A Little Bit of Everything in Anything

[oneoff]

One of the facts of science is that given a sophisticated and sensitive enough test; it is possible to detect a little bit of everything in anything.
Some misguided souls may think that it is possible to eradicate or clear up or fix any incident that may perchance happen. Given these measures they would argue that it will never happen again.

Not so. At best it is extremely difficult and expensive to clean up any widespread low level contamination. At best you reduce the levels to the detectable levels with the sensitivity of the current test being used. You'll never find nor get rid of the last trace; and you are still left with the nagging nightmare that the incident happened at least once before; and that another fact of the universe is that it is only a matter of time before history repeats itself. And Time is on the side of Mother Nature.
Further; once genies are let out of the bottle; they can almost never be put back in. In most living plants and animals there is the phenomenon of replicating and reproduction. Unless these "new" or now "manufactured" entities have some significant superior trait they don't usually immediately take over the world; but they do at least find their niches; and typically their traits might be expected to stabilize at some percentage of the general population (which even with vigorous efforts at eradication will be the current test's level of detection). I stand to be corrected; but expect the Triffid contamination level would stay approximately the same level even when resown; as long as it was not further selected for or against by regular farming practices. Maybe this is the real problem that some people have been deliberately using the traits of Triffid for the reason why it was once registered. (And just don't forget who made the mistake of creating, promoting and registering this variety in the first place).
Regaredless; before any industry claims to have the solution to the problem of the day; and has a plan ready to "solve" that current problem; they need to step back and see if it meets the test of the truths I have mentioned above.
It isn't a case of my being simplistic; its a matter of you live within those facts of the universe; or else your plan will not only fail; but that you will complicate the mess with further failures that will ultimately have to be dealt with.

[agstar77]

In other words be careful with your three wishes.

[dalek]

Funny how things change as our standards and abilities to detect and understand things change. Friend of mine from HS is a toxicologist. As a project in his graduate studies, he submitted a series of studies and background information on a new drug he was proposing to Health Canada for approval. Mostly just took existing studies off the internet and sent them in as a lark to see what happened.

Got the results back, they told him there was no way they'd ever consider letting anyone market this drug given the studies on it and it's documented effects on human health.

It was coffee.

[cottonpicken]

LOL...
Check out the hazards of red bull that all the kids are
drinking.

[Jay-mo]

Excellent post Oneoff, this is the basis for the entire organic industry.
Also a great point about the evil chemical known as coffee!
You can give anything everyday a scary sounding scientific word and raise a petition to have it banned.
I wonder how the organic industry would do using the term "carbon based" instead of the heartwarming word organic?

[oneoff]

The fact is that unless you carry around your own personal air supply; refuse to eat or drink anything that you don't have first hand knowledge of; live in your own isolated bubble with no contact or minimal contact with germs,viruses, fungi, pollutants; contaminants; and products that you have determined could potentially have injurious effects on yourself; or the ones you are trying to make live longer than the current world record; THEN I suggest that you have probably overlooked the contributors that the coroner will determine were the cause of your death.
Carried to this extreme you will have spent your life concentrating on living a life having many parallels to life in a modern pig finishing barn. Your life expectancy will not be extended much (in fact some paranois will result in some early deaths); you won't get to take a chance visiting and staying for supper when invited to the neighbors; the toddlers won't get the several teaspoons of dirt required to make them amount to anything; and the thousands of cans of hand wipes and sanitizers will fill the garbage dumps.
This can all be tied in with the Triffid flax scandal. There is a distinct possibility it is mainly an advertising and media relations event. You get the world relying on something to solve the problem of H1N1 or SARS or eboli or whatever and you boldly state kills 99.9% of germs( and maybe viruses too). Few catch on that your testing method could be very suspect. I refer you to the CBC report a few weeks ago where ordinary school kids were swabbed before using the wipes/lotions and then after using the sanitizing product. The germ decrease was a fraction of what the manufacturer had claimed.
Some of the early Triffid contamination levels were determined to include the canola dockage levels. Maybe we should all ask a lot more questions before we swallow the industry hype; hook line and sucker (I mean sinker)