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."

Comments

So...all potatoes are bad?

[bwd234]

"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.

Re:So...all potatoes are bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

People such as yourself, who don't have much of a biology background, have a hard time accepting this.

What we have a hard time accepting is that 99.5% similarity means jack, when we have something like 90% DNA similarity with sunflowers. If we are only .5% different from rats, that means that .5% represents a hell of a lot of difference, not the other way around. It's relative just like any other amount. Would you want to eat something that was .5% cyanide, just because .5 is a really small number? Without a point of reference the number tells you nothing.

Killer potatoes

[Zouden]

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!"

Re:Killer potatoes

[dreamchaser]

Actually it was the equivalent of an adult human drinking 800 cans of diet soda a day, so while you are correct that it wasn't 1000 times the 'normal' dosage, you are still rather far off base about the saccharine studies of the 70's. I would suggest that you do some mor research before commenting any further on the subject.

Here is one interesting piece for starters. I'm sure a smart AC like yourself can find more if you actually pull your head out of your ivory tower and look.

Stop testing? Bury heads in sand?

[Anomolous Cowturd]

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?

Re:Stop testing? Bury heads in sand?

[edwdig]

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?

There weren't any details in the story, but it depends on what type of testing is being planned. You don't want to do human testing if the early testing on lab rats doesn't look good.

Just bad science...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

It's not nice to fool with mother nature...

[STDOUBT]

I'm all in favor of scientific progress. In fact, I'm a big fan.

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).

As soon as they learn that rhetoric is valueless

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

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".

Re:What are those "serious questions" with the stu

[anagama]

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.

Re:As soon as they learn that rhetoric is valueles

[SQL Error]

Unfortunately, our ability to cure diseases and stave off death has pretty much stopped the selection of the strong over the weak

Yes, it's terribly unfortunate that many gene-related disorders can now be treated and that people can live full lives rather than dying horribly at a young age.

Terminator gene useful

[Lars512]

Most of the GM foods being pushed have nothing to do with starving people - it's all about increasing corporate profits, as usual. The "terminator gene" was being pushed to prevent poor third-world farmers from saving their own seed after buying grain crops once.

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.

The Lord of Harvest

[khchung]

If you want to know more about GM food, go ahead and read this book, seriously. It is an eye-opener to me, as someone who knows next to nothing about farming and thinks there might be some good reasons for NGOs to oppose GM food so vehemently.

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:

• In the book it mentioned one similar experiment with potatoes and mice (not sure if this is the same one), however, the experiment is so poorly controlled (e.g. the GM potato contains less vital nutrients compared to the "normal" potatoes) that the mice are more likely damaged through malnutrition than any effect of GM food. Other experiments that accounts for all the intake value of different nutrients showed no harmful effects for GM food.
  
• Agriculture in its current form (with pesticides, fertilizers, etc) is already the most destruction thing human does routinely to nature. Any additional "damage" to the environment due to planting GM crops won't make much a difference anyway.
  
• Corn farmers already have to buy seed every year from dealers, no terminator gene needed! Why? Because modern corn are usually hybrid breeds that give great yield but do not generate viable seeds. But you don't see NGOs screaming at seed dealers. This shows that farmer don't mind buying seed constantly as long as the yield difference is worth the price.
  
• People has been making genetically new variants of plants for centuries already (i.e. through selective breeding). Needless to say, none of these new variants are subjected to as much scrutiny as GM foods has gone through (yet some still think them "unsafe").
  
• Before GM, there were already other means (e.g. soaking in chemicals, radiation, etc) to cause genetic mutation in plants, which can also result in new variants of plants. These crops, however, are not called "GM" and can be sold with as much testing as variants obtained through breeding (i.e. no testing at all).
  
• In some cases, the use of GM crops can and do reduce the use of pesticides, so it is not all bad.
  
• Furthermore, one of the famous GM linked pesticide (Roundup), has the advantage of naturally decaying in matter of weeks. Thus using Roundup linked crop with Roundup do leave less harmful chemicals around in the environment.