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[There is an article in the March 2015 issue of National Geographic magazine that caught my eye. The article, “The Age of Disbelief”, by Joel Achenbach describes several scenarios wherein the common public does not believe what science tells. The part that got me was that about genetically engineered foods. It was false. My letter to the National Geographic editor is below.]
As a holder of a masters degree in aquatic toxicology and a doctorate in genetics, I want to call your attention to what I believe to be a grossly erroneous statement in Joel Achencach’s article, The Age of Disbelief, concerning foods containing genetically modified ingredients. He said, “…. there’s no evidence that it isn’t (safe) and no reason to believe that altering genes precisely in a lab is more dangerous than altering them wholesale through traditional breeding”. This statement is blatantly false.
Point one: the genes are NOT altered PRECISELY. Genes are inserted via gene gun, microinjection, or via bacteria or viruses infection. There is no precise insertion but rather random mass insertion into the host genome. There is no measure of damage or alteration to the host genome which can happen in dozens of ways. And there is an abundance of evidence of serious health consequences in laboratory animals in studies conducted outside the United States. Read the literature.
Point two: genetic modification or engineering cannot in any way be compared to traditional breeding. Traditional breeding respects biological barriers that have developed over millions of years. Genetic engineering grossly violates those barriers with unknown consequences. The resulting plant or animal on the molecular level is total different than the original plant or animal. There is a significant difference and there is always the potential of rogue proteins appearing.
Point three: to date the primary reason for genetic modification has been to create plants able to withstand massive doses of glyphosate (most commonly in RoundUp) and live with all vegetation surrounding those plants dying. Now one sees the development of super weeds and the recent determination by the World Health Organization that glyphosate is a “probably human carcinogen”. This is the highest designation possible with lab animals. Pesticide residue follows these crops to the dinner table.
So, Achencach did not do his homework. He swallowed the tale told by big chemical/seed and big processed food corporations. National Geographic is supposed to be a truth teller. In this case, readers were fed a story that puts them at risk.
Regards, Kent Blacklidge PhD

[Ms. Pamela Bailey, President and CEO of the Grocery Manufacturers Association had an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal in support of genetically engineered foods (GMOs) on May 7th, 2015. Below is a copy of an email response sent to her.]
Ms Bailey….. I happened to purchase a copy of the Wall Street Journal for reading while eating lunch. I ran across your opinion piece about GMOs. It is clear where your pay check originates, but I am wondering about what background you have in biological science.
I, for one, applaud Chipotle’s decision to remove genetically engineered ingredients from the food they offer. I applaud Vermont, and for that matter Connecticut and Maine, for passing legislation that would require labeling of foods containing GE components. I applaud all efforts, and there have been many, to pass GE labeling legislation in the many states where legislation has been introduced. I just hope Rep. Mike Pompeo’s bill will go down in defeat.
I noted that your piece could have been written right out of the Monsanto public relations department. What you failed to mention is that 64 countries world wide require labeling or ban GE foods all together. What you failed to mention is that food companies have been able just fine to serve markets in those countries. What you failed to mention is that GE crops were brought to the market and declared to be safe simply by government decree during the Bush/Quayle administration with Michael Taylor at the FDA. What you failed to mention were Taylor’s close ties to Monsanto and even being a VP there for a time. What you failed to mention is that there have now been several animal studies, mostly in other countries, where test animals fed genetically modified feed developed a whole range of health issues. What you failed to mention is that the primary reason for GE crops to date has been to enable them to withstand massive doses of the herbicide, glyphosate, and live. What you failed to mention is that pesticide residue follows the crop to the dinner plate and that glyphosate has now been designated as a “probable human carcinogen” by the WHO. And, I might add, the use of pesticide has gone up, not down.
And why do I care. My background includes over 20 years in the newspaper industry with several as publisher of an Indiana daily. At middle age, I returned to Purdue where I garnered a MS in aquatic toxicology and a PhD in genetics. I was with a research group that did some of the early genetic modification in fish. I know the inside story.
You have partaken of the Kool-Aid served by big chemical/seed corporations. Last year, the AARP reported that the expected life span for men in the USA is last among 17 industrialized countries and that of women is 16th of 17. Further they reported the span has grown wider over the past 30 years. Something is seriously wrong and I happen to believe it is our food supply when compared to the other 16 countries.
You claim “GMOs have been in the food supply for decades without a single documented illness”. I would appreciate knowing of long term safety studies, human or animal, carried out by independent researchers in the United States without ties to big chemical/seed or big food.
Finally, I am about as staunch an advocate as one might find for the public right to know. There is a long list of information on food labels. Whether a product contains genetically engineered ingredients needs to be in that list. Secrecy is not the answer. I am taken by the parallels I see with the history of the tobacco industry. Secrecy and lies were the order of the day.
Regards, Kent Blacklidge

That is the last number I read of the dead that had been trying to get from Libya to Italy. The boats they were on sunk. The people drowned. This is a catastrophe without end.
Europe does not want to be the destination of choice for the thousands who want to flee the conflicts, lack of food, and lack of jobs of the Middle East and of Northern Africa. But, it is. Australia ultimately adopted a no immigrant policy for those trying to enter from South East Asia. Europe is already faced with thousands of immigrants who came from very different cultures and faiths than what had been traditional in Europe for centuries. Assimilation has been very difficult at best. All sorts of civil unrest has resulted.
Now there is a proposal being considered to use military power to destroy the boats that are being used by human traffickers. The idea is to make people stay where they are; to make it much more difficult to travel from one continent to another. This is a good idea. The flow of people from over populated, resource poor and war areas needs to be stopped or it will ultimately destroy the receiving countries.
The one issue no one will talk about is population. Virtually all of the pressure for immigration comes from already over populated countries. The long term solution is for populations to shrink, not continue to grow. It is only then that there can be economic progress made that will provide people with opportunities to take care of themselves. Do I think this is going to happen. NO.
The pressure for immigration will continue to grow as human population on the planet heads toward 12 billion. The numbers are not growing in already developed countries. They are where population is already a major problem. Take a look at Niger, Mali, Somalia, Chad, Burundi and Nigeria. The average number of births per woman in those countries still exceeds 6 and in Niger it is 7.6. Or how about Yemen and Iraq at over 4. They have no chance. By contrast, the birth rate in the United States and in other developed countries is less than 2, where it needs to be to stabilize population. The USA would have a stable population if immigration was not a factor.
The pot boils.
 

Little things do mean a lot. Kokomo had a bus line decades ago that had routes all over town with the main hub being on the north side of the downtown square in front of the then Turner Department Store building. There was a drugstore, dime store and a couple of others along the block between Buckeye and Main on Walnut Street. That was the transfer point for people coming off one route and proceeding on another.
What I remember as a pre-teen was that if could you could put your money in the coin box as you entered the bus, you could ride anywhere in town. That was the way all the kids in town went to the Saturday afternoon movies, all of which were within a couple of blocks of the center of town. None remain. All of the cities’ kids were watched over by all the adults in town. Safety was not an issue.
Times changed. The bus line disappeared. Shopping centers sprung up east, west, and south. People had to get themselves there and back. This was tough on those who did not have a car or physically had difficulty getting around. That was the case for decades. The downtown deteriorated. Some public transportation existed but only on a limited basis.
Times have changed again. The downtown of Kokomo is alive with activity. Kokomo added the Kokomo Trolley system with a hub about a block south of city hall. It is a real joy to see people who now depend upon the trolley to get all over our city from the far reaches in every direction. It has been a blessing for a whole collection of people. My hat goes off to a city administration that had the guts to give this a try. There were voices that said the system would not work and that people would not use it. They were wrong. The trolley is part now of the character of Kokomo. Good.

The Kokomo (IN) Tribune published an article from the Associated Press on April 7th about genetically modified (engineered) foods. The headline in the KT was “Food of the future?”; New wave of GMOs: pink pineapples, purple tomatoes.
In my opinion, the article was very biased toward genetic engineering in food. It was completely inadequate in coverage of the risks and concerns about this technology as it applies to crops, feed, and foods. This includes risks for human and animal health and for the environment. The article did not mention there had been no long term testing of the safety of GE foods and that they had simply been declared safe by government decree beginning in the early 1900s. This was over the objections of the scientists within the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It did not mention the several lab studies, mostly from outside the United States, that resulted in adverse health conditions in lab animals. It did not mention that 64 nations require labeling of GE foods and several ban them altogether.
Further, there was no mention of the pesticides typically used on GE crops including glyphosate (Roundup) and soon to be dicamba and 2,4,D (a component of Agent Orange). Glyphosate has just recently been designated a “probably human carcinogen” by the WHO: International Agency for Research on Cancer. Glyphosate has been detected everywhere.
In short, you did not do your homework. As the past publisher of the Kokomo Tribune (20 years there) and a holder of a MS Aquatic Toxicology and a PhD in genetics from Purdue, I can tell you the party line from big seed/chemical and food industry is not the whole story by far.
So, please do not drink the Kool-aid from big seed/chemical and food corporations. Do your homework and present a complete picture from both sides. As both one who spent his primary career in newspapers and as a scientist, I conclude this technology, the way it was introduced and the way it is used in agriculture, is both risky and reckless. I strongly believe the public has a right to know what is in food and how it is produced. The industry wants to keep secrets and will spend millions to keep it so.
I go back a long way with the Associated Press and with its once competitor, United Press International (UPI). We depended upon accurate, unbiased, and complete stories.
Regards, Kent Blacklidge Ph.D.

Count me in on the side of those who want photo identification at the polls for everyone that wishes to vote. The argument by the liberals and ACLU just does not fly. They claim requiring a photo ID for voters will prevent millions of young people and minorities who are legal citizens of the United States of America from voting. Bologna. Identification is required for driving, cashing a check, boarding an airplane, buying alcohol, buying tobacco products, and more. It is even required to buy some over the counter medications like Zyrtec D. In fact there is even a nationwide data base for those type of meds.
Every state that has enacted a voter ID law has been careful to provide a means for people to get one easily. If individuals cannot handle the “inconvenience” of getting a free ID after proving citizenship, I am thinking voting is not on the plate either.
The argument goes like this: “Minorities, poor people, college students, and seniors are less likely to have driver’s licenses than other Americans, often live miles from the nearest DMV or post office, and may lack transportation”. I am sure that if any of such individuals would contact an office of the political party of their choice, transportation would be provided for them to obtain both identification and for getting to the polls on Election Day.
The one thing we do want to prevent is someone voting twice or voting under the name of some dead person or some other fraudulent way. A member of my family witnessed firsthand rampant voter fraud in Texas in the Democrat primary when Hillary Clinton was running against Barack Obama. In the United States of America, every citizen’s vote should count and no phony vote should. Elections do matter. Fraud is unacceptable. Requiring voter ID will not discourage anyone who is a legitimately eligible voter.

If you want a book that will open your eyes to the politics in the Environmental Protection Agency, “Poison Spring” is it. It is hard to believe how the chemical and big agriculture companies have corrupted this agency meant to protect us from the harm done by poisons called pesticides. We are poisoning the planet and ourselves at the same time. This is the big insane experiment!

Kokomo-Center School Corporation announced in mid-January the initiation of an “International School” to function within the K-C system beginning in 2011. Jeff Hauswald, Superintendent of the Kokomo-Center system, told the public that the School Board approved of three new “International” schools. These are to be housed within traditional school buildings along side the traditional academic programs offered in each location. Each will require classroom space and teachers. The “International” school label mostly means teaching Spanish beginning in kindergarten.
In other school news, the recently released Indiana school performance data show an alarming decline in math and language proficiency among Kokomo High School students. Tenth graders in Kokomo High School that meet or exceed the math standard set for 10th graders has fallen from 66% in the 2007-2008 school year to 44% in the 2009-2010 school year. Tenth graders that meet or exceed the language standard has fallen from 63% to 47%. In other words, less than half of Kokomo-Center’s 10th graders are proficient in math and language skills.
Now, the KC system is proposing to divert resources to the teaching of Spanish. They do not appear to be able to teach math and English. If additional resources are available within the system, a much better use would be to remediate the pathetic performance of students in basic skills. It is no wonder that a high percentage of applicants to universities must take remedial math and English courses before being formally admitted to university level work. They are simply not coming out of high school equipped with the required skills in either math or English.
The idea of diverting resources to establish extensive Spanish programs within the Kokomo-Center School system is a perfect example of wrong thinking. The idea should be discarded quickly.

[This was originally a Letter to the Editor of The Perspective newspaper]
I read with interest the lead article in the January 19th issue of the Perspective which was about Kokomo-Center School Corporation proposing to start an “International School” for K-12. In the same issue, you editorially support such a move. In short, I believe the proposal is a very poor one and should be quickly rejected. Kokomo-Center Schools have a difficult enough time teaching the basics.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Education, and the Indiana Dept. of Education; Kokomo schools rank 313 of 417 schools in Indiana. Looks like there is work to be done to me that does not include diversion of resources into wide teaching of Spanish. If I read the article correctly, Kokomo-Center is saying institution of this program will cost the taxpayers nothing. I am wondering what would be dropped to provide the funds needed for such a program.
Further, I taught as an adjunct faculty member at Indiana University Kokomo for several years. I was Vice Chancellor of External Relations at that campus for a couple of years. One of the issues frequently discussed among the faculty was the pathetic preparation in math and language skills among the applicants for admission to the university. At that time — and maybe it has changed now — a high percentage of those admitted had to take remedial English and math courses just to get to college entry level.
Now the Kokomo-Center Schools are proposing to divert resources. Bad idea.

It’s Thanksgiving. We have a lot for which to be grateful. We have had some true innovators in our midst over the years. Our “City of Firsts” designation has been well earned. The renovated downtown library has a wonderful display of glass panels depicting many of the reasons for Kokomo being the “First”. This is the list —
First Commercially Built Automobile, 1894. Built by Elwood Haynes. Road tested July 4th, 1894, on Pumpkinvine Pike east of Kokomo.
First Pneumatic Rubber Tire, 1894. First Pneumatic Rubber Tire invented by D.C. Spraker, president of Kokomo Rubber Tire Co. in October 1894. The tire consisted of strips of three-ply rubber, canvas and other wrappings of vulcanized rubber formed around a slender pole.
First Aluminum Casting, 1895. First aluminum casting by William “Billy” Johnson at the Ford & Donnelly Foundry in 1895.
First Automobile Carburetor, 1902. First carburetor developed by George Kingston.
First Stellite Cobalt-based Alloy, 1906. First Stellite Cobalt-based Allow, a wonder metal known for its hardness, corrosion resistance, and ability to withstand extreme temperatures developed by Elwood Haynes in 1906.
First Stainless Steel, 1912. First Stainless steel invented by Elwood Haynes while attempting to satisfy Mrs. Haynes’ demand for tarnish-free tableware.
First American Howitzer Shell, 1918. First American Howitzer Shell used in actual warfare, made by Superior Machine Tool Company.
First Aerial Bomb with Fins, 1918. First aerial bomb with fins invented by Liberty Pressed Metal Company.
First Mechanical Corn Picker, 1920s. First mechanical corn picker developed by John Powell in the early 1920s.
First Dirilyte Golden-Hued Tableware, 1926. First Dirilyte Golden-Hued tableware invented by Carl Molin in 1926.
First Canned Tomato Juice, 1928. First canned tomato juice developed by Walter Kemp, Kemp Brothers Canning Co. at the request of a St. Louis physician searchi8ng for a baby food to use in his clinic.
First Push-Button Car Radio, 1938. First push-button car radio developed by Delco Radio Division of General Motors.
First All-Metal Lifeboars & Rafts, 1947 & 1943. First all-metal lifeboats and rafts manufactured by Globe American Stove Company. Life raft was named, “Kokomo Kid”.
First Signal Seeking Car Radio, 1947. First signal seeking car radio developed by Delco Radio Division of General Motors.
First All-Transistor Car Radio, 1957. First all-transistor car radio developed by Delco Radio Division of General Motors.
Not a bad list for our town. Wonder what happened to all of those companies? Wonder what has happened to innovation in the past 53 years?