... for, for our audience here.

So, so in vitro is a scientific term for, for cells in a Petri dish.

Um, so basically if you're growing cells on a piece of plastic, you would call that an in vitro study.

In vivo in science means in life, but typically we're referring to an in an animal model, so in a whole organism.

Um, but in this instance, Andrew was misleading people to believe that in vivo was a clinical study, which means in humans.

So we also often use the term preclinical to refer to non-human research and then clinical to refer to anything involving human subjects.

So he said in vitro or in vivo.

Yeah, what's your follower count?

So how do you think about both as a scientist and a public health communicator navigating the partial truths along with the total fabrications?

Yeah, and that's, I mean, that's really why pseudoscience is so effective because it's building out of a nugget of truth, right? When we talk about, for example, some of the, like, pseudoscience medical conditions like leaky gut, right? Or, um, toxic mold or something like that, right? So leaky gut is kind of the false belief that people can develop these low-level holes, leakiness, permeability in your intestine where undigested food and bacteria and toxins are leaking into your bloodstream, and that's causing these nebulous symptoms like brain fog and weird food cravings and so on.

And, you know, the solution is these tests that don't have any basis in science and haven't been validated to even tell you anything useful, but then those tests will then tell a person, "Oh, you need to take supplements X, Y, and Z, and you need to follow this regimented diet." And of course the person who's diagnosing them, um, is the one that's selling those things.

Now, the nugget of truth is that there are real gastrointestinal medical conditions that lead to a disruption in how your intestine normally functions, like ulcerative colitis, which is an autoimmune disorder.

So it's taking this thing that's real in a very specific medical condition, in a very specific pathology, that's a symptom of the pathology, not causing the pathology, but then extrapolating it to say that there's, like, this milder version of it, and we're gonna basically slap a name on it, and we're gonna use it to give people health anxiety and create a problem that there isn't actually a problem.

And so it-That's why it becomes so sticky because, yeah, a lot of these claims are born out of a nugget of fact that's usually exaggerated or extrapolated or misrepresented either intentionally or not.

And so it's really difficult as a non-scientist, as a member of the public, to know how to navigate that, right? Because you're being bombarded with all these things, and it's all preying on that health anxiety, right? It's all preying on, well, if you do this, you're making yourself sicker, or you're, you know, you're...

I wonder if you can talk about, like, why you felt like it was important to write that piece now and what you want people to know about what organic means, and I guess basically what's, what's real and what's not.