On Sunday, March 3, 2019 at 9:26:31 AM UTC+13, 2G wrote:

Newsflash: You are a Kiwi and clearly ignorant of how things work he
snip

Hey! At least I'm not an Aussie! har. (G'day, Bruce.)

I am currently a resident of NZ who has spent the vast majority of my life in your own country, 2G. I know very well how things are done in "America" (as they call it here in Godzone) and how corrupted government agencies often are at the highest levels. It's no different here in NZ. We have the same "revolving door" between our FDA and EPA and industry as does the US, and the same "credibility trap" in both local and national government. I was privy to some private whistleblowers' confessions (very few actually go public, as they have jobs to keep and families to support), as I had been in retirement a volunteer citizen investigative journalist of sorts for a short time, before the extent of the corruption sickened me and the threats were arriving more frequently. I have great admiration for those who can stick with the public exposure of corruption, year after year, and take the inevitable retribution. "No good deed goes unpunished". New Zealand's Nicky Hager is a man among men ...

A real eye-popper is the recent book written by a senior scientist who was at the USEPA for 25 years in the Office of Pesticide Programs -- _Poison Spring: the Secret History of Pollution and the EPA_. (I note that the expose wasn't published until after his retirement.) It explains why and how the chemical and other industries have captured the EPA and turned it from an environmental protection agency into a polluters' protection agency. It gives names, dates, documentary evidence, and how certain political appointees were "wilfully blind" and thus amply rewarded by industry after their stint was over. It details exactly how the agrochemical companies produced and submitted fraudulent research in order to obtain approval from the USEPA for their herbicides. Just like the FDA and its own regulatory capture! Because I was scheduled to make a presentation before a local government hearing, and because the NZEPA relies heavily on the USEPA's decisions, I sent a copy of the book to an acquaintance who had been a Prof of Biochemistry at the uni where I used to teach in NY, as he also did consulting for local government. After he read it, he emailed me the following: "I think my hair turned white overnight". He then swore me to secrecy (he had kids in college to support) before dropping some details (except names) about the corruption he witnessed as part of his own (lucrative) consulting gig. His point was "this alarming degree of corruption is everywhere".

So, 2G, I am far from ignorant re "how things work" at government agencies (that are supposed to be protecting the public) in your neck of the world.

And then, not surprisingly, come the increasingly histrionic insults ...

You are obviously a full-blown conspiracy nut of the type proven to be completely impervious to logical reasoning, so I am DONE responding to your ramblings and I suggest that everyone else here to the same.

Because you repeat your smears without any evidential support of your claims, I repeat my reply -- the numerous highly-credentialed scientists whose peer-reviewed research and whose warnings I have cited, including FDA's own (very brave) whistleblowing scientists, are "obviously" NOT full-blown conspiracy nuts, 2G. Nor are they "rambling" in their publications. I believe that most people would agree that "logical reasoning" is not exhibited by blithely dismissing the FDA's own senior toxicologist's testimony before Congress: "Without a shadow of a doubt, aspartame can cause brain tumours and brain cancer."

It's been real, 2G. Safe flying to you and your buddies.