Slashdot Mirror

Really? You mean the book by this guy, who has literally no educational background in genetics (or for that matter, any kind of science).

And before you accuse me of ad-hominem (which is not always fallacious), a pretty good trouncing of every "fact" in that book can be found here

When you genetically engineer an organism, you run the risk of creating or altering traits you never intended.

Correct, but this is true of all genetic alterations, including conventional breeding: known examples include toxic potatoes and celery.

This can and has lead to problems like feed corn that's toxic to the cattle and pigs it was intended for.

Citation needed. I believe you are referring to a case where GE corn was contaminated with fungal mycotoxins, and as the corn was GE, anti-GMO groups claimed it was the GE aspect that made them sterile, not the well known toxic agents that happened to also be in there (which they conveniently neglected to mention).

If we take your argument, we should label conventional breeding, with known cases of harm, not GE crops, with zero instances of harm (beyond baseless accusation anyway). Of course, that's a bit silly, yeah?

Genetic Roulette is written by a guy that teaches yogic flying. He has no training as a scientist what so ever, or any expertise in biotech.

The book itself is nonsensical.

It's like having Jenny McCarthy write a book on vaccine safety.

Here is a comparison of the contents of Genetic Roulette to actual peer reviewed science.

http://academicsreview.org/reviewed-content/genetic-roulette/

Not really, that's just one guy who wrote a self published book full of misrepresentations and distortions. Read what actual scientists have to say about it here. The went through and did a comprehensive take down of that guy's nonsense. Alternatively, this is a fun well cited video. My favorite bit: he claims that transgenes are taken up by gut flora and continue to function, meaning that they could be producing the Bt protein that kills insects (which is totally harmless to humans anyway, but whatever). He cites Netherwood 2004 as proof. That paper's abstract ends with "we conclude that gene transfer did not occur during the feeding experiment." So they guy who wrote that site either does not bother to even look at the papers he cites, or he flat out lies. He is also one of the leaders in the anti-GE movement, and is very highly respected and often cited among those who espouse anti-GE sentiment. So what should that tell you?

But either way, if there is nothing wrong then there should be no reason against the labeling.

If there's nothing wrong why should the be labeled? There's tons of things we do to plants that are not dangerous that most people have never heard of, like mutagenesis and doubled haploid hybridization and selection of bud sport mutants. I don't think GE should be singled out. That is just using people's ignorance to scare them about genetic engineering by making it stand out as something different and unique.

If I have a choice between a gmo product that hasn't been in the food supply long enough to know if its okay or not and one that isnt a gmo product, I'd be happy to have the information to make my own informed choices.

That is easy to do already and I'll tell you how. Corn, soy, canola, cotton, alfalfa, sugar beet, summer squash, and papaya. Eight species have been genetically engineered in the US. Due to the way they are processed, anything containing them that is not labeled as organic or non-GMO contains genetically engineered crops. Now you know how to avoid them if you want, and you can do it without a label. However, they have been in the food supply for a long time, and tested even longer, and there is no reason whatsoever to think they pose any more of a health risk than any other crop.

That having been said, since Dr. Oz recommends avoiding GMO foods

That interview was horribly edited by the way. And somehow, those of us who support genetic engineering are the deceitful ones.

Eh, I just took the first google result on the topic to show that 'zero' may be an inaccurate assessment. I'm afraid I have to take a 50,000 foot view of the situation in order to see that most nutritional studies get it wrong the first, second and third times. I also see many nutritional studies that omit data or game their acceptance criteria to get the result they really wanted in the first place.

Remember when butter and lard and coconut oil would kill you, so we should use transfats, hydrogenated fats and margarine? I suspect that maneuver killed millions. Eggs are bad, eggs are good, eggs are bad, eggs are good, eggs are bad again? Salt is bad for you if you remove the 50% of the study participants that showed no effects from eating salt, like Intersalt did. The lipid theory that 'proved' that saturated fats are bad for you had to eliminate 17 countries out of 22 to get that result. The truth in re-reading the study shows that patients who live in countries that eat high calorie, high energy, heavily processed and packaged foods had heart trouble

Not really, that's just one guy who wrote a self published book full of misrepresentations and distortions. Read what actual scientists have to say about it here. The went through and did a comprehensive take down of that guy's nonsense. Alternatively, this is a fun well cited video. My favorite bit: he claims that transgenes are taken up by gut flora and continue to function, meaning that they could be producing the Bt protein that kills insects (which is totally harmless to humans anyway, but whatever). He cites Netherwood 2004 as proof. That paper's abstract ends with "we conclude that gene transfer did not occur during the feeding experiment." So they guy who wrote that site either does not bother to even look at the papers he cites, or he flat out lies. He is also one of the leaders in the anti-GE movement, and is very highly respected and often cited among those who espouse anti-GE sentiment. So what should that tell you?

But either way, if there is nothing wrong then there should be no reason against the labeling.

If there's nothing wrong why should the be labeled? There's tons of things we do to plants that are not dangerous that most people have never heard of, like mutagenesis and doubled haploid hybridization and selection of bud sport mutants. I don't think GE should be singled out. That is just using people's ignorance to scare them about genetic engineering by making it stand out as something different and unique.

If I have a choice between a gmo product that hasn't been in the food supply long enough to know if its okay or not and one that isnt a gmo product, I'd be happy to have the information to make my own informed choices.

That is easy to do already and I'll tell you how. Corn, soy, canola, cotton, alfalfa, sugar beet, summer squash, and papaya. Eight species have been genetically engineered in the US. Due to the way they are processed, anything containing them that is not labeled as organic or non-GMO contains genetically engineered crops. Now you know how to avoid them if you want, and you can do it without a label. However, they have been in the food supply for a long time, and tested even longer, and there is no reason whatsoever to think they pose any more of a health risk than any other crop.

That having been said, since Dr. Oz recommends avoiding GMO foods

That interview was horribly edited by the way. And somehow, those of us who support genetic engineering are the deceitful ones.

Citing Jeffrey Smith on GE is as bad as citing Andrew Wakefield on vaccines (read this, watch this). In the first link, the study he cites was widely criticized by the UFSA, FSANZ, and French HCB. In the second link, the first two studies he cites were not published in peer review journals, the third was withdrawn for flaws, and the fourth has nothing to do with GE if you actually read it except for sing a GE variety and stating that some of the chemical components of GE varieties are different than non GE varieties (duh, different lines have differences). Strangely, your links do not mention this. Wonder why?

basically, no one does ANY testing, they just trust that Monsanto says that it is safe,

You mean except for these hundreds of studies?

Nature does not insert random genes from some weird funguses or fish into corn (or other plants).

Says the organism that needs the viral transgene syncytin to reproduce. Nature does it all the time and even if it didn't that proves nothing. Nature doesn't use somaclonal variation to develop new varieties either

Sooner or later, we may just find our that our improved food is killing us and we don't know why.

Appeal to ignorance. Anti-vaxxers say the same thing about their quackery, and they're just as wrong and for the same reasons.

We have evolved to eat the food we have available, not the other way around.

Bullshit. We have evolved to consume a wide variety of things. My ancestors did not have corn, or quinoa, or tomatoes, or potatoes, or cassava, or taro, or peanuts, or lychees, or bananas, or durians, or blueberries, or loads of other edible species yet I consume these things just fine. One more protein isn't going to throw your body out of whack, and if you truly believe it will, never eat any biodiverse crop that didn't originate from wherever your great great grandparents lived, because I promise you there is a lot more new proteins and other chemicals in a new species than there are in one with a cry gene or epsps gene inserted.

We are FAR away from an understanding how our body works completely. We know the big picture, but that's it.

Appeal to ignorance. Furthermore, you could say the same thing about every other method of plant improvement (like mutagenesis and somaclonal variation, wide crosses and embryo rescue, bud sport selection, induced polyploidy, ect.), which is why the appeal to ignorance is a fallacy.

If you think Genetic Roulette, was good, read this.. And watch this video about the author of that book. Go to 42:25 for my favorite part. The guy claims a study says that genes from GE crops integrate and become active in gut flora, when the abstract of the study says the exact opposite! My other favorite claim of his that he makes in his book is when he says that GE corn fed to pigs made the go sterile, which sounds terrible. Too bad he conveniently neglects to mention the tiny detail that the corn was infected with a mold that causes sterility in pigs. We're talking about a book of lies and deception, hardly strong evidence of documented dangers. And he's one of the most well cited and respected leaders in the anti-GMO movement. Nice.

I do happen to know a bit about the stuff Jeffrey Smith says. He's pretty famous for being one of the top anti-GE campaigners out there, and I recognize a few of the things he cites. Although he gets plenty of publicity, he doesn't exactly have the best reputation for honesty and scientific integrity.

First, neither Surov study nor the Ermakova study he cites (and derives many of his claims from) were ever actually published. From what information they have released, it seems that Surov as I recall only used five hamsters, and he used some weird variety with strange dietary requirements that no one uses for feeding trials, and the Ermakova study had rats dying, even in the control group, at way higher rates than they should have. I can't remember all the details without looking it up, but those studies don't mean much. The Austrian study he cites was actually withdrawn for its flaws, but that doesn't stop Smith from citing that too (and naturally leaving out the bit about its withdrawal).

And he mentions an anecdote about livestock eating GE feed and becoming sterile. If he's talking about the same instance I'm thinking of, this one actually happened. They fed livestock GE feed and they went sterile. That sounds pretty bad, but again, Smith conveniently leaves out that this feed was infected with a mold that produces sterility inducing mycotoxins, and that this while not frequent is not an unheard of occurrence in livestock, and it can happen regardless of whether the corn is GE or not. The thing that he seems to be citing claiming DNA damage, after a quick lookover, doesn't appear to actually say anything of the sort.

So, yeah, that's the best he's got. Not very impressive, and unfortunately, he's one of the biggest names in the anti-GE movement, and I can't tell you how many times I've seen claims of harm from GE crops go straight back to something he wrote. He is very fond of cherrypicking and half truths mixed up in alarmist rhetoric, and makes no mention of any of the studies showing no harm from GE crops. If you're interested, a professor from the University of Melbourne has a pretty comprehensive takedown of one of his books, and this video goes over some more of his claims. I'm not usually in the habit of linking to YouTube since they're usually pretty poor but this one actually has clips of what Smith says about something, then shows the study itself saying the exact opposite, which I find funny, and it has lots of good citations if you ever want to look them over or read a long boring FDA report.

So that claim, and the rest, aren't something I'd be all that concerned about.

You think you're being very clever, but the green revolution has not fed anyone that otherwise would have starved.

Funny, pretty much every reputable source says otherwise. I guess all those prizes Norman Borlaug got were for his good looks.

Who told you that? That's not true, at all.

Pretty much every crop & soil scientist out there will tell you that.

The herbicides kill off beneficial nematodes and other organisms which live in the soil. Healthy topsoil can be over 40% living organic material. After using these herbicides, it drops to 0%.

And if that were the alternative you'd have a point. But the alternative is tillage. Inputs are never disirable, but it isn't a question of 'does this do harm' so much as 'does this do the least harm.'

google for "superbugs", the first time I ever did (relevant since google remembers what you've searched for) the first bunch of results were all relevant.

I know there's resistance but I've never heard of the resitnat weeds possessing any attributes besides their resistance (at least in this particular case anyway).

The point I'm making is that engineering these plants to be pest-resistant or chemical-resistant is a loser's game, because they will become resistant to it themselves.

Uh, yeah. there's been a Red Queen's race in agriculture for ages. GE doesn't change that. Of course pests will develop resistance. That's always happened, it is always going to happen.

Meanwhile, there are potential harmful side effects, and indeed Bt corn has already gone toxic in the 20th generation (just try finding the citation any more, though. I'm sure I have a bookmark saved somewhere, maybe even scrapbook'd the article, but elefino where it is now. It was all over when it happened..

I think you mean this. Turned out to be a fungus, but the transgene go the public blame. Funny thing is, Bt corn is actually safer due to lower levels of mycotoxin. Corn that doesn't get chewed on has less open area for fungal infection which means lower mycotoxins.

That's because you're being disingenuous.

Nutrition facts describe the nutritional content of something. The variety used to make it is entirely different. Its the difference between knowing a car's MPG and knowing the elemental composition of the alloy used in the tailpipe.

That's a bunch of shit. It's not a common issue that has always been in agriculture, because the technology has never existed to do these things on this scale.

We've used herbicides before genetic engineering, and we've had resistant weeds before genetic engineering. There are even non-GE herbicide tollerant varieties of some crops out there. We've bred pest resistant varieties, and pests have overcome those varieties. For example, there's no GE wheat on the market, but they still use herbicides on wheat, and they still have pest issues that require new varieties. Surely you don't deny this? And surely you're not calling the notion that a Rainbow papaya is different from Golden Rice is different from Arctic apple is different from Bt corn to be a bunch of shit?

Attacking a straw man is still a fallacy, and it's what you're doing, because I never said nature knew what it was doing; in fact, I said it didn't.

You started off by advocating organic agriculture. If you don't think that's an appeal to nature, either you don't know what an appeal to nature is or you don't know what organic farming is.

This article would seem to go counter to your claims that GM crops were the cause of a soy allergy increase.

http://academicsreview.org/reviewed-content/genetic-roulette/section-1/1-15-roundup-ready-soy-is-safe-6/

1. No allergies were found and the studies did not measure soy allergy. These studies have not been published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature–they appeared on the York Laboratories’ website. The most significant problems with the claim that GM soybeans caused an increase in soy allergies are that the assays reported in the study cited don’t measure allergies (that is to say, allergies weren’t counted). York laboratories reported that antibodies against soybean proteins were measured in 10 percent of 4,500 individuals in 1996 and that number grew to 15 percent over six-months. The problem is that they measured normally occurring antibodies and did not measure the type of antibody that is specifically associated with soybean allergy. True soybean allergy in the UK remains well below 1 percent (see #4 below) that fact being no consolation for the unfortunate few who suffer from soy allergy.

The World Health Organization would also seem to go counter to your claims as well.

http://www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/biotech/20questions/en/

The purpose of safety testing is to evaluate if a product will be safe for consumers (Lehrer and Bannon 2005; Goodman and others 2008). In this case, when it became clear that the transferred protein with potentially an allergen--remember nobody has ever eaten this soybean or suffered an allergic reaction--the project was stopped. The soybean never made out of early stages in development; it was never submitted to regulators nor was any attempt ever made to market it. This is exactly how the premarket safety assessment is supposed to help developers ensure that only products that are as safe as any other food reach the market. It is a fact that no GM product has ever caused a food allergy (Goodman and others 2008). Ironically, about 10 common foods cause over 95 percent of all food allergies (Bannon and Lehrer 2005). No premarket testing is required for non-GM foods and they are not taken off the market when they cause allergies.

http://academicsreview.org/reviewed-content/genetic-roulette/section-3/3-1-gm-soybeans-and-allergens/#claims

http://academicsreview.org/reviewed-content/genetic-roulette/

"Genetic Roulette is Jeffrey Smiths second book in which he makes unsubstantiated claims against biotechnology. In it, he details 65 separate claims that the technology causes harm in a variety of ways. On these pages each of those claims addressed in the same eight sections that correspond directly with the book are stacked up against peer-reviewed science."