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Suppressed Report Shows Cancer Link to GM Potatoes
Doc Ruby writes "After an 8-year-long court battle, Welsh activists have finally been allowed to released a Russian study showing an increased cancer risk linked to eating genetically modified potatoes. While the victory of the Welsh Greenpeace members in the courtroom would seem to vindicate the work of the Russian scientists that did the original research, there are still serious questions to be answered. The trials involved rats being fed several types of potatoes as feed. The rats who were fed GM potatoes suffered much more extensive damage to their organs than with any other type; just the same, serious questions remain about the validity of the findings. The Welsh group wants to use this information to stop the testing of GM crops in the UK, tests currently slated for the spring of this year."
"Those in the "control groups" that were fed non-GM potatoes suffered ill-effects"
Maybe pototoes are bad for rats. Doesn't mean they will be harmfull to humans.
It showed that the potatoes did considerable damage to the rats' organs. Those in the "control groups" that were fed non-GM potatoes suffered ill-effects, but those fed GM potatoes suffered more serious organ and tissue damage.
Hold on... the non-GM potatoes still caused ill-effects? How much potato were they feeding these rats? Did they even cook them first?
It seems like the only conclusion one can draw from this study is that "if you're eating so much potato that you get sick, GM potatoes will get you even sicker!"
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/a.pusztai/ is the site of the paper's author.
Given the suggestion that GM foods might be more harmful than old-school foods, wouldn't the sane thing be to *increase* testing? What's wrong with these idiots?
Software patents delenda est.
The findings of the study appear pretty conclusive: genetically modified potatoes are harmful to living beings, be they animals or humans. I'm not really sure where the questioning comes in. Raising questions won't change the fact that such foods do have very harmful effects.
that research causes cancer in rats.
From the article - "Greenpeace said the Russian trials were also badly flawed. Half of the rats in the trial died, and results were taken from those that survived, in breach of normal scientific practice."
Go sensationalism. These "findings" were probably "suppressed" because they weren't very valid and obtained under shifty premises.
You need a good case study for GM crops? GM crops have been in American markets for years now starting with the Flavr-savr tomato. It's not like the FDA hadn't done independent testing on their own before approving them. But a sample size like the entire US, a pattern would probably emerge.
But until the science of genetic manipulation is (close to)perfected, all they are doing is 'fooling' with it. Coupled with todays climate of unbridled corporate power, this stuff is very dangerous IMO. Please bear in mind, it's not the scientists who get to push 'products' to market. And, corporations will *always* be able to buy a scientist who supports claims of safety.
I file GM under "not worth the risks". (And _do not_ give me that old "it'll help starving people" crap. No. What will help starving people are governments that aren't run by evil shits).
The paper being described in TFA can be found Here. Also, there are almost a dozen different citations of the paper on Google Scholar
Look at what else "they" don't want you to see. Astrology is real and science can prove it "Virgos have an increased risk of vomiting during pregnancy". http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-02/nsa e-coh021507.php
Either that or CORRELATION != CAUSATION
Isn't it a little forward to assume that all "GM potatoes" are harmful, just because some genetic modifications result in plants that are mildly poisonous? Wouldn't it depend on the specific modifications?
Not that a little caution isn't in order. We shouldn't necessarily just blindly assume that every modification to some edible plant will also be perfectly safe to eat, and I'm aware that there are also potential problems with reducing genetic diversity in our food supply on a large scale, but a study showing that particular genetic modifications are harmful is not reason to abandon all genetic engineering in food; It's a reason to find out why those particular modifications create harmful substances.
http://outcampaign.org/
Potatoes Modify YOU!
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
78% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
meep
What? Something like a 1/3 of Americans are obese.
100 Million Indians are obese.
China has many millions of obese people.
Food is not a scarcity. The equitable distribution of food may in fact be the scarcity.
How will GM foods fix something that is not broken in the first place? You have to be stupid to willingly to eat GM foods.
Hopefully never, because "don't fuck with nature" is a self-defeating position for a human being to hold. We have flourished as a species because of our ability and motivation to manipulate nature to improve our conditions. Vaccines and antibiotics come to mind. Hell, we'll probably be extinct within the next 1000 years unless we learn more about how to better "fuck with nature".
http://outcampaign.org/
It's times like this I'm glad I only eat meats and cheeses. No GM food for me, just nice safe hormones there.
Genetic modification is the artificial changing of DNA... you can say that a specific DNA change is harmful, so that a specific type of engineered potato is bad... but that doesn't say anything about GM foods. The safety or danger of the foods would have to be evaluated on the specific genetic changes made. Even then, the GM products don't carry any more risk than plants created by mutation breeding (in fact, GM was concieved as a less risky version of mutation breeding).
That, of course, is totally ignoring the fact that the guy conducting the research was a hardcore anti-GM activist before the research. It is like asking activist creationists to do an impartial study on evolution.
Suppressed Report Shows Cancer Link to GM Potatoes
If you think their potatoes are bad, you should hear what people are saying about their cars!
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
(eg: Let's say that the rats were fed a GMed potato that had been GMed to be toxic to rodents. This proves what?)
Whether this is a problem of the research itself or merely the extremely bad reporting of it is hard to say. Personally, I am not keen on GM as it currently exists - we're barely at the point of understanding the functioning of genes, the interaction between genes and "junk DNA", and the interaction between different genes. We're also not very skilled at gene splicing - genetic therapies are rarely used due to their high risk and lack of proven benefit. This is not to say GM is bad, only that I have serious doubts that biotech companies are nearly as knowledgeable as they claim to be. This is one area that BSODs are definitely unwelcome and where we have the luxury to spend a little time on making sure that the bugs are ironed out.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The fought a legal battle for EIGHT YEARS!?!? That's HOW many generations of rats? Hell, anyone can raise rats in a controlled environment and observe the effect on feeding them potatoes, GM or otherwise. This doesn't sound like it's too difficult to replicate the results, so why fight for an obscure report for so long?
If it were really an issue, they could have found someone to write a grant proposal, do some research and publish in a peer-reviewed journal.
Something stinks....
The reason for GM crops is only one: profit. Profit may come from improved appearance, from increased shelf-life, or from increased yields due to lower pest numbers. The agrochemical companies make two birds with one stone. They sell the GM seeds which usually are modified as to be pesticide-tolerant, and then they sell the pesticide to be used in excessive amounts to kill off everything else. Using vast amounts of chemicals is bad for the foodstuff as it leaves toxic residue inside, as well as for the environment that the toxic waste is released into. There is also increased risk of cross-pollination with other non-GM crops, which is the main reason of banning GM agriculture in Europe.
America is probably not a good example to use. Estimates of autism have shot up in recent years, it is now classed as the second-worst contry in the Western world for children, education standards have fallen, creationists have become a major political force, obesity is sky-high and rising, something caused Britney Spears' hair to fall out, and 90% of all recent US news stories on legal and/or political issues can be best explained by some form of brain damage.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Unfortunately, our ability to cure diseases and stave off death has pretty much stopped the selection of the strong over the weak (and obviously, natural selection of disease-resistance).
But the real point here is that many of our decisions are made with such narrow foresight. We do not know the long-term consequences of many of the things we do, we only look out for the short term.
Here is an example: We can learn how to shelter ourselves from the cold, or we could manipulate the weather so that it no longer get excessively cold. If we do the latter, we may gain a temporary benefit and comfort, but what are the long term effects? Both are examples of manipulating nature, but obviously they are not equal manipulations with the same consequences.
So, my argument is that a balance must be struck. Unfortunately, most people do not have this sort of vision, so we will continue to destroy the environment and do possibly dangerous things with our food supply for the benefit of profit-seeking corporations.
A number of studies have shown that obesity often has little to do with the amount of food available to an individual, but much more to do with other factors, including the that person's financial situation and education level.
Countries like Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Japan have very low levels of obesity. This is because they're some of the most highly-educated people, as a whole. Not only that, but the social assistance systems in those countries helps to ensure that almost everyone has a better-than-average standard of living.
Now, you can of course go to the extreme the other way, to the famine situations that occur in significant areas of Africa, you will see a complete lack of obesity. But remember, that's only the extreme. In the African nations where starvation is not a major issue, we actually a high percentage of obesity.
The US itself is a good example of how education and financial position affect obesity. The notheastern states have some of the lowest levels of obesity in the country, far below the national average. But that region is also financially sound, with an excellent level of education for almost everyone living there. The same holds for most of the west coast north of Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, the opposite holds true for the southeast US. The level of obesity has skyrocketed in states like Alabama, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi and Georgia. These are some of the poorest states in the union, with the lowest overall education levels. And so the people there tend to spend a greater portion of their money on food, in an attempt to bring comfort, and make up for their lower education levels and lack of money.
When will people learn that an aphorism is a poor substitute for knowledge?
every single type of food you eat has had it's genetic's controlled by selective breeding. GM food is no different, it's just quicker and easier to do (and cheaper). i really hate these kinds of idiots, they will take any tiny tidbit of information and blow it out of purportion and take it out of context to push their own agenda, which is really about anti government and anti corperate. you will also find, that ALL of these people come from middle class, and have never seen much of the world or actually had to live in poverty. a large motovator for GM food is creating crops that can grow in harsh conditions and provide food to people in africa etc, where they currently go without.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
An equally valid conclusion is normal potatoes are harmful to living beings, be they animals or humans. As a human who has eaten potatoes all his life, I'm questioning this study.
Why are all the anti-GM whack jobs Anonymous??
Take off every 'sig' !!
There's a 98% chance you're an eleven year old dork in a ninja costume.
Take off every 'sig' !!
The next thing you know, you'll be seeing commercials for the "All-new, Lexus Legume with 5 star frontal and side-impact crash ratings [small print]unless it has been boiled[/small print]."
we'll probably be extinct within the next 1000 years unless we learn more about how to better "fuck with nature".
I don't think it will take that long.
But that's beside the point and irrelevant anyway. I think what people need to start to realize is that everything we humans do is natural, whether it's clear-cutting a forest, nuking your enemy's cities, or creating a rainforest preserve, it's all natural (though the ethical status of these actions is another matter).
We're just the latest step life is taking to overcome a series of evolutionary humps leading to increased complexity. We made it past the most recent hump, the one separating genetic evolution and cultural evolution. Whether we can manage that for long enough to either get off this planet and start expanding exponentially much as we are now as a species, or we first become more civilized and then decide as a planetary civilization to expand more coherently, ultimately makes no difference to the universe.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the particlar version of GM potato studied was more damaging than a certain type of unmodified potato. Your generalization of "GM potato" is just too broad. For example, would you say that all condensed tree sap is dangerous after watching mice die from ingesting concentrated hemlock sap? Obviously, that would be quite erroneous and our pancakes would be rather plain fare.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
How about when will people admit that they constitute a part of nature and not a world sufficient unto itself?
Take off every 'sig' !!
Shouldn't the /. headline read "Welsh Greenpeace activists purport suppressed report shows cancer link to GM potatoes."?
Does the specific type of GM potato used in the Russian study exist in UK?
Judging from the Independent story, I don't see that the study proves anything, good or bad, about GM potatoes. Maybe rats should not eat potatoes.
raising questions ALWAYS changes the facts, thats how science works moron.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Let's keep it family safe, now
What?
Its been a very long time, but im really tired of hearing people gripe about how GM food industry is just an innocent victim of bad pr.
I remember hearing from a reliable source that GM foods alter you (presumably by hormones or retroviruses used in the modification process).
Additionally, I can't ignore the strong correlation between the exponential decline in US population health with the ever increasing adoption of GM foods (compared to europe where they have stringent standards for GM foods).
The pushing of GM foods keeps reminding me of the fast-tracking of pills like fen-phen.. then saying "whoops, its killing people" after denying anything is wrong. (kind of like apple and first generation quality problems)
Maybe i'm just too sleepy.. whatever.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
In other news, it has been found that nearly 100% of Heroin Addicts started out drinking milk.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
A question, for example, would be which modifications cause this. Not all modifications are equal just like a new paintjob on your car isn't the same as removing your airbags.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Just because someone put words in a paper doesn't necessarily mean they're true. Even if there's no outright falsification, it's entirely possible that their statistical analyses could be off (for a silly example: they had a sample of only two rats, and one of them suffered more free radical damage than the other). There's the potential for them to have misinterpreted their results, or to have accidentally exposed the rats to a different--
Wait, wait. Wait. I just went to look in the article for where these folks had been published (i.e. what quality of peer review they had). Right at the bottom of the page, it says that Greenpeace _admits_ that the Russian studies had errors. So, they're admitting that they're using a poorly-designed study in order to try and scare the government into banning trials on GM foods? What is going on here?
"GM food is no different,.."
Taking genes from a frog and putting them in rice is not like 'selective breeding' at all.
Not On Bit.
Unless you can show me where rice and frogs where paaing genetic material and creating off spring in nature.
As such, they should be tested with the utmost rigor.
I am not saying they are bad, just that they are different. The pro-GM camp has lied to a lot of people using that 'it's just like selective greeding lie' for a long time.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
How can you state that "all GM food is not the same" and then immediately go on to paint all GM food with one brush?
Someone needs to explain to the general populace that GM food is still just food. If the genetic changes are bad, and cause the food to produce something dangerous, or more of something dangerous, that's one thing (and we should be weary of that of course). But there's nothing inherently dangerous about genetic alterations. I'm tired of the belief that the GM somehow gets into the food and makes it evil, explanation unneccassary. It's like people being convinced that irradiated food is radioactive or something. Sigh.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
Thanks for the link and the summary! It's intelligent posts like yours that prevent me from kicking my addiction to Slashdot.
http://outcampaign.org/
I lol.
I don't think I can remember fruits and vegetables ever tasting so horrible as they do now. Strawberries and Tomato's that split before fully-ripe, have almost no flavour what-so-ever (if anything they both taste like the white-tasteless-heart of a strawberry) -- and generally don't cost any damned less than they would have with inflation from the 1980's. Organic foods just cost _more_ than they ever have, and now have a fancy name. Surprise! They were always organic! You shouldn't have to search for it.
GM foods make money for the large corporations that grow them, the same companies that have put every decent farmer out of business. It's not like GM foods are necessary to 'feed our planet' or whatever their marketing slant is -- do you think they now grow too much and ship the excess off to africa? yeah... I didn't think so either.
The most common GM chickens hardly have any flavour, and nobody that grows or markets them even disputes that. They will tell you flat-out they just grow-faster. That's the attraction. From now on, I'm growing all of my own fruits and vegetables and at least a significant portion of my livestock.
I've already had cancer once, why even take the risk. Why take the risk of any adverse side effects that is very real with any GM food. You don't have to be a scientist to know it's a bad idea, they do it because it makes money - not because it's healthier, or tastes better. What the hell do they care about your health?
---
Not genetically modified
Ace
The anti-GM groups make the same ridiculous generalization. What sort of GM potato are they protesting? Did they even check? The article mentions lectin (plus a marker) as the gene inserted in the Russian study... for all we know that lectin could have been been ricin.
Just like the rats cook their potatoes in nature, right?
The point in this study is the word "much". In reality there's no doubt about the harmful effects. But since things are in general difficult to prove 100%, the lobbying will begin. Just like with weather.
Of course Chernobyl potatoes are bad for your health, GM or otherwise...
There's two sides to the terminator gene, as I understand it, one of which you're overlooking. Suppose you engineer a crop which grows extremely well, much better than in its original form. This crop might spread wildly, and become a form of a weed, overcoming native plants and even other useful crops. The terminator gene is useful here because it prevents the crop from spreading into the wild. In this way it's a safeguard.
Suppose there is some series of studies confirming that a particular crop is statistically more correlated with the occurrence of some medical problem in humans who eat it. If that crop has already spread in the wild, and perhaps merged with non GM crops, then we'll still be eating it whether we like it or not. We need safeguards like the terminator gene.
Also, using it doesn't mean choosing the new business models it allows. They could sell seed to the same farmers at close to cost price for repeat customers, making it closer to the existing business models.
Indeed. This is just like how it's terribly unfortunate that the survival granted by our intelligence has prevented us from evolving the strength of gorillas.
If we're going to make value judgments about the evolutionary process as the grandparent post was attempting, it is prudent to first consider what we really want to evolve into.
Most of the time, sure. But some don't harm humans, or aren't harmful as long as you aren't being forcefed your own body weight of the stuff daily.
For example, metronidazole causes cancer in rats, but not in humans. Also, here's an article with a lot of information on teratogenicity:
Mean positive and negative predictivities barely exceed 50%; discordance among the species used is substantial; reliable extrapolation from animal data to humans is impossible, and virtually all known human teratogens have so far been identified in spite of, rather than because of, animal-based methods.
this is rage against the potatoes this is. and the rats that died in the experiment were probably too cold in a bloody Russian lab. nothing wrong with gm crops you retards, its not like your stomach uses its DNA to find out where to send it in the body ffs...
I'm a diabetic, and there's been suspicion for some time that potatoes may have a link to pancreas problems and type II diabetes.
Maybe we shouldn't eat so many french fries (oh, excuse me, "freedom" fries...)
Nitewing '98
Everything works...in theory.
But this study has been roundly condemned as not following any of the accepted practices or standards for scientific experiments, so we can't assume they would have used standard lab rats. (Besides, The Brain had other plans...) For all we know, they bought them on eBay or sent some students down the sewer tunnels with nets.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Well, it is unfortunate for greenpeace.
thats ok to cure diseases, they know the mechanisms involved and what everything is doing
but when someone genetically modifys a potato they can only truthfully say that there is a "good chance" that the modification does not have some other unforseen circumstance, they dont know exactly what theyre doing yet, and they are not back to front familiar with all the nano-biologial processes inside the living cells
I say "its too early and too risky to mess with the DNA that has fed humanity well for thousands of years", also Monsanto's take on GM seems to impose a monoculture on the genepool of foodstuffs, and this is a dangerous trend, The Irish potato famine's impact may have been lessened if there had been more varieties of potatoes grown in Ireland that were immune to the blight instead of the few that were. Imagine in 10 years when the big pesticide companies have just one genetically modified (to be immune from the propriatery pesticide that kills everything else) crop forced on farmers in the Developed countries, and then a blight breaks out like in ireland????? ( death, begging for food off the third world )DIVERSITY OF THE GENEPOOL PROTECTS OUR FOOD SUPPLIES FROM DISEASE!
DONT F*** WITH NATURE (Exploit it in a responsible and sustainable manner for the benifit of mankind?, yes)
I think the point is that this is FUD - no-one knows what it means, but it scares people. If you look at Microsoft press releases about Linux you might spot a similar pattern. Raising questions won't change the fact that such foods do have very harmful effects. Would any amount of evidence change your opinion that these foods have harmful effects, or is it more of a faith thing?
'course, soil they were grown in matters...some of the prime potato-growing real estate in the good ol' USA contains "safe" levels of nuclear bomb test fallout.
This doesn't surprise me - potatoes are poisonous. They contain toxic compounds, like solanine.
Now, you don't really get potato poisoning very often, mainly because we don't eat enough potatoes.
However, these research rats could be eating a lot more than their body can take in toxins like Solanine, especially if the potato is green.
Even if the DNA is similar between humans and rats, the body mass certainly isn't.
Didn't the Russians pioneer the skill of turning bad potatos into something good?
I think they are prone to developing cancer regardless of what you do/with them
Either that, or everything causes cancer and we are just screwed anyway so why bother?.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
since there's almost no correlation between IQ and social adeptness.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Im a biochemist who works in clinical trials and i can tell you right now that that study is terribly terribly flawed, and really shouldnt be given the weight it has been in the media. From the independant article "Greenpeace said the Russian trials were also badly flawed. Half of the rats in the trial died, and results were taken from those that survived, in breach of normal scientific practice". Basically this russian group abused/neglected a large group of rats, and gathered data attempting to link their unfortunate conditions to a pretty charged topic. The worst thing about these kinds of reports and pseudoscience is that it takes away from serious studies to determine the health benefits of GM, or in fact any foods.
...but because I hate plants.
Most plants try to sicken or kill you. Plants have a problem: they can't run away from the animals that try to eat them so have evolved a huge arsenal of chemical weapons to use against their predators. Toxins such as oxalic acid, tannic acid, various bitter alkaloids, tetrahydracannibinol, and even muscimol (okay, fungi are plant-like) are present throughout the plant world and are part of the reason that us historic scavengers have such large livers. Good controls are essential in any comparative study of how nasty GMO plants may be because non-GMO plants are pretty nasty themselves.
In general it is best to use an authoritative source for items of this import.
".. Welsh activists have finally been allowed to released a Russian study showing an increased cancer risk linked to eating genetically modified potatoes."
How do I released a Russian study?
I think, while in many cases I think technology is of a benefit to us, I also think that there are cases where it is harmful. We want to be selective about how we apply technology. For instance, there are drugs which have doubtless saved lives. With these drugs however, and with most technology, a person should be able to choose not to be exposed to them. No one tries for force a drug on a person, and a drug is usually used to treat a problem that exists, rather than given to everyone. Vaccines are provided to prevent diseases not currently present, however, even vaccines should be a matter of personal choice and no one should be forced to take them. The problem with GMOs is they are being forced on people who do not want them, and they are an artificial food which are being shown to have a good potential of being toxic. Furthermore, the issue of genetic pollution and the fact that crops tend to cross pollinate, endangers non-GMO fields where GMOs are not wanted, growing foods for people who do not want to eat GMOs. So the mere nature of GMO and its self replicating and transmissive quality makes it a danger to consumer freedom of choice to choose to not consume natural foods.
In regards to rat toxicity, As far as rats being intolerant of all potatoes, i am not sure about this. Rats being a scavenger species, might be equipped to handle, as such species often do, a large range of food items. I have been reading on the internet and I do see warnings to not give rats raw potatos, or green potatoes. Green potatoes are toxic to humans as well. Raw potatoes probably also would not be good for humans. Humans mainly eat cooked, ripe potatoes.
Problems have also been reported with corn and soy in rats.
http://uniorb.com/RCHECK/animalgm.htm
Also cows have been reported to die after eating GMO:
http://www.earthisland.org/project/newsPage2.cfm?n ewsID=576&pageID=177&subSiteID=44
Besides the potatos, we also have other reports of rats dying from eating GMO ingredients.
http://www.biotech-info.net/pusztai_article.html
http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/84 8d689047cb466780256a6b00298980/9f8d26bd0d23b83c802 5704600419579!OpenDocument
http://www.newswithviews.com/Smith/jeffrey8.htm
I do think that there is something odd going on here, and that the intolerance was likely not caused by a general intolerance to potatoes, but rather to the GMO ones. Studies which use a control group of a rats being fed non-GMO items can prove that.
I think when it comes to something like GMO, which is an artificial food, I would rather play it safe and go with the same foods humans have been eating for thousands of years, that is, non-GMO natural foods. For me, the risk in life and health is not worth it, to allow for agribusiness to make a little more profit. I do not like playing games with health and placing myself in unneeded danger, and especially with this technology, my gut instinct tells me the danger is significant and real.
I am one who would say we should not mess with the foods that we are eating, or at least, force them on people who dont want them. I am one who does support choice about what goes into our bodies, and the right of every person to refuse to put artificial substances into them if they refuse.
I do think, humans have evolved for thousands of years eating a certain range of foods and suite of nutritional components that comes from natural foods. The further we get away from the foods we have evolved to utilise and which our bodies are best equiped to handle, the less our bodi
Can a rat survive on the occasional potato? Probably. Can a rat survive being fed a lot of green potatoes over a period of weeks? Probably not.
The biggest flaw in the Russian research is that "Half of the rats in the trial died, and results were taken from those that survived".
This research likely has other flaws, perhaps some that invalidate its results entirely. That's why it must be peer reviewed and retried, the absolute core technique that defines the scientific method. Now that it's been extracted from suppression, it can actually be part of science, regardless of how its results fare under legitimate scrutiny.
--
make install -not war
Actually, according to the book Botany of Desire, GM potatoes modified to include the natural pesticide BT are regulated by the FDA as pesticides, not as foods. There's no testing whatsoever on safety for human consumption. A large portion of the potatoes produced in the U.S. are BT potatoes. Fast-food french fries? Bet on it. The author of BoD grew some BT potatoes in his garden, asked the FDA scientist if he should eat them. The FDA guy said "Well, let me ask you a question: why would you?"
There are plenty of anti-GM posts in this thread that are not Anonymous.
There are plenty of Anonymous posts that are not anti-GM.
Why are you so wack that you will lie about something so obviously false?
--
make install -not war
A few juicy points from the book (not in the order as they appear in the book, just the order it came out from my memory), though I knows too little to judge if their validity:
Oliver.
This should be +5, but funny not insightful.
America bashing != insightful.
~= scwizard =~
It's rare to find so much misinformation at Slashdot, and that's saying something.
Humans and chimpanzee DNA are very similar, there are apparently about 40 million differences (out of about 3 billion positions) between chimp and human DNA; in protein coding regions, the number of differences is much smaller.
Humans and mice, on the other hand are far more evolutionarily distant (80 million years since the last common ancestor, compared with 5 million, or less for chimps). In protein coding regions, mouse and human DNA sequences are about 80% identical, on average, but outside protein coding regions, the level of sequence similarity is no higher than would be expected by chance. (This large difference was one of the reasons the mouse genome was sequenced after the human genome - sequences that were more similar than chance were expected to have a function.)
While plants and animals (and bacteria) share a large number of proteins that do similar things, their DNA sequences do not share any significant similarity except in protein coding regions for very highly conserved proteins.
What all of this has to do with unpublished Russian studies on genetically modified plants, I cannot imagine.
Your assertion is "obviously completely bunk". http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/05/25/AR2006052501729_pf.html
The only question is how it was modified and how long ago.
Obesity sure correlates with educational level in a broad sense, but I wouldn't bet any money on education having much to do with the issue directly.
Farmers collecting seeds for future crops is not a wise idea. Quite frankly, the high yield crops farmers in developed countries grow are a result of hybrid vigor: plants of two lineages are selfed, producing two inbred lines from the parents. They are inbred for several generations. These inbreds become increasingly homozygous at all alleles. The two inbred lines are then crossed, resulting in progeny much more vigorous than the parental lines, I believe due to homozygosity at all, if not nearly every, allele. This is known as hybrid vigor. These lines are what are sold to farmers. The problem is, if farmers save the seeds from their crops, the progeny of the hybrid crops have a certain amount of their population become homozygous at alleles, and hybrid vigor is lost. Continuing generation become lower yielding than the previous, and the farmer has to buy seeds anyway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_vigor So, point one, terminator hurting farmers from saving seeds; when you're dealing with GMO crops that have been bred for hybrid vigor, or ANY HYBRID CROP, it makes no sense to save the seed in the first place. Only in places like Africa or Mexico where farmers grow indigenous ecotypes will this be a problem, and chances are WE DON'T WANT THEM TO GROW GMO/HYBRID CROPS. Wild ecotypes are a natural gene reserve for disease resistance and other genes that have been lost in our high yield cultivars. Of course, you run into the issue of where are these people going to get better crops. ISSUE TWO: Cross pollination Current arguments against GMO crops include that GMO crops will cross pollinate wild crop cultivars, introducing god knows what awful things in to the wild type gene pool. Farmers also want GMO crops separate from say, crops that can be marketed as "GMO FREE". The terminator gene addresses this issue by preventing cross pollination.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_ organism -- this link has a section addressing cross pollination by GMO's. Check it out.
From what I recall, farmers in the US who grow GMO crops already have to buy seeds each season from companies. I actually spoke to one such farmer, and asked why they continue to grow GMO crops, despite having to buy seeds each season. His answer?
They're profitable, otherwise they wouldn't do it.
I'm pretty sure modern medicine is not having as big an effect on natural selection as modern law. Just look at how many Darwin-Award activities are illegal. By outlawing things that are obviously stupid and dangerous (driving w/o seatbelt, letting kids play with loaded guns, mucking about with radioactive isotopes, etc.) we significantly decrease the chance that imbeciles will kill themselves before they can breed. The same goes for all the silly warning labels. We should just make a law stating that the manufacturer of a device is not at all liable when somebody dumber than average does something that an average person is smart enough to refrain from.
Sure, it makes things safer for the rest of us, but is it really good for the species in the long run?
Do you think it is really that simple? Consider this information about herd immunity:
Although no vaccine offers 100% protection, the spread of disease from person to person is much higher in those who remain unvaccinated. Virologists have found that when a certain percentage of a population is vaccinated, the spread of the disease is effectively stopped. This critical percentage depends on the disease and the vaccine, but 90% is not uncommon.Vaccines are different. If enough people make the "personal choice" to refuse to be vaccinated, you lose herd immunity, and the result will almost certainly be the death of people who were vaccinated, but for whom the vaccine was ineffective.
I think when it comes to something like GMO, which is an artificial food, I would rather play it safe and go with the same foods humans have been eating for thousands of years, that is, non-GMO natural foods. For me, the risk in life and health is not worth it, to allow for agribusiness to make a little more profitWhat about as an alternative to dumping large amounts of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers into the environment, where they eventually end up in your food, air, and water (not to mention screwing up the ecosystem)?
You seem to have missed my entire point, which is that it is invalid to group all "GMOs" together.
http://outcampaign.org/
The reason for GM crops is not ONLY ONE.
That statement is an insult to many good willed professors at many universities trying to do something good for the world. It may be said that corporations are doing this for one reason; profit, but even that may not be true.
Ingo Potrykus was one such man. It's been said that in his attempt to create golden rice, he gave a speech to an auditorium full of people, explaining his plight. Here he was, trying to address the issue of vitamin A deficiency, and he couldn't, because of the corporations and their patents on genetic engineering tools. At the end, he had an auditorium filled with a tearful audience. Look how far Professor Potrykus has come; major corporations have had to allow use of their patented properties for public use, and hell, if more people can try and blackmail these major corporations so that they have to do things that won't look bad to the public, who knows what might be accomplished.
That being said, Monsanto is probably downright evil. Organizations like PIPRA and MANY public universities are trying to change this, by patenting variants of existing genetic engineering tools and then allowing their widespread use without trying to profit.
There seems to be a lot of poorly informed opinions about this subject.
First of all- potatoes are swiftly poisonous to many species- they are a member of the nightshade family and contain many compounds that are lethal to humans. I'm not particularly concerned about this result- many things in therapeutic doses are gloriously toxic to rats due to different physiology. Personally I would think if this strain of potato isn't particularly efficient, one might safely discard it as a candidate and move along.
Second, genetically modifying food is simply a useful alternative to the 'natural' method of letting mutation make genetic changes and selecting from the results, which we have been doing for around ten thousand years. Modern technology can produce desirable changes faster than natural mutation and find the most efficient result faster than natural selection. With both the natural and GM methods undesirable strains are bound to evolve, only with GM can they be noticed and eradicated before the potential to outcompete or otherwise interfere with actual food crops arrives.
Thirdly, GM is incredibly important for feeding the world, despite some comments I've seen to the contrary.
In Africa for instance, famine-ridden countries have a fairly uniformly small fraction of arable land- the output of this land must be maximized if self-sustaining agriculture is to be introduced. GM crops are the most efficient way to maximize output.
And last, on a personal note, I am sickened by the Western attitude towards other countries utilizing GM crops. I can understand someone with sufficient income wanting organic options- this is a fine personal choice. However, in poorer countries this is not an option. Millions are starving to due lack of grain- GM crops can produce greater volume, can require less nutrients and produce more, and can be more weather resistant.
For an example, Norman Borlaug has quite literally saved the lives of tens of millions of humans with GM crops.
In short, feel free to choose your 'natural' alternatives- but realize those have been shaped by ten thousand years of very slow, very clumsy GM by natural mutation and human selection.
Looks like Greenpeace are pushing to stop testing of GM food (in rats?). Let me get this straight, they have tests which "prove" GM Potatoes can cause cancer, and all they want to do is stop further testing?
Save the rats but ignore the actual "people" eating it.
Glyphosate containing products are acutely toxic to animals, including humans". She goes on to state that it has conclusively demonstrated adverse effects in "all standards of laboratory toxicology testing" including medium term toxicity, long-term toxicity, genetic damage, reproductive toxicity, and carcinogenicity.
I think that these potatoes were being designed as a "biochemical factory", not to make french fries out of. If so, then the story really is, beware chemical production equipment that looks like ordinary food.
DON'T confuse your hemlocks!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemlock
The "tree-sap" hemlock would probably be a member of genus Tsuga. It Is is a large conniferous tree.
Poison hemlock is a member of genus Conium. It is a smallish shrub, considered to resemble fennel or parsley.
When crushed, the two are said to have similar odors, which is stated to be the reason for the similarity of name.
"I drank WHAT?!?!"http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Socrates
Hi.
GMO's for food are un-needed. Pointless to study health risks.
To me ( western-european ) these tests are plainly irrelevant. The question is not whether GMO's are bad for health. Well.. this is actually a secondary one. Why ? Because no matter from which point of view you look at GMO's, they are not needed. Why care whether GMO's may spoil the entire planet, when we don't need them, when we have nothing special to do to avoid them but not to produce them. GMO's, within the agricultural domain geared toward human feeding is plainly pointless : it's suspected advantages are mock, the so-called need of improving productivity is indecently proven void by the vast amount of over-produced food plainly sent to destruction. Please go and read as much as possible about the actual advantage brought in by GMO's versus the PR. Don't get me wrong : I am talking about GMOs within agricultural context, for food aim. Not about well known, well needed controlled GMO's industries like pharmaceutics.
GMO's for food is just a large hoax : there is no need for them. Thus there is no point in studying health risks related to them. Bye.
Cancerous rats were tested in our labratories near wintry Chernobyl....
What is the purpose of genetically engineering/modified crops (over an above the natural development process used for centuries)?
Normal farming produces plenty of food.
That's some good social assistance!
Let me guess, everybody but a very few have exactly the same standard of living. A few are starving. That's the only way I can see that happening.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'