Why Science Matters to Me

I went to the most gorgeous farm this weekend for a concert with a friend. We camped out in my little R-pod trailer in the field next to where the bands played, and on the way to the bathroom yesterday morning I stepped over a large garter snake before I even realized I was doing so. It lay still, soaking up the morning sun. My stepping over it didn’t wake it. I even wondered if it might be dead.

After brushing our teeth, we met up in the area that is normally a wine and cider bar for morning coffee. My friend stood and spoke to the farmer and wine maker about the changing economic and political landscapes. I watched as the other farmer made french press coffee and dumped it into a large insulated plastic water dispenser. I’d brought coffee from home, not realizing it was going to be offered at the farm. I had mine in a metal cup, and my friend had hers in a plastic cup. She shared with me that it was very hot, and I grimaced, struggling with whether or not to share with her what I knew—that hot plastic is carcinogenic when paired with food and drink. I decided not to burst her bubble, since we were having such a wonderful time.

After dropping my friend off, as I was driving the rest of the way home, my thoughts turned to DOGE and I was mulling over—as I often do—why one of the first things they went after were research labs and National Institutes of Health grants for life saving cancer research efforts. For months I’ve been wondering why the republicans in leadership over us would want to take medical cures away from Americans. Why was that at the top of their lists? We all have family members who are at risk for cancer—it’s a huge cultural equalizer. But then I thought about the industry side of this equasion for the first time. Plastics… wine—the things served at the utopian farm I’d been enjoying. These are some of the few things that we still actually produce in our country, and they are carcinogenic. Maybe this is part of why they want to put the brakes on research. Maybe there will be more and more evidence piling up against the viability of these commodities and they want to stop it before the messaging gets as loud and irrefutable as it did with cigarettes? I don’t know. What I do know is that it’s hard to talk about carcinogens, even to my friends. I feel cursed sometimes to carry the knowledge that I carry, as a nutritionist and detox freak.

I just got invited to speak at a local breast cancer luncheon and I know that I’m going to be bursting bubbles there left and right for the survivors who come to my talks. Most of them will be grateful, but many will feel that their former ignorance was preferable to finding out that they should be cutting alcohol out of their lives and throwing out their teflon pans. I understand the “ignorance is bliss” mindset. But ignorance is also a microstep at a time toward disease and death, in this case. It’s not a preferable state of mind.

I went back down the same path on my way back to our campsite later in the morning yesterday and the sun-seeking snake had apparently gotten its fill and slithered back into the tall golden grass next to the mown path it had been laying across. It had been alive. It knew somehow that I wouldn’t hurt it, or was too deeply asleep to care. Too deeply asleep to care is how I would describe most of our country right now, as things like medicaid, disaster relief and the CDC are being dismantled in broad daylight. It’s time to wake up, I think. But like watching the hot coffee slipping past the lips of my dear companion, I wonder, how can I help this to happen more, without traumatizing my friends? How do you do it? Let’s keep talking.