Peter, you make some well-taken points about my views on health biomarkers.
Perhaps I am indeed going too far overboard with the observation that
genetics influences biomarkers, and its contribution is not nearly so much
as the effect one's lifestyle has on them.

However, I think you should know me well enough to admit that your
characterization "resistan[t] to the technologies of modern science that
seems to be so prevalent among natural hygienists"--if indeed it was
intended as a description of me and not just the mainstream of others in
the movement--is completely unfair. I have gone far out of my way to
challenge dietary views based only on authoritarian tradition and to
establish some accountability (scientific, if at all possible) with those
making claims. Anyone who doesn't believe my commitment to this, please
check out the article of mine on Chet Day's Health & Beyond website at
<http://members.GNN.COM/chetday/ward1.htm> about what evolution has to say
on humanity's original diet, and you'll find 99 footnotes referenced mostly
to scientific sources that took many months to track down and put together.

I think biomarkers can be helpful in the quest for health as feedback
devices, and if one has access to inexpensive testing they might want to
consider making use of them. I have done on occasion myself.

However, my primary concern with biomarkers here is different: making them
public, or at least trying to force people to make them public. I am
concerned about the two-fold potential for their misuse, firstly, in
character attacks--which is what Lee Hitchcox seems to be bordering on
(impugning people's research or views based on the fact they haven't made
their biomarkers public).

I personally do not care too much what someone's biomarkers are if they are
performing research according to impeccable scientific protocol. True, it
would be good to know if their research has influenced them to change their
own personal habits, but in the end, research must be judged on its own
merits. I would be willing to hazard the guess there are plenty of
university professors doing good research but who are probably eating
hamburgers and french fries, or might be taking along C-rations or
something of some such ilk to eat in the field on their archaeological or
anthropological expeditions in Africa. Are we going to use such facts to
impugn their scientific credibility? I think that would be ridiculous. And
also mean-spirited.

>Again, everything can be misused, but I am more concerned with all the
>>false health prophets, who refuse to back up back up their claims with
>much >more than anecdotes & wishful thinking and ruining many peoples
>lives in >the process.

I am too, but the problem is these people are by and large not attempting
to do any scientific research or other rigorous data-gathering TO BEGIN
WITH. If this is the case, then we already have all we need to question
their pronouncements.

Now an obvious exception where I think we would all agree the question of
"walking one's talk" and the issue of hypocrisy is of prime relevance is
where the dietary advocate in question is setting themselves up as a sort
of test case and purposely staking the credibility of their arguments on
the fact they personally are a living example constituting proof they are
right. If they are claiming they are maintaining super-health eating
nothing but buffalo grass or elm tree bark or something ;-) , then we have
an understandable expectation and demand that they damn well better be able
to show you in the absence of broad-based epidemiological studies that they
are doing as they say, and not misleading people.

I know that I earlier expressed the view to some here privately that I
wished people weren't attacking T.C. Fry so much for not walking his talk;
you know, give the guy a break, he's just a human being. Well, I will admit
in this case I was probably wrong, and I'm beginning to change my mind in
situations like this where people have depended on someone's advice based
in large part on trust that they were a living example of something that
science may not have taken the time to study yet.

But for things that *are* being studied and if something has real science
to back it up, then it means the information is being peer-reviewed and the
tests and experiments replicated by others scientists in attempted
corroboration. The very reason for this is to correct for individual biases
or distortions, and it's built into the process of "doing science" itself.
So when experiments are being made, and can or can't be replicated by
others, you don't need to go around attacking people's personal
characteristics. You attack their research instead.

And to conclude here, the second reason I am concerned about the idea to
exhort individuals to freely publicize their personal biomarkers is I think
it would be naive not to recognize the large potential for invasion of
privacy arising out of genetic testing and other such sophisticated tests.
These can reveal extremely sensitive facts about our personal biology that
might go straight into databases without adequate confidentiality controls.
If people WANT to do so of their own free will, fine, I have no problem
with that.

But it's interesting we get all bent out of shape about our finances being
revealed to others because we know how the info can be used against us, yet
we can be cavalier sometimes about the potential for misuse of detailed
health information about us. I won't go into that here, but if you aren't
yet aware of the huge ethical and social issues already facing us in this
area, take a look at the article in the June 1994 issue of Scientific
American, called "Grading the Gene Tests," (pp. 89-97) for a serious look
at the problem.

--Ward Nicholson <[log in to unmask]> Wichita, KS