“This past Sunday I conducted a culinary experiment which provoked strong reactions on a couple of forums, and I feel I should write it up here as not a great deal of info about this exists online. Amanita muscaria, the familiar, iconic bright red fly agaric mushroom, is classified as ‘poisonous’ in most field guides. It contains two alkaloids, muscimol and ibotenic acid, which can be toxic at sufficient doses and produce a range of effects at modest doses (not to be confused with psychoactive mushrooms of the psilocybe variety). It has a widespread history of shamanic and medicinal use for its intoxicating properties, is popular among some contemporary psychonauts and appears in a lot of debatable anthropology.”
“The battle over health care focuses on access to insurance, or tempests like the one that erupted over new mammogram guidelines.”
“But what about broader public health challenges? What if breast cancer in the United States has less to do with insurance or mammograms and more to do with contaminants in our water or air — or in certain plastic containers in our kitchens? What if the surge in asthma and childhood leukemia reflect, in part, the poisons we impose upon ourselves?”
“When I first began writing for The Times, I was naïve about many things. But my biggest misconception was this: I actually believed that influential people could be moved by evidence, that they would change their views if events completely refuted their beliefs.”
“And to be fair, it does happen now and then. I’ve been highly critical of Alan Greenspan over the years (since long before it was fashionable), but give the former Fed chairman credit: he has admitted that he was wrong about the ability of financial markets to police themselves.”
“But he’s a rare case…”