Having kids profoundly shifted my outlook on life—including the mindset I bring to my work as a journalist. Once my son was born in 2021, I was no longer just writing stories for other people, I was covering critical health and science issues—pesticide safety, heavy metals in baby food, vaccines—that would inevitably impact my kids. The question that realization forced me to confront was simple yet difficult to answer: "Do I really believe all the claims I've been making about chemical safety?" Having skin in the game changes the stakes.
"All of a sudden, the world became very, very scary," as I said during my recent appearance on the Sactown Talks podcast, a show dedicated to California politics, policy and culture. Although my wife and I decided we had to slow down and reevaluate the risks our children may face, what didn't change is how we approached the questions we confronted: science was still the deciding factor. Do farmers use too many pesticides, and how do we know? Let's look at the evidence. Can we trust what health "influencers" on Instagram are telling us? Let's compare their claims to the evidence.
It was through this deliberative process that my wife—a high school science teacher and now co-host of our Mom Pod Takeover show—ended where we started: Yes, produce in the grocery store is safe. The assertion that pesticides have contaminated our food supply is nonsense trafficked by people who care more about virality than accuracy. Check out the full episode to learn more about pesticide safety, chemical regulation and the social media mythology surrounding these topics.
Cameron English
Executive Vice President
Cameron English is a writer, editor and co-host of the Science Facts and Fallacies Podcast. Before joining ACSH, he was managing editor at the Genetic Literacy Project.
