I was a teenage guinea pig!

One of the most startling things about modern American life is that we are all engaged in the largest clinical experiments of all time - and with no control group.

Public education is the greatest social experiment of all time. Agri-business is the greatest food experiment. Pharmaceuticals race to our medicine chests with dizzying rapidity.

And the basic trust in our fellow man that is a hallmark of the American allows us to assume that someone is watching out for the welfare of the consumer.

Basic adages such as, "There's no such thing as a free lunch" and "buyer beware" have been abandoned, as we have trusted in our public servants. And, as well meaning as these servants may be, the fact is that the impact of many of these efforts is negative.

Unfortunately, the complex interaction of so many factors results in a lot of confusion.

A perfect example is the autism epidemic. From 1 in 1000, to 1 in 150 is a huge change in statistic. But so many things have changed in that lifetime, how can we know whether it is one factor or many?

Is it fat starvation of the brain? Is it medicine in the water supply? Increases of immunizations? Experimental food?

As I said, there is no control group. What we eat, drink, wear, watch, live and work has all changed in one lifetime. As much as I may try to get off the experimental merry-go-round, I find there are too many factors I can't control. Even if we eat traditional food, I know we are surrounded by more new chemicals than we can imagine. The new coal mines five miles away alone are questionable, in terms of what is being unleashed in the air.

What I can do to fight for our lives, though, I will. Perhaps that, too, is the American character.