Viewpoint: Use Amazon Smile to support real charities—not Non-GMO Project’s fearmongering

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Many people will turn to the Internet this year for holiday shopping, with Amazon being a popular choice. Savvy shoppers will likely participate in Amazon’s Smile Program, which donates 0.5% of qualifying purchases to the charity of the user’s choice.

But many shoppers will be surprised to learn that The Non-GMO Project is considered a charitable organization by Amazon.

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The Non-GMO Project is responsible for the little orange butterflies popping up on food packaging. … Unfortunately, its roots go deep into the anti-GMO movement and its current messaging is decidedly against the technology. The Non-GMO Project uses its soapbox to spread plenty of false and misleading information about biotechnology and GMOs.

The fact that The Non-GMO Project attempts to exploit the goodwill of the season to extract donations is nauseating. There is nothing educational, charitable, scientific, literate, or public safety about it.

Instead of supporting an activist organization that uses fear and lies to spread its agenda, how about using your Amazon Smile to support an organization actually doing some good in the world? There are plenty of good causes that need additional funds, including those supporting farmers and agriculture.

The Non-GMO Project can extort money at another time.

Read full, original post: Is The Non-GMO Project a Charity? Amazon thinks so.

Remembering Calestous Juma, defender of agricultural innovation and GMOs

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To outsiders, Calestous Juma’s rise from humble origins in a remote Kenyan village to an internationally recognized Harvard scholar, science writer and public intellectual, might have seemed improbable. But as Juma himself liked to tell the story, he learned innovation from his parents, whose poverty meant that they constantly had to change to survive.

For speaking out in defense of agricultural innovation, and in particular on the controversial issue of genetically modified crops, Juma found himself vilified by anti-GMO activists. However, he refused to hit back, gently reminding critics that he was no single-issue advocate. His 1989 book “The Gene Hunters” was indeed one of the earliest warnings that the biotechnology revolution could be a double-edged sword for Africa.

Moreover, Juma was careful to point out GM crops would only work as part of a broader project to improve agriculture in the continent. “There is no use replacing your computer’s processor if you don’t have electricity,” he commented. Nevertheless, the relentless opposition of many people to technological novelty fascinated him. His final book, “Innovation and its Enemies,” chronicled new technologies and their opposition, from the printing press to margarine to refrigeration.

Read full, original post: Professor Calestous Juma: Advocate for innovation

Self control a limited resource? Ego depletion theory gets a boost

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For years, “ego depletion” has been a dominant theory in the study of self control. This is the intuitive idea that self control or willpower is a limited resource, such that the more you use up in one situation, the less you have left over to deploy in another.

In a first study with 657 student participants, the first task involved either writing for five minutes about a recent trip (easy version) or writing about a recent trip without using the letters “A” or “N” (i.e. a more difficult version requiring more self control). The writing task was followed by one of two versions of the Stroop task: either participants had to name the ink colour of colour-denoting words, such as the word “red” written in blue ink, or the ink colour of emotional or neutral words. It takes a degree of self control to ignore the meaning of colour words, or emotional words, and focus on the ink colour.

Participants who completed the more difficult version of the writing task responded just as fast, but made more mistakes on the Stroop tasks than the control group. “This pattern represents unambiguous evidence for poorer attention control under ego depletion,” the researchers said.

Read full, original post: “Strongest evidence yet” for ego depletion – the idea that self control is a limited resource

French anti-biotech group destroys research field trial—of non-GMO crops

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[Editor’s note: The following has been translated from French.]

The agricultural cooperative group Auvergne Limagrain … guaranteed the “absence of varieties from new technologies” in their fields after an action by an anti-GMO collective on a plot of research they call “vandalism.”

70 members of the group Faucheurs volontaires d’OGM said they had scattered seed on wheat variety trials of French seed company Limagrain, located in Verneuil l’Etang, near Melun (50 km south of Paris). Denouncing an “act of vandalism”, the director of field seeds Bruno Carette guaranteed the “absence of any old or new biotechnology in the plot that the [group] destroyed”….After the action, which consisted of an “over-sowing in the middle of two trials”, the “damage is not immediately visible” but “between 35 and 40 hectares of research trials will likely be destroyed,” said the director. “We lose one to two years in these research programs.” … The group accuses the cereal cooperative, known for its Jacquet breads and Brossard cakes, of being “the great promoter of the new biotechnology GMOs”.

Read full, original post: Limagrain certifies that there is “no GMO” in its plots (in French)

Should we create ‘genetically superior’ bee species resistant to varroa mites?

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In Australia, the bee industry is trying to find a way to protect Aussie bees from the varroa mite before it lands down under.

It is a topic of controversy, one that has split the bee industry in Australia. Should we risk developing a bee species immune to the fatal mite and risk introducing other more harmful viruses? Or should we watch idly as Aussie bees die off from the varroa mite?

For some, the answer lies in the genetic creation of a tolerant bee species.

The future of breeding bees may rest in artificial insemination. The process ensures the bees are a genetically superior species. The microscopic procedure could be the answer to the varroa mite problem. By creating a species of bees that are immune to the mite.

The varroa mite is an external parasite that attacks honey bees. It can only reproduce within a honey bee colony and for this reason are responsible for killing off many colonies all over the world. The deadly mite is yet to arrive in Australia.

Just over the water, in New Zealand, the mite is already amongst the bee hives. Bee keepers interested in genetically mutating Aussie bees have flown over kiwi bee sperm to inseminate Aussie bees. However, the cross-breeding of bees presents its own problems: the deformed wing virus.

Read full, original post: Saving Australia’s Bees

Why are children picky eaters? Genetics may play key role

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Children who are picky eaters may have their genetics to blame, a study claims. Researchers from the University of Illinois in USA undertook a study to examine whether genetics could affect a child’s tendency to be a fussy eater.

By assessing the physical attributes of a 153 preschoolers and comparing them with surveys answered by the children’s parents about their upbringing, they were able to assess whether a connection between nature and nurture could be forged. The study concluded that while there are many factors that could cause a child to be difficult at the dinner table, their genetic makeup can play a role.

Dr. Sarah Schenker, a registered dietitian and nutritionist specialising in cooking for young children and tackling fussy eating, described how some children cause havoc at meals in order to assert themselves. “It’s usually thought children become fussy with food as a way for taking back a little bit of control and exerting themselves and their will against parents who control everything,” Schenker told The Independent.

According to the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in San Francisco, some children mimic the way their parents eat. Therefore, if you never grow out of your particular eating habits, chances are you may pass them onto your offspring in turn.

Read full, original post: Children may be picky eaters due to genetics, claims study

EPA reverses course, says neonicotinoid insecticides benefit soybeans, other crops

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EPA has reversed an Obama-era determination that seeds treated with commonly-used neonicotinoid insecticides bring little benefit to soybean production, a finding that spurred environmentalists’ calls for restrictions on neonicotinoids to protect bees, and the agency also has found that neonicotinoids aid in the production of other crops.

The agency’s Dec. 15 announcement that it is reversing the 2014 conclusion that uses of neonicotinoid-treated seeds pose little benefit appears to strike a blow to environmentalists’ long-standing push for the agency to significantly restrict or ban certain uses of neonicotinoids to reduce harms to bees.

EPA says that the initial assessment failed to adequately account for regional variability in pest pressure, and finds, in revised conclusions that neonicotinoid-treated seeds benefit farmers in the mid-South and the Midwest.

For example, the revised conclusions say the absence of neonicotinoid-treated seeds would reduce net revenue of soybean farmers in the mid-South $23 per acre, about 8 percent, for areas in states such as Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and Missouri, with known high pressure from soil pests.

EPA says that switching from treated seeds to foliar applications would increase farmers’ costs in Midwestern states, including Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Illinois by roughly $17 acre or 4 percent of net operating revenue.

Read full, original post: EPA Reverses Obama-Era Finding Of Few Benefits From Neonicotinoids (behind paywall)

Gates Foundation, EU pledge over $500 million for agricultural research and innovation

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The European Union together with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged … more than €500 million [$589 million] over the next three years for research and innovation in agriculture.

The EU, which is the largest donor for development aid, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is the larger philanthropist organisation in this field, will work together on a joint initiative to drive research and technical and organisational innovations across agricultural and food systems in developing countries.

Both sides consider that more science and innovation is required to address some of the most pressing challenges posed by climate change.

Innovations in agriculture may imply the use of GMOs. Bill Gates is known for his support for genetic engineering. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal last year, he said that GMOs for Africa are going to make a huge difference, particularly because of climate change.

EU Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development Neven Mimica said that the impact of climate change was especially important for less developed countries, where extreme weather events can cause dramatic yield reductions and even famine.

Read full, original post: EU and Gates Foundation pledge €500 million for innovations in agriculture

Why we stutter

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While the average American might not come across it on a daily basis, stuttering is a relatively common condition. So when you think about it, it’s interesting that we don’t know more about this speech impediment, and specifically what causes it.

It’s previously been determined that stuttering results from an imbalance of brain activity, where a region in the right hemisphere’s frontal brain is more active than its counterpart on the left. But what remained unknown was the interplay between the two.

Using magnetic resonance imaging on their subjects, these researchers learned that a part of the hyperactive right hemisphere – known specifically as the inferior frontal gyrus, or IFG – is, in essence, overbearing and disruptive, obstructing the left’s ability to function properly.

The study, titled “Structural connectivity of right frontal hyperactive areas scales with stuttering severity,” was published Dec. 8 in the journal Brain, A Journal of Neurology. “NO single factor has been shown to be THE cause of stuttering,” states the National Stuttering Association, adding that it’s “not a psychological problem (though it can have psychological consequences).”

The Institute’s news release of the study’s findings did not state how the hyperactivity of the right IFG can be corrected. But by identifying the brain’s influential area, this study provides a more precise location for the scientific community to search for that elusive cure.

Read full, original post: Why We Stutter: Right Brain Activity Halts Left’s, Study Shows

Yeast-grown synthetic spider silk could be the next luxury fabric

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The elusive science behind crafting synthetic spider’s silk is no longer elusive. In fact, it’s scalable enough that customers can walk into a store, pick up a spider silk hat, and wear it on their walk home. Five years ago that would’ve been unthinkable. Spider silk is an ace of a material. It’s soft, flexible, and strong as steel. But it’s also a terror to produce en mass.

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Hat woven using spider silk.

Instead of harvesting silk directly from an arachnid, [biotech company] Bolt has figured out a way to brew it like beer. The scientists insert genes into yeast and then ferment the mixture with water and sugar. That solution is then purified into a silk protein powder and combined with a solvent so it takes on a molasses-like texture that can be squeezed through a die to make long, thin fibers. “It’s spider silk without the spider,” [Bolt founder Dan] Widmaier says.

To the average consumer, the Cap of Courage will look and feel like a regular hat. Up close, you can see the dyed Rambouillet flecked with the white of Bolt’s silk, but there’s really no way to tell you’re wearing a wild new material. Bolt claims its fiber makes the hat softer, fluffier, and lighter than the all-wool original.

Read full, original post: This striped beanie shows the promise of synthetic spider silk

Tackling Alzheimer’s by boosting mitochondrial health

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Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia and neurodegeneration worldwide. A major hallmark of the disease is the accumulation of toxic plaques in the brain, formed by the abnormal aggregation of a protein called beta-amyloid inside neurons.

Johan Auwerx’s lab at EPFL looked at mitochondria, which are the energy-producing powerhouses of cells, and thus central in metabolism. Using worms and mice as models, they discovered that boosting mitochondria defends against a particular form of protein stress, enables them to not only protect themselves, but to also reduce the formation of amyloid plaques.

The scientists identified two mechanisms that control the quality of mitochondria: First, the “mitochondrial unfolded protein response” (UPRmt), which protects mitochondria from stress stimuli. Second, mitophagy, a process that recycles defective mitochondria. Both these mechanisms are the key to delaying or preventing excessive mitochondrial damage during disease.

[T]ackling Alzheimer’s through mitochondria could make all the difference. “So far, Alzheimer’s disease has been considered to be mostly the consequence of the accumulation of amyloid plaques in the brain,” he says. “We have shown that restoring mitochondrial health reduces plaque formation – but, above all, it also improves brain function, which is the ultimate objective of all Alzheimer’s researchers and patients.”

[The original study can be found here (behind paywall)]

Read full, original post: Healthy Mitochondria Could Stop Alzheimer’s

Talking Biotech: Science Moms documentary explores how parents can navigate GMO and food disinformation on the web

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Nikolai Vavilov was a Russian scientist in the early 1900’s. He was known for his characterization of plants, understanding crop domestication, and the centers of origin for many species. He traveled the world with expedition parties to identify and characterize plant species. His collections of seed and samples were extensive, and he was noted as one of the great scientists of the time, and understood inheritance while scientists were developing the concept of a gene. However, as Stalin rose to power Vavilov’s work was less appreciated. His Darwinian concepts were inconsistent with the interests of the government doctrine, which would ultimately lead to his imprisonment and slow execution. The story is told by Jules Janick, Distinguished Professor at Purdue University.

In the second half of the podcast I speak with Natalie Newell, Director and Producer of the Science Moms documentary. The film provides interviews with five different mothers that are forced to navigate a maze of parenting misinformation available on the internet. They also are scientists or science communicators, providing unique insights and analysis of moms tired of attempts of shaming and manipulation, driven by unscrupulous marketers and activists. We also address the claims that it was “all paid for and developed by an agrotech PR firm.”

Watch the Science Moms trailer

Science Moms website

Follow Natalie Newell on Twitter @ncnewell

Follow Talking Biotech on Twitter @TalkingBiotech

Follow Kevin Folta on Twitter @kevinfolta | Facebook: Facebook.com/kmfolta/ | Lab website: Arabidopsisthaliana.com | All funding: Kevinfolta.com/transparency

Can Burkina Faso’s problems with Monsanto’s GMO cotton seeds be fixed?

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In the early 2000s, the US agricultural firm Monsanto began tests to introduce genetically engineered cotton seeds with the potential to combat the bollworm pests in Burkina Faso.

Known as Bt cotton, the seeds contain genes from a bacteria that makes it naturally resistant to the bollworm pests. … After five years of trials, the Bt cultivar was made available to Burkina Faso farmers in 2008.

“From 15 times spraying a year, they promised us that with Bt cotton, we will spray only two times,” [farmer Seidu Konatey] recalls. “We were surprised. We tried it and realized that was true. We were all very happy.”

But there were problems with the new variety. Burkina Faso produces cotton that is of premium quality because of the long length of the fiber it produces. Cotton companies expressed concern that the length of fiber from the new variety was shorter and less trendy, and they were having difficulty getting premium prices for the product on the international market.

Monsanto and Burkina Faso researchers agree that the problem can be resolved scientifically. Edgar Traore, Burkina Faso coordinator for the Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB), says: “More backcrossing can be done. Or the trait can be introduced into a local variety with an even longer fiber length to correct this.” But those options were not fully explored and now the decision has been taken to withdraw the novel varieties.

Read full, original post: Reversing the tide of progress: Burkina Faso’s cotton story

Diabetes and anorexia might be treatable by inhibiting ‘hunger hormone’, mice study suggests

If You Are Not Hungry You Are Not Losing Fat

Scientists once had high hopes that inhibiting a hormone named ghrelin would be the key to preventing obesity. Ghrelin didn’t turn out to be a weight loss panacea. But now, the discovery of the first molecule naturally made by the body that blocks ghrelin’s effects may open up new avenues for treating other conditions, including diabetes and anorexia.

[A] team headed by researchers at NGM Biopharmaceuticals in South San Francisco, California, was investigating how bariatric surgery overhauls metabolism. The scientists operated on obese mice, performing a type of bariatric surgery called vertical sleeve gastrectomy that involves removing most of the stomach. They then examined which genes became more or less active after the procedure. As they report online today in Cell Metabolism, the rodents’ downsized stomachs produced 52 times more of a protein named LEAP2 than normal.

They discovered that LEAP2 inhibits the receptor for ghrelin by fastening to it and possibly preventing ghrelin from latching on.

The study shows that LEAP2 is “a new, important part of the ghrelin system that is essential for our survival,” says endocrinologist Jeffrey Zigman of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. “Time will tell whether it can be targeted” to treat conditions such as obesity, anorexia, and diabetes, he says.

Read full, original post: Gut molecule that blocks ‘hunger hormone’ may spur new treatments for diabetes, anorexia

Cancer treatment without chemotherapy? CAR T-cells could become the new standard

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Although rare, it is not unheard-of for new treatments to achieve substantial early successes in one or two patients only to experience significant, sobering setbacks in larger-scale trials. This often at the very least dampens the media hype, but CAR T-cells have made consistent progress in garnering both considerable investments from pharmaceutical companies and strong results from clinical trials. Further promising results for the therapy were reported at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) conference this week for a host of blood cancers, including practically incurable multiple myeloma.

“It’s an exciting time. Based on these results and recent FDA approvals in this field, there is reason to be confident that cell therapies, such as CAR T, may one day be the standard of care for hematologic malignancies as well as solid tumors,” said Reiner J. Brentjens, MD, Director of cellular therapeutics at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre at the ASH meeting.

For tumors with currently dismal outcomes with conventional chemotherapy, this hopeful prediction can’t come true soon enough, and with almost 100 CAR T-cell clinical trials currently ongoing in the U.S. alone, including for pancreatic and brain cancers, options for patients with hard-to-treat cancers are increasing.

Read full, original post: Chemotherapy-Free Cancer Treatments Move Closer To Reality

Viewpoint: Consumers fear GMOs because ‘Big Food’ companies bombard them with misinformation

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[Editor’s note: Omri Ben-Shahar is a law professor at the University of Chicago and the author of the book More Than You Wanted to Know: The Failure of Mandated Disclosure.]

[T]he present wave of food claims is no longer constrained even by the ethics of half-truth. Companies are relentlessly trumpeting their products’ purity from one ingredient that they know full well does not harm consumers or public health, to hide the simple fact their food is largely unhealthy.

This trendy villain is GMO—food produced from genetically engineered crops. Consumers fear food containing GMO ingredients, despite mountains of scientifically unchallenged evidence that there is nothing to fear. Why do people fear? Because they are bombarded by misleading claims about potential risks from GMO foods. Some of these claims come from activist groups, who cynically masquerade their politics (concerns over property rights in food production) with disingenuous claims of health and sustainability risks. But the majority of the misleading claims fed to consumers now come from Big Food.

I used to think that it’s unfair to blame food makers for flaunting the Non-GMO labels. … But I have come to realize that the Dannons, Deans, and Chipotles of the world are not just a symptom of the popular misinformation, but are now very much its cause. By trying to jazz up their otherwise mediocre and non-descript products through loud campaigns against GMO, these companies are taking a misperception that preexisted in the margins and pushing it into the mainstream.

Read full, original post: The Great “Non-GMO” Deception: How To Sell Politically Correct Chocolate Chip Cookies

Homo sapiens may only have appeared 300,000 years ago, and evolved modern features gradually

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Human origins are notoriously tough to pin down. Fossil and genetic studies in 2017 suggested a reason why: No clear starting time or location ever existed for our species.

Homo sapiens’ signature skeletal features emerged piece by piece in different African communities starting around 300,000 years ago, researchers proposed. In this scenario, high, rounded braincases, chins, small teeth and faces, and other hallmarks of human anatomy eventually appeared as an integrated package 200,000 to 100,000 years ago.

This picture of gradual change contrasts with what scientists have often presumed, that H. sapiens emerged relatively quickly during the latter time period.

“Speciation is a process, not an event,” says paleoanthropologist Bernard Wood of George Washington University in Washington, D.C. “When fossil skulls of, say, Neandertals and Homo sapiens look convincingly different, we’re seeing the end of the speciation process.”

Previous genetic comparisons of present-day humans with Neandertals and their close Stone Age relatives, the Denisovans, had placed human origins at 400,000 years ago or more. Many investigators found that estimate difficult to reconcile with a human anatomy that appears to gel much later.

Studies of DNA from living Africans, and from the 2,000-year-old African boy, so far indicate that at least several branches of Homo— some not yet identified by fossils — existed in Africa roughly 300,000 years ago, says paleoanthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Read full, original post: The story of humans’ origins got a revision in 2017

Agro-defense: Experts worry US could be caught off-guard by a biological attack on agriculture

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The U.S. is woefully unprepared to cope with outbreaks of emerging livestock or crop pathogens and pests, whether those outbreaks are caused intentionally or otherwise, experts told the Senate Agriculture Committee….

Agricultural security risks have become a major concern for Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., but the chairman acknowledged that talking about a possible attack on agriculture or food production is a hard conversation.

“This is a difficult issue because if you come out and say what’s on your mind, you scare the dickens out of people,” Roberts said.

Roberts said when he first became interested in the issue nearly two decades ago through his work on a Senate subcommittee on emerging threats, he kept telling farm organizations, veterinarians and others about the need to step up and examine the risk. The response, he said, was people asked him to quit talking about agro-security risks because it could affect commodity prices.

“Well, we should look out. I can promise you every member of this committee is aware of this threat,” Roberts said.

Experts … pointed to a recent report in the Washington Post that North Korean dictator Kim Jung Un is building up his country’s biological infrastructure, based on an intelligence report. North Korea’s new efforts in biological warfare have alarmed U.S. analysts, the Post reported.

Read full, original post: Ag Not Ready for Biodefense

Birth defects in Brazil linked to Zika, not insecticides or vaccines

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In the fall and early winter of 2015, a startling number of infants in northeastern Brazil were born with abnormally small heads. Mounting global concern gave rise to theories about what was responsible. And while public health authorities fairly quickly fingered the Zika virus as the culprit, a couple of other theories established deep roots on social media platforms.

But the just-published final report of a study conducted in Brazil discounts those two theories. The work, by Brazilian scientists, suggested there is no link between the cases of microcephaly and exposure to the insecticide pyriproxyfen, nor to maternal vaccination during pregnancy.

[Researchers] compared the pregnancies of women who gave birth to babies with microcephaly to women who gave birth at the same time to babies without the condition. The case-control study gathered reams of information about the gestation of the cases — 82 babies and nine affected fetuses that were stillborn — and those of 173 healthy babies that served as the “controls.”

[T]he biological plausibility of these two rumored causes was always weak. By contrast, the association between Zika infection during pregnancy and microcephaly was “extremely strong,” the study authors reported. The study also found that a high proportion of the mothers of the control babies had antibodies to Zika virus, illustrating how widespread infection was in northeastern Brazil.

Read full, original post: Zika virus, not vaccine or insecticide, linked to birth defects in Brazil

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