayers' money. If that's not the case, people are free to do what they please with their own health as they're the sole ones footing bill.
> What if it was the contrary? What if it was fat (beyond trans fat) that was taxed and regulated based on BS studies?
I don't understand your posit. Are you saying sugar would be taxed based on BS studies?
The topic of discussion is that older studies have downplayed the detrimental effect of sugar, while upplaying the role of fat.
If sugar was taxed it would be according to current studies. If fat was taxed it would not be.
Is your question a thought experiment or what are you saying?
Fat is 9 kcal/g, while protein and simple carbs are about 4 kcal/g. And there is a pathway to absorb complex lipid rather than going through the effort of breaking them down.
The nuances and complexities come in because of individual genetics, state of health and a myriad of interactions between the complexity of foods and their numerous and unpredictable interactions with a constantly changing system.
In order to get a better picture of health and lifestyle consequences will require close to 24x7 monitoring of many parameters (quantified self).
So, for example, it may be possible to find out allergies and almost allergies, interactions before they fully occur and inflammation promotion/reduction properties of lifestyle choices. Add software and deep learning, and there are almost endless possibilities for health and lifestyle micro- and macro-optimizations.
How is sugar regulated differently to MSG in Australia?
(Looking at Food Standards Australia, the requirements on MSG are that it's declared as an ingredient with an exception if it's naturally present in the food. How is that different to what's required for sugar? http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumer/additives/msg/Pages...)
Sometimes I think that the best corporate social responsibility program companies can practice is to dismantle their PACs and stop funding lobbyists. Saves them the money and saves us all from biased public policy.
People who deliberately mislead the public at the cost of the publics health in the name of profit are some of the worst of the worst. I would like to see the people involved in this punished but it's wishful thinking. It is evil.
Few weeks ago I had the funny remark from a co-worker saying that among all the stuff we eat, sugar is the most useless one.
After thinking a bit about this, it really makes no sense to keep eating that much sugary stuff...
I understand why the sugar industry does this, just fighting fire with fire. The meat, dairy and egg industries have far more to answer for in regards to the current health epidemic in the western world.
Do people really think it's the sugar in the soda with all the literature we now have on nutrition? What about the oil laden fries, and the burgers packed with cholesterol, fat and animal protein that seem to be so popular in the western world? Most westerners I know consume overt fat and excess protein at least 2/3 meals each day then wonder why they have health problems.
I've seen more obese patients than I can count eat nothing but refined sugar, white rice, fruit juice (The Rice Diet [1]) and come out months later weighing half their original weight while reversing most, if not all of their western disease. Yet the majority of medical professionals continue to ignore the literature and clinical results that work in the LONG term.
And I know this is anecdotal - but when I traveled rural Asia, all the leanest and healthiest people I met ate nothing but rice, fruit and vegetables - it's all they could afford (the poorest of the lot just eat rice). They also have bowls of refined sugar on the table instead of salt and drink cane juice/sugary drinks like it's going out of fashion.
I personally eat 3000-4000 calories of carbohydrates each day, whether I'm training or not (cycling) and I never put on weight - I'm certainly not scared of soda. Winter just passed here, I trained probably once a week due to rain and actually weigh less than before Winter when I was training daily - most likely due to Thermogenesis [2].
Note too that de novo lipogenesis is so severely inefficient in humans [3] (even when over feeding) that it's laughable to even correlate sugar with obesity or our current health epidemic - especially when the majority are eating excess fat and protein.
I for one certainly love having my glycogen stores packed full of ready to use energy and my body producing glucose derived ATP [4,5] on the regular. And I know when I start to conk out on my bike I can just whip out an energy gel (sugar concentrate) or drink some sugar water to keep rolling.
I also imagine most folks on HN use their brain for most of the day, so don't forget to get adequate glucose on the daily to keep it humming along optimally [6].
Sugar is your best friend if you haven't already damaged your pancreas. Just make sure to get some basic nutrients and minerals from plant sources and you're good to go.
Most obesity researchers are paid by the soda industry. e.g. http://www.alternet.org/food/soda-scandal-journalists-fail-r...
The best outline is the latest "Sugar" documentary http://thatsugarfilm.com/film/synopsis/ who started to get the word out and of course Yudkin's book. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/diet/10634081...
The UNICEF is trying for years to warn against excessive sugar consumption. But only their latest report speaks out: https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/IWP_2016_13.pdf The Soda industry with the help of politicians did effectively destroy all sugar warnings and turn the carb problem into a fitness and fat issue.