Majority of EU Nations Seek Opt-Out From Growing GM Crops

schwit1 writes: Nineteen EU member states have requested opt-outs for all or part of their territory from cultivation of a Monsanto genetically-modified crop, which is authorized to be grown in the European Union, the European Commission said on Sunday. Under a law signed in March, individual countries can seek exclusion from any approval request for genetically modified cultivation across the 28-nation EU. The law was introduced to end years of stalemate as genetically modified crops divide opinion in Europe. The requests are for opt-outs from the approval of Monsanto's GM maize MON 810, the only crop commercially cultivated in the European Union, or for pending applications, of which there are eight so far, the Commission said.

Comments

How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a very hazy line there... is it just stuff made by Monsanto or *all* GM stuff, like... say just about *all* corn that's grown on the planet?

Re:How do they define GM?

[aicrules]

It only applies to the evil kind.

Re:How do they define GM?

[bjwest]

It's only a thin line if you want to be a facetious ass and make it one. Genetically modified crops are just that, They're crops that have had their DNA altered with DNA from other species. Cross pollinating a grapefruit with a tangerine to make a tangelo is not GM. Adding the DNA from a jellyfish to a potato pant, just to make it glow when thirsty, is.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a very hazy line there... is it just stuff made by Monsanto or *all* GM stuff, like... say just about *all* corn that's grown on the planet?

I don't know about the entire EU but in my country they have trackability obligations. Only not to the consumers. Suppose you could scan a bar code and an indent code from a food product and you could tell who grew what where and what was added. (It's already in place for food safety and It's already in place only not available to the customer.) Labeling would be simple and customer fear of GM products would be more accurate measurated. They scan it it enter their product batch code and voila.

In the EU (or at least where I live) you need to do this anyway.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're crops that have had their DNA altered with DNA from other species. Cross pollinating a grapefruit with a tangerine to make a tangelo is not GM.

That's exactly what a GMO is... Or did the grapefruit and tangerine have consensual relations to get that tangelo? Humans have been genetically altering crops for thousands of years.

Re:How do they define GM?

[penandpaper]

It's only a thin line if you want to be a facetious ass and make it one...They're crops that have had their DNA altered with DNA from other species. Cross pollinating a grapefruit with a tangerine to make a tangelo is not GM...

Tangerines and grapefruit are the same species? Got it.

I guess we should update wikipedia: C. paradisi vs C. tangerina

Tell me how is tangelo not a GMNO when it is the combination of DNA from 2 species and by your own definition makes it a GMO?

Perhaps, you should use the correct terminology before you express your outrage on something before contradicting yourself and appearing as an uninformed ass.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

OK. We've established that the parent poster doesn't have a precise grip on what literally defines a "species".

The salient point was that he(?) gave a specific example of the difference between cross-breeding and splicing in DNA that's totally foreign.

Mod -2 pedant.

Re:How do they define GM?

[rubycodez]

Wrong, breeding for desired characteristic is an entirely different matter than what Monsanto is doing.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

They are both Citrus and can cross pollinate.
What is not natural is DNA from a bacteria or some other kind in a plant that has no way to get those genes otherwise.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're going off track from what was said.

TO say that cross pollinating is NOT a form of genetic motification is incorrect. To say humans have not been genetically motifying crops for thousands of years, is incorrect.

I made no mention of Monsanto and AGREE that it is different then what Monsanto is doing. But people muddle the truth with misinformation when they talk about GMO's as if it's a new thing.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Appeal to nature much?

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

including the GM stuff created by their own agricultural businesses? I'm guessing they don't have a problem with those, just Monsanto or any non-EU business.

Re:How do they define GM?

[ComputerGeek01]

Prof Trewavas said the GM plants would be removed before the main crop was harvested so there was no danger of them being eaten.

He said: 'These "watchers" are planted at the same time as the crop in the same field but in a different area and regularly monitored for signs of dehydration. He added that because potatoes are tubers they do not cross fertilise using flower pollination and therefore would not infect other plants.

So you're problem is that you don't trust them to remove the potatoes before the harvest? OK, the solution there is to tighten regulations, not to outlaw this rather ingenious indicator crop. A solution in my mind is to demand that they inject a gene that makes the "indicator" potatoes grow with a highly unnatural and noticeable color and\or an undesirable smell so that they are easy to spot if they happen to make it to the grocery stores.

Re:How do they define GM?

[penandpaper]

His point doesn't address what the OP said.

He is making a line you can't cross in the taxological tree because reasons. Why can we manipulate the genes in species but not Kingdom? Oh, I know... God did it, right? That was the whole point of OP when he said: "It's a very hazy line there... is it just stuff made by Monsanto or *all* GM stuff, like... say just about *all* corn that's grown on the planet?" There are concerns with Monsanto, (see below in thread) that seem legitimate. But to label "ALL GM is bad" is proclaiming ignorance. Just like the GP misunderstanding what a species is.

"DNA that's totally foreign." What is foreign? When do you define DNA as foreign? How far up the taxological tree do you have go when it becomes foreign? how far back in evolutionary history do you have to go? How do you define that line in taxonomy? As if our DNA does not have the remnants of endogenous retroviruses, or the 60% of DNA we share with a banana plant.

The misinformed nature of his post is modded (as of now) +4 informative. It just shows you that the anti-GMO camp is mostly uninformed. If you want to talk about specific ecological effects, or copyright, or monopoly on agriculture then I am all ears. But to say "this potato plant with a specific jellyfish DNA sequence is bad" is just as dumb as saying a tangelo is not GMO. It is an arbitrary line that he created to suit his political compass.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

God did it therefore we can't do it.

Got it. Nice arbitrary line you made in the taxological sand because reasons.

Re:How do they define GM?

[cayenne8]

*SIGH*

And in the US, we have our congress critters currently, ACTIVELY passing legislation that would ban states from requiring only LABELLING of GM products.

Our govt certainly doesn't work for "the people" any more...we are passing laws that ban us in our states (where most power should reside) from wanting to know WTF we're eating.....

This is one thing that EU is getting right....

Re:How do they define GM?

[KGIII]

Who would have thought it would be the Europeans who are being anti-science? Yet they scoff at the US citizens (also retarded) who decry global warming. Personally, I like the idea of GMO. And yes, yes I will (and I presume I do) eat some.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Selective breeding is to a shotgun as Gene injection is to a scalpel

It's the same thing just different precision.

http://www.sciencemediacentre....

Re:How do they define GM?

[Gr8Apes]

Cross pollination is something that will likely happen in nature as well, and has been happening. In fact, it's using natural selection modified by human intervention.

GMO (Monsanto's efforts) are absolutely not anything like this process. Injecting man-made or cross species genes into plants is nothing like the above statement.

That said, I will note it is possible that some genetic material will go cross species thanks to certain viruses and bacteria, but that is quite limited in scope and range of potential subjects.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly what a GMO is

No, it's not. You're conflating selective breeding with direct genetic editing. Another case of a conservative with an agenda being willfully obtuse or completely ignorant.

Re:How do they define GM?

[nintendoeats]

Cross pollination is something that will likely happen in nature as well, and has been happening. GMO (Monsanto's efforts) are absolutely not anything like this process.

Ok. I think the key question is who cares. Houses, cars, airplanes, the internet, twinkies, lightbulbs, cell phones, roads, bacon, hats, speakers, tylenol, vacuum cleaners, scissors, multimeters, cages, cameras, pianos, boxes, nuclear power stations, kettles, pants, chairs, spaceships, windows and video games don't occur naturally either.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're going off track from what was said.

TO say that cross pollinating is NOT a form of genetic motification is incorrect. To say humans have not been genetically motifying crops for thousands of years, is incorrect.

I made no mention of Monsanto and AGREE that it is different then what Monsanto is doing. But people muddle the truth with misinformation when they talk about GMO's as if it's a new thing.

If it's NOT GMO in the traditional sense and you AGREE that it's not, then perhaps we need to stop fucking calling it GMO already.

Just a thought to perhaps cut down on the confusion between nature creating GMOs for nature and scientists creating and patenting GMOs for profit and total control of the global food supply.

Big. Fucking. Difference.

Re:How do they define GM?

[penandpaper]

It's a mad world we live in. My wife and I avoid anything that is labeled non-GMO. We didn't realize how bad it was until we saw pink Himalayan rock salt was labeled as non-GMO.

Re:How do they define GM?

[ArmoredDragon]

They're banning it for the same reason that requiring labeling for cell phone radiation levels is now banned: It's a pointless indicator designed to create consumer FUD because of somebody's silly religious belief.

Seriously, GMO food is safe people. So far the best argument against GMO food is "We haven't found any actual scientific evidence that there's anything wrong with it, but you never know, therefore it should be labeled and/or banned." File this under other phobias like Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity.

Re:How do they define GM?

[kheldan]

Exactly. And in their greedy rush to make mad profits, companies like Monsanto couldn't have possibly sufficiently tested their GM plants for human safety. Like it matters now. I guess in 50-100 years we'll know if they've created a toxic mess for humanity or not.

Re:How do they define GM?

[ArmoredDragon]

This is exactly what I hate about the anti-GMO movement: They cite examples like this even though no food like the example above actually makes it on your plate. That's just done for research purposes to better understand genetics.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Crops that have had their DNA altered with DNA from other species.

That's two unrelated things.

1. Traditional husbandry methods that culminated with the soviet "geniuses" of Lisenkho and Mitshurin, who tried to ~ breed sheep with walrus to increase wool yield and similar gross insanity. Mother Nature didn't like the idea, so no off-springs were produced and communist ideology became laughing matter.

2. Genetical engineering method: why not cross sheep DNA with bird-eating spider to produce bucketloads of silk-milk for making the top politician's super bulletproof vests? Poor Mother Earth may as well go complain at the Vatican, because Monsanto, Du Pont et al. use DNA chips, which allows them to trump basic laws of nature and raise "lassez faire" capitalism as the false idol of worship.

Monsanto will gen-engineer the Leviathan and the three-breasted harlot of Babylon if that increases untaxed corporate profits at least 0.1% percent...

Re:How do they define GM?

[ArmoredDragon]

In fact one more thing to add: If you're truly concerned about food safety and ethics, then you should be lobbying against organic food, which has on numerous occasions caused death by food poisoning, which stems from the fact that it requires using cow shit and limiting pasteurization.

http://www.geneticliteracyproj...

Meanwhile, guess how many got sick or died from GMO food? Zero. Not a one.

Another thing: Organic food requires a LOT more farmland for the same yield, and it's worth pointing out that making way for farmland is the biggest cause of deforestation.

Re:How do they define GM?

[DeBaas]

Possibly, but if I want to wear a tinfoil hat, I don't want someone to sell me a shiny plastic one because it is nonsense to wear tinfoil

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they're the ones being pro-science, and we're the ones who are ignorant once again. These things are absolutely terrifying if you care to see what they do to animals when consumed over a period of time.

And we are having autoimmune disorders like allergies and rheumatoid arthritis go nuts.

We're seeing major gastrointestinal issues throughout large portions of the population.

None of this is related to the fact that we're being force-fed GMOs, right? Riiiiight.

Re: How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

You should watch the documentary "The Future of Food". You may not want to support Monsanto and their GMO products afterwards.

Re:How do they define GM?

[KGIII]

We've been eating genetically modified food since before the dark ages. Hell, broccoli is pretty much entirely man made. Maize that we eat today has never existed in the wild. Fear for fear's sake is anti-science.

Re: How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you understand the definition of GMO. You're mixing cross pollination with genetic modification techniques. A simple wiki search would clear it up for you.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_organism
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_seed

Re:How do they define GM?

[penandpaper]

Cherry-picking or bad science. or you are just a conspiracy nutter.

I go with all of the above.

Re: How do they define GM?

[ArmoredDragon]

My opinion of GMO food has nothing to do with Monsanto. When I speak about GMO, I speak only about the science and nothing else.

In fact, that's another reason why the anti-GMO movement is so full of bullshit that it's falling out of their ears: They constantly create false dilemmas. "You support GMO? You must support monsanto then!" or "You support GMO? You must eat frankenfood!" It's all a load of crap.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Feral Nerd]

Who would have thought it would be the Europeans who are being anti-science? Yet they scoff at the US citizens (also retarded) who decry global warming. Personally, I like the idea of GMO. And yes, yes I will (and I presume I do) eat some.

So anybody who seeks to minimise his/her intake of Monsanto's GM crops in "anti-scientific"? And furthermore I suppose it could not possibly be the case that their opposition to Monsanto and the rest of that ilk has just as much to do with DNA patents, i.e. corporations turning staple crops into "intellectual property" and then using it as a tool with which to abuse the public? Personally it is the latter that worries me more than the former.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Type44Q]

It just shows you that the anti-GMO camp is mostly uninformed.

I'm trying to think of a scenario in which you wouldn't be claiming something stupid like that, regardless.

Nope, not coming up with one.

Re:How do they define GM?

[orlanz]

Cross pollination happens all the time and results in failure the majority of the time. Things like today's corn (pre-GMO), potato, cabbage, rice, wheat, etc would have never naturally occurred. It took humans hundreds of years of cross breeding, selective breeding, and accidents coupled with constant environment adjustments & control to produce today's crops. The veggies you see at the super market are monstrosities to their natural cousins.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Feral Nerd]

We've been eating genetically modified food since before the dark ages. Hell, broccoli is pretty much entirely man made. Maize that we eat today has never existed in the wild. Fear for fear's sake is anti-science.

And we have been making weapons since the stone age but the difference between breeding cattle by traditional means and what geneticists can do today, never mind what they will be able to do over the next century, is about the same as the difference between a hand-axe and and a cruise missile. How many times haven't we heard scientist say that some new technology or the other is perfectly safe (anybody remember DTT) only to see them fall on their face and admit that they (surprise surprise) overlooked something. This idea that anybody who has reservations on going to town with GMO technology is a stupid luddite, because GMO is a technology that cannot possibly cause any unforeseen harm, is pretty idiotic in it self. I'm all for science but deregulating GMO and allowing greedy corporations to do anything they want without any oversight because GMO is a supposedly such a safe technology is not something I'm prepared to do.

Re:How do they define GM?

[swillden]

Wrong, breeding for desired characteristic is an entirely different matter than what Monsanto is doing.

So, how do you feel about selective breeding processes that include drenching the organisms in radiation or mutagenic chemicals in order to dramatically increase the mutation rate? Nearly everything in your grocery store was bred via this method, which has been in use for at least a century, because it works really well. By massively increasing the mutation rate you can get your desired characteristics orders of magnitude faster than relying on natural mutations and cross-breeding.

If you're not okay with that method, then there's not much available for you to eat.

If you are okay with that method, can you explain how insertion of single gene to produce a desired effect is worse that thousands of random mutations, all of which are completely unknown outside of the immediately-observable phenotypic effects?

The fact is that humans have been doing various degrees of genetic engineering on our food crops for millenia, and massively increased it in the last couple of centuries (once Darwin explained how it worked). The methods of the last couple of decades are refinements which, if anything, should be dramatically safer than what came before, since the changes are smaller and better-controlled.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Brought to you by the same people who swore up and down for years that pesticides like DDT were practically safe enough to swim in.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, GMO food is safe people.

So was DDT and Agent Orange and asbestos... until it wasn't.

I don't think GM crops are that bad, but given the number of times people have been bitten in the ass with "safe" things, I think a lot of folks would prefer not to risk it when there are alternatives available.

Re:How do they define GM?

[crmarvin42]

No, Monsanto is actually doing both things. Some traits are improved more rapidly through transgene technology (ie herbicide resistance or insecticide production in the roots), whereas most traits that they farmer actually gets paid for (ie yields) are more rapidly improved through "traditional" cross breeding. Monsanto does both. May sound like a nitpick, but it shows your ignorance (as in lack of specific knowledge, not stupidity) on this matter.

Also, they are not "entirely different". The same technology that can be used to insert a transgenic trait can also be used to transfer a single gene between cultivars within the same species. IIRC, the LPA (low phytic acid) allele was original discovered in corn by accident, and then using the same gene insertion technology was inserted into more productive strains of corn. The product ultimately failed on the market due to practical considerations (lower viability of the plant, and problems associated with segregating LPA corn from commodity corn in order to be able to get a higher price). More recent work along this line has solved the first problem by delaying the activation of the LPA allel until after the plant is fully grown so that it primarily affects phytate P deposition in the seed (which is desirable), but that doesn't adequately address the basic logistics question of how to get the higher priced corn to someone who will pay the higher prices. Especially since feed enzymes (phytase) can be used to break down the phytic acid in cheaper commodity corn just fine.

Furthermore, new CRISPR technology will make it possible to edit genes in place with no need to transfer DNA from another plant or species in order to get the desired gene into the genome. It is expected that this will be used to modify plants in all sorts of ways without crossing the species barrier. The future is here, and it has been shown to be safe thus far. At some point you need to just get over the fear and accept that we've got this covered, so you can worry about something that might actually hurt you.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not against people having reservations against GMO's. If you want to fear something, you can fear the hell out of it, but if you want OTHER PEOPLE to be scared of your fear too, you need COMPELLING EVIDENCE that the fear is real. So far, I have yet to see that compelling evidence. So far, everyone that expels the idea that GMO's are inherently bad and need to be regulated can't come up with any detailed or reasoned explanation as for why.

Its not anti-science to be anti-gmo, its anti-science to NOT USE SCIENCE TO MAKE YOUR ARGUMENTS.

 

Re: How do they define GM?

[dryeo]

When I speak about GMO, I speak only about the science and nothing else.

The science is pretty simple. GMO is a tool, nothing else. Like most tools it can be used for good, eg making a tomato that has more vitamins and flavour, or for making a tomato that ships better with no flavour or nutrition.
It's impossible to generalize that a tool is always going to be used in the best manner or the worst manner. Each use has to be evaluated separately. Throw in the motivations of the for profit agribusinesses such as Monsato and the odds of some uses of GMO not being for the benefit of the average person goes way up.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Blue Stone]

What happens when a GMO is released into the wild is irreversible genetic pollution of non-modified organisms.

The fact of the matter is there is NO science about how these GMOs interact in nature when left to their own devices, free to cross-pollinate other organisms. That kind of wilfull blindness is engaged in by companies whose goals are not science, but which are solely the pursuit of profit ( via omonopolistic wnership of genetic material).

As for your reductio ad absurdum argument about the non-dangers of "foreign" DNA: how does such an argument stack up against "foreign DNA" when it's wrapped up inside "invasive species"?

Not very well I would assert.

We've barely got our heads around the problems of plastic bags: from bags to the sea, where it's broken down, which is then eaten by microscopic organisms, which is eaten by larger ones which, quelle surprise! ends up inside us. Did we forsee that when we wrecklessly cast these plastic bags about the place? Did we hell.

Such wanton disregard and ignorance for the consequences of our actions seesm to be the human way. Wrapping up the persuit of profits with the guise of LIMITED science and subjecting the genetic material of the entire ecosystem to a vast experiment is not a sound, rational or wise thing to do.

Re:How do they define GM?

[cayenne8]

They're banning it for the same reason that requiring labeling for cell phone radiation levels is now banned: It's a pointless indicator designed to create consumer FUD because of somebody's silly religious belief.

I'm of the mind that YOU would NOT have supported the basic food labelling we have now for ingredients....

There should be nothing wrong with putting a label on there and letting the public make their own decisions as to whether they want GMO foods any more than knowing what the salt amounts are or what non-food chemicals and preservatives might be in there...

Why do you HATE free choice?

It seems much of Europe has not problem with letting folks know...why is it a bad thing in the US?

And religion? I've never heard religion thrown in the argument on either side for GMO labelling....talk about you adding FUD to a conversation...

Re: How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

People who are capable of thinking beyond tomorrow care. While maybe nothing concrete has been show bad about GM foods, you'd have to be pretty short sighted to not understand the likely long term health risks, and risks to the food chain when GM crops make it impossible to grow anything else.

Maybe you come from a shallow end of the gene pool anyway, so nothing to worry about.

Re:How do they define GM?

[cayenne8]

In fact one more thing to add: If you're truly concerned about food safety and ethics, then you should be lobbying against organic food, which has on numerous occasions caused death by food poisoning, which stems from the fact that it requires using cow shit and limiting pasteurization.

Err....you don't wash your food before you cook or eat it?

Geez, I'll bet those same people get a bit sick every time they cook chicken, or cross contaminate between raw meats and foods that aren't cooked.

A bit of a straw man there, eh?

Re:How do they define GM?

[ArmoredDragon]

Do tell me, dear sir, how you intend to wash the lettuce served in a Chipotle burrito?

http://www.startribune.com/twi...

Keep in mind that this comes after Chipotle just switched from their previous supplier that provided GMO food to one that is all organic. Smart choice, wasn't it?

Anyways let's hear it, tell me the process you use to remove the lettuce from the burrito to then wash it.

Re:How do they define GM?

[ArmoredDragon]

I'm of the mind that YOU would NOT have supported the basic food labelling we have now for ingredients....

You're wrong; of course I support that. The purpose is to help anybody who has allergens or other dietary concerns to avoid foods that might bother them specifically. For example, as somebody with CKD caused by IgA Nephropathy, I look at the ingredients list for items containing phosphorous, and if they're high in the list, then I avoid that food.

Phosphorous is safe (and indeed, healthy) for 99.9% of the population, just not me.

That's what food labels are for. They aren't intended to scare people just to satisfy YOUR anti-science ideology.

Re:How do they define GM?

[KGIII]

Do you mean DDT? Instead of using your memory you might want to look into that. The science used to ban it was based on fraudulent data and the WHO has since allowed its use again because it turns out to not be all that bad when used properly. What they do mind is that it shouldn't be used as a treatment for crops but they've since realized that the whole egg shell thing was crap and the health issues were also (mostly) crap. It does, indeed, turn out that using it to soak down children daily is in fact not healthy but used properly it works to control mosquito populations and is quite safe to be used in conjunction with other preventative methods.

No, you don't have to worry about waking up to zombie corn stalks.

Nothing, not ever, is proven safe. Science does not work that way. Everything is potentially harmful. Instead, we've found these reasonably safe to date and I suggest more studies be done while not crippling ourselves with fear because you think you've an obligation to tell others what to do based on your feelings.

Finally, stop with the strawman shit. Nobody is arguing that we should deregulate anything. This isn't a corporate thing - it's an anti-science and fear mongering thing and you're partaking in it. That's fine but please, for all that is good, do it quietly and stop trying to prevent progress because you're scared. If they were, in fact, bad we'd have a huge outcry based on the science and not FUD.

"Get out of the way if you can't lend a hand, for the times they are a-changing." Bob Dylan

Re:How do they define GM?

[ArmoredDragon]

What alternatives? The only one I'm aware of is irradiating plants to trigger mutations to speed up the selective selection process. I'm not sure what makes you think that is safer than small (usually less than 200 nucleotides) deliberate DNA modification based on the science of proteomics.

Re:How do they define GM?

[crmarvin42]

This idea that anybody who has reservations on going to town with GMO technology is a stupid luddite, because GMO is a technology that cannot possibly cause any unforeseen harm, is pretty idiotic in it self. I'm all for science but deregulating GMO and allowing greedy corporations to do anything they want without any oversight because GMO is a supposedly such a safe technology is not something I'm prepared to do.

No-one is claiming that having concerns about GMO is stupid, but in order to have strong reservations about the technology today you do have to be largely ignorant (as in unaware, not stupid) of the vast body of knowledge that currently exists as to the safety of the GMO products currently on the market. The fact that most of this information can be found with a simple search of pubmed or the USDA's website.

I can't speak for all nations, but no one is attempting to deregulate GMO in the US. Not mandating a GMO label is not the same thing as not regulating GMO. Each and every GMO variety has undergone Individual Review before being allowed to be sold commercially. The USDA/APHIS, FDA, and EPA all weigh in on the safety within their bailiwick before the product can be approved, and then post them on their website (linked to above). No one is even trying to prevent companies from labeling for GMO status voluntarily. What is happening is that regulators are trying to strike a balance between the costs and benefits of a label, by making sure that those paying the cost of the label are those who want it. I should not have to subsidize the irrational fears of my neighbors if they are fully capable of footing the entire bill themselves.

Finally, greedy corporations, are a completely separate issue from GMO. If you don't like the way the US seed industry operates (professional seed breeders have required contracts that preclude seed saving for many years before GMO seeds came along) then pass laws that change that aspect of their business, not some other, completely unrelated aspect. Monsanto et al. sell both GM and non-GM seeds, and there are non-profit companies developing GMO crops that can literally save lives and plan to GIVE AWAY the seeds they develop.

Re:How do they define GM?

[cayenne8]

That's what food labels are for. They aren't intended to scare people just to satisfy YOUR anti-science ideology.

What anti-science?

If nothing else, the increase of GMO and the ever altering of them to allow, more and more pesticide use (due to us now selecting for more and more pesticide resistant insects and weeds) which does build up on the foods we eat, and are now ingesting more and more of.....glyphosates are now being shown to definitely be harmful. This is directly linked to more GMO crop usage.

Re:How do they define GM?

[cayenne8]

Do tell me, dear sir, how you intend to wash the lettuce served in a Chipotle burrito?

http://www.startribune.com/twi...

Keep in mind that this comes after Chipotle just switched from their previous supplier that provided GMO food to one that is all organic. Smart choice, wasn't it?

Anyways let's hear it, tell me the process you use to remove the lettuce from the burrito to then wash it.

Strawman argument.

One can get food poisoning from ANY restaurant that does not follow basic food safety and preparation standards (like washing produce, etc).

As for me personally? I rarely eat fast food....I love to cook and do most of my cooking and dining at home. Rather than waste money on crappy fast food....I save my pennies and every couple of weeks go somewhere for some fine dining, with good service and wine selection.

But any time you dine out, if the establishment doesn't clean and properly handle the food, it can be unsafe, this has nothing to do with GMO or non-GMO.

Next argument please?

;)

Re:How do they define GM?

[ArmoredDragon]

DDT was widely used because it is highly effective at stopping the spread of infectious diseases by killing the vector.

This was before anybody took a critical look at it, and it had already been in use for nearly a century before anybody had. The people saying it was still safe were the ones following the long term momentum, much as the anti-GMO crowd is saying that millennia old organic farming is safe (and in reality it's not safe compared to modern synthetic farming methods.)

Re:How do they define GM?

[ArmoredDragon]

I'll tell you what: If glyphosate shows up in any material quantity (one or even a hundred parts per million isn't significant at all) then we can put it on the food labels.

glyphosates are now being shown to definitely be harmful

It's only been shown harmful to people coming into direct contact with huge quantities of it. Though I think coming into direct contact with cow shit used for organic farming is probably more hazardous to your health, yet people like you don't go around espousing the dangers of organic food.

Furthermore, glyphosate isn't the only application of GMO food. If you want to attack glyphosate, then make your issues with glyphosate instead of genetic modification.

But you won't, because that would actually make sense. You're in this for an ideology, which doesn't necessarily have to make any sense at all, just so long as it fits your personal world view.

Re:How do they define GM?

[kwbauer]

I know, right. If you feed a cow nothing but GMO feed for 10-20 years, the cow will die.

Re:How do they define GM?

[crmarvin42]

Since the scientific consensus on the safety of current GMO crops is HIGHER than the scientific consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming, YES it is anti-science.

If you don't like gene patents, get involved in politics and lobby to have laws passed that strongly curtail or eliminate gene patents (I'd be right there with you, BTW). But blaming a technology because you don't like the ways in which one company is using it, is a little like railing against incompetent hammers because the contractor you hired to renovate you bathroom fucked it up.

Aside #1 - The original patent on glyphosate resistance should be expiring in the next 12 months (if it hasn't already), so we will see how reviled that particular technology is once everyone can use it free of charge.
Aside #2 - Much of the practices documented by politically biased film makers like Polan have been industry standard practice for longer than GM technology has been available. For example, no-seed-saving clauses have been pretty standard in contracts for generations. Farmers consider them a fair trade because dedicated breeders can improve seeds much faster (even without modern molecular GM techniques) than busy farmer can do it themselves, and there are plenty of places one can buy non-contract encumbered seeds if one is so inclined. The fact that the vast majority of farmers have chosen the GM seeds (despite the higher costs) should make it pretty clear that farmers consider them worth the cost.

Re:How do they define GM?

[crmarvin42]

What is special about the 80 to 120 year post-market approval date? Oh, you didn't know that the first GM seeds hit the market ~20 years ago?

Also, you may not be aware, but Monsanto tested their first GM seeds for several years before they received approval to sell them from the USDA/APHIS, FDA and EPA. How many years of testing is enough for you, and what do you base that requirement on?

Re:How do they define GM?

[kwbauer]

"Communist ideology" became a laughing matter? Most days it seems as if the overwhelming majority of /. whole-heartedly agrees with communist ideology and can't wait until the whole world is living under it. See the hatred for corporations in general, the love of government provided everything, etc.

Re:How do they define GM?

[kwbauer]

Oh yes, adding a bar-code to every potato or ear of corn out there will be very easy to do.

Re:How do they define GM?

[ArmoredDragon]

One can get food poisoning from ANY restaurant that does not follow basic food safety and preparation standards (like washing produce, etc).

Try again. Reading the article this time:

At least 17 Chipotle restaurants in Minnesota have been linked to a Salmonella outbreak that sickened at least 45 people and sent five to the hospital.

So you're telling me that SEVENTEEN restaurants didn't follow basic food safety? This is your ideology speaking again: If the food is tainted badly enough, then short of scrubbing each leaf with antibiotics, you aren't going to remove the parasites.

Re: How do they define GM?

[nintendoeats]

Wow. That just had everything didn't it. A non sequitur, an unstated major premise and TWO ad hominems.

Re:How do they define GM?

[HiThere]

Sorry, but if banning GMO foods is the only way to rein-in Monsanto, I'll accept that price. And banning GMO labeling is just authoritarian bullshit. Now requiring GMO labeling might be unreasonable. *MIGHT*.

I'll agree that people make a lot of silly choices, but as long as they aren't hurting anyone else its abuse of power to stop them. As an earlier poster wrote, if they want to wear a tin-foil hat, let them.

My main argument against GMO foods has to do the the centralization of power that it encourages. And because of that I am *almost* totally against them. Golden rice is pretty much an exception. (If I understand the license to that one correctly, you aren't allowed to sell it for profit. I could well be wrong, as I only looked at it once.)

Re:How do they define GM?

[ArmoredDragon]

Sorry, but if banning GMO foods is the only way to rein-in Monsanto, I'll accept that price.

That's like saying that if banning computers is the only way to reign in Microsoft, you'll accept that price. It's an asshole ideology.

And banning GMO labeling is just authoritarian bullshit. Now requiring GMO labeling might be unreasonable.

Umm...you completely misunderstand. You're welcome to stick a GMO label on food if you want; the ban is against laws that require labeling (i.e. governments telling other governments what to do.) The laws that require labeling are authoritarian.

Re:How do they define GM?

[cayenne8]

So you're telling me that SEVENTEEN restaurants didn't follow basic food safety? This is your ideology speaking again: If the food is tainted badly enough, then short of scrubbing each leaf with antibiotics, you aren't going to remove the parasites.

Yes, easily....IF they were using pre-bagged and supposedly pre-washed lettuce...then whomever they bought it from, did not clean it properly.

You see this all the time with other products, like ground meat. If produced in a large food factory and is infected, then loads of it go out to many different restaurants, etc and can cause sickness in many different stores and homes all over the US.

Re:How do they define GM?

[HiThere]

Eee...ahhh.... sorry. I hate to argue when I basically agree with you, but there's a strong similarity. And there's also the historical cross-species gene transfer that's been managed by viruses and parasites. So GMO is not qualitatively new, only quantitatively. But that *is* an important difference.

Now sexual recombination *is* different from GMO, so the example of the tangelo isn't strictly to the point, nor is the nectarine. Nor even hybrid corn. But GMO isn't new, it's just been an extremely low frequency natural phenomenon. But frequency is significant.

GMO organisms should undergo rigorous testing to prove that they are safe, such testing being done by parties that have NO stake in the outcome. This isn't being done. Traditional foods hat were created through natural GMO have had centuries of testing to allow people to decide whether they are worth it or not, starting with small populations so there wasn't a large initial exposure. This doesn't happen with commercial GMO foods. And the pharmaceutical companies have shown us how much we can rely on testing by those whose profits stand at risk.

Even that, however, isn't my real objection. My real objection is that GMO foods centralize control over the food supply. This is a real, clear, and present danger.

Re:How do they define GM?

[cayenne8]

Well, again, I just want labels so "I" can make my own decisions. I can't see that it would be the end of the world just to label them.

If I was not a GMO product..then, I'd not be worried about glyphosate levels in my food.

And too...if you want to have a more specific selection of GMO so as not to be as broad as things like selective breeding, or perhaps cross pollinating to select for traits, then maybe just label the ones where they splice in genes from such disparate species as a jellyfish into corn.

I have my doubts on the long term safety of this, as that we don't fully know what problems it may also cause further up and down the dna chain, and other proteins being coded.

This technology just hasn't been tested long enough to know it is safe...we've been guinea pigs for these years, and it often takes a LONG time to see really bad things happen, or have things slowly build up in the environment and in peoples' bodies.

Much of the problem GMO things I've been discussing have to do with the same companies that brought us Agent Orange, and DDT...which were perfectly safe*.......till decades later when we found out they weren't safe at all.

All I"m asking for is a label so I can make my own decisions on what I'm buying at the store and putting into my body. That should be a basic piece of information for anyone....

I can't see your objections to just adding a simple label? I'll pay the extra $0.01 it may take to change the labelling.

Why is it so bad to just let folks know? No one is advocating for anyone to hold a gun to the consumer's head to force them to buy or not buy the foodstuffs.

And, at the very least...if there is a consumer push towards more non-GMO's, it might push the industry to have more food diversity, which cannot possibly be a bad thing. Right now, the monoculture of many of our foods, could potentially be a problem. What if a new bug or bacteria comes and wipes out all of one strain of wheat/corn/tomato/ and it is all gone because we don't have other strains of the foods that might be resistant....

If nothing else, if it did have this effect on food growers, that alone would be a good side effect of this.

Re:How do they define GM?

[ArmoredDragon]

Actually if you ever go to a Chipotle, you can watch them prepare the ingredients, which is a deliberate restaurant design choice they use for that reason. And yes, you can watch them wash the lettuce (it's been this way for years.)

Your talking points are what we call denial. You sound just like Greeenpeace. Here, read this article:

http://www.slate.com/articles/...

Namely, read the arguments Greenpeace makes about Bt plants. Tell me how your arguments are different from theirs.

Re:How do they define GM?

[penandpaper]

. If you want to talk about specific ecological effects, or copyright, or monopoly on agriculture then I am all ears. But to say "this potato plant with a specific jellyfish DNA sequence is bad" is just as dumb as saying a tangelo is not GMO. It is an arbitrary line that he created to suit his political compass.

What happens when a GMO is released into the wild is irreversible genetic pollution of non-modified organisms.

Your reading comprehension seems poor. Emphasis added.

Lets talk about what is on the table. On the one hand you have the ecological factor of pesticide producing plants and the pests that grow resistant to them. On the other hand you have limited pesticides to give to various populations. In one decision people are fed and in future generations of pests they might become more resistant to modern pesticides, but people do not starve to death. On the other hand, crop yields are halved because no good access to pesticides, people starve to death.

Which would you choose? Save thousands now for an unknown. Or risk the unknown and let thousands die? Before you make a decision starve yourself for 2 weeks and then tell me about your pompous opinion.

As if our DNA does not have the remnants of endogenous retroviruses

As for your reductio ad absurdum argument about the non-dangers of "foreign" DNA: how does such an argument stack up against "foreign DNA" when it's wrapped up inside "invasive species"?

Holy reading comprehension... What the fuck do you think an endogenous retrovirus is you twat? Where did I say "non-dangers"? No technology is prefect. But let's not forget that the same virus that causes aids could be used to cure leukemia. But who cares right? Fuck gene therapy because scary GMO.

You underestimate how many people starve to death, how many people have been fed because of modern advances to agriculture, how every technological advancement to agriculture resulted in a population boon, how many more people could be saved with GMO, and the amount help the environment could get from GMO.

If you actually provide scientific evidence for ecological damage or some kind of "consequence" then DO IT. Just remember your belly is full because GM has increased the food supply. That is a fact.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Sique]

Basicly you are telling us, that you think forbidding to even tell about a proveable and real property of a thing is something to applaud to. The food is genetically modified. That's a fact. Why not tell it everybody?

If you keep it a secret, it makes people much more nervous about it as if you tell. If there is no problem with it, why not be honest about it? If people realize that they are eating GMO food all the day, and they are still healthy, wouldn't that be much better for proving that GMO food is ok? Everyone thus can see it.

Re:How do they define GM?

[kheldan]

How many years of testing is enough for you

As many as it takes to be 99.9% sure it's not going to cause harm to human or animal life.

and what do you base that requirement on?

A human generation or two, we'll know if there is any genetic damage to humans being caused by eating GMO foods.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anubis IV]

So far the best argument against GMO food is "They can grow it next to someone else's fields and then successfully sue that person for patent infringement."

FTFY

I agree that the tech side of it seems fine, but (at least in the US) they absolutely should not be allowed in the wild until the insane patent laws surrounding GMO crops are dealt with.

Re:How do they define GM?

[ArmoredDragon]

Well, again, I just want labels so "I" can make my own decisions. I can't see that it would be the end of the world just to label them.

If that's all you're after, then it's simple: Food manufacturers who go out of their way to make GMO-Free products label them as such just to make an extra sale. So just follow those labels. Meanwhile, the GMO food doesn't have to be stigmatized by your religion.

There, problem solved, no legislation required.

If I was not a GMO product..then, I'd not be worried about glyphosate levels in my food.

I thought we went over this earlier: If you have an issue with glyphosate, then make your issue with glyphosate, not GMO. While I'm here, I'll take this opportunity to point you to one of your fellow religious zealots who points out that glyphosate is sometimes found in organic food:

http://healthimpactnews.com/20...

then maybe just label the ones where they splice in genes from such disparate species as a jellyfish into corn.

Except no such food exists. Nobody has ever spliced genes from an animal into a plant and then sold it in a grocery store. When you hear about that kind of thing happening, it's for research purposes to understand what the gene does.

So any such "law" wouldn't serve any useful purpose.

I have my doubts on the long term safety of this, as that we don't fully know what problems it may also cause further up and down the dna chain, and other proteins being coded.

This technology just hasn't been tested long enough to know it is safe...we've been guinea pigs for these years, and it often takes a LONG time to see really bad things happen, or have things slowly build up in the environment and in peoples' bodies.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit A: A classic example of FUD.

Much of the problem GMO things I've been discussing have to do with the same companies that brought us Agent Orange, and DDT...which were perfectly safe*.......till decades later when we found out they weren't safe at all.

So now you're equating the technology with one company. This is like saying that Microsoft has done evil things in the past, so we should ban all personal computers. A completely idiotic thing to say, but it is your opinion nonetheless.

All I"m asking for is a label so I can make my own decisions on what I'm buying at the store and putting into my body. That should be a basic piece of information for anyone....

I can't see your objections to just adding a simple label? I'll pay the extra $0.01 it may take to change the labelling.

Why is it so bad to just let folks know? No one is advocating for anyone to hold a gun to the consumer's head to force them to buy or not buy the foodstuffs.

This is like saying "All I'm asking for is a label on all Jews so that I can make my own decision on whether to associate with them." It creates needless stigma even though it doesn't impact you one way or another, except for maybe bothering your religious viewpoint. I mean why is it bad to just let folks know?

And, at the very least...if there is a consumer push towards more non-GMO's, it might push the industry to have more food diversity, which cannot possibly be a bad thing. Right now, the monoculture of many of our foods, could potentially be a problem. What if a new bug or bacteria comes and wipes out all of one strain of wheat/corn/tomato/ and it is all gone because we don't have other strains of the foods that might be resistant....

Monoculture is a problem, however it's not unique to GMO. We've been doing this for millennia. Look at the papaya problem in Hawaii; they were all dying out because of a single virus. You know what solved it though? Genetic modification to insert a gene that would make them resistant. The very technology you are hating on solved a HUGE agricultural problem in Hawaii.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Copid]

Personally, I'd like to know whether my food was grown near power lines. Voluntary labeling is not enough. Mandatory labeling is a must. Anybody who disagrees hates free choice.

Re: How do they define GM?

[Copid]

People who are capable of thinking beyond tomorrow care. While maybe nothing concrete has been show bad about GM foods, you'd have to be pretty short sighted to not understand the likely long term health risks, and risks to the food chain when GM crops make it impossible to grow anything else.

The likely long term health risks? Given that you basically conceded we don't have concrete data showing anything bad, how are you assessing the probability and coming to the conclusion that health risks are likely? Is there some obvious mechanism for producing health problems that's specific to transgenics?

Re:How do they define GM?

[Copid]

If you graph any disease that has increased over the past generation or so, you'll find an excellent correlation between it and the consumption of organic produce.

What conclusions should we draw from that?

Re:How do they define GM?

[Copid]

I'm all for science but deregulating GMO and allowing greedy corporations to do anything they want without any oversight because GMO is a supposedly such a safe technology is not something I'm prepared to do.

I don't think you're going to hear a lot of support for totally deregulationg GMOs (at least, not from anybody except corporate PR firms). Most of the people complaining here are just against banning GMOs simply because they're GMOs. That's a ridiculous thing to do.

No, there's no guarantee that any GMO will be safe. I'm sure that it's possible to design a tomato that produces botulism toxin if you want to. But that doesn't mean that GMOs are unsafe by definition. A transgenic plant is just a new type of plant that needs to be tested and examined before we put it into the food supply, just like we would with any of the crazy new hybrids and mutants we've produced over the last century. Nothing more, nothing less.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Copid]

OK, for the sake of argument, citrus is citrus. What about moving a gene from peppers into tomatoes to resist a bacterial infection? Close enough, or crime against the universe?

Re:How do they define GM?

[Copid]

A human generation or two, we'll know if there is any genetic damage to humans being caused by eating GMO foods.

What mechanism are you proposing for "genetic damage" to happen? Is it something we should worry about with other products?

Re:How do they define GM?

[rahvin112]

DDT was and is safe, for humans. But we don't eat insects that have died from it.

DDT is responsible for the elimination of malaria and several other diseases from the US. Most people have no idea of that because DDT has been so disparaged and the elimination happened more than a generation ago. In the early part of the 20th century Americans in the south routinely died of tropical diseases, malaria and others. DDT eliminated those diseases from the US by killing the hosts, disease carrying mosquitoes. It's for this reason that DDT is actually still allowed to be used in the US, under circumstances where diseases are being spread by mosquitoes again and other pesticides are ineffective. It's also still made a sold to regions that suffer from these diseases.

Re:How do they define GM?

[someone1234]

You further a strawman argument. People who don't fear GM food would still want to choose between products. For example, we have the "made in " labels. It isn't because we consider Chinese products unsafe..

Monsanto products should be simply banned in the EU on the basis of being an invasive monopoly which, if left unchecked, will take over the whole agricultural sector. Their patented genes escape in the wild, infecting GM free cultures. Their policy about these GM infected plants is that anyone have them should pay their tax and/or destroy their own seeds. What is this, if not a hostile takeover?

Even if you are not scared by GM stuff, i'm only mildly afraid, you should be scared by the fact, that Monsanto will be the Microsoft of agriculture. And in this case, if they mess up something, they take everyone with themselves.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what? I don't think that GMOs are dangerous. Not at all. But I don't think that living organisms should be patentable. I don't think that companies like Monsanto should be able to prohibit the use of seed. It's that easy.

Re:How do they define GM?

[strikethree]

The fear is not that the GMO crop will kill a person. The fear is that the genes will begin spreading and affecting non-GMO crops.

Why would that be a problem? Because nobody knows how the new genes will interact with different strains. The GMO corn may be perfectly healthy with the strain of corn it was spliced in to but it may not be healthy with another strain of corn. Or it may introduce weaknesses into other strains of corn and all corn crops except the GMO one might get wiped out.

In summary, there are lots of unknowns about GMO crops and being wary of artificially modified organisms appears to be wise; especially when it is a corporation pushing it.

Re:How do they define GM?

[tehcyder]

No, the best argument against GMO food is that it's owned by companies like Monsanto.

Re: How do they define GM?

[tehcyder]

When I speak about GMO, I speak only about the science and nothing else.

Outside of the lab, there is no such thing as pure science. You cannot divorce this from economics and politics.

And if you're talking about large US corporations like Monsanto, many people in Europe start from the premise that they are evil unless they can prove otherwise.

Re:How do they define GM?

[tehcyder]

Sorry, but if banning GMO foods is the only way to rein-in Monsanto, I'll accept that price.

That's like saying that if banning computers is the only way to reign in Microsoft, you'll accept that price. It's an asshole ideology.

In the EU we have food mountains. We don't actually need genetically modified foods to feed our people. It is not analogous to banning computers to control Microsoft

The real concern is with countries becoming indebted to undemocratic corporations like Monsanto. The fear is that they will make it impossible for anyone to compete with their patented crops. It's really very little to do with GMO foods themselves. Monsanto are the assholes in all this.

Re:How do they define GM?

[tehcyder]

In fact one more thing to add: If you're truly concerned about food safety and ethics, then you should be lobbying against organic food, which has on numerous occasions caused death by food poisoning, which stems from the fact that it requires using cow shit.

That is an absolutely ridiculous argument. You don't actually eat the cow shit you grow vegetables in. Most normal human beings wash their food first, if only to remove the chemical coating much non-organic food arrives with.

It's like saying you shouldn't keep pets because if you let your dog or cat shit on your floor and your kids eat it, it might make them sick.

Re:How do they define GM?

[tehcyder]

Do tell me, dear sir, how you intend to wash the lettuce served in a Chipotle burrito?

http://www.startribune.com/twi...

Keep in mind that this comes after Chipotle just switched from their previous supplier that provided GMO food to one that is all organic. Smart choice, wasn't it?

Anyways let's hear it, tell me the process you use to remove the lettuce from the burrito to then wash it.

You're getting a bit desperate here. If I go to a restaurant, I expect them to observe normal hygience rules too, and this definitely includes washing raw vegetables before serving them.

Re:How do they define GM?

[tehcyder]

I don't follow your argument here at all. Are you saying that GMO foods magically destroy any external contamination, and you can just dig them up and eat them even if they've come from a farm where workers handling diseased livestock then process vegetables, and they're servied in a restaurant by a chef with gastro-entiritis who doesn't bother washing his hands very often?

Re:How do they define GM?

[tehcyder]

Cross pollination is something that will likely happen in nature as well, and has been happening. GMO (Monsanto's efforts) are absolutely not anything like this process.

Ok. I think the key question is who cares. Houses, cars, airplanes, the internet, twinkies, lightbulbs, cell phones, roads, bacon, hats, speakers, tylenol, vacuum cleaners, scissors, multimeters, cages, cameras, pianos, boxes, nuclear power stations, kettles, pants, chairs, spaceships, windows and video games don't occur naturally either.

Those items will not be let loose in the wild and start to intermingle with other non-patented houses etc so that the patent owner can demand you pay them for copying part of their original house.

Re:How do they define GM?

[tehcyder]

It's not the science that people care about. It's the companies who "own" the super-rice when it becomes mixed up with non-GMO rice and tell you you have to destroy your crop and buy only their super-rice.

The problem a lot of US libertarian/free market slashdotters seem to have is that they cannot conceive of anything that makes a profit being bad.

Re:How do they define GM?

[nintendoeats]

Contrary to popular belief, one that I held for many years, Monsanto has dropped all lawsuits in which the seeds were found to have naturally drifted into other fields. Think about it, their buisness is GM crops. Presuming they aren't stupid, they will have worked out that while the gain of suing a farmer is minimal, the public outcry against the cornerstone of their buisness would be huge (and anyway they would be unlikely to win such a case because there is no Mens Rea). Unofrtunately they seem to have managed to get the worst of both worlds.

Re:How do they define GM?

[tehcyder]

If this is about saving starving people, why allow Monsanto and whoever to have patents on the products? Let the government pay them compensation (or not) for their patented super golden rice gene and release it in the public domain.

It is the failure to do something like this which makes people extremely suspicious.

Re:How do they define GM?

[cayenne8]

I have no idea why you keep mentioning religion...it has nothing to do with the GMO labelling arguments....

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

DDT has done NONE of those things. It hasn't even been banned. What was banned was the massive spraying done with it, when the chemical product is NOT supposed to be used indistriminately, since it reduces the toxicity load and creates survivors that resist DDT (and DDT is reducing its effectiveness because of resistant genes appearing), and is far far more effective on malaria netting where it can be concentrated to irredemable lethal doses cheaply and without risk to the humans and animals of the household.

IT IS STILL ALLOWED AND LICENSED for such use.

Not for spraying into acres of land.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you made that up, NO. And it's not safe because we KNOW we don't know enough about genetics. See BSE. A genetic problem caused by non-genetic output: prions. See thalidomide: non genetic treatment for women makes genetic defects in their gestating embryo. We KNOW most of the genome is "junk" which means it USED to do something when it was a different organism. So when you put back the jellyfish gene that it used to need to produce the neurotoxin, that junk DNA now became lethal.

And because of cross polination and gene transfer (in a pool that will be instantly a multi-gigahectare monoculture, not a one-off as with viral horizontal gene transfer in nature), that jellyfish gene would have to be tested against the genome of all other plants that could be nearby. And animals. And in the "wrong" place on the same plant you tested on, because that gene transfer isn't tested everywhere, it's tested in one specific place and in the lab placed there. Natural genetic transfers don't pre-select the target location for the gene.

Re:How do they define GM?

[penandpaper]

If this is not about starving people Why would people reject food during a famine?

Why don't you make the same case with bandages, antibiotics, pesticides, fertilizers, construction equipment, medicines, doctors, clothes, shoes or anything that extends life? You know why, it all costs money. To your specific example, is there a precedent for the government taking a patent (that has not expired) from a private entity to release in the public domain? I have not heard of it. If you were a company doing GM RnD, why would you continue that investment if there were a strong possibility that the government would take your patent away and the profit you expected to pay back investors and continue other RnD efforts? If you have a better idea that would keep companies investing in that RnD (it is very expensive) for patent law while servicing more people, lets see it.

Monsanto does some crappy things(I think below in the thread talks about that more and better), but that doesn't undermine the utility of GM (the point of this thread). The utility of GM to stop people starving is there regardless of the actions of the entity that currently markets them. The real harm is the misinformation spread about GMO,

It is the failure to do something like this which makes people extremely suspicious.

It has more to do with FUD and you know it. GGGP made arbitrary lines in taxonomy to promote his political agenda because he doesn't understand species. GP misunderstood endogenous retroviruses and how much of our DNA is from "foreign" sources or how much DNA we share with other species not even closely related to us.

While they are comfortable with full bellies spreading misinformation about GM, that crap influences governments all around the world to reject GMO all this despite the good they can do to the environment and farmers.

Re:How do they define GM?

[penandpaper]

In the EU we have food mountains. We don't actually need genetically modified foods to feed our people.
Why don't you send some of that food to people who need it then? Or what about the environment and farmers?

not analogous to banning computers to control Microsoft

Yes, it is. You are blaming a technology because of a company. You even said in your own post.

real concern is with countries becoming indebted to undemocratic corporations like Monsanto.

That is not a problem of GMO.

It's really very little to do with GMO foods themselves. Monsanto are the assholes in all this.

See, you even said it yourself. Stop trying to ban/blame a technology because company is an asshole.

Re:How do they define GM?

[david_thornley]

I've heard about the lawsuits, but every one I have actually looked into featured a farmer deliberately using Monsanto genetic material without paying Monsanto. I'm perfectly willing to believe evil things about Monsanto, but would it be too much to ask for a cite of one or two cases where Monsanto sued farmers that did not deliberately violate Monsanto patents?

Re:How do they define GM?

[david_thornley]

I'm curious about your proposed testing procedure. Somebody not connected with the companies that do genetic modification should undergo rigorous studies, OK. Who is this somebody, and how does a company get that somebody to do the testing? Who pays for it? If it's the company, there's potential conflicts of interest, no matter how removed the testing group is. Should it be the taxpayers? How much testing should we finance, and how should we select which tests to do?

The usual FDA practice is to have the manufacturer do the tests, and then verify them. Some tests will be fraudulent, and it may not be amiss to have some sort of investigative unit that would interview people involved in the tests.

Re:How do they define GM?

[david_thornley]

A patent (in the US anyway) is a limited-time monopoly designed to encourage progress. Monsanto gets compensation for their R&D by being sole supplier of their product for a number of years. That has the distinct advantage of scaling the compensation to the usefulness, unlike any government rating scheme.

There is absolutely nothing to prevent any government from contracting with Monsanto for seeds to distribute to local farmers, or buying food from farmers who use Monsanto seeds. Nothing about this keeps people starving.

Famines, nowadays, are due to politics, not lack of food. We really are that good at agriculture.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anubis IV]

but would it be too much to ask for a cite of one or two cases where Monsanto sued farmers that did not deliberately violate Monsanto patents?

Not at all! I was thinking back to stuff like this Slashdot story from a few years ago and to similar reports that have come up in the comments here in the years since. The link to the article referenced in the summary is dead, but a bit of searching around turned up the original article. The site, admittedly, seems rather biased.

And, to be fair, I'm biased too, since I have a major problem with the notion that genetic material can be patented. It's one thing to patent the process for engineering something, be it a chemical or a particular type of seed, but it's something else entirely to patent the material itself, whether it's chemical or genetic in nature, such that no one else can devise their own method. Seems to me that it should be protected by copyright since it's an expression of information, in which case it wouldn't be protected in the case of pollination like what I was talking about, given that they would have effectively been giving it away for free, akin to people living near an amphitheater being able to enjoy concerts since the music is loud enough to be heard from outside.

Re:How do they define GM?

[rhazz]

If people realize that they are eating GMO food all the day, and they are still healthy, wouldn't that be much better for proving that GMO food is ok?

The average joe who is generally uninformed IS eating GMO food all day today, and statistically is as healthy as the control group. But the only reason they are eating it today is because they do not see scary GMO labels that they have only heard of because their friend on facebook shared a meme saying it was a bad thing. In the end it is wasted productivity - the actual labelling, the enforcement, the consumer confusion. I'm all for allowing companies to label GMO products as GMO voluntarily to cater to the anti-science types, but forcing all companies to do so is just promoting quackery.

Re:How do they define GM?

[crmarvin42]

I did not make that up, though I'll admit that I did mis-remember the magnitude of the difference. I thought it was more than a single percentage point. Would have been more accurate to say that they were essentially equal, instead of one being stronger than the other. Doesn't really change my point much 88 and 89% are both pretty high.

BSE - Has nothing at all to do with GMO. No GMO has ever inserted a prion protein into a plant so BSE and other transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (Kuru, CJD, and variant CJD in humans; chronic wasting disease in deer, etc.) are not relevant. EXCEPT that some researchers have developed a gene knock-out strain of cattle that does not contain the gene for the prion protein in the first place. Clearly a GMO that could make food safer.

Thalidomide - lots of chemicals can affect fetal development by interfering with the genome. That's why multigenerational genotoxicity studies in lab animals are part of the normal battery of tests to which a GMO are subjected before they can be considered safe. Generation interval for humans (disregarding the moral issues raised by testing on humans) is measured in decades. Generation interval in mice is measured in weeks. We can therefore look at multi-generational outcomes, with controlled doses, much more quickly and thus make decisions as to the safety of a new GMO in years instead of decades.

I've got no idea what you were getting at with regard to the jellyfish gene. All GMO at this point are based on well characterized single gene traits. The presence or absence of a single gene, producing a single protein, which performs a single well characterized action. It's not like companies are inserting random DNA segments to see what happens (that's what viruses do every day BTW). It is certainly *possible* that something could go wrong, which is why companies perform extensive internal testing before they decide to seek regulatory approval. The pipeline for developing gene traits is ~ 10 years from first concept to commercial approval, with the majority of that being internal testing. It's not like a new gene is discovered today and in seeds next year for sale.

Finally, you are essentially advocating infinite testing, which is both impractical and unnecessary. Testing under all possible permutations, no matter how similar they may be to permutations already tested. That is not science, that is paralysis based on irrationally high fear. This kind of testing is not really a call for testing, but a backhanded way to prevent approval. To pull out the tired old automobile analogy, cars kill thousands of people every year in the US yet we don't DEMAND that auto manufacturers make a perfectly safe car. We don't call for them to be tested on every single road in American at every single conceivable speed. Instead we've developed a battery of safety tests that we believe are highly predictive of the ultimate safety of a car. We simulate specific driving conditions and specific accident conditions, and base assessments on that. The same thing is done for GMO crops, with a much better success record thus far since no death or harm has ever been attributed to consumption of GMO food. Ironically, the same cannot be said for non-GMO organic foods.

Re:How do they define GM?

[kheldan]

Any number of things can cause genetic damage that could be passed on to the next generation. I honestly don't believe they've tested or are even able to test adequately for these possibilities. Of course as previously stated it's way too late to even worry about it now, the stuff is already in the wind and proliferating. We'll know in some decades to come if what they've released into the ecosphere is OK or if it's going to cause damage.

Re:How do they define GM?

[crmarvin42]

Well I'm already 99.9% sure, and so are all of the worlds top science organization and regulatory bodies.

If you applied the 2 human generation requirement to all other new products and chemicals, you would be limiting yourself to the state of the art medical science circa 1965 (average human generation interval is about 25 years). If you are unwilling to give up the last 50 years of medical advancements, I can understand. I wouldn't want to give them up either. Fortunately there is a way to determine the multigenerational impact of a new chemical, drug, or treatment regime WITHOUT having to wait 50 years to be sure it is safe. This is achieved by the use of Surrogate Models. Basically we use animals with much shorter generation intervals that are measured in weeks or months instead of decades, expose them to very high levels of the chemical every day for several generations, and look at the 2nd or 3rd generation and see if they are any different from the control animals who were NOT exposed. This is a basic requirement for safety testing for a range of different industries such as GMO seeds, pharmaceutical testing, chemical hazard testing for the chemical industry, etc.

That you are apparently unaware of this concept suggests that you should probably learn a bit more about the testing performed and the requirements for regulatory approval before deciding it is inadequate. I'd suggests the USDA/APHIS website as well as the FDA website.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Copid]

My question isn't really, "Could this cause genetic damage?" so much as, "Is there a reason to believe this particular thing is more likely to cause genetic damage than any number of other things?" That's where I'm getting hung up. We don't do 100 year studies on newly bred hybrids or plants produced via induced mutation. We don't do 100 year studies on new types of plastic, medications, floor coverings, artificial sweeteners, or anything else. Should we be doing 100 year studies on everything new we create on the off chance that they produce slow-moving problems, or is there some specific thing about transgenic plants that warrants it?

Re:How do they define GM?

[ArmoredDragon]

Because you have absolutely no scientific basis whatsoever behind your arguments against GMO. You may as well say that every product that isn't actually Kosher or Halal must have a "Not Kosher" or "Not Halal" label prominently displayed on it. It's immaterial information, so there's no point in mandating a label.

Re:How do they define GM?

[ArmoredDragon]

No, what I'm showing you is that we have agricultural methods that are known to cause harm:

http://www.realclearscience.co...

Meanwhile you choose to pick on the one method that is not known to cause ANY harm, and you do so just because you're religiously opposed to it, forgoing scientific rationale entirely.

Re:How do they define GM?

[ArmoredDragon]

That is an absolutely ridiculous argument. You don't actually eat the cow shit you grow vegetables in. Most normal human beings wash their food first, if only to remove the chemical coating much non-organic food arrives with.

You're very wrong here. If the food has been tainted with e. coli, then short of scrubbing it with antibiotics or cooking it, simply rinsing it off won't work. There have also been numerous cases of restaurants using proper sanitary methods that still have organic food they serve cause sickness anyways.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Copid]

The fear is that they will make it impossible for anyone to compete with their patented crops. It's really very little to do with GMO foods themselves.

I'm trying to understand exactly how Monsanto is supposed to achieve that. There are other seed vendors selling GMO and non-GMO products that farmers can buy any time they want. If farmers decide that the GMO product isn't worth the money, wouldn't they just start buying different seed from a different source? As it is, it certainly looks like the GMO seeds are worth the premium. Nobody is being forced to use any products they don't want to use.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Copid]

If it really was just about labeling things GMO/non-GMO for people to make real informed decisions, that would be fine. But the real goal is to encourage people to make uninformed decisions based on fear. Here's how it will really go:

Greenpeace: "If these GMOs are safe, why do you oppose mandatory government labeling?"
The Public: "Good point!"
Monsanto: "OK, fine. Labels it is. We'll stop opposing it."
Greenpeace: "If these GMOs are safe, why does the government mandate labels on them!!??!"
The Public: "Holy shit, good point!"

We're still trying to convince much of the public that vaccines don't cause autism. For the same reason, I wouldn't be a big fan of mandatory labels on vaccines that say something like, "Contains preservatives," or "Contains traces of virus." It's technically true, but it doesn't provide any useful information to the consumer. It's just a cudgel for crazy activists to swing around to cause more confusion.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Copid]

That article describes a bunch of people who have not been sued by Monsanto asking for preemptive relief in court because they're worried that Monsanto might sue them. That's them being afraid that Monsanto will sue them over accidental cross-pollination, not Monsanto actually doing it. The problem is that people have turned a theoretical concern into "Monsanto actually did this!" They haven't. They've filed a relatively small number of lawsuits against obvious offenders, and they donate the money they get in settlements to charity because they know that actually doing what people accuse them of would cause a huge (and well-deserved) shitstorm.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Copid]

It's the companies who "own" the super-rice when it becomes mixed up with non-GMO rice and tell you you have to destroy your crop and buy only their super-rice.

1) When has this ever happened?
2) If this is actually a real problem, do you think there might be a way to deal with the problem short of completely banning a tremendously promising technology?

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anubis IV]

The article describes what you said as well, but not to the exclusion of what I was citing. Specifically, the Slashdot summary I linked pulled this choice quote from the article (emphasis mine):

Monsanto went after hundreds of farmers for infringing on their patented seed after audits revealed that their farms had contained their product — as a result of routine pollination by animals and acts of nature.

Now, they don't back up their sources, and I'm not invested enough in the topic to give it any further research at this point, but that's what I was referring to when I linked the summary and article I did. I'm aware that it also talks about people who asked the courts to pre-judge in their favor, but that is a separate issue from the one I was referencing.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Copid]

Your instincts about the article smelling kind of skechy are almost certainly right. Yes, that's what your source says happened, but as you note, they don't back it up with anything. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that anti-GMO activist groups are, if anything, even less trustworthy than international megacorporations when it comes to spinning the truth, omitting important factors, or just making stuff up from whole cloth. They're up there with creationists and anti-vaxers when it comes to needing to follow up on the primary documents for every claim they make.

If an article quotes those activist groups and they phrase something in such a way as to "not exclude" what they want you to think but not to actually come out and say it, it's usually not a real thing. If it was, they'd be pounding the drum and saying it outright and stating the facts clearly. My guess is when you hear meaningless phrases like "Monsanto went after" instead of "Monsanto threatened/filed suit against" what they really mean is that an investigator went to the farmer and asked if they were saving unlicensed GMO seeds, didn't find evidence of a violation, and then closed the case.

From what I've actually been able to verify, actual actions against farmers are extremely rare. Only a handful have actually gone to court, and the cases I've followed up on by reading the court decisions have been obviously one-sided with the farmer obviously intentionally violating the rules. The fact that when they're asked for specific cases, their big figurehead "victim" is usually Percy Schmeiser (side note: This is Monsanto's web site summarizing the situation and they link to the relevant decisions, which should tell us something) is an indicator that there isn't much in the way of real collateral damage here.

I'm generally pretty quick to believe accusations against big corporations because they're very often true. Unfortunately, the anti-GMO lobby has done so much to burn my trust that I'd take a peek outside if they told me the sky was blue. Will Saletan at Slate has a good summary that just scratches the surface of the whole mess here.

Re:How do they define GM?

[kheldan]

We don't do 100 year studies on newly bred hybrids or plants produced via induced mutation. We don't do 100 year studies on new types of plastic, medications, floor coverings, artificial sweeteners, or anything else. Should we be doing 100 year studies on everything new we create on the off chance that they produce slow-moving problems, or is there some specific thing about transgenic plants that warrants it?

Here's my problem with GMO crops in general: There's a big difference between hybridizing crops the way farmers have been doing it for centuries, and the way they're doing it in a lab, directly splicing genes together, sometimes in ways that couldn't be done the way farmers can do it. Here's my problem with Monsanto, and companies like them: They don't act in a way that encourages you to feel like you can trust them. Here's my problem with the testing of things like this in general: They have to make assumptions based on testing on other animals over a relatively short period of time. You can't test these things directly on humans, either. There's also a big uncertainty factor because you can't wait decades to see if what you've created is actually going to be harmful. If it was just some product, and it turns out 20 years from now that the product causes harm, they stop producing it, or change it so it's safe. If you're futzing around with genetics, then your product, if it's harmful, may cause permanent, irreversible harm to either the environment, animal life, or human life. There have been plenty of drugs that the FDA initially approved, but then decades later it's discovered they were harmful; our testing methodology, in my opinion, is not sufficient. But as I keep saying: It's already too late.

Re:How do they define GM?

[beastofburdon]

Yea, because it is perfectly fine for a company to genetically modify a food product to create poison that kills insects and just take their word for it that it is safe for us to eat on a large scale.
There is nothing inherently wrong with genetically modified food, but you should not assume that it is benign without honest testing.
If you think that companies like Monsanto are trustworthy enough to perform their own safety testing then you are a fool among fools.

Re:How do they define GM?

[beastofburdon]

It's called self projection.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're truly concerned about food safety and ethics, then you should be lobbying against organic food, which has on numerous occasions caused death by food poisoning, which stems from the fact that it requires using cow shit and limiting pasteurization.

Organic growing does not require using cow shit. It's not even desirable to do so, since this tends to add high salt levels to the soil, causing long term problems.

There are many forms of compost that do not involve animal feces. Go to any large home center and you can find bags of this stuff, clearly labelled as shit free, for your garden or potted plants. Most of this stuff comes from plants (such as seaweed), but some minerals are used as well. Fish products can also be used.

Farmers try to minimize buying stuff by the bag (too costly, though there's really no other way to get minerals), so they use cover crops to produce many of the nutrients needed for their food crops. This also allows them to seldom use herbicides, since the cover crops generally choke out the weeds. All cover crops provide shelter for predators, which helps reduce the need for pesticides. Special machines are used to roll down or till the cover crop before planting the food crop (rolling is the more modern approach, since it doesn't destroy soil life).

Brassica cover crops (such as mustard) can be to used to kill harmful soil micro-life, since they are a natural source of anti-biotics. Radishes provide a natural form of tilling, as well as adding lots of organic matter to the soil. A variety of cover crops fix nitrogen. Some can even remove salt or heavy metals from the soil.

In practice, as with any large group of human beings, you will find some members of the organic farming group that are uneducated, cheap, lazy, or sociopathic. These folks don't bother to learn about the available options, and don't want to spend the time or money to do things right. There are also problems with corporate farms, run by MBAs and accountants, who often make bad decisions in a misguided effort to minimize the bottom line (as is the case in so many other fields). These are the people using the cow shit.

Re:How do they define GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

GM food is never ok.

In 100 hundred years when all producers depend on GM and all herbivores do as well, we lose the seeds of natural methods to develop crops. When the system breaks, our ancestors will die by the city.

Re:How do they define GM?

[jwhitener]

whole egg shell thing was crap

I never heard anyone in the news bring up a study that says the thinning was "crap". Wikipedia still lists it as fact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Effects_on_wildlife_and_eggshell_thinning

Do you have another study / article you could provide? I'm curious, because I come from an ag background, family in ag consulting, etc.. and still to this day believe ddt is bad for birds.

Re:How do they define GM?

[jwhitener]

Google scholar also has a bunch of old and new studies saying ddt thins eggshells.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1897/05-619R.1/abstract;jsessionid=FCE001FCC8095B53C7BE497B474DA122.f02t02?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=

Or

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=ddt+eggshell+thinning+mechanism&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ved=0CBwQgQMwAGoVChMI656mn762yAIVipqICh3rqQjz

Re:How do they define GM?

[KGIII]

You made me get off my tablet. Damn it. ;)

Anyhow... http://dwb.unl.edu/Teacher/NSF...

In addition, later research refuted the original studies that had pointed to DDT as a cause for eggshell thinning. After reassessing their findings using more modern methodology, Drs. Hickey and Anderson admitted that the egg extracts they had studied contained little or no DDT and said they were now pursuing PCBs, chemicals used as capacitor insulators, as the culprit.20

How about:

After many years of carefully controlled feeding experiments, Dr. M. L. Scott and associates of the Department of Poultry Science at Cornell University “found no tremors, no mortality, no thinning of eggshells and no interference with reproduction caused by levels of DDT which were as high as those reported to be present in most of the wild birds where ‘catastrophic’ decreases in shell quality and reproduction have been claimed.”23 In fact, thinning eggshells can have many causes, including season of the year, nutrition (in particular insufficient calcium, phosphorus, vitamin D, and manganese), temperature rise, type of soil, and breeding conditions (e.g., sunlight and crowding).25

There are many others. That's just but one. My understanding is that they really don't want it being used in agriculture because it's persistent. I'm a mathematician and not a chemist nor a biologist. I can't really opine on it. What I can opine on is that the original studies and the book were bullshit and need to be removed from the collective conversation if we want ethics in our science.

A little more effort will find more information, I've found piles of it in the past after hearing about it being used by the Gate's Foundation and wondering what the hell was going on. Bastards... Not the foundation but the people who pushed this shit to begin with.

Re:How do they define GM?

[KGIII]

See above post for one rebuttal by people more informed than I. I've quoted some of the useful information but there's a lot more to be had.

Anti-science is a PR plague

[Anonymous Coward]

EU dives into the "I don't care what science says" deep end of the pool.

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not about science. It's also about the stupid IP stuff that comes with it.

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I'll bet not. I'll bet it's driven by the frankenfood oh noes folks, who are themselves interested in power and selling books.

In any case, if it's not frankenfood fears, it's genetic diversity fears. If not that, fear of lawsuits by Monsanto of poor farmers whose seed got tainted.

A prediction: And if not that, something else.

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[rubycodez]

you spew in ignorance, scientific testing would make a valid argument for or against GMO

already there are studies pointing to problems with Monsanto's corn

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[rubycodez]

You are wrong, Monsanto does use methods of questionable safety, such as mutating plants with radiation and using the deformed plants DNA for a desired characteristic. Any normal person seeing the mutant plants would be horrified. You are the anti-science one, you claim Monsanto's methodologies and products are harmless without a shred of proof. You shill in ignorance

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[mingot]

mutating plants with radiation

That's not what GMO is.

That's what organic is.

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[CrimsonAvenger]

You are wrong, Monsanto does use methods of questionable safety, such as mutating plants with radiation and using the deformed plants DNA for a desired characteristic. Any normal person seeing the mutant plants would be horrified.

So, ugly plants are unsafe? Interesting theory you have there. Any, you know, actual evidence that this is so?

Because otherwise, it sounds like you're, what's that phrase, "shilling in ignorance" as well....

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[jriding]

It has less to do with the Science of GMO and potential issue that my come with the new combo of genes. It has more to do with the Patent on a core food and even more to do with pesticides.
GMOs are designed to resist the negative effects from pesticides so more pesticides can be applied. That is great that more bugs are dying and more plants are living. But you can't tell me that spraying our food with not just a little bit of poison but a TON of poison is not absorbed by the food. Then we eat the food that now has absorbed the poison. That must be real healthy.

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[Dragonslicer]

such as mutating plants with radiation and using the deformed plants DNA for a desired characteristic.

You're absolutely right! We should ban all sources of radiation that might affect the DNA of an organism in a way that could result in the appearance of a specific characteristic.

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[rubycodez]

well know that organisms can normally deal with background radiation levels, back to biology class for you

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[rubycodez]

I only suggest plants horribly mutated from normal *might* be unsafe or have DNA sequences that are not safe, and do not accept safety on blind faith in profit and power driven mega-corporate agendas

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[ArmoredDragon]

No, radiation is optional in organic. Organic just means you grow it in cow shit and don't pasteurize it, which is why organic farming is responsible for hundreds of death and thousands of illnesses every year.

http://www.geneticliteracyproj...

But remember kids, GMO is bad for you, even though nobody has ever gotten sick or died from it.

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[Anonymous Coward]

No. They're diving into the, "I don't care what Monsanto-toady 'scientists' say in preference for real science" end of the pool. You're jumping into the, "Corporate toady-funded science is akin to religion and must never be questioned" end of the pool.

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[crtreece]

But remember kids, GMO is bad for you, even though nobody has ever gotten sick or died from it.

Since there are no labeling requirements regarding GM products in the US, how would someone even know?

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[cayenne8]

It has less to do with the Science of GMO and potential issue that my come with the new combo of genes. It has more to do with the Patent on a core food and even more to do with pesticides. GMOs are designed to resist the negative effects from pesticides so more pesticides can be applied. That is great that more bugs are dying and more plants are living. But you can't tell me that spraying our food with not just a little bit of poison but a TON of poison is not absorbed by the food. Then we eat the food that now has absorbed the poison. That must be real healthy.

Not to mention, that we are also now, currently selecting for insects and other critters that are pesticide resistant.

It is analogous to the over use of antibiotics selecting for super "bugs" which we're already starting to see the negative effects of....

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[ArmoredDragon]

Well the nice thing about biology is that we can get to a good cause-and-effect description of why something might cause harm to you.

In the case of organic, it's simple: Cow shit is well known to have many parasites, salmonella and e. coli among them. Both are known to cause people to get sick, and in some cases kill people, because both excrete chemicals into your intestines that are highly toxic, which your intestines try to flush out, giving you bad diarrhea.

As for GMO...let's see, we have a few studies suggesting a very shaky "link" to cancer in rats, immune problems, and digestive problems. Yet every single one of these studies has proven to be A) borderline fraudulent B) scientific misconduct, or C) both. And furthermore, there is no cause and effect description in a single one of these studies.

http://www.slate.com/articles/...

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[kwbauer]

Of course, we could run some simple tests such as determining what compounds are actually in the consumable portion of the plants to see how they differ from the original.

Or are we still worried that we will get reversed electron spins in those amino acids.

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[rubycodez]

You seem to have a misconception on the state of the art of science in the year 2015, we do not know all the "compounds" in a plant nor do we have a way to detect them all. You might be interested to know we are still discovering new "compounds" that comprise normal cow milk, for example

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[HiThere]

FWIW, the people who got salmonella from lettuce didn't get it from organic lettuce. I think your prejudices are contorting your judgment.

That said, properly composted cow shit is reasonably safe on food. You won't get parasites. Raw cow shit has all the problems you mentioned. I *believe* that most organic farmers know proper composting procedures, and that most of them use them, but this is a belief, not a study. (OTOH, you didn't mention any studies either.)

That said, I *was* surprised recently to learn that there's a endoparasite of rice that can live through the drying, storing, and cooking of rice to multiply if the rice is left unrefrigerated. But this doesn't seem to distinguish between organic and regular rice.

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[HiThere]

Sorry, but no, you can't. Those test would need to be the same that are used to test a new drug, unless you can show that all molecular forms present are exactly the same as those in the unmutated food. Including double-blind studies of large populations.

So while tests are theoretically possible, they aren't simple, and they are never done.

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[MrL0G1C]

Loss of Biodiversity and Genetically Modified Crops

And Pesticide Tie-in by Monsanto who also sell and heavily lobby for bee-killing neonicotinoids.

Dirty practices by GM companies.
Supreme Court Sides With Monsanto, Against Organic Farmers

50 HARMFUL EFFECTS OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED (GM) FOODS

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[will_die]

Yes they do that for their organic lines of seeds. It I a very common method and not a questionable one to anyone without a fear of science.
For their GMO lines it is not needed to do this since they implant the specific genes they are helpful and needed.

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[Anonymous Coward]

At least we don't think the earth is 6000 years old.

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[tehcyder]

I'll bet not. I'll bet it's driven by the frankenfood oh noes folks, who are themselves interested in power and selling books.

In any case, if it's not frankenfood fears, it's genetic diversity fears. If not that, fear of lawsuits by Monsanto of poor farmers whose seed got tainted.

A prediction: And if not that, something else.

No, primarily it's about the ridiculous IP stuff and how the world's largest military-industrial complex enforce it.

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[tehcyder]

In the case of organic, it's simple: Cow shit is well known to have many parasites, salmonella and e. coli among them. Both are known to cause people to get sick, and in some cases kill people, because both excrete chemicals into your intestines that are highly toxic, which your intestines try to flush out, giving you bad diarrhea.

In what bizarre alternative reality do you live where people take vegetables (or pieces of dead cow?) covered in shit and eat them without washing them first?

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[david_thornley]

Organisms do mutate from background radiation levels, which is a good thing, because otherwise evolution wouldn't work very well. Subjecting a plant to lots of radiation just speeds up the process.

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[Anonymous Coward]

GMOs are designed to resist the negative effects from pesticides so more pesticides can be applied. That is great that more bugs are dying and more plants are living. But you can't tell me that spraying our food with not just a little bit of poison but a TON of poison is not absorbed by the food.

This is false, GMOs are designed have a gene from the pesitcide within the plant itself, resulting in a greater overall reduction in the amount of pesticides used. "Natural crops" require literately tons of pesticides to be applied daily, where as GMO corn for example, is breed to be resistant with trace amounts of the exact same chemical and has no need to be sprayed. The other difference with the GMO is that the pesticide gene gets destroyed by stomach acid when consumed and leaves no ill effect vs organic crop that is coated in the stuff and needs to be washed, etc. You tell me which sounds like the better choice.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/07/are_gmos_safe_yes_the_case_against_them_is_full_of_fraud_lies_and_errors.html

This acticle has a wealth of information, not strictly for or against GMO products.

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[rhazz]

But you can't tell me that spraying our food with not just a little bit of poison but a TON of poison is not absorbed by the food.

Yes, we actually can tell you that. We can tell you that because, and this may be shocking, your government routinely tests foods for the presence of poisons, carcinogens, etc, and makes recommendations on maximum allowed presence of these contaminants. I'm sure there have been thousands of proposed pesticides that were never used because they could not get government approval due to negative effects on either humans or the environment. Honestly, sugar is killing you far more surely than these regulated substances are.

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[Copid]

But you can't tell me that spraying our food with not just a little bit of poison but a TON of poison is not absorbed by the food.

What is poison, though? If you're a dog, onions and chocolate are on the list of things that are poison, but not so much if you're a human. If you're a caterpillar, Bt toxin is on the list, but not so much if you're a human. If you're an organism that produces EPSP enzymes, glyphosate is a deadly poison, but not so much if you're a human.

Also, nobody seems to be curious about the pesticides that Bt and glyphosate replaced. A lot of those are seriously nasty, and we're better off with more modern methods that use more benign chemicals.

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[Copid]

I've never quite understood this argument. On the one hand, people rail against the use of glyphosate. Then they turn around and point out that evolution is eventually going to produce glyphosate-resistant weeds and glyphosate will become less useful. First, that's going to be true for any weed control method. Second, why are they worried about the day when "super weeds" make us stop using glyphosate and move on to something else when what they really want is the elimination of glyphosate?

They're generally not arguing, "use glyphosate judiciously to slow the creation of resistant weeds," like we are with antibiotics. They're generally arguing, "Glyphosate turned me into a newt! It should all go away! Also, glyphosate creates glyphosate resistant superweeds!"

Re:Anti-science is a PR plague

[Anonymous Coward]

That is great that more bugs are dying and more plants are living. But you can't tell me that spraying our food with not just a little bit of poison but a TON of poison is not absorbed by the food. Then we eat the food that now has absorbed the poison. That must be real healthy.

Life finds away, so what is also happening is the bugs are getting more resistant, so we're getting to a point where you can never go back to non-GM maze. Yikes! Buy Monsanto stock immediately

And you call the Americans anti-science

[Anonymous Coward]

At least our anti-science hystericals aren't succeeding that wildly at anti-science legislation. Our successes are much more "pork for me, not for you" style victories.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[someone1234]

I call myself anti-monsanto. Them monopolizing agriculture is the most evil and reckless act i've ever seen. And that includes the oil companies killing all living in the oceans.
Monsanto play with all our lives. I'm not fearing of a sentient corn, i'm fearing of famine due to their corn one day becomes scarce because they are unable or unwilling to sell seeds.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[gstoddart]

At least our anti-science hystericals aren't succeeding that wildly at anti-science legislation. Our successes are much more "pork for me, not for you" style victories.

Two things: there's been mounting evidence Monsanto has been outright lying about the evidence they have on the toxicity of their crap, which means trusting them is idiotic. The evidence we have that their crap is safe is them saying so ... which means it's self-serving stuff which as like as not hides any information they had to the contrary.

And, hey, if the 'market' speaks and says it doesn't want this shit, Monsanto doesn't have the "right" to sell product to countries which don't want it. Monsanto has the right to piss off an go away.

So, boo fucking hoo ... countries tell Monsanto to piss off. That's Monsanto's problem. Nobody is under any obligation to allow Monsanto to sell their product, as much as the assholes who run that corporation think otherwise.

So if "the market" is sending a big fuck you to Monsanto ... too damned bad for Monsanto. They may have hoodwinked Americans into believing their crap, but that doesn't mean that countries shouldn't be able to say "we don't want your shit".

Because when all of agriculture is beholden to Monsanto, we'll all be pretty much fucked.

This isn't "anti science", this is anti Monsanto, and people simply not buying the notion that GMO is safe until proven otherwise. Sorry, but how about we put the burden of proof on Monsanto, instead of just taking them at their word?

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[harperska]

there's been mounting evidence Monsanto has been outright lying about the evidence they have on the toxicity of their crap, which means trusting them is idiotic. The evidence we have that their crap is safe is them saying so ... which means it's self-serving stuff which as like as not hides any information they had to the contrary.

[Citation Needed]

And, hey, if the 'market' speaks and says it doesn't want this shit, Monsanto doesn't have the "right" to sell product to countries which don't want it. Monsanto has the right to piss off an go away.

Are you insinuating that the market is always rational, and it is impossible for people with an agenda to manipulate the market by spreading FUD?

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[DarkOx]

I am more concerned one day they screw up and their transgenic crops do pollinate / seed in the wild. They displace natural varieties without anyone noticing until its to late. Finally the genes to make them sterile or only grow in the presence of certain chemicals etc do get flipped back on and we have massive crop losses in a staple food product like maize.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[mingot]

If they become unwilling or unable to sell corn seed, buy it from another company.

What's the issue?

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool sources you've got there.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[rubycodez]

How is questioning safety Monsanto's product anti-science? You are an ignorant shill

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody is under any obligation to allow Monsanto to sell their product, as much as the holes who run that corporation think otherwise.

True but the reality is that the Monsantos have their hooks into the government. Last year there was a story about a central/south american country that didn't want GMO seeds but the US Government made GMO seeds a condition for them to continue receiving US aid $$. No GMO, no $$$.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Anonymous Coward]

Did the EU hold a symbolic vote on whether or not climate change was a thing?

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Knightman]

Monsantos GMO-crops has already cross-pollinated ordinary crops years ago, the result was a farmer being sued and had to battle Monsanto in court for years.

You can read more here: https://thegranddisillusion.wo...

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

At least one person saw what you did there....

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Anonymous Coward]

Monsanto can't even keep the genes for Roundup resistance active beyond about 7 generations. They've been trying to solve that "problem" (for their profits) for the last 25+ years.

What makes you think something's going to be flipped "on" that isn't already in a natural variation of the species?

The checksums in DNA are slow-acting and nearly impossible to find. We're going to have to "decompile" pretty much everything in any given crop to determine what's doing what. And we're also going to have to figure out the basic read/write mechanisms that operate on DNA and all of their quirks, nuances, and corner-cases. Then we'll know the "opcodes" and the "machine code", and then we can start making sense of what's going on and how to patch new functionality into it.

It's going to take a very long time. Until then, you can rest assured that mutant corn isn't going to murder you in your sleep.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[bkmoore]

If they become unwilling or unable to sell corn seed, buy it from another company.

What's the issue?

Monsanto's business model: You buy seed from company X or make your own seed. Monsanto sends private detectives out to take samples from your crop. If they find signs of patented DNA sequences which will happen because of cross polinization, Monsanto threatens to sue you into oblivion unless you switch to Monsanto. (Legally you're guilty of "DNA piracy" unless you can prove your innocance...It's your word against Monsanto's.) Once you switch to Monsanto, you sign a contract that prohibits you from reseeding your own corn. So you have to purchase new seed from Monsanto each year. Competing seed suppliers go bankrupt because all their customers were forced to switch to Monsanto. Repeat above over and over again in market after market until Monsanto runs out of markets to monopolize and farmers no longer are able to reseed. Profits!!!

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Anonymous Coward]

Once you switch to Monsanto, you sign a contract that prohibits you from reseeding your own corn.

Hey, dumbass! Guess what? That's what the vast majority of farmers do anyway since most if not all hybrid varieties of corn produce sterile seeds. The only ones who would really be affected are registered seed growers for other companies. They are going to be the ones that have to be careful if their neighbors are growing Monsanto products as their crops are used only as seed.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as Monsanto & Co. buy legislators to press for patents on life, I'll press my legislator to prohibit Monsanto's products. Easy as cheese.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Anonymous Coward]

No. No one has been sued for accidental cross-pollination. The case you refer to was a specially designed test case that would have eliminated the ability of any seed company to enforce a patent involving a selectable marker. Dishonesty throws into question the justice of your cause.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's been tested and found safe.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Anonymous Coward]

And, hey, if the 'market' speaks and says it doesn't want this shit, Monsanto doesn't have the "right" to sell product to countries which don't want it. Monsanto has the right to piss off an go away.

If the farmers in those countries didn't want to buy Monsanto's seeds why would their governments feel the need to ban the sale of them?

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[mrthoughtful]

I'm not sure, but they sure didn't object to evolution by natural selection being the only theory of the origin of the species to be taught in schools.

Re: And you call the Americans anti-science

[Anonymous Coward]

Who tested it? Monsanto? The FDA doesn't test it. They receive documentation from the developer of the GMO in question and then evaluate the data. They don't do independent tests.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Anonymous Coward]

So, there's two possible theories:

1) Evolution. An actual scientific fact, observable in nature.
2) Someone's god pulled it out of his ass.

And, I'm sorry, but there is no "scientific" evidence for the second one, which means only people who keep claiming "magic space deity whipped it up" put any credibility in #2. Everyone else should be loudly saying "we don't give a fuck what your religion says as it has no scientific basis or evidence".

Evolution by natural selection is the only scientifically valid explanation for the origin of species. Everything else is sophistry and wishful thinking to match religious beliefs.

Sorry, but your fucking religion is your fucking problem. It sure as fuck isn't an alternative to science, and doesn't get the same level of treatment.

That evolution exists and has happened is an objective fact. Everything else is COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO SCIENCE and has no place next to it.

Fuck your god.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[squiggleslash]

Not a bit of this is true. Monsanto has only ever sued one farmer, in a specially designed test case where the farmer essentially went out of their way to be sued (as in they contacted Monsanto), and where the farmer had made a few elementary errors like having signed an agreement with Monsanto in the past. Plus he bought the seeds (from a grain elevator) with the intention of using them as GM crops (that is, planting them, then spraying the crop with Roundup to kill weeds.)

You guys are intent on inventing an insane conspiracy around them, when what they're doing is actually pretty good: make it easier for farmers to grow food, and ultimately food prices will fall. Cheap. Food.

That's something the world has always wanted. We humans have never really dug that whole "starvation" and "famine" thing. Those, in fact, are widely thought of as bad things we should do our best to avoid.

If Monsanto is making it cheaper to grow food and increasing yields in the process, then good for them.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Anonymous Coward]

These are not anti-science hystericals, these are 'species can not be owned' hystericals. Europe has a history of cross breeding super races that would withstand the harshest winters and where immune to all kinds of diseases, until a new disease destroyed 80% of the monoculture of super plants and killed 30% of the population through starvation.

Do we want to go back to such a situation, only for the profit of 1 (one) single company?

Re: And you call the Americans anti-science

[Dog-Cow]

Millions of tons of GM food has been eaten by millions, if not billions, of people. Please provide evidence of health issues solely attributable to the genetic modification of the food.

Go on. I'll be here in a couple millennia, when you get back.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Dog-Cow]

Is your day job writing plots for comic books?

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Copid]

Monsanto has actually brought more than one lawsuit, but I don't know of any where the farmer wasn't obviously trying to use unlicensed plants (rather than being the victim of unlucky cross pollination). The number of suits is pretty small, and as far as I'm aware, Monsanto hasn't lost a case, which is a pretty good indicator that they're bringing suits only in egregious cases.

Anybody who has an actual case of something like what the GP suggested should post it. Those court records should be public. Let's actually look at what happened and decide which side was being unreasonable.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Copid]

Questioning safety is awesome. Trying to ban stuff without evidence that it's dangerous, not so much.

Re: And you call the Americans anti-science

[FirstOne]

Half of All Children Will Be Autistic by 2025, Warns Senior Research Scientist at MIT seams to be somewhat serious problem. for a product that was invented as a descaling agent to clean out calcium and other mineral deposits in pipes and boilers

GMO/roundup exposed crops grown are deficient in minerals necessary for a healthy metabolism. While our bodies aren't directly affected by roundup residues. It kills off gut bacteria which symbiotically aids in our digestion.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Anonymous Coward]

So... you're OK with countries simply forbidding foreign companies from doing business within them? Like, say, when the US banned Antiguan gambling websites, that was fine and dandy by you?

The WTO had quite a lot to say about that at the time. I think this is not the end of this story.

Re: And you call the Americans anti-science

[Copid]

For the record, Stephanie Seneff pretty much appears to be bugfuck insane. She has somehow made a career lately by plotting exponentially growing things against other exponentially growing things and confidently proclaiming that one causes the other. Normally that would be hilarious, but she has a PhD in electrical engineering, so I'd expect her to be better at applied math.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Xest]

It's not even that, if this crop gives a real edge to a business then other farmers are going to have to use it too, and then we end up with a monoculture whereby we lack the diversity in our crop system and any disease impacting Monsanto's variant will rapidly spread and wipe out the crop. It could be years before they can get another variant that's resistant to the newly adapted disease in widespread production to satisfy global demand and so we're stuck without this important staple crop as you suggest.

But I'm not sure about the wiseness of insect killing crops in the first place. Insects exist for a reason, and it's unlikely they can make this target only invasive species across the globe, as what's invasive in one place, will be native in others. Killing off a key part of the ecosystem is an insanely bad idea, because it wont take long before it filters through to the parts of the ecosystem that actually matter to us (just as with bees and CCD).

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah. Human-made variants stand no chance against wild types. Human-made variants are crude hacks, optimized for one specific trait. Wild types are optimized for reproduction.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Knightman]

From the ruling of Judge Percy Schmeiser:

It does not matter how a farmer, a forester, or a gardener's seed or plants become contaminated with GMOs; whether through cross pollination, pollen blowing in the wind, by bees, direct seed movement or seed transportation, the growers no longer own their seeds or plants under patent law, they becomes Monsanto's property.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[tehcyder]

No. No one has been sued for accidental cross-pollination. The case you refer to was a specially designed test case that would have eliminated the ability of any seed company to enforce a patent involving a selectable marker. Dishonesty throws into question the justice of your cause.

Even given that is true, it doesn't affect the principle, which is that seeds shouldn't be patentable in the first place.

But of course that's anti-capitalist commie talk.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[tehcyder]

Once you switch to Monsanto, you sign a contract that prohibits you from reseeding your own corn.

Hey, dumbass! Guess what? That's what the vast majority of farmers do anyway since most if not all hybrid varieties of corn produce sterile seeds. The only ones who would really be affected are registered seed growers for other companies. They are going to be the ones that have to be careful if their neighbors are growing Monsanto products as their crops are used only as seed.

You make it sound as though people are fine with Big Agriculture with the sole exception of Monsanto. It's not about one company, it's the whole industry that's wrong.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[tehcyder]

Monsanto hasn't lost a case, which is a pretty good indicator that they're bringing suits only in egregious cases.

If you accept that it is fine to patent plants, then by definition Monsanto will win all their cases.

In the same way, if you accept that record companies are acting within the copyright laws, then when they sue someone for illegally downloading some music, they will win if it goes to court.

Yeah, I know.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Ol Olsoc]

I am more concerned one day they screw up and their transgenic crops do pollinate / seed in the wild. They displace natural varieties without anyone noticing until its to late. Finally the genes to make them sterile or only grow in the presence of certain chemicals etc do get flipped back on and we have massive crop losses in a staple food product like maize.

You read too much Michael Crichton. Many things might happen.

Are you concerned about people starving? We've put off Malthus many times, but that doesn't mean he will always be wrong.

FWIW, I eat organic because I can afford it, and it's what my family has always done. I harbor no illusions that we can feed the world in that manner.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Copid]

OK, that's a different question, though. If we have a grand problem with plant IP, reseeding agreements, music copyright, software license agreements, etc., that's not the same as an argument that farmers who intentionally take seed that they're not legally entitled to are somehow victims. The usual implication is that these farmers just have no way of avoiding being sued into the ground by Monsanto, and that argument is nonsense. All they have to do to avoid that outcome is not fill their fields with Monsanto's IP without paying a licensing fee.

I think there's a good argument to be made for IP protection of GMO plants, but there's a lot of wiggle room and valid reasoning in both directions.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[david_thornley]

The judge interpreted the law that way, and may well be right. It might be desirable to amend patent law to prevent that.

However, as far as I've heard, Monsanto has never sued a farmer on that basis.

Re:And you call the Americans anti-science

[Copid]

Could you link to that ruling? Because I remember reading the ruling and I don't remember that sentence or anything quite like it. Google results only produce links to activist web sites that also don't actually quote from the ruling.

Also, Percy Schmeiser was the defendant, not the judge. And his fields were full of Roundup Ready crops because he intentionally put them there, not because of bad luck.

This is not about science. It's about dependency.

[mrthoughtful]

The problem isn't to do with GM, it's to do with the way in which profits are derived from GM. The difficulties of GM are that the producer is able to develop a dependancy on the product. This dependency should be illegal. It's why pimps get their girls (and boys) hooked on crack or heroin. It's why big tobacco is evil.

What compounds the issue is that the US patent system is known to be desparately broken. Intellectual property and copyright law are bracketed into the same brokenness. What that means is that not only do consumers of GM products become dependant on the product, but the producer is able to sustain an indefinite monopoly of it.

This isn't about science. Never was. It's about becoming Monsanto's bitch and not being able to do anything about it.

Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science.

[Anonymous Coward]

We'll see all the usual "you're anti-science!" strawman arguments flung around here, I'm sure. A lot of us (my self included) happen to think the science is sound.

My beef is I don't like how Monsanto behaves, and I don't want to (knowingly) spend my money purchasing a product they might profit from.

And GMO is really a euphemism for Monsanto. They're the *only* meaningful player in this industry right now.

Re:Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science.

[Anonymous Coward]

My beef is I don't like how Monsanto behaves,

Let's see, they're a seed supplier that tries to maintain a clear distinction between their seeds and other sources. Kind of like electronics suppliers putting their logo on something, but they've not found a way to make all seeds from their labs carry a little Monsanto logo generation after generation.

There are some things I disagree with about their business practice. First is the nonsense about their crops being sterile, they aren't. I know that it's to arrange a sort of seed-subscription process and to try to maintain control of the seeds that they spent the R&D on, but I have a grudge against liars (like you AC who I'm responding to). Secondly, the (failed) attempt to patent the genetic variation they added into the seeds. However my opposition to that is as much from a dislike of the entirely over-lawyered society more than their specific attempt. I'm sure there are more Monsanto business practices that offend me, but they don't offend me half as much as the EU member states who felt the need to prohibit farmers within their borders from using seeds that passed all the EU testing requirements.

Re:Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science.

[Anonymous Coward]

And GMO is really a euphemism for Monsanto. They're the *only* meaningful player in this industry right now.

And this is why you and those that argue alongside you don't deserve my trust. You're very poorly informed about even the availability, much less the techniques or safety of these things.

Dupont Pioneer
Cargill (Syngenta)
Dow
BASF
Bayer

And that's just a quick list that turned up when I found this article about how a PR campaign can make all the difference. Of those, I found that Dow seems to have the largest EU presence, followed by Syngenta (which is owned by Cargill now), at least according to their web search results.

But go on spouting how you're actually an informed and trusted source for anything on the topic. And then endorse some stupid law that bans a useful technology, based on a premise you know nothing about.

Yes, Monsanto is a shitty company. Hell, their headquarters is less than 20 miles from my house. I know people that have worked there. You don't need to tell me how terrible they are as a company, since those people that used to work there already have. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater-like substance. A single bad actor shouldn't destroy a useful improvement to agriculture.

Re:Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science.

[hibiki_r]

They are not the only meaningful player in the industry: For instance, take DuPont's agro side, branded as Pioneer. They sell quite a bit of GMO corn in the US every year. The only major row crop when they are not a big player is soybeans, and that's just because their research in that area worked badly enough, they end up having to license from Monsanto.

Re:Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science.

[Anonymous Coward]

but I have a grudge against liars (like you AC who I'm responding to).

I'm the OP (of this thread, not the article), and I don't feel I'm lying, just giving my personal opinion.

I have no problem *eating* a GMO, I just have a problem *buying* them. And, I come from a family of so-called "food chemists", and I can still still down at a holiday meal and we can all respectfully disagree with each others' positions without calling each other names. A lot of the more prominent food additives common in US pre-packaged foods I can attribute to two members of my family who worked for a number of years for a large New-England grocery store chain with a large generic house label. As a hint, look up who holds the patent for the modern-day synthesis on a very popular "flavor enhancer" often attributed to Asian cuisine.

I don't have any dog in this race past what I believe to be the unethical business practices of Monsanto.

Re:Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science.

[drinkypoo]

They are not the only meaningful player in the industry: For instance, take DuPont's agro side, branded as Pioneer.

Well, DuPont is seriously fucking evil, and always has been. Besides their long and shitty environmental record, they also fought against hemp because hemp plastic threatened their petro plastic, and they are one of the companies behind ButaMax. ButaMax got a patent on effective commercial production of Butanol (a 1:1 replacement for gasoline made by bacteria from any organic matter) even though the process was developed at public universities and with public funds, and is furthermore an obvious development. They're using it to stop Gevo (a GE energy ventures subsidiary) from producing and selling butanol to the public. So if it's primarily Monsanto and DuPont, it's Evil and Evil. Monsanto and DuPont can both DIAF.

Re:Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science.

[Anonymous Coward]

How is GM a useful improvement to European agriculture? We already overproduce, and the CAP pays farmers *not* to produce.

Also, which stupid law is being endorsed that bans a useful technology? We're talking about the EU allowing states to opt-out of being forced by EU law to allow GM crops on their land, and them then opting out of that. Nothing is being banned. You don't even have to be anti-GMO to want to retain your own sovereignty on such a matter.

Also, if you have first-hand knowledge that one major player in GMO is a bad actor, why would you assume that all the others are not? A better working assumption might be that all the others are also bad actors.

Finally, please show us the revenues derived from those organizations from their GMO products, and we can make a pie chart and see if your assumption that all these players are "meaningful players" actually holds up to deeper analysis.

Re:Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hemp was banned in the US, because the US congress was afraid that Negroes would smoke marijuana and then go on a craze raping white women.

~100 years later, we're still here debating this position. I fucking hate this world.

Re:Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science.

[Anonymous Coward]

Syngenta (which is owned by Cargill now)

Do you have a source reporting on the buyout? I can't find anything it and both Syngenta themselves and the Zürich stock exchange seems pretty convinced that they are still a publicly traded company.

Re:Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science.

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL.

You're using BASF to represent some kind of moral high ground against Monsanto (the progenitor of DDT and Agent Orange)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IG_Farben

Get a hint -- BASF is one of the four spin-off companies of IG Farben, the company that produced Zykon-B for the Nazi regime that was used to gas 6,000,000 German Jews.

You Fail. Try again.

Re:Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science.

[Anonymous Coward]

We'll see all the usual "you're anti-science!" strawman arguments flung around here

Funny because those same people are perfectly willing to be anti-science when it comes to global warming. I wonder why they believe in a global conspiracy among scientists spanning almost every conceivable discipline and continent, but they don't believe in any conspiracy among scientists commissioned by Monsanto. A weird lot they are.

Re:Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science.

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked at GE Oil & Gas, and I can assure you that GE is every bit as evil as Monsanto, DuPont and any of the other crooked corporate giants.

Re:Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science.

[drinkypoo]

I worked at GE Oil & Gas, and I can assure you that GE is every bit as evil as Monsanto, DuPont and any of the other crooked corporate giants.

No doubt that's true, but they're still trying to sell us something that we need to make the world a better place, and DuPont (along with BP, more of the world's most evil fucks) is trying to stop them.

Re:Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science.

[Anonymous Coward]

OP of this thread (again), defending my position --

I believe in global warming, I believe in the science behind GMOs, but I don't support the current players behind the *business* aspect of GMOs.

I really don't feel this position is especially nuanced or even controversial, especially on a site that seems to be as progressive as /.

I'm not really sure what's going on here, other than ppl's reading comprehension stopping 1/2 way into the summary and not following up on the original article or issue in question.

Re:Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science.

[Nidi62]

LOL.

You're using BASF to represent some kind of moral high ground against Monsanto (the progenitor of DDT and Agent Orange)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IG_Farben

Get a hint -- BASF is one of the four spin-off companies of IG Farben, the company that produced Zykon-B for the Nazi regime that was used to gas 6,000,000 German Jews.

You Fail. Try again.

So, I'm guessing you always take the stairs instead of elevators, right? Because the Panzer IV tank, which was the 2nd most manufactured German Armored vehicle of WWII was manufactured by Krupp. And Krupp is now part of ThyssenKrupp, who make a lot of elevators/elevator parts. And you must really hate air travel, since Boeing B-17s were involved in the firebombing of Dresden and one of the original founders of Airbus was Fokker, who in WWII made parts for the Junkers Ju-52 which was used as one of Hitler's personal transportation aircraft.

Re:Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science.

[squiggleslash]

The problum with ButaMax isn't that, it's that it only has a rucording time of onu hour, not nuarly unough for an untiru moviu. VHS, on thu othur hand, starts at two hours, and thu "LP" mode luts you rucord up to four.

Re:Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science.

[squiggleslash]

What if it's a good product? I don't mean "good" as in "high quality" here, but as in "worthwhile", "makes the world a better place", that kind of thing?

I mean, if an evil company (presupposing Monsanto is/was evil, I guess that Agent Orange thing would be an example, though they were one of many, probably thought they were saving lives by shortening the war, and is that division still part of Monsanto?) suddenly decides it's going to save orphans, cure cancer, and solve (or at least do something to help solve) world hunger, do we really say "Nah, you suck", or "Yes, keep doing that, maybe concentrate on that kind of thing, and less on the Eating Puppies and Using Laser Weapons to Threaten The UN Building, type stuff".

In this case, no, Monsanto isn't saving orphans or curing cancer... but it is doing something significant on the road to helping end world hunger.

That's... good, right?

Re:Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science.

[Anonymous Coward]

The GP's post wasn't against the "GMO is bad" crowd, it was against someone making a false assertion. The fact that every single one of those companies is a huge biotech/industrial powerhouse pretty much guarantees that Monsanto isn't the only "meaningful player".

Dupont Pioneer basically owns Iowa and large parts of northern Illinois. That's corn-growing country, and pretty much nothing else. Monsanto and Cargill merely fight over scraps in that arena.

Monsanto gets a lot of (usually bad) press about their GMO corn, but their major focus has been soybeans for decades now. The question they answered was "how do you kill broadleaf weeds and leave the soybeans, which are also broadleaf, untouched?" Their answer was "genetically modify the soybeans so that Roundup(tm) doesn't kill them." GMO corn was a side-project that turned a comparatively small profit. Dekalb focused way more on corn, and Monsanto didn't, so Monsanto bought Dekalb out to get their GMO corn research and patents.

Cargill is mostly reduced to second-player in both corn and soybean production in the US. That's why they became a Syngenta reseller (they did not buy-out Syngenta as the GP asserts). Mostly, Cargill runs grain elevators and makes their money playing commodities markets. In that market, they're not even second-place, either. Both Archer Daniels Midland and Bunge are bigger. Of the ones the GP listed, Cargill is probably the worst example of competition for Monsanto.

Dow, BASF, and Bayer are all known more as industrial chemical powerhouses. It's usually something of a shock to find out how deep into GMO research they are, and how much of a hand they play in crop research. Especially Bayer, since they're usually grouped in with "big pharma" rather than "big ag". Here's a breakdown of 2007 stats. Newer stats tend to show DuPont on top. Regional stats tend to show local firms on top, such as Syngenta and Bayer in Europe, rather than Monsanto or DuPont. In emerging markets, Dow and Syngenta tend to have the top spots, with Dow leading by a fair-sized margin, especially in India.

Re:Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science.

[Anonymous Coward]

I also work for the GE Oil & Gas so I am really getting a kick out of some of these replies. You slashdotters think you know what you are talking about but in reality, you don't. Trust me. This is how bad information gets around, because some slashdotters will believe anything they read.

Re:Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science.

[Copid]

And GMO is really a euphemism for Monsanto. They're the *only* meaningful player in this industry right now.

1) No, they're not really.
2) Any broad GMO bans that we enact in order to take out our rage on Monsanto will guarantee that any cool new "good" companies with useful products never appear.

We're at the beginning of a potentially huge boom in a new technology. Squelching it because we really hate the guys who currently occupy a big slice of that market is just cutting off our nose to spite our face.

Re:Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science.

[Copid]

Well, DuPont is seriously fucking evil, and always has been.

I'm willing to stipulate that most, if not all, big chemical companies often do very evil things. The problem is that the OP's solution to that is the equivalent of saying, "No more chemicals." That would definitely take care of the problem, but it seems like a more carefully thought-out solution would be better.

Pork is culturally insensitive.

[NotQuiteReal]

There will be a move to ban pork soon too.

Meowwwww!

[AndyKron]

Their loss is our gain.

Re:Meowwwww!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Their loss is our grain" surely!

Why does EU need GM?

[delt0r]

As it is we pay farmers to waste land. No need for GM.

While GM applied properly could lead to crops that can be grown in otherwise difficult places to grow anything, allowing local production of food in places that need it.

Re:Why does EU need GM?

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

GM also reduces the amount of labor, water, and pollution needed to produce food and makes food cheaper.

Making food cheaper is a big deal when people spend 15-20% of their income on food, as they do in much of Europe.

Re:Why does EU need GM?

[dunkelfalke]

Food won't be any cheaper because EU basically sets the minimum price for agricultural products by introducing strict quotas to keep european farmers afloat and thanks to the generally pretty mild EU climate plants are seldom artificially watered - there is usually more than enough rainfall. Reducing labour would also be counterproductive - like GP has mentioned, EU even pays some farmers for not producing.
Seriously, GMO makes absolutely no sense here and it is not welcome by the general population either.

Re:Why does EU need GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, we can get to the point where corn is so cheap and plentiful that we can abandon sucrose as a sugar and switch to HFCS, then we can have America's obesity problem too!

And corn getting cheaper doesn't mean you can make more of it on the same land, so all you're really doing is increasing the free time of farmers, while reducing their income. That means more farms going out of business, which means more imported produce, which actually, er, makes food more expensive in the long run.

But hey, you go banging that drum for the imaginary benefits of GMO to the European farming system, and keep taking your shill dollars from Monsanto.

Re:Why does EU need GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit, Bullshit, and more bullshit.

Re:Why does EU need GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

GM also reduces the amount of labor, water, and pollution needed to produce food and makes food cheaper.

In theory it could do all those things. In practice, many GM crops are often engineered to withstand herbicides, as they are developed by the very same companies that sell those herbicides, encouraging their use and thus increasing pollution.

Making food cheaper is a big deal when people spend 15-20% of their income on food, as they do in much of Europe.

GM crops are typically cheap bulk crops, not the things that make fine European food expensive.

Re:Why does EU need GM?

[TheSync]

As it is we pay farmers to waste land. No need for GM.

The US has ended direct agricultural subsidies. Now subsidies take the form of crop insurance subsidies, and of course indirectly on corn through ethanol blending requirements on gasoline. There also is the imported sugar quota.

GMO crops like GTS 40-3-2 (Roundup-ready soy beans) are used to help farmers not only use less land, but also less water, less fuel and fewer pesticides/herbicides.

Organic fungicides such as copper and sulfur, are used at a rate of 4 and 34 pounds per acre. There also is the organic pesticide rotenone that causes Parkinson's Disease-like symptoms in rats. Organic farmers also directly apply Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxin, which is precisely what is found in some GMO corn (although it is more efficiently delivered by the plant itself than through application where much of it washes off into the environment).

Re:Why does EU need GM?

[Solandri]

GM also reduces the amount of labor, water, and pollution needed to produce food and makes food cheaper.

That's what makes it insidious. The U.S. and EU subsidize food production to insure there's sufficient excess margin to prevent starvation if there's a crop failure. Part of this involves paying farmers not to grow anything, so that their growing capacity remains in reserve should some disaster befall farmland currently in use (the Dust Bowl of the 1930s literally blew away the topsoil on a lot of farmland). Part of this is guaranteeing a minimum price a farmer will be paid for a crop.

As a consequence of these subsidies, there's an oversupply of food and the market price for food is actually lower than the cost to grow it. That is, if you tried to let the market dictate the prices, the farmers wouldn't make enough money to stay in business. But because the government has set a floor on the price of the food, it buys the food from the farmers, then resells it on the market at a loss. (The food that's sold doesn't actually lose money, but the excess supply that can't be sold is a loss. That's why we come up with other things to do with the excess, like send it overseas as foreign aid, use it as cheap feed for cattle, convert it to HFCS, convert it to ethanol, etc.)

Now comes the insidious part. The price the government sets is based on the amount of crop the typical farmer grows. That's basically to keep the farmers honest - no inflating your production costs by tucking in that vacation to the Bahamas as one of your expenses. If your production costs per ton of crop are higher than the typical farmers', and the price is set based on the typical farmer's expenses, then you make less profit or even take a loss despite selling your entire crop to the government.

Enter Roundup-ready crops. They allow you to produce more tons of crop at less expense (less time spent weeding, less crop choked out by weeds). That increases the amount of crop you can produce per hectare, or per hour of labor. Meaning you raise your overall productivity. This inflates the "typical farmer's" productivity, putting the farmers who don't use Roundup-ready crops at a disadvantage. You cash in on a greater share of the government's food price subsidy than they do. Consequently they feel compelled to use the stuff too. Even though there's no need for it because we already produce way more food than we need.

In other words, with the food subsidies in place, we're already in a position where we produce all the food we need and then some. If there are no Roundup-ready crops, the subsidy money for the crops gets distributed to the farmers in the form of the floor price. But if you allow Roundup-ready crops, the mechanics of the subsidy encourage farmers to use Roundup-ready crops to try to grab a larger share of that subsidy. But the moment every farmer is using it, they're getting the same subsidy as they would've gotten if nobody were using it. That's what's insidious about this - it's an unneeded product, demand for which exists only because of the math of how the food production subsidies are allocated. And once all farmers are using it, they're making less money than they were before they were using it, because now their royalty payments to Monsanto are added to their expenses.

Re:Why does EU need GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Food won't be any cheaper because EU basically sets the minimum price for agricultural products by introducing strict quotas to keep european farmers afloat

Yes, that's a remnant of Europe's dark times, where it was composed of totalitarian nation states engaging in protectionism and warfare. It's time to end that nonsense.

Seriously, GMO makes absolutely no sense here and it is not welcome by the general population either.

And the "general population" gets what it wants, right? Whether it's burning witches, burning Jews, or burning GMO crops.

Re:Why does EU need GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

And the "general population" gets what it wants, right? Whether it's burning witches, burning Jews, or burning GMO crops.

Unlike fascist states where the "general population" gets what the glorious Industrial Leader tells them to eat, whether they want it or not.

Re:Why does EU need GM?

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

The U.S. and EU subsidize food production to insure there's sufficient excess margin to prevent starvation if there's a crop failure.

The US and EU subsidize food production because farmers are a powerful special interest group, nothing more. It's crony capitalism, and it should be stopped.

If there are no Roundup-ready crops, the subsidy money for the crops gets distributed to the farmers in the form of the floor price. But if you allow Roundup-ready crops, the mechanics of the subsidy encourage farmers to use Roundup-ready crops to try to grab a larger share of that subsidy

Agricultural subsidies create a lot of perverse incentives. That's why they should be ended.

That is, if you tried to let the market dictate the prices, the farmers wouldn't make enough money to stay in business.

That's the point of more efficient agriculture: fewer farmers can produce the same output.

Re:Why does EU need GM?

[dunkelfalke]

Yes, that's a remnant of Europe's dark times, where it was composed of totalitarian nation states engaging in protectionism and warfare. It's time to end that nonsense.

Food security is maybe the most important thing a government can do besides upholding the law.

And the "general population" gets what it wants, right? Whether it's burning witches, burning Jews, or burning GMO crops.

I wish they would burn stupid people so I don't have to explain to them what democracy is about.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[king neckbeard]

Yeah, i think that in order to save the planet, we need to embrace GMO, and leave Monsanto and the like dying in a ditch. No patents on living organisms, and only sustainable farming practices (like the crop rotation we figured out centuries ago) should receive any subsidies. If you plant corn year after year after year, you're on your own.

Crops vs. Crop

[Anonymous Coward]

The headline says "crops". The articles specifies one crop (MON 810). Adjust your level of outrage/rejoicing accordingly.

A Change Of Management Is Required At Monsanto

[Anonymous Coward]

Monsanto should use common sense and stop fighting us, farmers and governments on all levels. They think that because of their poor or lack-of longterm research, they need to corrupt govt & scientists to be able to shove down their product down our throats. That's a pattern with them, right from carcinogenic baby-deforming Agent Orange.

How about for a change they said, the consumers have spoken and the answer is *NO* for now. Lets stop poisoning the soil with toxic pesticides. Lets stop creating plants suicide genes. Lets create something safe, something rich in goodness, this way we will grow healthier as a population and they will profit from selling us seeds (vintage seeds, rare seeds, normal ones, etc...). I for one would prefer flour made from at least 4 different types of wheat plants. Sadly the Monsanto mentality is millions of miles away from listening to those who will be eating their toxic products.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to the current system in which farmers buy non-GM hybrids from seed companies (upon which they're entirely dependent), pesticides from chemical companies (upon whom they're entirely dependent), fuel from oil companies (upon whom they're entirely dependent), etc. Clearly you've never interacted with a real farmer, and are entirely ignorant of how your food is produced. Farmers buy GM seeds because it makes economic sense. No one forces them to, and they can switch back at any time. When GM seeds first came out, most farmers only planted a portion of their fields with them to see how they'd work out. The next year, most switched over almost entirely. Farmers can do math, and the math for GM crops works well for most.

This is what happens.

[xenotransplant]

Soon we will all be drinking Brawndo, all the crops will be dead, and the only water available to the entire planet will be floating in toilets.

Re:This is what happens.

[Demotheses]

I've seen Idiocracy a few times over the years. The first time it seemed like a clever little comedy. The third or fourth time it felt like David Lynch had branched out into comedy but still managed to keep the scathing edge to his social commentary. A few years later and by the 5th time through it was a dark and harrowing 'found footage' horror akin to the style of the blair witch project. Now it feels like a documentary about Earth made by a concerned extraterrestrial aid charity.

No, it's about Legislated Famine

[denis-The-menace]

Once you plant GM crops and their genes spill over to non-GM crops, Monsanto will lay claim to the non-GM seeds and sue the farmer to death.

When all non-GM seeds end up with genes from Monsanto's GM crops, Monsanto will own the legal right to the food chain.

You can't pay, you starve.

Re:No, it's about Legislated Famine

[brambus]

Once you plant GM crops and their genes spill over to non-GM crops, Monsanto will lay claim to the non-GM seeds and sue the farmer to death.

Can you cite an example of this happening? I'm genuinely curious. I know of only one case where Monsanto has sued a farmer for cross-polination. It was shown in court that the farmer actually was trying to deliberately and surreptitiously acquire GM seeds through a roundabout way.

Re:No, it's about Legislated Famine

[Dog-Cow]

No, the GP can't. The GP is a braindead fuck-up who has clearly eaten too much non-GMO food. Based on comments in this thread, it is quite clear that non-GMO is extremely hazardous to humans, as their brain turns to mush.

Re:No, it's about Legislated Famine

[tehcyder]

Once you plant GM crops and their genes spill over to non-GM crops, Monsanto will lay claim to the non-GM seeds and sue the farmer to death.

Can you cite an example of this happening? I'm genuinely curious. I know of only one case where Monsanto has sued a farmer for cross-polination. It was shown in court that the farmer actually was trying to deliberately and surreptitiously acquire GM seeds through a roundabout way.

Why otherwise would Monsanto need to patent the seeds?

Re:No, it's about Legislated Famine

[brambus]

Why otherwise would Monsanto need to patent the seeds?

Because otherwise anybody could take their seeds and by virtue of all life being essentially a super-efficient self-replicator, coat-tail several billion dollars's worth of research for pure personal enrichment. If somebody spends countless resources to invent something really novel, I have no problem recognizing their right to benefit from said invention by guaranteeing to them, for a reasonable period of time, exclusivity to that idea. At the same time, nobody in the public should be forced to use said invention and therefore pay royalties. As far as I'm aware 1) farmers don't have to use Monsanto's GM seeds 2) Monsanto has publicly vowed (and AFAICT has not yet reneged on this promise) to compensate farmers for accidental contamination and even to remove it and 3) there hasn't yet been a case where a farmer really apparently has had accidental cross-contamination and Monsanto sued anyway. I've heard of plenty of cases where Monsanto sued farmers, but those have almost always been for illegal large-scale use of their GM seeds, or for violation of contract. Is Monsanto litigious? It appears so. But I've yet to discover a case where they've sued in bad faith.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[Ambassador Kosh]

So out of curiosity how do you think we should develop GMO crops without patents? These things cost billions of dollars in very hard R&D to develop and bring to market. Without a patent then anyone will grow some of your seeds and then sell them next year to compete with your seeds and they had to do none of the work.

If you want to replace this system you must come up with an alternative.

No patents on living organisms would also screw over the biotech industry. What if I make a new tumor supressor gene from scratch that is better than any human gene and would 100% prevent cancer. As soon as I treated the first person someone would just have their DNA read and find the sequence and sell it without doing any of the R&D.

I understand not liking patents on living things but if you want technology developed our current economic system required a profit motive and without that motive the technology won't be created. This is not like computer programming where a few people on no budget can do amazing work and change things. This stuff is insanely expensive and hard to do. Reaction ingredients alone would bankrupt most people.

Just some facts about GMO --

[Anonymous Coward]

There's really only four GMO crops (right now) that are part of the (US) food chain: corn, soy, canola, and one other grain crop that escapes me right now (maybe wheat).

GMO vegetables outside of research don't exist in food products or in the supermarket.

If you're in the US, "USDA Certified Organic" also means *non-GMO* (that specific wording, only). The are private GMO certifying organizations, each with different standards. Some consider GM food organic, some do not.

Re:Just some facts about GMO --

[mrthoughtful]

FYI it's sugar beet. As of 2014 in the USA, over 50% of the entire production of soybean, beet, cotton, corn and canola (aka rapeseed) are GM crops.
Lots of that is used in derived ingredients - beet and corn are big sources of sugar and hfcs (high fructose corn syrup - the killer sweetner found in almost all consumer foods in the USA). Canola is used for cooking oil (french fries, etc). Soy is used for all sorts.

Re:Just some facts about GMO --

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI it's sugar beet. As of 2014 in the USA, over 50% of the entire production of soybean, beet, cotton, corn and canola (aka rapeseed) are GM crops.
Lots of that is used in derived ingredients - beet and corn are big sources of sugar and hfcs (high fructose corn syrup - the killer sweetner found in almost all consumer foods in the USA). Canola is used for cooking oil (french fries, etc). Soy is used for all sorts.

I live in CA, USA. An election a while back had a proposition to add GMO labeling to foods. There was a scare campaign about how much cost this would add to food & so the proposition was defected -> no labeling! I was stunned.

Anyway, the upshot is our family has given up eating corn completely & only use a fraction of the tofu we used to. We want to power/information to make our own choices.

If more & more food goes GMO here (especially without labeling & non GMO alternatives) we'd just have to leave the US. (We're fortunate to have that option.)

Re: This is not about science. It's about dependen

[Anonymous Coward]

University Research

Re: This is not about science. It's about dependen

[Anonymous Coward]

National Labs also

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[rubycodez]

The problem includes GM by methodologies such as Monsanto employes, obviously it is at least possible to alter DNA of something to make it harmful to humans, but the pro-Monsanto shills here would deny that possibility of such a problem should even be subject to testing. The are the ignorant anti-science shills, calling for blind faith in a mega-corporation that buys laws and seeks to take control of the food supply. How vile and evil, without a concern for human well being.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[king neckbeard]

Patents are an inefficient way of funding research of any kind, which might have made sense 200 years ago, but is complete nonsense today. Just fund this research directly. Most of the discoveries happen with government funding in university labs anyway, we just allow companies like Monsanto to steer it into more profit driven direction and make money off of it.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

The difficulties of GM are that the producer is able to develop a dependancy on the product. This dependency should be illegal. It's why pimps get their girls (and boys) hooked on crack or heroin. It's why big tobacco is evil.

What "dependency"? You can switch from GMO to non-GMO any time you like. Of course, you have to live with the lower yields if you do.

What compounds the issue is that the US patent system is known to be desparately broken. Intellectual property and copyright law are bracketed into the same brokenness.

The US patent system is no more and no less broken than the European patent system. In fact, intellectual property laws were largely created in Europe and imposed on the US. Now that US corporations are successful at using them, Europeans whine and complain, while still having the same or more draconian laws at home.

This isn't about science. Never was. It's about becoming Monsanto's bitch and not being able to do anything about it.

Whether a farmer becomes "Monsanto's bitch" or not is a choice any farmer can make individually, the same way you decide whether to buy an iPhone or an Android phone, run Windows or Ubuntu, etc.

No, what really bugs you is that Europe is highly dependent on US high tech manufacturers and products, and that the European economy and agriculture would collapse if the US stopped supplying Europe with these products.

How about some REAL information?

[ilsaloving]

Instead of spewing the usual "GMOz are teh devil!" idiocy, how about some actual facts?

1. There have been countless studies done regarding GMO crops. Not a single one has found any evidence that GMO plants are in any way harmful.
2. Monsanto's Roundup-Ready seeds were modified to protect them from Roundup, AKA Glyphosate. Without modification, Glyphosate would kill the seeds before they even had a chance to germinate.
3. Every seed is coated with the stuff, and as the plant grows, Glyphosate enfuses the entire plant, roots, stems, leaves and fruit.
4. Glyphosate is an exceedingly toxic compound. Monsanto says that by the time you're harvesting, the concentrations are so diluted as to be inconsequential.
5. Independent tests have shown that Glyphosate is a devastating compound, even at infinitesimally small concentrations, causing a wide variety of problems.

And on top of that, Monsanto squeezes Farmers for licensing fees, putting large numbers of them at the risk of bankruptcy. More than a few farmers have committed suicide from despair.

TL;DR version:
-GMOs are *NOT* bad.
-Glyphosate IS bad.
-Monsanto are a bunch of evil fuckwits that are poisoning our food supply and destroying lives for the sake of profits.

If you're gonna be pissed off about stuff, be pissed off for the *right* reasons, otherwise you look like a fool, make the movement look foolish, and impede efforts to fix the problem.

Re:How about some REAL information?

[SydShamino]

You are still overgeneralizing.

-GMOs are *NOT* bad.

This is a broad generalization. It's akin to saying "Chemical sweeteners are *NOT* bad" because you tested sucrose and aspartame and saccharine, while not testing ethylene glycol. Were a company truly evil, for example, they could probably create a plant that would be deliberately dangerous. Or, there could be a side effect that's not well caught in testing, such as a change to potatoes that make them taste like magic but also occasionally contain high levels of solanine.

Are any of the GMOs on the market bad? Well no, probably not. But saying "GMOs are *NOT* bad" full stop is giving up on a valid argument for oversight and regulation, and against using untested products in our food supply. That argument complements your point about the harmful indirect side effects of using certain GMOs; it doesn't compete with it.

(To the pro-GMO audience, of course traditional cross-pollination techniques could also yield things dangerous to eat. But saying "we've been doing it for thousands of years" is a worthless point, because that means we've had thousands of years of other people to test on to learn what seems okay versus what sickens and kills them.)

Re:How about some REAL information?

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of spewing the usual "GMOz are teh devil!" idiocy, how about some actual facts?

1. There have been countless studies done regarding GMO crops. Not a single one has found any evidence that GMO plants are in any way harmful.
2. Monsanto's Roundup-Ready seeds were modified to protect them from Roundup, AKA Glyphosate. Without modification, Glyphosate would kill the seeds before they even had a chance to germinate.
3. Every seed is coated with the stuff, and as the plant grows, Glyphosate enfuses the entire plant, roots, stems, leaves and fruit.
4. Glyphosate is an exceedingly toxic compound. Monsanto says that by the time you're harvesting, the concentrations are so diluted as to be inconsequential.
5. Independent tests have shown that Glyphosate is a devastating compound, even at infinitesimally small concentrations, causing a wide variety of problems.

And on top of that, Monsanto squeezes Farmers for licensing fees, putting large numbers of them at the risk of bankruptcy. More than a few farmers have committed suicide from despair.

TL;DR version:
-GMOs are *NOT* bad.
-Glyphosate IS bad.
-Monsanto are a bunch of evil fuckwits that are poisoning our food supply and destroying lives for the sake of profits.

If you're gonna be pissed off about stuff, be pissed off for the *right* reasons, otherwise you look like a fool, make the movement look foolish, and impede efforts to fix the problem.

Citations?

Re:How about some REAL information?

[Anonymous Coward]

Glyphosate isn't dangerous to get on you. People have been getting it on them for a long time. There may be some subtle thing where one out of a million people is more likely to get cancer, but certainly it isn't "Exceedingly toxic."

It works by contact with leaves. It decomposes very quickly. It doesn't become a fundamental part of the plant.

Re:How about some REAL information?

[Anonymous Coward]

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified glyphosate with a rating of 2A (see http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Classification/latest_classif.php). IARC defines a rating of 2A as "Probably carcinogenic to humans" (http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Classification/).

Glyphosate (Group 2A) is rated as less risky than tobacco, wood dust, or solar radiation (i.e. sunlight) in Group 1 (Carcinogenic to humans).

Glyphosate is more risky than coffee or gasoline in Group 2B (Possibly carcinogenic to humans).

Glyphosate is on par with the emissions from frying food at a local fast food restaurant (Frying, emissions from high-temperature) in Group 2A.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[mrthoughtful]

I have farmers in my family. I've, -er-, interacted with farmers from Nebraska, Ukraine, Nepal, India, UK, Germany, Holland and France.
Many of the farmers have used hybrids, sure. Many of them have decided against using hybrids for exact the same reason that they don't want to choose GM seeds. Some have heirloom crops that they are very proud of. Not all.
Some of the farmers I've talked with hate the other dependancies that you mention - pesticides are a pain, and farming legislation is increasingly tough. But there are choices, and there is competition. You have an idea about what your spend will be, you know what the current environmental risks are for your own farm, and you can do something about that. GM grain sells poorly in Europe. Legislation requires that, when used as ingredients, all GM crops are labelled as such, so that the consumer can make a choice. Blame an incredibly bad PR department from Monsanto if you wish, but GM has a truly bad reputation in the consumer sector of Europe.

You state that 'most' farmers switched over entirely to GM crops within the second year of using them. The USDA disagrees. In the USA, its true that most (ie, over 50%) soybean, beet, cotton, corn and canola are GM crops. but that's it. GM is a choice, yes. But actually there's a far greater move towards premium value crops in EU - such as the organic market, which is high risk, but very high reward. The reward is so high that it covers a bad year without difficulty. What may surprise you is that EU consumers will prefer a small non-uniform non-hybrid organic vegetable to a beautful, big, bouncy GM one.

So, why was MON 810 barred from some countries? It's yet another Bt maize, so what's the fuss?

Wickson and Wynne suggest that debates over the quality of science for policy in the case of MON810 are inherently shaped by unstated normative commitments and value judgments. Finally, they argue that for agricultural biotechnology, there are a range of conditions that make current practices of assessing the quality of biosafety science unethical. These include: a lack of open access to testing materials; limited resources for independent research; lack of transparency concerning the transgenic constructs in use; lack of consistency in the application of evidentiary and interpretive standards; and no clear processes ensuring accountability and consistency in assessment processes.

no problem

[dwpbike]

monsanto can easily buy the governments of 19 nations. the problem is not gmo, it's about cash flow.

Re:no problem

[Anonymous Coward]

and jews did wtc right

Monsanto

[Anonymous Coward]

The company that brought you DDT, Agent Orange, VX nerve gas and large scale asbestos mining in the former Yugoslavia.

Oh, and your children's breakfast cornflakes.

Eat up, sheeple!!

(We now return you to the DIsney Sunday Movie).

Because they have brains....

[Lumpy]

It is not the nutbag "It's poison" argument the wierdows make that is driving their decision. Allowing GMO allows Monsanto to OWN your country's crops. With the United States poised to defend corporate patents with guns and missile strikes, nobody sane would allow patent encumbered life in their country.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[ksheff]

It's a way to Monsanto out and protect EU companies developing GM products.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[Lumpy]

"So out of curiosity how do you think we should develop GMO crops without patents? "

The same way the american indians did when they invented CORN

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, yes...the organic market. Where you ditch most if not all the scientific advances in agriculture in the last 75 years so you can sell to a small market of individuals who have more money than brains.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[dunkelfalke]

Now pray tell me how european agriculture would collapse without american whatever? I think you are rather full of yourself, but you are welcome to prove me wrong.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[Lumpy]

"No one forces them to, and they can switch back at any time."

No you cant. Once you grow a GMO crop your fields are contaminated with the crap for years. and if your neighbors are growing it, you are FUCKED. as the cross pollination will taint your entire crop and then yuo get fined for growing a monsanto crop without a licensing fee because the genetic markers are there.

Why dont you actually TALK to a farmer, I have 3 in my family and I know the reality of this. You grow what your neighbors are growing because you have a legal nightmare trying to sell your crops if it's patent tainted by cross pollination.

Monsanto == American IG Farben

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at their product catalog. This is no coincidence.

Posting from Tor because Monsanto will try to sue me.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[mrthoughtful]

For an answer to some of your retorts, see my response to AC above.
Let's look at this another way. The EU market is different from the USA. I'm sure we can agree on that.
For whatever reasons, possibly because it's the 'old world', EU consumers are innately conservative when it comes to the basics. We can probably agree on that.
Monsanto has a very bad name in the EU. Blame the PR department, or ignorant (but communications savvy) activists, but it's true. We can probably agree on that.

Fortunately for the EU, the countries within it are democratic. These means that the governments depend upon a popular vote for continued terms of office. So, while the ignorant, yet communications savvy, activists are able to state the case against Monsanto, it really makes little difference if you or I are wrong on this. Given a choice (and thank goodness for living in a free country that gives me choice), I would choose against Monsanto's versions of GM crops. We will have to differ on that. However, you may ask why. So I shall explain:-

As I say to AC above, citing Wickson and Wynne's paper which you know about if you are in the industry, and could read if you are not, for agricultural biotechnology, there are a range of conditions that make current practices of assessing the quality of biosafety science unethical. These include: a lack of open access to testing materials; limited resources for independent research; lack of transparency concerning the transgenic constructs in use; lack of consistency in the application of evidentiary and interpretive standards; and no clear processes ensuring accountability and consistency in assessment processes.

Whether or not you agree with Wickson and Wynne, it's hard to dispute that they assert that. I agree with them. I believe that several countries in the EU also agree with them. So on this issue, let's agree to differ.

When Monsanto comes back with good science - a willingness to share all data to the point of reproducibility, and a willingness to work for the good of mankind rather than for profits, come back to me. Otherwise I'm done here.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[Slay]

The difficulties of GM are that the producer is able to develop a dependency on the product. This dependency should be illegal. It's why pimps get their girls (and boys) hooked on crack or heroin. It's why big tobacco is evil.

What "dependency"? You can switch from GMO to non-GMO any time you like. Of course, you have to live with the lower yields if you do.

This is a tangent, but comparing this response with the typical systemd response yields some insight on both the perceived arrogance of Monsanto and the conjectured hidden agenda of systemd. We'll call this kind of response the 'systemd defense'

It's already a moot point

[kheldan]

Genetically modified crops have already dispersed sufficiently throughout the world through cross pollination to make the damage to the ecosphere irreversible. If it turns out that 50 years from now we discover that the tampering done to them produces foodstuffs harmful to humans in the long run, it'll be far to late to do anything about it.

Apostolic Kingdom.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Nineteen EU member states have requested opt-outs for all or part of their territory from cultivation of a Monsanto genetically-modified crop, which is authorized to be grown in the European Union, the European Commission said on Sunday.

Luckily Hungary is not one of those 19 countries ... since we put it into our basic law ( Alaptorveny section XX/2/1 ) several years ago that agricultural GM is anathema, in the name of the ancient and most Holy Crown of Hungary. Thus we don't need to beg the euro-bureaucracy for permission.

"Értünk Kunság mezején ért kalászt lengettél,
Tokaj szlvesszein nektárt csepegtettél."

The geek understands nothing about agricuture.

[westlake]

The problem isn't to do with GM, it's to with the way profits are derived from GM.

The modern farmer is first and last a business man.

He specializes. He raises grains, fruits or vegetables for sale in the retail or wholesale markers he understands or he evolves into a seed company or a nursery. Never both, because the labor and capital requirements are so very different and so very demanding.

When he buys seed from Monsanto, he is looking at the return on his investment, as any business man must. He is looking at how the product stands up against the competition. If it is sweet corn, he is looking at color and flavor. Yields. Resistance to insects, drought and disease.

The price of seed isn't what keeps a farmer awake nights. It is the environmental variables which can destroy any hope of a successful ---- profitable --- harvest.

Re:The geek understands nothing about agricuture.

[mrthoughtful]

Let's just concentrate on Monsanto for a moment..

Agent Orange: In the manufacture of 2,4,5-T, Monsanto accidentally overheating of the reaction mixture which caused it condense into the toxic self-condensation product TCDD. It was this dioxin, found present in Agent Orange, that caused untold suffering for which the defoliant is known for. Monsanto had overcooked the mix. QA did not find out about it until the stuff was already delivered to the DoD.
Profitable? Yep. Ethical? Definitely not.

DDT. Produced and sold by Monsanto to farmers for years as the best thing ever. The US ban on DDT is cited by scientists as a major factor in the comeback of the bald eagle (yes, the national bird) and the peregrine falcon from near-extirpation in the United States. Some states in the USA have still lost the vast populations of birds that used to live there.
Profitable? Yep. Ethical? Definitely not.

Dirty Tricks: US diplomats were found to be working directly for GM companies such as Monsanto. Wikileaks documents revealed that in response to an attempt by France to ban a Monsanto's MON810 in late 2007, the then US ambassador to France, Craig Roberts Stapleton, in a bid to "help strengthen European pro-biotech voices," asked Washington to "calibrate a targeted retaliation list that would cause some pain across the EU," in particular those countries that did not support the use of GM crops. This activity transpired after the US, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, India, Mexico and New Zealand had brought an action against Europe via the World Trade Organization with respect to the EU's banning of GMOs; in 2006, the WTO had ruled against the EU.
Profitable? Yep. Ethical? Definitely Not.

Monsanto almost single-handedly shows why big business is bad. Accept the fact. Profits and ethics are frequently at odds with each other. Monsanto has a terrifying record with it's ethical behaviour.

I'm not a farmer. I'm certainly not a government. Would I be persuaded by Monsanto? Definitely not.

Re: This is not about science. It's about . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't care. We don't have to. We're MONSANTO.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[KGIII]

Heh... Look! I found the guy that is doing the "that is the way of their kind" posts and other absurd junk posts. You can deny it if you want but your writing style matches it too well for it to be a coincidence as does your... Um... Manner of expressing yourself.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[Solandri]

Actually, I don't think Monsanto's patent on the GM seeds are in and of themselves a problem. What's a problem is that the court decisions revolving around this IP have decoupled the risk from the reward. If you use Monsanto's patented seeds, you have to pay Monsanto. But if you don't want Monsanto's seed but some of it blows onto your farm, Monsanto isn't liable for it. In fact you'll probably be forced to pay Monsanto if you don't detect it and get rid of it yourself.

That's what's broken. If you want a patent on a living, growing organism, I don't really see a problem with that. But like with your kids, you take full responsibility for everything it does - good or bad. Your kid goes and becomes a TV star and makes lots of money, you reap the financial rewards. But if your kid goes and contaminates some organic farm's fields and makes the farmer unable to sell his crop, you pay to compensate the farmer and make him whole again. You want the reward, you pay for the risk.

Re:Hogwash

[Anonymous Coward]

Every single non-industry-funded study on GMOs has returned absolutely horrifying results about what their consumption does to, specifically, the digestive system and the immune system.

Bullshit. I am a food scientist for Agriculture Canada and earlier worked at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

There are no properly executed studies showing what you claim.

Zero. Nada. Zilch.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[tlhIngan]

So out of curiosity how do you think we should develop GMO crops without patents? These things cost billions of dollars in very hard R&D to develop and bring to market. Without a patent then anyone will grow some of your seeds and then sell them next year to compete with your seeds and they had to do none of the work.

Then if it's so important, design the seeds to not do that. Montsanto is famous for "terminator genes" that do just that. Except well, they don't work. Turns out plants generally evolve out those traits. At which point, tough.

And there's plenty of "GMO" stuff that doesn't involve Monstanto - usually done by people cross-breeding or plants acquiring genetic material from bacterial and other things. And people STILL do it today - they still crossbreed. The world's hottest pepper was cross-bred, and was not genetically modified. It takes a little longer (it's generally easy to cross breed it, but a LOT harder to make the cross actually stick through subsequent generations)

And yet, farmers do it all the time because they want their crops to grow better. Survival of the fittest helps.

Re: Hogwash

[Anonymous Coward]

Then surely you will post those studies yes?

Of course you won't. You're making them up.

Re:Hogwash

[ArmoredDragon]

Every single non-industry-funded study on GMOs has returned absolutely horrifying results about what their consumption does to, specifically, the digestive system and the immune system.

And guess what? All of them have been debunked. Furthermore, they're mostly done by people like this guy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

In other words, people who have an ideology they want to push, so they use borderline fraudulent tactics and gross scientific misconduct to try to push their "studies".

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately for the EU, the countries within it are democratic. These means that the governments depend upon a popular vote for continued terms of office.

Hitler was elected by a democratic system as well. Giving the majority whatever it wants is not a good recipe for a free and prosperous society.

For whatever reasons, possibly because it's the 'old world', EU consumers are innately conservative when it comes to the basics. We can probably agree on that.

If by "conservative" you mean that they still tend towards the traditional political vices of Europe, totalitarianism, xenophobia, trade barriers, socialism, and fascism, yes, we can agree on that. However, Europe pissed away its economic and political power in WWII and doesn't get to call the shots anymore. If Europeans want to export and do business with the US and other nations, Europeans have to play by the rules of other nations.

As I say to AC above, citing Wickson and Wynne's paper which you know about if you are in the industry, and could read if you are not, for agricultural biotechnology, there are a range of conditions that make current practices of assessing the quality of biosafety science unethical. These include: a lack of open access to testing materials; limited resources for independent research; lack of transparency concerning the transgenic constructs in use; lack of consistency in the application of evidentiary and interpretive standards; and no clear processes ensuring accountability and consistency in assessment processes.

That's just obfuscation and misdirection. MON810 simply inserts a protein that's already widely used in food production and inserts into a food plant. There is no reasonable way in which that could be dangerous.

When Monsanto comes back with [...] a willingness to work for the good of mankind rather than for profits, come back to me. Otherwise I'm done here.

That about sums up the party program of the NSDAP. You people apparently never learn.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[squiggleslash]

I'm struggling to figure out how Monsanto can create a dependency upon something that's self-replicating and for which any legal restrictions they try to impose can only last 20 years. Also how "20 years" constitutes an "indefinite monopoly".

Round-up doesn't have patent protection any more. And Round-up ready seeds won't have for much longer.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[Dog-Cow]

If you tried, for a single day, to not be an extreme moron, there are two likely outcomes. Either you would succeed, and no longer be a moron, or you'd die from the strain. Either way, the rest of us win.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, you could attempt to not be an extreme asshole and douchebag ... but apparently you're incapable of that.

Which means what you have to say about other people being morons is lost in the sea of noise of you being a complete fucking asshole.

What a useless fucking moron you are.

Shill, Troll, or Idiot?

[s.petry]

Every post from you is either insulting or denying other people's claims. Had you attempted to perform a simple Google search you would have found that Monsanto has sued numerous farmers in numerous countries for a variety of claims, including but not limited to violating IP.

One such case shows up in the top 2 results.

In 1998, Monsanto learned that Schmeiser was growing a Roundup-resistant crop and approached him to sign a license agreement to their patents and to pay a license fee. Schmeiser refused, maintaining that the 1997 contamination was accidental and that he owned the seed he harvested, and he could use the harvested seed as he wished because it was his physical property. Monsanto then sued Schmeiser for patent infringement, filing its case in Canadian federal court on August 6, 1998.[4] Negotiations to settle the matter collapsed on August 10, 1999, leading Schmeiser to file a countersuit against Monsanto for $10 million for libel, trespass, and contaminating his fields.[6][7]

Go back and read some of your other insulting posts from this thread and take some of your own advice.

Re:Shill, Troll, or Idiot?

[brambus]

The Schmeiser case was exactly the fraudulent one I was talking about should not be brought up. He intentionally planted GM canola that he fully knew contained Monsanto's GM technology. He sprayed his own field with Roundup, which he knew would kill anything non-resistant. The only thing that survived was cross-polinated seed. He then took that seed and replanted it. That's why he had 95-98% concentration of the GM crop. This wasn't an accident. He knew what he was doing when he sprayed Roundup on it to select only for the GM variety.
I googled the thing you suggested exactly and the top hits are all either about the Schmeiser case, or are rebuttals of GM myths, one prominent one of which is exactly this one: that Monsanto sues farmers for accidental contamination. So I'm still curious. Do Monsanto really do this? I don't know, but so far, the evidence seems pretty thin on the ground.

Re:Shill, Troll, or Idiot?

[tehcyder]

No, the point is that Monsanto successfully sued because they had the patent. It's irrelevant whether the farmer contaminated his crops accidentally or deliberately, the problem is Monsanto having the patent in the first place.

If they have the ability to sue anyone who infringes their patent, then depending on their goodwill to only go after people who tell them they've done it deliberately is incredibly naive, regardless of any other evidence of what they've actually done.

Re:Shill, Troll, or Idiot?

[brambus]

It's irrelevant whether the farmer contaminated his crops accidentally or deliberately, the problem is Monsanto having the patent in the first place.

So if I'm understanding you right, you want GMO technology to not be patentable subject matter. Do you think that advancement in this avenue of technology is not an overall benefit? Or do you believe there's a better approach to achieving it, for example through publicly (i.e. governmentally) funded R&D projects. In my experience, the anti-genetic-patent camp significantly overlaps with the general anti-GMO camp, simply because they believe GMO not to have significant-enough benefit to society and the anti-genetic-patent stance is merely a vehicle to be used to achieve the goal of ending GMO development. Which is it? Do you support GMO technology and simply want to terminate its patentability (in which case I ask how for alternative means to encourage its R&D), or do you object to GMO as a technology in general and are merely using the patentability argument as a tool to achieve another goal?

If they have the ability to sue anyone who infringes their patent

Yes, that's how patents work.

then depending on their goodwill to only go after people who tell them they've done it deliberately is incredibly naive, regardless of any other evidence of what they've actually done

Wait, so are you saying that nobody should be able to sue for patent infringement, even if the plaintiff believes that willful infringement can be demonstrated in court? I'm probably misunderstanding you here. Can you please rephrase that last sentence?

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[s.petry]

Hitler was elected by a democratic system as well. Giving the majority whatever it wants is not a good recipe for a free and prosperous society.

No, he was not elected. You failed at trying to Godwin the discussion because you failed at 3rd grade history. Companies are so sloppy when hiring shills sometimes...

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[Anonymous Coward]

Now pray tell me how european agriculture would collapse without american whatever? I think you are rather full of yourself

Examples: Intel chips and agriculture-related software to large scale machinery, chemicals, drugs, food processing, and packaging, to name just a few. European agriculture only has the yields it does because it incorporated the innovations of the Green Revolution from the US.

Read it again!

[s.petry]

Schmeiser never stated that the 1998 crop was compromised, but that the seeds he planted were from 1997. Do yourself a favor and read the whole page, or else you will simply embarrass yourself.

However by the time the case went to trial, all claims had been dropped that related to patented seed in the field that was contaminated in 1997; the court only considered the GM canola in Schmeiser's 1998 fields, which Schmeiser had intentionally concentrated and planted from his 1997 harvest. Regarding his 1998 crop, Schmeiser did not put forward any defence of accidental contamination.[2]

The ruling was, and is, completely irrational. Read that last sentence and compare to the first. The farmer owns the field, but can't sell the field if it contains a genetic modification. So yeah, the farmer was screwed over.

Canadian law does not mention any such "farmer's rights"; the court held that the farmer's right to save and replant seeds is simply the right of a property owner to use his or her property as he or she wishes, and hence the right to use the seeds is subject to the same legal restrictions on use rights that apply in any case of ownership of property, including restrictions arising from patents in particular. The court wrote: "Thus a farmer whose field contains seed or plants originating from seed spilled into them, or blown as seed, in swaths from a neighbour's land or even growing from germination by pollen carried into his field from elsewhere by insects, birds, or by the wind, may own the seed or plants on his land even if he did not set about to plant them. He does not, however, own the right to the use of the patented gene, or of the seed or plant containing the patented gene or cell."[4]

So while the seeds were his to use, he could not use them. Money and politics is bad, but money and courts is worse.

Re:Read it again!

[brambus]

Schmeiser never stated that the 1998 crop was compromised, but that the seeds he planted were from 1997.

He could feign ignorance if he didn't intentionally concentrate the gene expression by spraying with roundup. He knew what he was doing. He deliberately tried to surreptitiously obtain the GM trait by exploiting what he perceived to be a legal loophole. If he had not sprayed with Roundup to intentionally concentrate the gene expression, I'd be fully on your side. He'd have been an innocent victim of the "Big Bad Corporation" trying to pressure little people. But he knew damn well that what he was doing was in effect copying GM technology without a license. Or if you think he was in his right to copy and commercially exploit the patented GM trait that had accidentally gotten expressed on his field, let me ask you this: is it okay to copy and sell copyrighted works, provided the first copy got into your possession by accident (e.g. you one day found it lying on your lawn)?

Do yourself a favor and read the whole page, or else you will simply embarrass yourself.

Ouch, somebody's got a sensitive spot for this. I don't give a fuck either way. I'm not in the farming business, not even by remote proxy. But I don't agree with the complete abolition of intellectual property rights, which is what you apparently seem to have a problem with.

And maybe you should read the MIDDLE ...

[beer_maker]

Did you miss this sentence? "While the origin of the plants on Schmeiser's farm in 1997 remains unclear, the trial judge found that with respect to the 1998 crop, "none of the suggested sources [proposed by Schmeiser] could reasonably explain the concentration or extent of Roundup Ready canola of a commercial quality" ultimately present in Schmeiser's 1998 crop.[5]"

Re:And maybe you should read the MIDDLE ...

[s.petry]

So you can't argue the claim that the court ruling was completely corrupt. Good! What I do find interesting is that you throw up a straw man. Like GP, you insinuate the farmer's guilt while ignoring the other party which is at least as likely to be guilty.

Logic and reason, give it a whirl!

Re:And maybe you should read the MIDDLE ...

[Copid]

I'm still trying to figure out what your claim is. Schmeiser planted his fields with intentionally selected IP protected soybeans, got sued for it, and lost. He's not a victim here who just magically had a field full of Monsanto's soybeans through no fault of his own. If he hadn't done that, he wouldn't have been sued. This was clearly a test case and it didn't work out well for him.

Re:And maybe you should read the MIDDLE ...

[tehcyder]

I'm still trying to figure out what your claim is. Schmeiser planted his fields with intentionally selected IP protected soybeans, got sued for it, and lost. He's not a victim here who just magically had a field full of Monsanto's soybeans through no fault of his own. If he hadn't done that, he wouldn't have been sued. This was clearly a test case and it didn't work out well for him.

Yes, it's a test case that proves that patents shouldn't be allowed on plants, which I assume was the point.

It's like the test case involving Rosa Parks sitting at the front of a bus in the 1950s. Nobody doubted that she broke the law as it stood.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[Copid]

I'd like to hear some details about this. What are the cross-pollination rates between this year's crop and a previous year's crop that has been removed and replaced? What plants are doing this and what's the mechanism?

The effects of GM corn on mammalian health ..

[nickweller]

"We present for the first time a comparative analysis of blood and organ system data from trials with rats fed three main commercialized genetically modified (GM) maize (NK 603, MON 810, MON 863), which are present in food and feed in the world" ref

Re:The effects of GM corn on mammalian health ..

[Copid]

HTH.

fuck GMO

[Anonymous Coward]

all your crops are belong to us

Re:Hogwash

[mjwx]

Every single non-industry-funded study on GMOs has returned absolutely horrifying results about what their consumption does to, specifically, the digestive system and the immune system.

And guess what? All of them have been debunked. Furthermore, they're mostly done by people like this guy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

In other words, people who have an ideology they want to push, so they use borderline fraudulent tactics and gross scientific misconduct to try to push their "studies".

What do you mean by "borderline". They've been caught deliberately lying.

I have no issue with labelling GMO foods, it's just a label and it's better to have overly stringent labelling laws than overly lax laws IMHO. However it should also go the other way. So called "organic" foods also should be labelled with something like "This item is known to be produced in conditions that may not meet Australian/FDA/other safety organisation standards and can cause illness."

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[Copid]

Monsanto voluntarily agreed not to produce terminator seeds in the 90's because there was a shit-flinging fit over the idea, not because it didn't work. It's too bad, because if GMO seeds had that feature, nobody would have to worry about the possibility of IP protection lawsuits or an unwanted GMO escape.

The nightmare scenario of our precious wild corn and soybean populations being devastated could be avoided.

Potential solution to GMOs debate: Ban their paten

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the main elements in the discussion is the fear that private companies like Montsanto will use (already uses) GMO technology for their own benefit, to the detriment of the vast majority of the populace.

By banning patents on GMOs you would remove an important incentive to lobby/buy politicians and leave most GMO improvements to academia. That would not make GMO safe by itself, but would reduce the incentive to falsify the debate.

Best,

Jordi

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[Anonymous Coward]

> So out of curiosity how do you think we should develop GMO crops without patents? These things cost billions of dollars in very hard R&D to develop and bring to market.

you're an idiot. Plenty of breeders have bred the same exact resistance to Round-up as Monsanto. Turns out, SURPRISE, selective breeding is a pretty good way of developing gene lines with specific traits. Know what happens? Monsanto sues them tohave the cultivars destroyed. BECAUSE IT HAS A PATENT ON THE GENE. its DMCA but this time, for genetic information.

You sadly, will be an idiot all your life. Please don't contribute to GMO topics.

Why do we need GMO crops?

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I checked we had no problems growing corn in Europe, so why do we even need this "improved" corn?

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[tehcyder]

There is plenty of science done that doesn't make a profit, and not just in low cost areas like Computer Science.

Also, all your work is based on thousands of people before you, are you going to let them share in the profits of your discovery?

Finally, if you want to make a profit, find another field to do it in. Become an investment banker, football player or the next Justin Bieber. I don't care, but getting a PhD in science is not supposed to be a guarantee of vast wealth in the future.

If everyone had your attitude, things like the LHC wouldn't exist.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[tehcyder]

the current system in which farmers buy non-GM hybrids from seed companies (upon which they're entirely dependent), pesticides from chemical companies (upon whom they're entirely dependent), fuel from oil companies (upon whom they're entirely dependent), etc

And who says that's a good thing?

We should nationalise the lot of them and treat the cost like we do Defence, i.e. something everybody has to contribute towards through taxes for our mutual security and safety.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[Anonymous Coward]

We should develop them without patents. If they're not developed because there are no patents, then it won't get developed. Big deal. The company won't make money if they don't develop something, so they'll be out of a job and maybe they'll do something else more productive and useful if they're not trying to game the patent system.

It's not like we need golden rice, since that can be more easily solved by growing different things.

It's not like we need roundup ready crops, that can be more easily solved by normal weeding. Or cultivating pest disimprovers.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[tehcyder]

The difficulties of GM are that the producer is able to develop a dependency on the product. This dependency should be illegal. It's why pimps get their girls (and boys) hooked on crack or heroin. It's why big tobacco is evil.

What "dependency"? You can switch from GMO to non-GMO any time you like. Of course, you have to live with the lower yields if you do.

This is a tangent, but comparing this response with the typical systemd response yields some insight on both the perceived arrogance of Monsanto and the conjectured hidden agenda of systemd. We'll call this kind of response the 'systemd defense'

It's a variation on the old Windows defence: you've always been able to switch to another OS, therefore you're freely choosing to use Windows, therefore Windows is the most popular OS because people choose to use it.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[david_thornley]

A lot, maybe most, of basic discoveries are indeed made in government-funded labs. Suppose a lab comes up with a gene that appears to have some beneficial effect. Now what?

Now, a company like Monsanto looks at it. The gene has a desired effect. Does it have undesired effects? Will plants with it grow well? Is there a problem with the resulting food? If there are problems, can they be overcome by doing something a bit different? That takes testing, the sort that generally doesn't get people Ph.D.s and government grants, and is expensive. Moreover, not all promising genes will turn into products.

Monsanto doesn't just take lab results and productize it. There's a lot of very expensive work to be done first.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[david_thornley]

What sort of dependency? Crack, heroin, and tobacco are single products with withdrawal symptoms that can be nasty (heroin withdrawal can kill). Seeds are available in multiple different forms, and there's no problem with switching from season to season. The dependency is much like the dependency at a good restaurant where you like the food: sure, you'll go back numerous times, and it might look like you've got a dependency on it, but if the restaurant closes you'll find another one you like, or cook at home more, and there won't be a problem.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[david_thornley]

Hitler was elected by a democratic system as well.

Actually, no. Hitler ran for president against von Hindenburg, and lost. His party did well in the elections, getting about 40% of the Reichstag (the legislative branch), but was slipping in the last free election.

Hitler was then appointed Chancellor by von Hindenburg, for reasons that turned out to be bad, and the then got himself voted emergency powers by the Reichstag, banned the Social Democrats, and went around solidifying his power.

Re:Hogwash

[rhazz]

I have no issue with labelling GMO foods, it's just a label and it's better to have overly stringent labelling laws than overly lax laws IMHO

Even though it's just a label, the process surrounding the label is not zero-cost. Companies have to add the labels, and add a process to ensure they are complying with the label and that their supply chain is complying. This requires certification of parts of the supply chain, etc, etc. This drives up costs, which drives up the cost of the product. Also, labels are useless without regulatory enforcement. So you need a regulatory body to inspect/audit the processes to ensure compliance, and the cost of that will either be billed to the food company (again driving up product costs) or is simply paid for by your taxes. So in the end, everyone pays more for a process that arguably provides no benefit to society.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[Copid]

Plenty of breeders have bred the same exact resistance to Round-up as Monsanto. Turns out, SURPRISE, selective breeding is a pretty good way of developing gene lines with specific traits. Know what happens? Monsanto sues them tohave the cultivars destroyed. BECAUSE IT HAS A PATENT ON THE GENE.

All of this appears to be complete horseshit. Unless you have some sources to back it up, of course.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[Copid]

Are there corn or soybean compatibility issues I'm not aware of? Because I'm pretty sure Microsoft held on to its monopoly because people who used other software had a hard time inter-operating with the dominant software. Is there something about most farmers growing one type of corn that makes it too difficult for some farmers to grow another type of corn?

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[Anonymous Coward]

What compounds the issue is that the US patent system is known to be desparately broken. Intellectual property and copyright law are bracketed into the same brokenness. What that means is that not only do consumers of GM products become dependant on the product, but the producer is able to sustain an indefinite monopoly of it.

It's not so much that the US patent system is desperately broken in and of itself, but rather that the US legal system is desperately broken. The problems with patent are merely a symptom of a much larger problem in legal (and governmental) ethics.

The profession of law, as a class in society, is in a position of ethical conflict of interest with respect to the nature, scope, and form of the legal system. This conflict of interest has resulted in a legal system with excessive complexity, burdensome laws, contradictory laws, rules and procedures and precedents and policies that benefit the lawyers while doing harm to their clients and to society in general.

There have been ethics problems in US law since the beginning. For example, not only was slavery wrong from a moral perspective, it was also ethically invalid in a nation "instituted for protection of the rights of mankind", as Morris of NY clearly showed in his speech at the Constitutional Convention. Many of the problems we have today with respect to other areas of law actually derive from ethics problems carried over from English Common Law (some of which, such as the right to roam, have been fixed in Britain but still aren't fixed in the USA), which in turn arguably derive from legal ethics problems going all the way back to Roman law. The post-Civil War segregation policies were equally unethical. But ethics problems in US law are not just a historical matter (and they certainly weren't fixed by the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s): they affect every single citizen today in all kinds of ways.

Unfortunately, things have gotten so bad now that it is very unlikely we will be able to fix the problems with patent or copyright without addressing the underlying ethics issues. Trying to do so is like addressing the symptoms of an insidious and dangerous disease without curing it: the disease will simply keep coming back.

history repeats

[Anonymous Coward]

Europe does have a long history of being willing to starve its citizenry to make its leadership more comfortable. They were doing better for about a century and were nearly up to that point of not starting a major war among themselves every couple decades.

If it were only about anti-Monsanto, then they could easily ban the company. But blanket bans on the entire technology is the sort of thing the Euro elitists pretend Americans are unique about-putting unfounded fears and beliefs in charge of legislation instead of actual science.

EU could easily replicate GM products if they chose and avoid the bottleneck in food production. Plenty of money to do it and access to the same or even better quality minds to do the research. But instead all we hear is complaints. China doesn't seem to care about patent or copyright, so what's holding them back either?

Makes me think this is more about agenda and FUD than common sense.

oh, that's different

[gzuckier]

I thought it was "Opt-Out From Glowing GM Crops"

GMO is a red herring

[Anonymous Coward]

The real issues are:

1. The loss of farmland to real estate development
2. The continued use of monoculture
3. The use of pesticides
4. Overproduction and waste of food
5. Efficient distribution from farm to table

GMO is a canard used as a solution to the above problems when in fact it solves nothing. There is no demographic more gullible than engineers.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[dunkelfalke]

You have it quite wrong. EU is not big on consumer crap like Facebook or Twitter or whatever you consider "high tech", but when it comes to industry software there are enough local companies that provide it. And European mechanical and chemical engineering is at the very least on par with anyone else, and often actually better. In fact, large scale machinery, chemicals, drugs, food processing and packaging is what Germany and the Netherlands export to the USA.

Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc

[jwhitener]

So out of curiosity how do you think we should develop GMO crops without patents?

Expecting only profit driven companies to do research and development will end with us having products and advances that only benefit those companies' profits.

You know there existed a time before patents and we managed along just fine. That said, I'd rather see us adequately fund research and development in Universities, government labs, and grants to private firms to research things that benefit the public. That is a very good use of public money.

Researching how to develop a seed that produces a sterile plant, just so someone has to buy seeds from you every year, only benefits a company's profits. It doesn't benefit the farmers or public.