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Fraud Detected In Science Research That Suggested GMO Crops Were Harmful (nature.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Three science papers that had suggested that genetically modified crops were harmful to animals and have been used by activist groups to argue for their ban have been found to contain manipulated and possibly falsified data. Nature reports: "Papers that describe harmful effects to animals fed genetically modified (GM) crops are under scrutiny for alleged data manipulation. The leaked findings of an ongoing investigation at the University of Naples in Italy suggest that images in the papers may have been intentionally altered. The leader of the lab that carried out the work there says that there is no substance to this claim. The papers' findings run counter to those of numerous safety tests carried out by food and drug agencies around the world, which indicate that there are no dangers associated with eating GM food. But the work has been widely cited on anti-GM websites — and results of the experiments that the papers describe were referenced in an Italian Senate hearing last July on whether the country should allow cultivation of safety-approved GM crops. 'The case is very important also because these papers have been used politically in the debate on GM crops,' says Italian senator Elena Cattaneo, a neuroscientist at the University of Milan whose concerns about the work triggered the investigation.
Never mind that Marge only knows one spice.
It is difficult for the ordinary non-scientist to differentiate good science from falsified science. So, even though recreation is the gold standard of scientific validity (and is what eliminates the need for "faith"), for mere mortals it winds up being a matter of either:
1) accepting whatever it is "most" scientists seem to believe, on the premise that they believe this because more studies support than refute.
2) managing to somehow get good numbers on how many studies support vs refute, and going with whichever number is greater.
3) trusting their own biases, and pouncing on whichever studies affirm them, regardless of their relative number.
The one thing the plain man cannot do is judge for himself whether or not a scientific study was done right, nor can he trust anyone else's appraisal of this since every study is attacked by someone as having been done wrong.
The article never uses the word "fraud" and merely states that the papers in questions are being investigated.
This article is going to further cloud the issue and I fear its going to give Monsanto and its ilk free reign to continue their abuse of the local seed supply. The issue has never been about GMO itself, its been about how GMO is used. Genetically modifying crops to produce more, be resistant to fungus, or have a longer shelf life is a net positive and is nothing more than a more advanced form of selective breeding. Its when you use it to introduce resistance to toxic chemicals that you start to have a real problem. That resistance not only allows to overuse of toxic chemicals (to the point of saturating the local environment), you also introduce a form of addiction where the farmer becomes dependent on the chemical. This addiction dooms the farmer to a form of indentured servitude and will eventually result in their exiting the market due to unsustainability.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
Why is it FUD? you have evidence that says otherwise or are you just casting your own FUD as you don't like GM foods?
Then why are people opposed to GMO crops? If you disagree with some corporation's tactics then oppose that, don't oppose GMO crops.
on a counterpoint
If I had billions to gain, id try and disrupt an industry
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I am so sick of big-conspiracytheorists paying for this crap. You are all sheeple!
In all honesty though, the article just seems to mention some minor inconsistencies in the work, not that it was all completely wrong. Clickbaiting much, slashdot?
...
Probably the later.
Being anti GMO is every bit as nonsensical as being an anti-vaxer. There's all of about zero credible scientific data against it.
Furthermore, the efforts to label it are purely for the purpose of stigmatizing it and shouldn't be taken seriously. The reason ingredients are labeled is to help people with dietary concerns (such as allergies) however there's no dietary or other concerns with GMO food, hence labeling serves no useful (other than perhaps religious) purpose.
The Narrative is dying.
Which could mean anything from bleeding edge source code for warhead chips was stolen (where you would actually want to do something about it)... to someone was able to guess a poorly secured WiFi password. What if the printer had something on it that created repeatable smudges? How dare they use the same printer!? Another thing, does anyone like all those space photos from Hubble? Talk about photo shopped for science!
Presumably, you are referring to glyphosate resistant crops. If you think glyphosate (or some other GMO-related chemical) is "toxic", why are you arguing against GMOs and not what is actually toxic? Oh, yes... because both the US and the EU regulatory agencies have determined that it is, in fact, not toxic as used in agriculture and permit its continued use. Now, this issue may be revisited by the courts, but until then, the science is settled, at least from a legal point of view.
Saying that farmers become "addicted" to glyphosate is disingenuous and manipulative. What happens is that GMOs actually result in lower costs and higher yields, so farmers that don't use it can't compete (unless they manage to sell into the "organic" market). In different words, what you are actually saying is that GMOs and glyphosate work as advertised.
Face it, you have lost the scientific and economic arguments. GMOs and glyphosates are generally considered safe and they are (by your own reasoning) effective at what they promise to do, namely increase productivity.
Now, having said that, I am perfectly sympathetic to wanting to eat "natural" vegetables without any GMO or herbicides involved in their production. But unlike you, I don't fool myself into believing that that is a rational preference; it's the same kind of preference I have for natural fiber over synthetics, and wood over plastic. And when I indulge in that preference, I'm willing to pay the higher price for the vegetables myself, instead of trying to bamboozle others with fake scientific arguments about "toxicity" and "addiction".
If I had billions to gain, id try and disrupt an industry
There's actually truth to this. The organic industry is VERY profitable, and along with that, spend a LOT of money for political and advertising purposes. So many have this image of it being a collection of small geographically separate "locally grown" clubs, but that's just not the case. The fact is, organic food carries HIGH profit margins, and they don't like having conventional or GMO foods cutting into their sales, which is why they've launched a FUD campaign of their own:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jo...
If you don't want the Forbes link (I don't blame you, but use anti-adblock killer if you want to anyways) then here's another article, but not as detailed:
https://www.geneticliteracypro...
This information is released prior to the completion of the study. It also says that "images in the papers _may_ have been intentionally altered" (emphasis added). No scientific journal, such as Nature, should publish, even in this unofficial gossipy manner, these kinds of as yet unverified claims, especially regarding such a controversial issue, prior to the completion of the study and before there is something more to report than "incomplete" and "may have." At best, they should provide the information to peers for further review and study, before publishing anything. If even after that all they have is "incomplete" and "maybe," they should wait until the full study is complete and verified by unbiased (as can be found) parties. There's also a statement that can be construed as intentionally misleading: "The papers’ findings run counter to those of numerous safety tests carried out by food and drug agencies around the world." First "around the world" is hyperbole. Secondly, saying these studies were carried out by "food and drug agencies" is misleading. The FDA doesn't test anything themselves and relies on what are undoubtedly biased studies from the Corporations who produce GMOs. The FDA has already declared universally that GMOs are "generally recognized as safe," so that they automatically are weighed likely safe prior to assessment of the vendor's findings. Who can believe a giant corporation would publish anything against their products, especially those that make ungodly sums for them? I'm not sure if there are any government entities have ever tested GMOs at all, much less completely. There may be, but then, why not name them in this article rather than intentionally state vaguely a rather crucial point behind this article. Even if there are, what proof is that, at all, that such studies are reliable?
Science is not exempt from Dogmatism and Groupthink, as is the case with all human institutions. The Italian researchers may not even know how often their thinking is pre-empted (what water? says the fish). Alice Dreger wrote a book on runaway bias in soft sciences:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/books/review/galileos-middle-finger-by-alice-dreger.html
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No Way!!!!!
Is not whether there are currently proven harms in any existing GM Organism.
The real problem is the following:
0. Every GMO case (and ecological context it is introduced into) is unique.
1. Therefore unanticipated issues may be novel with each case.
2. Problems could include direct toxicity or reduction in nutrient value or what have you.
3. Or problems could be ecological, in that the newly introduced artifical variety may outcompete a native organism, and or may change the balance of an ecosystem.
4. AND HERE'S THE KICKER
If ever such a thing as 2. or 3. occurs, it is occurring in a self-reproducing organism, which like all organisms, tries to proliferate itself across as much of the environment as it can (that's what life does, in general). You may not be able to put your genie back in the bottle. You may have achieved a widespread, unstoppable change or harm to an ecosystem (of difficult to guess in advance scale and severity).
Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... , granted, a science-fiction novel, but Sci-Fi authors are often scientist-class thinkers with a decent amount of foresight and imagination. The kind of people you need to include in your risk assessments.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Does it make sense to ask "are electrical circuits safe?" Circuits are designed, and some designs are safe and others are dangerous.
Likewise there is no such category of things "genetically modified crops" that you can treat as one thing from the point of safety, because each genetically modified organism is an unique artificial construct. You could genetically engineer potatoes to contain ricin for example, and that thing would be unsafe by design. Heretofore nobody has found harmful GMO foods because they are the product of safe design process which protects the investment needed to bring a GMO product to market.
Some day in the future it may be possible to do something like desktop genetic engineering. If the cost of creating a genetically modified crop drops enough, and enough people try their hand at it, then eventually someone's going to make something dangerous. This might even be intentional. But at present when you look for GMOs you're looking for screwups.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Being anti GMO is every bit as nonsensical as being an anti-vaxer. There's all of about zero credible scientific data against it.
There is reasonable grounds to be skeptical of GMOs on economic grounds. Monsanto haven't been the best behaved company out there, and there is real concern that allowing them to grab a patent stranglehold over food security for the poor tips the balance of power away from where it should be, in the hands of farmers themselves.
With that said, I don't think these concerns are assisted at all by the use of poor science. If anything this provides ammo to "refute" the claims of farmers who have genuine concerns about the economic changes GMOs bring,
It kind of reminds me of the nuclear debate. Theres very good reason to be concerned about nuclear power generations role in the production of enriched ingredients for nuclear warheads. But we'll never get to actually debate that whilst certain people are flipping the hell out about ATOMS IN THE WATER or whatever.
The problem with the entire GMO issue is that it is not just the introduced metabolites that need to be assessed because the secondary effects of them being in the organism are just as important. For example, what if I change my plants to allow me to use more of a chemical that makes them more productive, but then that chemical causes people in the region to have higher exposure levels and it is found to be a possible carcinogen?
Possible but not probable? Well actually it has already happened, even if Monsanto el al and the W.H.O. disagree on the matter. What can you do in that case, other than note the disagreement and err on the side of caution by subscribing to the opinion of the entity that you feel you can trust most? That isn't paranoia, or even politics, it is pragmatic risk management.
Who makes "billions" from selling spotty apples?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
So butteflys didn't actually die fro BT crops? Bees are not sick? The roundup resistant crops are not causing other crops to die in Argentina?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Labeling serves the purpose of choice, the consumer has the right to choose to buy or not to buy something based on whatever the hell they want. They can choose based on country it was made in, or whether or not the company name contains an "e", or the logo is pretty, that is their business. Companies use this to their advantage all the time. If a significant proportion of the population care GE products are in there goods then it should not be up to the company, or the government to say if it is reliant. If it is a stupid choice so be it, they can buy more expensive products for no good reason.
You could easily argue that the government force companies should place all there products in plain packaging as to not unduly influence the consumer, under the same premise consumers are stupid, they need protecting from themselves.
I dont share that view. But Europe, Africa and Asia believe you have to prove a GMO safe before it can be used. I personally dont share that belief.
You are what you eat. Frankenfood will turn you into Frankenstein (That's Fronkensteen!).
Oh, and how long did it take before people 'decided' lead was poisonous? The same thing is going to apply to GMOs. We won't know if there is anything wrong before the great grandkids start mutating.
And then there is the Lenape potato. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Perfect example of why at least some testing needs to be done before releasing new varieties on to the market....
BTW the Lenape was a hybrid bred with old school techniques. No GMO.... So I guess we need a label saying Warning Hybridized Bred Product on anything that contains something that is a hybrid. Of course that means effectively 100% of all food (other than wild fish.)
If we weren't tricked into buying it because it's not labeled, that might help a bit. The deception alone is enough to ruin trust, and then how do we know this study refuting the other studies aren't again, manipulated by the pro-GMO side?
Whether someone chooses GMO or not based on health reasons, philosophical ones, or simply just to save the small farmers from the big Farm Corporations, we ought to have that choice. Having that choice removed through deception and treachery won't win any confidence.
So long as the mutations make them able to phase through solid matter and fire power blasts from their eyes, I'm good.
Really????!!!
I am so shocked.
Think that is bad, take a look at the global warming data once.
Someone wants those carbon taxes on all countries REAAAAAALLY bad me thinks with manufactured B.S. data.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
There is reasonable grounds to be skeptical of GMOs on economic grounds.
No, there's not.
http://www.technologyreview.co...
Labeling serves the purpose of choice, the consumer has the right to choose to buy or not to buy something based on whatever the hell they want.
That's fine, and manufacturers who want to be GMO free can label their products as such so they can cater to the food religion. They already do this, and there's nothing stopping them from continuing it. The same is also true of Kosher and Halal foods, which are labeled for equally useless reasons.
So you already have it your way, you just aren't aware of it yet, thus you can stop your lobbying for it already.
So butteflys didn't actually die fro BT crops? Bees are not sick?
In case you haven't noticed, organic farmers spray their crops with Bt. In fact, here's a nice unscientific Food Religion site for you that shows how to properly use Bt on organic plants in your "locally fresh" garden:
http://www.motherearthnews.com...
The roundup resistant crops are not causing other crops to die in Argentina?
That sounds like a geographical issue with Argentina, which their government should regulate as they see fit. Meanwhile we'll continue using it where this isn't relevant.
Labeling is just labeling. There's no proof that organic food is nutritionally better or safer than conventionally grown food, but we're still willing to pay extra for something labeled that. I don't see a reason not to do this with GMO.
Being anti GMO is every bit as nonsensical as being an anti-vaxer.
That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
There's all of about zero credible scientific data against it.
You want credible evidence GMO is bad? Go to home depot and buy a bottle of roundup. Read the warning label.
Until someone can explain with a straight face how Roundup ready crops do not by design lead to food with more round up absorbed to save labor costs I elect to take the warning label on the vendors own product at face value.
Furthermore, the efforts to label it are purely for the purpose of stigmatizing it and shouldn't be taken seriously.
Patiently await evidence all possible strains of GMO ever produced are forever guaranteed to never prove harmful. I patiently await evidence all GMO engineering and testing regimes are forever guaranteed to be infallible.
The reason ingredients are labeled is to help people with dietary concerns (such as allergies) however there's no dietary or other concerns with GMO food, hence labeling serves no useful
Labeling strains of GMO is a hedge against the unknown making it easier to isolate and mitigate unexpected problems.
Caterpillars that eat BT crops sure do. But the story that's usually told is that BT crops are wiping out the Monarch butterfly, which does not seem to be true. Roundup is a problem for monarchs because they eat milkweed and milkweed is... a weed. Modern farming techniques are making weeds less and less common, so they are reducing monarch habitats. But that's not a problem of chemical toxicity. Just that we need milkweed patches to keep monarch populations up.
Bee populations have been hit with various problems, but none appear to be traceable to GMOs as far as I'm aware. Did you have some data for that?
I don't know what this claim maps back to, but the answer is almost certainly that no, they are not.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
I both agree and disagree with this statement. I agree their is no health hazard from consuming GMO foods or animals fed GMO crops. The true hazard from GMO crops lies elsewhere, in it's putting control of the world's food supply into a small number of very powerful corporations and the possible dire consequences for being able to feed the global population in case of a calamity that made those GMO seeds unavailable. The up side to GMO seeds definitely seem to outweigh the down in the short term at least.
I'm all for companies labelling whatever they want as long as the label isn't too misleading. I'm not a big fan of government forcing companies to label things unless there's good reason to, and catering to the anti-GMO fad is not a good reason. It makes about as much sense as my not eating food grown near power lines and then demanding that the government enforce labelling standards so I have "choice" in the matter.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Ok I'll play with your red herrings (yes, two of them you just used.)
First of all, there is no "frankenfood". When you hear about gene splicing from plants to animals, that's done for research purposes to understand how genes work, and doesn't end up on your plate. There are only two commercially used cases of gene splicing, and one is from one flora to another (that is, for Bt) and the other is to splice human genes into e. coli to produce Humulin, an insulin that is chemically identical to human insulin, which has been used by diabetics almost exclusively since 1982 (prior to that cow insulin was used, and a lot of people were allergic to it and died from it.) So there you have it, a "frankenfood" that has been proven to be saving lives for 33 years now.
Second of all, the effects of lead were well documented prior to it being regulated out of most products we use. However there are no documented negative effects of GMO, except in cases of scientific misconduct, as seen in TFA.
Go ahead, bring more anti-science at me, I'll be happy to debunk your Food Religion.
I have lobbied no one, spent zero dollar, seen 0 senators. Actually that is my first post on the internet about it. I have not even stated that GM is bad, but once again if a significant portion of people want this, then it should not be up to the companies to decide, whether that information should be hidden. I do not even know if a significant portion of consumers want this.
I have lobbied no one, spent zero dollar, seen 0 senators.
Lobbying doesn't mean spending money, nor does it mean speaking to actual politicians. It just means trying to enact political (or rather, policy) change. Posting here is enough.
then it should not be up to the companies to decide, whether that information should be hidden
There's a lot of information that isn't on a food label, such as the exact location the crop was grown in. Just because it isn't there doesn't mean it's hidden.
I don't understand how from a scientific standpoint, anyone can have so much confidence that GMO food has ZERO harmful effects on humans. The use of BPA plastics were only recently discovered to have some negative effects. GMO foods have not been around long enough, and have such diversity that it is unscientific to make such blanket statements without thorough investigation over at least one or two generations of people. I support GMO foods, but I am still willing to acknowledge that our understanding of the effects of GM is incomplete, not to mention its political, economic, and ecological issues.
"Being anti GMO is every bit as nonsensical as being an anti-vaxer"
I disagree. Humans have an extremely poor track record of considering the potential global economic and environmental impacts of new technologies. Even when we do, we have a tendency to ignore or shrug off (or even cover-up) the potential problems for the sake of short term profits. Just like DDT, MTBE, leaded gasoline, etc.... All these things were considered OK by "scientists" and turned out to be huge disasters. GMOs cannot be contained, and have the potential to disrupt GLOBAL ecosystems. This kind of thing should be treated upon very carefully. Look how much we've fucked up the planet already. In most cases, there is absolutely NO need for GMOs, except to bolster Monsanto' et al profits. Personally I'm not worried about the health aspects, but I think we're foolish to unleash GMOs upon the environment this early in the game.
With an LD50 more than half that of table salt, we should all be very careful.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Except that this is not science but an obvious and blatant fraud.
I don't really consider e-coli a "food".
Chipotle does, but only GMO-free E. coli.
You'll just have to get used to the fact that living in a modern, prosperous world means that you are dependent on a huge, interconnected web of trade, business relationships, and corporations, as well as lots of intellectual property and patents.
GMOs ought to be among the least of your worries. Selling GMOs doesn't prevent people from cultivating traditional seeds. In addition, patents on GMO plants run out and afterwards the plants become public domain. So the idea that GMOs create a perpetual dependency on a few big corporations is pure fiction. There are thousands of patents whose reckless use would be a much bigger threat to worldwide food safety than some GMO crops; of course, corporations don't do such stupid things anyway because they are reliably profit driven. That is, unlike mindless self-proclaimed do-gooders like you, a corporation isn't going to try to starve other people through sanctions because there is no profit in it: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." And if scurrilous of a patent were a real threat, governments can (and do) invalidate it.
Let me quote your own words back at you: "See, it's shitstains like you that cause the problems. If we could just get the bigots to shut the fuck up and quit agitating everyone maybe we could fix some things". Your own words fit you perfectly.
What I hear is you're not dumb enough to drink the kool aid yourself and you sure as hell ain't going to feed it to your kids, but you got no problem telling the other "lesser" folks to drink up. Its all a big conspiracy blah blah blah. Its somehow in their best interest.
Until Monsanto execs feed their kids the crap they promote, how bout yall just shut the fuck up.
I would also like to point out that with technology like CRISPR we are going to be able to make crops that are better for you than any other crops man has ever seen. They will be more hardy and far more nutritious.... if the anti GMO religious nuts don't kill the technology because of their irrational fears. We have only begun to scratch the surface and we're getting very good results.
However, people should take a close look at how companies like Monsanto pervert IP laws in order to force farmers to pay them even if they don't use Monsanto's products and to dominate the market. Shady business practices are not a reason to kill GMO, but with a cheap and incredibly effective technology like CRISPR we could see a lot of smaller players come into the GMO market and up end Monsanto and ADM's stranglehold on the GMO industry. That's a very good thing.
And the GP didn't suggest that it is. What's your point?
....in our family we have figured out that certain GMO foods make us sick. Now, I don't get sick, but my wife and children both get sick from two things here in the US: wheat products and milk. When we switched to organic, grass fed no pesticides, no herbicides milk....suddenly no problem. If we eat in countries that don't have GMO foods, no problem. I don't know where in the chain the GMO food is causing a problem, I just can see that it does. We have slowly gotten a small group of people who all have this same problem. It's very strange, but it's very GMO related. Maybe 90% of the population hasn't seen it yet, but there is definitely something tainted to the GMO food. I wouldn't have believed, but it sucks when my family goes to a place that says they don't have this in their food, and then they are sick later, only to find out that they didn't realize they were using something that was a GMO item. Anyway, just offering a point of discussion. I am a believer that something is not right with it and I also try not to eat it at all if I can help it.
Random mutation is a lot more dangerous than specific deliberate mutation. Random mutation is old school genetic engineering that we've done for thousands of years. Now we're not throwing the dice anymore, we're being very deliberate and meticulous about the changes we're making and the testing we're doing. traditional farmers are not checking to see what kind of random mutations are happening in his field and he's not testing to see how new strains of his crops might affect people. Why don't you have the same insistence on testing for traditional genetic engineering?
It's called the natural fallacy. You see the traditional methods as natural and you have a bias toward natural VS "artificial". The problem here is two fold. One is that traditional farming isn't natural, it's artificial selection that relies on random mutations. Second is that there is nothing inherently more dangerous about something that is artificial versus something that is "natural".
https://www.geneticliteracypro...
I would also like to point out that there is more evidence for the safety of GMO than there is for man made global warming. If you're freaking out about GMO, then you're not only in the anti-vaxxer camp, but you're also in the anti Global warming camp.
But the good news is that you're an intelligent person and you can read the research and change your mind. That's the great thing about being scientifically minded. Changing your mind when presented with enough evidence is not a reason to be shamed but quite the opposite.
There's a lot of information that isn't on a food label, such as the exact location the crop was grown in. Just because it isn't there doesn't mean it's hidden.
Depends on where you get your food, and what food you get, and sometimes, especially in the case of PDO, it IS on the label, and certified.
There are calls for certification for this as well, and yes, there is a Congressional definition of it.
I've not noticed you puffing out your opposition to this, are you simply unaware of the local food movement? Is it only the people who want GMO labeling that earn your ire?
Yeah I agree.
This is about like when they were trying to get what we today call processed cheese called embalmed cheese.
Otherwise there are a few things I think they ought not do
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/...
I hope they are not still trying to make drugs with open air outdoor farms.
I doubt they are.
But I really don't know the current state of things my subscription to popsci lapsed many years ago. And most of the talk ive heard on gmos has been this stupid labeling discussion.
Just make sure gmos don't qualify as organic and most everyone will be happy. Because most people who don't buy organic really don't care all that much about it and will be quite content with higher yields, larger fruit and possibly more flavorful food.
On the other hand when I see something that is labeled 100% beef I don't expect there to be horse meat in it.
Even though it is probably just as safe as beef. Its not something we are used to. so I don't want it in there so I kind of understand how the gmo label people may feel.
Gmo I am most want to see?
Roses that still smell like roses.
Most commercially grown roses are bred to be pretty and no longer have that rose smell. Its currently handled with a spritz of rose scent at the flowershop. Wouldn't it be nice if they just smelled like they were supposed to?
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
"Pigs on the GM diet were 2.6 times more likely to get severe stomach inflammation than control pigs. Males were more strongly affected. While female pigs were 2.2 times more likely to get severe stomach inflammation when on the GM diet, males were 4 times more likely. These findings are both biologically significant and statistically significant." ref
why don't you label it as GM. It's a selling feature!
No need for GMO?
OK, so you need to do some research. GMO foods have saved millions of lives by making drought resistant crops available to people who would otherwise starve to death.
You are arguing from a position of ignorance. Do yourself a favor and look at what the scientists are up to. They don't want to fuck it up. They are very conscientious and test far more than you think. In fact, I bet they have a better handle on what the dangers might be than you do(since it is their field of expertise). I had a botanist walk me through one of the GMO changes that was made to corn. They basically doubled up on a protein(or enzyme I forget which) that is naturally produced in corn. This protein ends up blocking the intestines of insects. The guy(a professor of botany with a huge research lab) told me he'd have no issue eating tablespoons full of that protein because it's completely harmless to people(because we have giant guts compared to insects). You'll never even get a gram of that stuff in your system at once by eating the corn so it's benign. But even eating pounds of it aren't going to do anything to you except maybe give you the runs, but you can do that now with beer and taco bell.
It reminds me of physics teachers who do stunts that a lay person thinks, using common sense, is dangerous. These guys are very serious and very talented scientists. They know what they're doing. If you really think you're in a position to argue against the experts, you should probably consider worrying about power lines and radio waves too.
I'm not sure what you misunderstood about the above statement. I said nothing really that exceptional about GMO crops other than that they put control of the world food supply in the hands of a few corporations.....and that is undeniably true. Sure, I can plant a garden to feed my self. But that requires more than a 1/4 acre lot with a house. The hard reality is that agriculture is big business and those large operations will buy GMO seeds because to do otherwise puts them at a big disadvantage. Only a tiny percentage of the US population even has the capability to feed itself even if they had the know how. I'm not saying they'll do something really stupid like try to starve people to death since that would have repercussions even the very elite rich could not avoid. But if you think there wont be negative consequences you are a fool. I think there are ways to alleviate the problems associated with GMO seed but as long as people like you become hostile and accusatory at the slightest criticism or questioning then that wont happen. Trying to compare me to the bigot who I slapped down earlier that compared the challenges of hiring minorities to finding monkeys that could do math? Now I know who you are.
Patiently await evidence all possible strains of GMO ever produced are forever guaranteed to never prove harmful. I patiently await evidence all GMO engineering and testing regimes are forever guaranteed to be infallible.
This isn't a good standard, because you can't prove this for unmodified crops! There's always that chance that there was a mutation in the next potato you eat, perfectly 'organic', that happened to cause it to resume producing Solanine.
As such, GMO foods, properly tested, can be rated to be no more dangerous than non-GMO, and sometimes healthier(they recently produced a GMO potato that's less prone to bruising and also doesn't produce a carcinogen).
I don't read AC A human right
Labeling strains of GMO is a hedge against the unknown making it easier to isolate and mitigate unexpected problems.
How? If problems crop up, it'll be traced to the brand name first, then they'll backtrace.
I don't read AC A human right
You want credible evidence GMO is bad? Go to home depot and buy a bottle of roundup. Read the warning label.
I'm just going to be brutally honest here: You're an uneducated idiot if you think GMO is all about roundup.
Patiently await evidence all possible strains of GMO ever produced are forever guaranteed to never prove harmful.
And now you've just invoked a massive logical fallacy. Seriously go to school before you come here and try to argue this.
The rest of your post is equally uneducated, and not worth a response.
in it's putting control of the world's food supply into a small number of very powerful corporations
This argument has been dead for about a year now:
http://www.technologyreview.co...
I don't understand how from a scientific standpoint, anyone can have so much confidence that GMO food has ZERO harmful effects on humans.
If you don't want to take my word for it, then take the word of the World Health Organization, the US Food and Agriculture Organization, the US Academy of Sciences, and the American Medical Association, who all approve of GMO. Also consider that billions of animals have consumed GMO food over tens and in some cases even hundreds of generations without any negative effects.
Whitepaper:
https://www.animalsciencepubli...
Allow me to pick a nit.
People didn't just use cow insulin. They used pig insulin too.
At the time there was a lot of talk among diabetics about "beef" and "pork".
GMO isn't the problem, even if that's not really an accurate term. Mosanto has already done harm and has been total dicks. It's not the science, it's the greedy bean counters and managers that push products out before thorough long term testing can be done.
If I had billions to lose, I would also cast doubt upon the scientific claims.
2 Insightful?
Excellent we need an insightful person to tell us why it wasn't out and out fraud to manipulate teh images they manipulated to get the results that they wanted.
If you have to lie to make your stupid ideas "the truth" You are still lying, and your stupid ideas aren't the truth.
Isn't there an anti-vaccine protest you're missing out on somewhere?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The organic industry is worth many billions and is controlled by huge multinational corporations.
But it is true that they don't use conventional pesticides. They use other pesticides which work less well and so use mpre. Yum enjoy!
I thought I was reading climate depot
So butteflys didn't actually die fro BT crops?
No
Bees are not sick?
Yes they are. But most likely from nicotinoids, not glycophosphate GM crops.
The roundup resistant crops are not causing other crops to die in Argentina?
No, the herbicides used on the crops are.
You've got your cause and effect all mixed up. Roundup ready crops are indeed a bad idea, but because they have the problem of resistance more than anything else. So the concept of using a food product engineered to resist one herbicide, just means you are buying time.
But if you like the idea of falsifying data to suit your viewpoint, it says more about you than it does about whatever the fraudulent data is trying to condemn.
It's like I always say to the Anti-Vaxxers - wouldn't you like to know what the real reasons for the problem are, not decide something was the problem and declare the job finished?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The parent's point was about poisoning the countryside with glyphosate, not eating it.
Broad-spectrum pesticides are extraordinarily unsafe to use in agriculture, a form of nuking from orbit. Killing off half the life in your land just to give your desired crop an edge shows utter disregard of how the web of life is interconnected in the soil.
Such deliberate devastation is complete insanity, the exact opposite of careful custodianship of the environment.
I've not noticed you puffing out your opposition to this, are you simply unaware of the local food movement? Is it only the people who want GMO labeling that earn your ire?
The whole food religion does actually. You could, in a sense, say I'm on a crusade. There is all of about zero proven benefit health to things like organic food and even locally grown food. However both of them cost people more money. I think it is immoral to lie about a benefit of your product when it costs more money.
The whole "local food movement" is what I refer to as the Food Religion. I'm opposed to it just as one might be opposed to Scientology.
GMO food, contrary to popular belief, is actually cheaper than even conventionally non-organic food, and has all of the same nutritional benefit, which comes from a reduction in materials used and a reduction of farmland. Furthermore, now that Monsanto's patents have expired, it's going to get even cheaper.
Until the Food Religion is exposed for what it really is (a big fat fraud) then I'll continue to post in places like this.
So butteflys didn't actually die fro BT crops? Bees are not sick?
In case you haven't noticed, organic farmers spray their crops with Bt. In fact, here's a nice unscientific Food Religion site for you that shows how to properly use Bt on organic plants in your "locally fresh" garden:
http://www.motherearthnews.com...
BT is considered copletely natural, and is as close to a godsend as you can get. What is tremendous is that it is very specific in what it kills. Mosquitos, fungus gnats, Gypsy moths. Completely harmless to those canary in a coal mine animals, the amphibians.
What is interesting is that there are a few new varieties that will take out the Emerald Ash Borer. http://www.gardensalive.com/pr...
They make a hellava mess. Probably introduced from Asia accidentally, the caterpillars disrupt the flow of water in trees affected.
The one known as BT-G takes out their caterpillars, But like other BT's they are pretty specific, and considered organic.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Being anti-GMO is almost - not quite - as nonsensical as being an anti-vaxer. Anti-vaxers only think they are doing the right thing. Anti-GMOers "know" they are doing the right thing, and they have "papers."
No, it's FUD. There are "a few" GMO producers, but they don't "control" the world food supply, they just offer their seeds under a limited, government-granted patent that runs out after a couple of decades and that governments can revoke at any time. The world food supply is actually provided by many millions of farms across the globe, and tens of thousands of large agribusinesses, and each of them estimates the risk of GMO seeds becoming unavailable and preparing for that. You, however, have provided no sensible scenario under which owners of GMO patents would actually hurt the world food supply; they have no economic incentive to do it, and there are plenty of good substitutes available.
The posting you were responding to probably was from a troll having a laugh at your expense, not a genuine bigot (nor was it from me). Your response simply illustrated how foul-mouthed, vacuous and self-aggrandizing you are. The fact that you still don't get that and practice more self-righteous indignation shows just what kind of person you are.
These discussions have been going on since the start of the Green Revolution, and there is a point at which one can only react to them with hostility, because ignorance and self-aggrandizement like yours is both harmful and inexcusable.
... however there's no dietary or other concerns with GMO food, ...
CITATION F**@##) NEEDED! Please share your very deep sources on that claim, sir!
I'd be more supportive of GMO, and purchasing foods off the shelf that contain them, if these 2 things happened.
a) all GMO crops were not available for patent.
b) the science, production and distribution of GMO, was entirely transparent, with labelling required on all use, without exception.
Since we're dealing with the food supply, crop selection should never be a commodity market that can be cornered by anyone, or any entity, i.e. Corporation. Sorry, but until these 2 things happens, I will be anti-GMO. But not for the reasons you think.
Being anti GMO is every bit as nonsensical as being an anti-vaxer.
That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Goodie! Fresh meat! You wanted evidence? You can't handle the evidence, And my little chachalaca, I will definitely expect more thasn a one sentence off the cuff dismissal
Heeeeere we GO! Wif cytaytions
In 1998, Andrew Wakefield published a fraudulent paper in thte Medical Journal "The Lancet"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The paper had 13 co-authers who ended up repudiating the possibility that MMR vaccines could cause autism.
So what happened Oh yes, we'll go into this, yes we will.. As it turns out, this staretd a little time before, when teh good Richard Barr, a lawyer, met up with the Good Andrew Wakefield. This was a marriage made in heaven. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
As well, teh Good Andrew Wakefield recieved 55,000 pounds from other lawyers who were looking for evidence to use in lawsuits agains MMR manufacturers. But don't worry, it must have been on teh up and up because Wakefield kept this a secret from his co-authors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Turns out that the Good Andrew Wakefield and his lawyer buddy had big plans to make a lot of money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Eventually, after investigations of manipulation of data, a General medical council investigation and eventual full retraction of the paper by the Lancet,
And in 2010 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Just in case you aren't reading the citations, and I don't believe you will: 28 January 2010, the GMC ruled against Wakefield on all issues, stating that he had "failed in his duties as a responsible consultant",[13] acted against the interests of his patients,[13] and "dishonestly and irresponsibly" in his controversial research.[14] On 24 May 2010 he was struck off the United Kingdom medical register. It was the harshest sanction that the GMC could impose, and effectively ended his career as a doctor. In announcing the ruling, the GMC said that Wakefield had "brought the medical profession into disrepute," and no sanction short of erasing his name from the register was appropriate for the "serious and wide-ranging findings" of misconduct
Here's a pdf of their findings https://web.archive.org/web/20...
Now I betchya you are just about sick and tired of Wikipedia citations aintchya? http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBl...
Maybe it's a conspiracy. But they removed the deadly autism causing agent from vaccines, that the good Andrew Wakefield said was a cause, and, and, and, didn't change a thing. It might have appeard that it went up, but considering that autism speaks seems to be moving toward a world where everyone is autistic, that data is fuzzy at best, IMO http://www.sciencedaily.com/re...
There's all of about zero credible scientific data against it.
You want credible evidence GMO is bad? Go to home depot and buy a bottle of roundup. Read the warning label.
Until someone can explain with a straight face how Roundup r
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Every single Monsanto study (even the scientifically double-blind gold-standard ones) has used Monsanto supplied data and/or analysis. Not saying GMO and Monsanto are the same, but that's the state of the science. The best I found was one in Germany that only used a consultant and data from Monsanto, without describing the consultant's role, showing reasonable data that a specific pesticide wasn't a serious carcinogen.
Linking to a news site about patent expiry has no bearing on the matter. The studies aren't in, so there are reasonable grounds and Monsanto has plenty of other patents. Show me new data that isn't from partnered with a GMO producer (whoever that may be)
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
If producers of GMO foods have nothing to hide, then they shouldn't object to any factual labelling of their products, no?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The problem with labeling GE crops is that GE crops are not substantially different from any other crops, so not justified, and beyond that, it's deceptive. You don't see any other crop improvement technique market for singling out, just one, and you want to label it, not tell people the exact details, not tell people the hows or the whys, not correct any misconceptions, and give no context about the generalities of crop genetics that are prerequisite to understanding the topic. I call that a lie of omission.
You label an Arctic apple that has PPO gene silencing, but not label applesauce made with a Gravenstein apples, which are triploids with an entire extra set of chromosomes. You label a Rainbow papaya genetically engineered with the PRSV-CP gene, but not a Pusa Nanha papaya produced with radiation induced mutagenesis. A tomato with the Ph-3 gene for late blight resistance bred in from a wild species goes unlabeled, but a potato with GE late blight resistance is. Corn bred for higher levels of maisin as a defense against insects is unlabeled, but you must label genetically engineered insect resistant Bt corn, even though it has been shown to have lower levels of carcinogenic mycotoxins.
Do you see my problem here? This is basically the 'evolution is just a theory' label thing all over again. Yes, labeling things that are GE as such is technically true, but unless you are also giving the whole story (which a simple label absolutely does not give), it is also deceptive and just a way to make GE crops look bad when there is no science to support the anti-GE movement's stance.
What tortured system of logic do you use to come to the conclusion that it should not be up to companies to decide? If people don't want to purchase GMO food, they are free to tell companies themselves. Companies are free to act on this information. There's already truth-in-advertising laws to prevent or punish companies who falsely claim their products are GMO-free. We don't need more laws.
The annual Plant and Animal Genome Conference was just held in San Diego. I was there to see Monsanto and others describe very easy gene editing. They can now change a single DNA base, or take a base out, or add in up to about 5000-7000 bases. That allows them to stick in a whole gene.
Another company described being able to change A SINGLE DNA base in a plant. This changed the loop structure of a protein and made the plant Roundup resistant. This smallest of changes can (and will sooner or later) happen by itself naturally in nature. They were able to show that no other changes were made to the plant. While Roundup may be toxic, you can't believe that the plant with this small change is suddenly toxic.
These new techniques are about more than Roundup.
Current plant breeding takes years of very tedious and expensive work. Let's say you are a plant breeder, and you see that some pest is wiping out a region's crops. You find a lousy variety (maybe a wild relative) of the crop that has a gene that makes it resistant to the pest. You then have to do at least 10 cycles of breeding (called back-crossing) of descendants of the lousy plant and your elite plant to move only that version of that gene over to your elite plant. You may be growing up hundreds or thousands of plants at once. Now, you don't want all of the other lousy genes, but some of them get dragged over anyway! You have to live with some of that. This is standard "natural" breeding folks. NOT GMO. It's very time consuming.
To be able to say "this wild relative has this version of a gene that makes it resistant to a certain pest", and then be able to quickly make that change to your elite breeding stock is truly awesome. Maybe you only have to change a couple of bases. This tech is here right now! You call it GMO, but it's just faster and cheaper. There are many of people in the world that die every year because their crop failed. This new tech will save lives. Will you stand in the way?
They label by omission. Any product not labelled as GMO-free should be assumed to be GMO. It's not hard. It doesn't require government action.
There's also no proof that non-GMO wheat isn't going to kill you, and that has been genetically modified since the invention of agriculture. Oh wait, we have wheat allergies and celiac.
Just because one of their patents expired, doesn't invalidate the economic scepticism with regards to patents. It is just in this case that we got lucky that there was no extension like those stupid copyright extensions. It will be a cold day in hell when Disney lets fall Mickey Mouse et al into public domain. Analogous, Monsanto... if there is much money to loose they will pull any ace up their sleeve to keep the money flowing. Despite that. There is no reasonable proof that gmo food is harmful to humans. About the bees dying, as far as I know it is well established that one of the problems is the varroa mite.
Some tests were bad so all tests are bad so GM is safe, I'm sorry but that argument is not logical and doesn't work.
There is also the fallacy that something not yet found doesn't exist because it hasn't yet been found, when the truth is that it can take decades to spot the bad effects of food items.
The truth is we won't know what many of the side-affects of GM will be for decades and by then it could be too late and those side affects could be carcinogenic or cardiovascular or rare diseases.
The makers of GM are not interested in peoples well-being, they are interested in making profits, the fact that GM co's have sued farmers when those farmers crops have been contaminated with GM crops says it all.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
It was discovered that one in six biology papers were unsupportable by the data and may have been wrong for the same reasons that this one is claimed to be.
Finding falsity in papers is done by the fossil fuel industry, whether they ARE false or not, because there's a shitload of money at stake.
And, from the summary:
and results of the experiments that the papers describe were referenced in an Italian Senate hearing last July on whether the country should allow cultivation of safety-approved GM crops.
Because RR crops increase use of Roundup, and Monsato sells that.
The environment will take care of itself. All that matters to me is that I have food.
My stance is rational and logical.
If they're not substantially different, then they're not patentable.
They ARE substiantially different, you just don't know what the fuck you're on about, though.
Tell me a hybridising that causes a billion acres to pop up in a single planting season naturally with some foreign genetic difference and to be protected from all possible harm by an active agent removing all competition from the area? You can't, can you.
GMO has not saved millions of lives.
The world already produces much more food than is needed to feed the entire population. However, the distribution is not there, and GMOs don't do jack or shit about that. War torn areas can't distribute food because they can get ambushed or just blown up, bandit gang leaders pretending to be freedom fighters skim the majority for themselves and their cronies (And to sell for guns). Bigotries and class warfare cause places to be put second class and left behind. NONE OF THESE are affected by GMOs.
The one single GMO perenially claimed to be why GMOs are NECESSARY is "golden rice", but
a) it's practically nonexistent. It's not profitable, hence not pushed except as PR fluffery
b) it's cheaper and easier to change the diet slightly to get all the benefit needed
GMOs haven't save millions of lives. And, since these oppressive slavery-replacement deals with the big agrobusinesses have caused many farmers in the developing and mostly developed world to suicide, they've probably caused as many deaths as they might have saved. Those saved being GMOs producing medical products, not being used for agribusiness.
If I had billions to lose, I would also cast doubt upon the scientific claims.
Well, in all fairness, as a scientist, one should always be skeptical about research results; checking the results of other scientists is not done to conrfirm their research, but to try to falsify it. If we fail in doing this, we call it 'confirming the results'. It is particularly important to be skeptical when results seem to be very convenient for either commerical or ideological interests, so I would say that research that claims GMO crops are harmful without coming up with a very plausible mechanism for how that could be the case, ought to be checked carefully. In the same spirit, when research shows that GMO crops can't possibly harm the environment in any way, then it is just a bit too convenient for the producers of said crops, and therefore has to be scrutinised carefully. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, as usual: GMO crops, grown competently and considerately, is unlikely to be harmful to the consumers and the environment. But how do we guarantee that all farmers everywhere grow their crops "competently and considerately" at all times? That is where I think we should focus our attention, because that is where the biggest potential for problems lie.
This is a common misconception. That a thing is nutritionally substantially equivalent does not imply it is cannot be patented. The Gale Gala apple, to give one example of many, is patented. It is a bud sport (a somatic spontaneous mutant arising from a bud growth) of the standard Gala apple which is commercially propagated and cultivated. It can be patented because it is a unique thing, however, it does not fall outside the range of any standard apple nutrition variation, nor I might add does it anyone require it be so labeled. In fact, there are lots of patented conventionally bred crops; plant patents are nothing new. The last peach you ate might have been one of the patented Flamin Fury peaches, or maybe the last time you consumed sunflower it came from a patented Clearfield sunflower, or perhaps your last. Neither the apple, peach, nor sunflowers I mentioned are genetically engineered.
I don't see a reason not to do this with GMO
We do, there are plenty of foods labelled "non-GMO". We don't have an "inorganic" label, there's no reason to start using an equivalent "GMO" label.
Actually, no.
Gmo foods are bad, but not because they are unhealthy. They are bad cause they carry a patent hell with them.
It's simillar with the vaccines. Of course, it's mostlikely healthier for you or your kids to get that shot than not, but some people are actively trying to make vaccinations mandatory, which could be considered infringment of your personal liberty.
Do you mean various 'organic food' snake oil peddlers?
We've been genetically modifying our food for thousands of years by artificial selection and selective breeding.
If you don't want to eat GMO food, then don't. Although you can die with the rest and take the anti-vaxxers with you.
If you want to eat corn-on-the-cob that's the size of a green bean then that's your prerogative.
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
There is reasonable grounds to be skeptical of GMOs on economic grounds.
Saying something is uneconomical is a very different proposition than saying it is harmful to health. If it is uneconomical it will fail of it's own accord. Farmers do not have to use these plants, they do so because they believe that the advantages will outweigh the additional costs.
With an LD50 more than half that of table salt, we should all be very careful.
Table salt is easy to taste, and thus easy to avoid ingesting. I do not know if that is the case for Roundup. It probably tastes bad, but as bad as equally excessive amounts of salt? No idea.
I also believe that Roundup is used by spraying it around via the air, so large amounts can just float around and affect other people. Salt sprayed around in a similar way would cause problems, too, but there is little incentive to do that.
When researchers start with the answer, the "research" conducted almost certainly finds that answer to be true.
That's the state of academia today. It is a political beast, not a scientific one. Believe their findings at your peril.
Yeah, but you have to get poisoned by them for a number of years, and watch your entire family die before the courts will acknowledge this and require Monsanto to say "sorry".
I will let you do the google, but Round Up and similar crops have led to a massive increase in resistant weeds and insects. While we engineered the crops to resist these fun chemicals, we forgot the lessons Anti-biotics have been teaching us and now are over spraying on an unprecedented scale. So, while the GM crops themselves may not be harmful, there are serious concerns about large scale glyphosate exposure and insecticide exposure. Additionally, we have found GM crops growing in the wild that should not be there. Why are they there, how did they get there, what effect will they have on the eco system? Then you also have to deal with the fact that the discovery of these can lead to farmers losing their Organic certification. Oh, and Monsanto, that saint of a company, has sued farmers.
Look at the arguments for vax, about the mid 20's. I believe their argument was 10-20% of the population, needing vax for a healthy population. After that it came down to monies because of society allowing women to work. Took the homebound care giver out, meaning bustup of the family to smaller units.
The question is whether we should be trying to feed every mouth in the world, given the overpopulation issues in some corners of the world.
The whole food religion does actually. You could, in a sense, say I'm on a crusade.
Like many crusaders then, you may find yourself in trouble, for a variety of reasons.
There is all of about zero proven benefit health to things like organic food and even locally grown food. However both of them cost people more money. I think it is immoral to lie about a benefit of your product when it costs more money.
Most of the comments I've seen about locally grown food is the economic value, not the health value. I'd say I've seen none, but I actually have seen it mentioned for honey, where it supposedly provides some allergen adaptation.
There may be some perceived health to the locally grown food concept in as far as it revamps society, but that's a bit intangible an argument. Whether or not you approve of the economic changes that is perceived, is another matter.
Things costing more money though, well, as I've found, what things cost is a very complicated picture. People tell me Brand X is better than Brand Y because it's cheaper all the time. Yet I buy Y. Why? Because I like its taste better. Or I find I prefer the shape of the container. Or some other reason. I've used generic terms here, but I think you should be able to see my point clearly.
The whole "local food movement" is what I refer to as the Food Religion. I'm opposed to it just as one might be opposed to Scientology.
Naively? Misguidedly?
Before you reply, think about why I might be saying this a bit more carefully than your initial impression may take it. I'm not saying your opposition is naive. I think you're naive to think it's any less applicable to other parts of the Food industry.
That's what I say to anybody who talks about Scientology. You're not going far enough into the Looking Glass.
For example, you mentioned above lying about benefits of your product...guess who does that?
Is it less immoral when your product is cheaper?
GMO food, contrary to popular belief, is actually cheaper than even conventionally non-organic food, and has all of the same nutritional benefit, which comes from a reduction in materials used and a reduction of farmland.
Cheaper, as say, in the discussion in the recent submission on Tools, often has a cost to it. But actually, we do know why they're pushing this, yes, so I think your opposition on this is false, I believe.
Really, we do understand the economics of the situation, and the technology, but like say, with electric razors, some might have a different preference for a variety of reasons.
Furthermore, now that Monsanto's patents have expired, it's going to get even cheaper.
Oh that naivety is showing. Monsanto will just rush something new into the lineup.
Until the Food Religion is exposed for what it really is (a big fat fraud) then I'll continue to post in places like this.
Yet your postings don't reflect a real and substantial understanding of the entirety of the problem, but a more limited focus that I would consider myopic.
I suggest revamping your criticisms in the future to be more inclusive and show more recognition of the entire rotten barrel of apples.
You need to do more research, I think.
There have been significant attempts at outlawing such labeling in multiple states, some of them partially successful, and more are currently underway. So far mostly aimed at labels claiming milk was not produced by cows treated with rBST and rBGH, which are synthetic hormones produced by the usual GMO megacorps (Monsanto, Upjohn, Eli Lilly, &etc). Pennsylvania barely escaped the passage of a law that would have made selling milk labeled "GMO free" or "no rBST" completely illegal, in the much the same way that raw milk (which humans drank for thousands of years) has been deemed "unsafe for human consumption" because it is inherently unsuitable for sale by megacorporations and can only be safely produced and sold by small entrepreneurs.
If what you said was true, that would be great, because genetic engineering is only a tool, and consumers should be free to choose whether they want products made with that tool or some other method. But unfortunately at this point various megacorporations own the mechanisms of legislation and law enforcement, so the market is unfairly distorted by their vast wealth and disregard for human freedom of choice. Those corporations have anti-human emergent properties and characteristics (mostly caused by improper regulation that encourages exploitation of externalities to the detriment of the human race) so people don't and shouldn't trust them. If they could sell poison labeled baby food, one of them would do it - only governmental regulation prevents that from happening ever day.
If GMO crops were not substantially different then there would be no impetus to create them and there would be no ability to test to differentiate between them.
Just how is a label going to be a definitive tome as well as correcting misconceptions? Your criticism of a label's limitations goes well into the absurd.
Polyploidy is well understood and a backbone of historical crop development. Wheat is a polyploid. Humans did not know what polyploidy was in ancient times though it occurs anyway without human intervention.
Radiation induced mutagenesis? Oh gee wow! I bet you were the kid who asked people if they were homo sapiens then spent the rest of your day calling them a homo. Sadly you may fool some with your obvious nonsense. You are intentionally avoiding the actual argument and aping the unconcerned and little interested members of the populace. There are very real concerns about introduction of modified genes into the wild.
The science that suggests that some oversight and community involvement regarding GMO crops is the science that plainly and clearly shows that there is no credible effort to isolate the modifications from entering the "wild" gene pool. There is no argument that such gene introduction is now occurring. The science has documented, characterized and explained the predictable phenomenon. This includes the forehead smacking stupidity of creating roundup resistant weeds where the weeds would have little avenue for developing this resistance in such short order. I believe the phrase is "self-defeating." Now someone with no sense of community responsibility may decide to make a quick buck then let others worry about the diminishment that is now resulting from the introduction of roundup resistance to the wild.
you also introduce a form of addiction where the farmer becomes dependent on the chemical. This addiction dooms the farmer to a form of indentured servitude and will eventually result in their exiting the market due to unsustainability.
Specifically talking about roundup ready corn and soybeans here, as that is what I have experience with (and is most of what we deal with here in the US...roundup ready wheat is not nearly as popular, at least in my area). In that context, your comment quoted above is not the case at all. Roundup has always been a cheap and effective way to kill plants, and the introduction of roundup ready crops simply provided another option that happened to be the more economical than most current herbicides and seed used. You basically have four factors:
-Cost of seed
-Cost of herbicide
-Yield of seed
-Effectiveness of herbicide
Combine all of those and you can estimate a profit. In most cases, roundup ready crops gave much better margins, despite having lower yields. Before roundup ready crops, seeds with better yields but more effective herbicides were generally used, and if Monsanto prices either of those too high, their competitors will swoop in and take their business with other herbicides and seed (they actually have done this in some ways already...better options are appearing).
Yes, Monsanto is really shitty about protecting its 'seed copyrights' and apparently does all sorts of other nefarious, especially overseas. And you are absolutely correct in that the environmental concerns are the primary factor. However, 'chemical saturation' is not the main environmental concern with GMO crops. Roundup itself is an old tried and tested chemical, and it breaks down quickly and does not appear to be an issue (though other herbicides may be). The problem I see is in the past ~20 years since the adoption of roundup ready crops, we've seen significant increases in the population of weeds that are immune to roundup, and even some that are definitely more resistant to it than they used to be. Another factor worth mentioning is that pollen from GMO crops is continually called into question with honey bee population decline (though I have no idea personally how big of a factor it is).
There is a big 'chemical saturation' issue that has come to light in recent years. Excessive use of fertilizer (processed or natural) is creating a lot of runoff that wreaks havok on lakes and rivers by feeding toxic algae blooms. But that can happen with any type of crop farming, including organic.
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Salt sprayed around in a similar way would cause problems, too, but there is little incentive to do that.
Vast quantities of salt are sprayed on a regular basis in close proximity to major population centers. You don't hear anyone complaining that we're poisoning our children when we're de-icing the roads, do you?
You're creating boogeymen from pure speculation. As you said, you "do not know" and you have "no idea". Feel free to research the topic, but don't make inflammatory comments based on a topic for which you admit you have no clue.
Yes, I'm sure the megacorps will simply give up and stop trying to accumulate wealth and control the world.
In roses, the senescence pathway is tightly tied to the scent-production pathway. The result is that as roses have been bred to last longer (for shipping, florist use, etc.), the scent has been directly destroyed as a side-effect.
Probably the later.
Being anti GMO is every bit as nonsensical as being an anti-vaxer. There's all of about zero credible scientific data against it.
I am not against GMOs in general, but any time you do manipulate the genes in a way that can't happen in nature you have to do due diligence. It takes a while to discover all the side effects of activation a gene.
Furthermore, the efforts to label it are purely for the purpose of stigmatizing it and shouldn't be taken seriously. The reason ingredients are labeled is to help people with dietary concerns (such as allergies) however there's no dietary or other concerns with GMO food, hence labeling serves no useful (other than perhaps religious) purpose.
One such "religious" objection involves crops genetically modified to be immune to herbicides, then the company which created this GMO goes after any neighboring farm where these GMO seeds might have been carried by the wind (or where non-GMO crops pick up this same trait through cross pollination).
No, the butterflies didn't actually die from BT crops: http://www.pnas.org/content/98/21/11937.full
No, the bees aren't sick: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/23/call-off-the-bee-pocalypse-u-s-honeybee-colonies-hit-a-20-year-high/
No, the roundup resistant crops aren't killing other crops in Argentina. (Seriously, I don't even know how to search for such idiocy.) Crops in one field don't kill crops in another.
Most of the comments I've seen about locally grown food is the economic value
There really isn't any other than you just want to support your neighbors, which is a separate discussion and doesn't even relate to GMO food at all (for example, your local farmer could plant GMO seed if he so chooses.)
The rest of your argument is predicated on that off-topic, thus I won't reply to it, except for this:
Oh that naivety is showing. Monsanto will just rush something new into the lineup.
That just goes to show how you're naive. Yes, Monsanto has brought something new, but nobody seems to buy it. In fact, there's a brand new market for generic GMO seed:
http://www.technologyreview.co...
"And the GP didn't suggest that it is"
No? Explain this statement then, genius:
"So there you have it, a "frankenfood" that has been proven to be saving lives for 33 years now."
No it's not, (and I didn't say it was, rather the topic was about gene splicing) but the resulting insulin is consumed by injecting it directly into your blood serum. Other GMO products don't even go that direct into your body (your gastric system breaks food down into its chemical components, making the source far less relevant than a product that is directly placed into your blood serum.)
Interesting, but I can't say I'd lobby against a status quo that matches the present findings of the scientific community.
But unfortunately at this point various megacorporations
You're not going to win any sympathy from me if you talk like you were born in a cyberpunk novel.
You accuse people of being ignorant, but you're not listening:
A.) It's not a question of human health, it's a question of GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT. There is no way to tell what the global impact will be of these organisms. Natural mutations spread very very very very slowly. GMOs get shipped globally in a very short period of time.
B.) The same serious and talented scientists, who you think are God, also thought MTBE, BPA, DDT, lead, Asbestos, etc.. were safe. OOPS!
C.) The same amazing scientists who "dont want to fuck it up" will gladly fuck it up when given a check for $1M from Monsanto.
You say people are ignorant, but I say you have the blinders on. We are killing the planet, one technology at a time...
There really isn't any other than you just want to support your neighbors, which is a separate discussion and doesn't even relate to GMO food at all (for example, your local farmer could plant GMO seed if he so chooses.)
As I've pointed out, the whole business of the food industry isn't just limited to the question of GMOs.
That's why I've been calling you myopic.
But the question of what supporting your neighbors means is a very important one, and can be considered quite meaningful in an economic sense.
Which inevitably shapes politics and other people's lives. Don't believe me? Go check out some Chinese farms in Africa.
The rest of your argument is predicated on that off-topic, thus I won't reply to it, except for this:
Then I'll call you myopic, because instead of even saying something as easy as "Yes, there are numerous concerns about the scope of the industry, I've just not been mentioning them." you just say it's off-topic without even giving a position or admitting you weren't talking about them.
As to what you did say...
That just goes to show how you're naive. Yes, Monsanto has brought something new, but nobody seems to buy it. In fact, there's a brand new market for generic GMO seed:
http://www.technologyreview.co...
Oh my, you're right, I guess Monsanto will just shut down then, they're done!
No wait, who's being naive here...I think it's still you.
So one thing doesn't sell. Guess what? They'll try something else then.
And on and on. They have a big budget for both R&D and advertising. They aren't giving up.
I will say though, I perhaps should not have used Monsanto as an example, as they are not the only possible actor, it's a whole industry, and there are plenty of others. So that may have confused you, as you may have only looked in one direction. My bad with that, if you did think I believe the only problem is with Monsanto, or if my choice to use their name cut off your thinking.
I've never understood this line of reasoning. "It seems to be, glyphosate is Satan because it leads to glyphosate resistant weeds!" I don't see why the people who hate glyphosate see this as a problem. Yes, any pest control system is only temporary and is fighting against evolution. If you don't think that weed scientists are well aware of how this works, you're not following the industry literature.
Why would their effects be anything different from "escaped" versions of any of the weird hybrids and mutants we produce? Are we worried about pluots taking down an ecosystem?
That's unfortunate, but cross pollination has always been a fact of life with farming. The fact that an organic religion that requires purity has sprung up makes it a sticky situation, but I'm not yet inclined to blame conventional farmers for somebody else's theology. If there was a kosher-like designation that required all pollen to be blessed by a rabbi, we wouldn't blame neighboring farms for letting unblessed pollen cross the property lines.
Have you looked at the cases at all? Don't put too much money down on a wager that the farmers who were sued were innocent victims.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Most normal people don't lick or grow food on the roads.
Have you looked a what "vast quantities" actually is? Here's an example done with soybeans. You're looking at 0.75 pounds per acre. If you take my silly table salt LD50 comparison, we're looking at the LD50 equivalent of about 0.3 pounds of salt per acre. Oh, and glyphosate breaks down in the soil. It's a pretty benign chemical in general if you're a human. And it's really benign if you compare it to other pesticides.
If you get into chronic exposure, there's always the theoretical possibility that there's something there. But there isn't a lot of evidence to support it, and once you start talking about the effects of chronic exposure, just about everything is dangerous.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
That's not true at all. GMOs "spread" quickly because farmers buy bags of the seeds and plant thousands of acres of them. The same is true of mutant and hybrid crops. If a cool new mutant or hybrid plant comes along, it "spreads" by exactly the same mechanism. It's not like farmers waited for pluots to naturally creep across their fields.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
I think that part of the problem is that people are mixing up the issues with GMO, herbicides, and pesticides etc.
For example, "roundup resistant" crops are GMO in a way that allows them to flourish while the roundup pesticide kills unwanted plants. Thus, you can drench an area in roundup and your crop will still happily grow. The problem is not in the GMO, but there may be an issue with the chemicals - e.g. roundup - that are used in conjunction with the GMO plants.
A lot of GMO is basically an accelerated and/or more scientifically advanced way of doing what otherwise would require a long-term breeding program.
That's not to say that GMO doesn't have issues. I'm personally not a fan of things like certain transgenic tomatoes or other fruits that are made to appear "ripe" for longer periods of time, but realistically they're watery and much less flavourful than their predecessors. At the same time though we have transgenic fruits that can be made to live on-the-shelf longer after they're ripe.
Scarier may be things like the "fish tomato" (which didn't make market) where they were attempting to make longer-lived fruits by combining DNA from non-fruits. That's something that we can't do naturally and could have serious repercussions for people with allergies, etc.
As I've pointed out, the whole business of the food industry isn't just limited to the question of GMOs.
That's why I've been calling you myopic.
Last I checked, TFS and TFA were about GMO. Anything else is somewhat off topic. Am I being myopic? Yes, deliberately, and for good reason.
But the question of what supporting your neighbors means is a very important one, and can be considered quite meaningful in an economic sense.
And it's also not a topic that I'm interested in.
So one thing doesn't sell. Guess what? They'll try something else then.
Even though that is the case, (which it is) ever since the patents expired there's already a growing market for generic GMO seed, and not many seem to be picking up Monsanto's new product.
http://www.technologyreview.co...
But quit creating this stupid straw man of attacking GMO technology over one company (or even other companies) that utilize it. You may as well argue that because Microsoft has been less than ethical, we should throw out our personal computers and go back to typewriters and handwritten spreadsheets. It's an absurd position to have, and is effectively a viewpoint that anti-GMO groups are presently beholden to.
I will say though, I perhaps should not have used Monsanto as an example, as they are not the only possible actor, it's a whole industry, and there are plenty of others. So that may have confused you, as you may have only looked in one direction. My bad with that, if you did think I believe the only problem is with Monsanto, or if my choice to use their name cut off your thinking.
It's not just you making that brain-dead argument, it's the whole food religion. If you mention GMO, they instantly accuse you of being a Monsanto shill. I don't care one way or another about Monsanto. Hell, I don't even care if you attack the industry, go right to it if it makes you happy. What I am defending is the technology itself, so quit using business entities as a straw man to defend your nonsensical viewpoint.
Being anti GMO is every bit as nonsensical as being an anti-vexer.
Certainly, inasmuch as most anti-GMO people don't seem to understand the issue at all. The problem isn't eating the food, the problem is in releasing novel DNA combinations into the wild. Just as the effects of releasing non-native species into an environment are unpredictable, (and often disastrous), novel DNA is non-native everywhere. And, unlike we once thought, DNA doesn't stay put. Unrelated organisms trade DNA, (although I suppose this could happen in your gut). That should be the thing that worries you.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
To respond. Glyphosate and Weeds" It is not so much the resistant weed as the over spraying of a chemical that very likely is a carcinogen. You spray a field, it kills most of the weeds, but not all. Eventually you get a weed that does not die, so you spray more. Does it cause cancer? Even Monsanto is saying that "Probably does not mean yes" which sounds a lot like "Invest in Chemo now and save later". Escaped plants. Well, the history of escaped hybrids, mutants, and in these cases invasive species can be looked at broadly as devastating to local ecology. Look at what Coffee Rust has done in places it did not previously exist. What is happening to Bananas? Fire Ants, killer bees, Australia and Pigs/Rabbits/People. Pythons in the Everglades. An invasive species enters an ecosystem and out competes the local plants/wildlife and takes over. Organic. Organic is not a religion, not even a life style choice, it is a business. A growing business. I prefer organic for one simple reason, fewer things are fed to the animals or sprayed on the crops. Note "Fewer". There are strict controls on the what is and is not allowed and in some countries that can be enforced. Back in the early 90's I became extremely ill after swimming in a pesticide polluted lake in FL near some orange farms, it was later shut down to toxicity. That stuff that made me ill, was sprayed on my food. But on the business end you have someone who went through the cost and effort to get certified, and suddenly his/her field is contaminated by supposedly sterile GMO crops, orders can not be filled, contracts are missed, and insurance may or may not cover it. Here is an example of the requirements for Organic milk, note #2 and #3. Now, if you have a child, and are old enough to remember us feeding cows...well other cows... doesn't that maybe strike a cord? Or how about being in a hospital within the last couple years. Antibiotic resistant bacteria, (look up cdiff) - At least 30 percent of the food they eat must be grazed at pasture during a grazing season of at least 120 days; - No antibiotics or growth hormones may be used; - All feed must be organic, and - No meat or poultry by-products can be in the feed. As for the legal actions, I've not kept up, but this was the kind of harassment I remember. A bit dated, but I have no doubt still happening. www.cbsnews.com/news/agricultural-giant-battles-small-farmers/
However, people should take a close look at how companies like Monsanto pervert IP laws in order to force farmers to pay them even if they don't use Monsanto's products and to dominate the market.
That's fine with me, but please, when we debate GMO food, make it be about the technology and the crops themselves, not about business entities or politics. It really is a whole other discussion that belongs in the same category as, for example, DMCA takedowns on fair use youtube videos.
Of course they don't, but so what? You may want to re-read the thread to get some context. He wasn't talking about the dangers of Roundup on the food we eat. He was making a baseless assertion about the dangers of airborne Roundup "that can just float around and affect other people" while making a patently inaccurate claim that salt "would cause problems, [sic] too" if it was sprayed around similarly. My counterexample directly refutes his statements, but you're quite correct that it does not apply more broadly to other concerns that exists. And that's fine, since I never implied that it did. If you drew that inference, then I apologize, but it was never my goal to tackle every issue in this field. I was merely addressing one person who was fear-mongering out of their ignorance.
The guy(a professor of botany with a huge research lab) told me he'd have no issue eating tablespoons full of that protein because it's completely harmless to people(because we have giant guts compared to insects).
I'm not arguing against your position at all, but I think you should stay away from making the "expert would eat a bunch of this stuff, it's so safe" statements in future arguments. Midgley rendered that rhetorical device pretty ineffective! Not that it can't be true; just that people are suspicious of such claims.
Last I checked, TFS and TFA were about GMO. Anything else is somewhat off topic.
It's divergent, but no, I wouldn't call it off-topic, as the subject is clearly related. And we're allowed to digress if we want, as this site is not restrictively moderated.
Still, you did choose to go into the subject, as your words show:
There's a lot of information that isn't on a food label, such as the exact location the crop was grown in. Just because it isn't there doesn't mean it's hidden.
The whole food religion does actually. You could, in a sense, say I'm on a crusade.
You're choosing to say these things. That's yourself taking up a banner. I'm merely pointing out how mixed up you seem to be from my perspective.
Am I being myopic? Yes, deliberately, and for good reason.
Really, do well me what that good reason is. I haven't seen it.
Especially since you're described yourself as on a crusade. Well, Crusader, you have to realize that for your march to be righteous, you can't be myopic.
If you want to target your words now, then you can try to do that, a bit more carefully. That's focusing, not myopia though. They may seem similar, but they're really not the same thing at all.
And it's also not a topic that I'm interested in.
Maybe you should be, others are. And it IS part of the "Food religion" as you call it, like it or not.
Even though that is the case, (which it is) ever since the patents expired there's already a growing market for generic GMO seed, and not many seem to be picking up Monsanto's new product.
Why does it feel like you're repeating yourself? So one thing happens to fail. They'll try something else. And their behavior, believe it or not, may be less than salutatory. Have you seen their marketing?
It's not as bad as early-morning infomercials, but...I wouldn't call it that different.
But quit creating this stupid straw man of attacking GMO technology over one company (or even other companies) that utilize it.
You're right, it is a stupid strawman, it's not just one company, nor is it just GMO that is a problem. But then, I'm the one that brought that subject up, and apologized for how my words might have contributed to misleading you to some extent.
Did you miss where I said that?
You may as well argue that because Microsoft has been less than ethical, we should throw out our personal computers and go back to typewriters and handwritten spreadsheets. It's an absurd position to have, and is effectively a viewpoint that anti-GMO groups are presently beholden to.
Cough, cough, from my perspective, that's a strawman there, of your own manufacture, and I'll thank you if you recognize that you are the one who created it.
Especially a problem since you're the one who as you said, is on a crusade, and even more recently said, you were being myopic.
Maybe you can recognize how your myopia is resulting in you focusing on one aspect of the discussion that bothers you, while choosing to express yourself in a manner that is considerably broader.
Ok, so you can claim there are fugheads saying stupid things out there. So what? Does that mean anything anybody else ever says is also that of a fughead?
It's not just you making that brain-dead argument, it's the whole food religion.
See, that's the thing, I wasn't making that as an argument, nor do I think that you're being fair to people because you're creating a whole group of people that act in a monolithic way. The irony, of course, is that you're doing the same thing you then proceed to complain about being done to you.
If you mention GMO, they instantly accuse you of being a Monsanto shill.
Monsanto has, by their own efforts, beco
Yes, some organizations (not others) have decided that it is a "likely" carcinogen, but that's not necessarily a major issue. People often confuse the probability that something is a carcinogen with the probability that exposure to a particular carcinogen will cause cancer. The effect is clearly small enough that some regulators put it in the "probable" category and some put it in the "maybe" category. The data is murky enough that multiple organizations looking at the body of evidence come to different conclusions. The fact that the Seralini study is often on the list of studies that support the claim is not a good sign, but let's assume it's true. The level of certainty they're looking at puts it in the same category as emissions from frying food and well below things like alcohol. Being a carcinogen isn't binary. Sawdust is a carcinogen.
Exactly. So how are GMOs specifically problematic? Just about everything we farm is a crazy hybrid / mutant that looks nothing like its wild cousins, but most people aren't freaking out over those escaping. They want to make it a GMO-specific problem, which it's not.
If I started a farming business that guaranteed that my plants and their ancestors were never grown near power lines, that would be fine. I could get people all excited about how good it was for them that no stray electrical fields affected my crops or their lineage. But if pollen from another farm started to come in, I couldn't make that guarantee any more. Is it acceptable for me to blame the neighboring farm, and am I entitled to redress? I went to a lot of effort to create my no-powerline guarantee, and my neighbor is mucking it up.
Fewer things and different things, but is that better? If organic allowed only one chemical to be applied to their crops and that chemical was benzene, would that be good? Clearly not. So it's not about fewer or different. It's about specifically what gets put on the crop. For example, if you could create a GMO plant that was naturally fungicide resistant, you could avoid the organic solution of applying large quantities of copper. Copper is nasty stuff an broadly toxic. In short, there's nothing inherently wrong with synthetic pesticides that makes "natural" ones better. You'd have to look at the specific chemicals and quantities, something that consumers generally don't do. Organic is happy to coast by on the misperception that they don't use pesticides when in reality, they just use different ones.
What was the pesticide? I mean, pesticides can be really nasty and I don't doubt your story, but it would be interesting to compare the specific properties and uses of that pesticide against the organic equivalent.
This is the type of story I'm thinking of. It's hysterical nonsense.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Actually vaccine have some real potential side-effects that are well documented, whereas GMO don't have any creditable side-effects. There are some real benefits to using food grown GMO seeds such as less weed seeds that can cause horrific allergy problems for some people and less competition for field nutrients from weeds allowing less fertiliser use and runoff.
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People prefer locally grown food to limit the carbon footprint of transporting the food half way around the world. Lower cost of transportation should also lower the price consumers pay.
"Organic" crops cost more because they are more expensive to produce. A significant portion of the crops is lost to insects, etc, because we can't use efficient chemicals and still apply the "organic" label. It also means raising (chickens, cattle, etc) for longer times because we can't inject them with hormones. Unfortunately, stores inflate the price of "organic" food beyond actual cost increases over non-"organic" food.
The problem comes when those who don't label take up "you labeling is implicit defamation of unlabelled stuff" - and win.
Lead was known to be poisonous by 100 BCE. I suppose that technically means "up to 6400 years".
Everything is carcinogenic, yes, I remember the whole artificial sweeter craze. Drink 200 Diet Coke's and you will get bladder cancer. Still, increased usage to combat increased resistance of a chemical that "Probably" is carcinogenic and definitely kills plants just strikes me as a bad course of action. I read the Monsanto bit about it, it's on their site, a wonderful piece of propaganda. GMO's are not a specific problem. From Coffee Rust to the Chinese brown stink bug, billions of dollars are spent combating invasive species. Probably more than that, Fire Ants are not easy to get rid of. The fruit industry on the US East coast is really under pressure to control those nasty little invasive bugs. The problem with GMO's specifically is that they are engineered and not naturally occurring. Many could not be naturally occurring, and once out in the wild despite whatever controls are used to stop them, no one knows exactly what they will do. Added to that is the secrecy surrounding them, and the battle to not tell anyone if they are being used or not. (The battle to label GMO foods is lost, even if it is won as so few people have the money to actually buy 100% organic. Even with a decent income it is a matter of pick and choose.) Your point about Pollen almost works, I can see how one might argue about mutation from power lines, Eddie Murphy movies aside, there is a somewhat legitimate body of evidence that living/working under high voltage power lines can lead to cancer. The difference is that any mutation in that crop was not specifically engineered by scientists who inserted a specific gene from a different plant/animal into it. Legally, the question has already been answered, it is no ones fault. Although, this is a fun read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... As for fewer vs. different, we really have to look at what is used as you say. I've seen different methods, such as growing different items that have different properties coupled with the use of hormone traps all the way to methods that are virtually indistinguishable from conventional GMO farming. That was 25 or 26 years ago, most of what I remember was sitting in an ER with a doctor, could have been intern, asking what I had been doing. When my grandmother said we just went swimming and then home, he asked where, and I was admitted. Central FL, near Astor, in either 90 or 91. The issue in the news article is not that Monsanto suspected they had done it, it is the fact that a State has granted a corporation broad legal powers typically reserved to the state. Second, those powers appear to violate the fourth amendment rights regarding search and seizure. Secondary is that varied and vague threats may/may not have been made that using a specific "Seed Sorter" may be bad for ones business put someone else out of work. Given the size and budget most independent/small American farms have, any threat of legal action has to be viewed as significant because it could put them out of business. Monsanto is abusing that. Dupont and Synegra I think are the other two. A different issue is that those three companies own over half of all seed stock in use. That is not something I like to hear when it comes to the world food supply. I think GMO has an important role to play, I just don't believe it has been managed well. Things like rice with beta carotene are good, improving yield and shelf life while increasing nutrition are not bad things, especially when managed through cross breeding and traditional methods. It just needs to be managed with eye to the benefit over the profit. I'm still not buying Salmon though.
How do you know it's GMOs causing it? You said yourself that when you switched to "organic, grass fed, no pesticides, no herbicides milk" - suddenly no problem. You've just lumped GMO into the same category as "organic" and assume the health results are a result of it being GMO.
You realize that it may just be the pesticides and not necessarily the GMO-ness of the food? You're aware that food can be *both* GMO and organic, right? Organic simply means that no pesticides or chemical fertilizers were used in the production.
Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
It surprises that the Greens who support organic methods without question, don't realise that organic pesticides are completely untested. They'll tout them as being as effective as manufactured pesticides, which to me means they are likely just as toxic.
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There's a good reason we don't use gut feelings for important policy decisions, though. Petroleum products are terribly nasty, but we put up with it so we can run tractors to farm our food. It's a trade off made using data. A substantial decrease in the cost of food production is nothing to just write off without carefully considering the costs and benefits. Given that glyphosate largely replaced more dangerous herbicides and given that a huge amount of research has been done to it and it's coming up pretty clean, that seems like good evidence that the costs are pretty minimal.
I'm looking for how GMOs are different from hybrids and mutants. None of those are naturally occurring, and trade secrets abound. If you're planting seeds for a farm, you're almost certainly planting a weirdo man-made organism that never existed in the wild. So what's special about GMO specifically?
Yes, I'll agree that that's a difference, but how does that difference affect my point? In both cases, you have a business model predicated on personal aesthetic preferences, which is totally legitimate, but it creates a new burden on neighboring business. Should neighboring businesses have to bow to this new burden to support your business just because you and your customers want it? It's an unfortunate situation with two legitimate interests, but I can't see how you could possibly say yes to this.
I agree that having to let Monsanto test your crops as if it were a government organization is distasteful from a "pit of your stomach" perspective, but is it really a problem in any real sense? If you're not infringing, they test the plants at their own expense and go away. If you are, then I'm not sure that the complaint that they shouldn't have been allowed to discover it is a very strong argument. I'd love for there to be a different way to enforce the patents, but I'm at a loss as to what that might be.
Why not? The salmon seem to be one of the things environmentalists should be most excited about. It's not from a big evil ag company and it will allow them to farm salmon with substantially less environmental impact. The fish are sterile and they're farming them in landlocked lakes. Given how destructive salmon farming can be and how much impact fishing can have on wild stocks, this seems like the first steps to taking a bite out of the problem.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
It's divergent, but no, I wouldn't call it off-topic, as the subject is clearly related. And we're allowed to digress if we want, as this site is not restrictively moderated.
It's only related in the sense that anti-GMO people routinely use it and other issues as part of a red-herring, straw-man, and/or appeal to nature tactic, all three of which are logical fallacies.
You're choosing to say these things. That's yourself taking up a banner. I'm merely pointing out how mixed up you seem to be from my perspective.
I do take up the banner against the Food Religion and all of its talking points. The local economy argument is not related to that however. You brought that up by the way, not me, and as I have said repeatedly, I'm not interested in it. Again, I need to stress, that issue is entirely not related, and as I mentioned before, the local farmers can use GMO seed if they want to. Having said that, please explain exactly why you think it's relevant to GMO food.
You're right, it is a stupid strawman, it's not just one company, nor is it just GMO that is a problem. But then, I'm the one that brought that subject up, and apologized for how my words might have contributed to misleading you to some extent.
Did you miss where I said that?
No, rather I'm speaking in the more broad sense, because it is routinely brought up by anti-GMO people.
Well, from my experience, that is what people are doing, and what people are concerned about, if in a manner that might not be entirely clear to you.
Except that's not what they're doing, strictly speaking. They're typically using that argument in and of itself as a means to call for a ban and/or stigmatize (through labeling) GMO food. It's one thing to attack the industry, but it's another thing to use that as a basis to ban the product itself. Make sense? If you don't think that's the case, then I challenge you to find an anti-GMO activist post on this page that mentions Monsanto or patents or other business or political related issues as one of their talking points while NOT using it against GMO technology itself. Good luck with that.
Except you're really not even cognizant of what my actual viewpoint is, I've been trying to ascertain your views here, not expressing my own, and my viewpoint is that you're being myopic, short-sighted, and not seeing enough of the forest because you're overly focused on the trees, yet painting with a broad brush.
If you personally aren't doing these things, that's fine, but the rest of the anti-GMO movement is. However I can't help but observe that you're bringing this up in a GMO food discussion. Why? (And I'll remind you again: You brought up the issue, not me.)
Fine, have it your way. Go ahead and polarize the discussion. I know that GMO food isn't going away. I also know that sooner or later there will be a crisis. There is tremendous benefit from GMO foods but to ignore all possible complications will only bring disaster down the road. High handed arrogance will only incite a more vicious backlash.
Roundup doesn't effect insects, unless you drown them in it. The "Roundup Ready" gene that makes plant resistant to glyphosates like Roundup was found in the wild, in plants that were naturally resistant.
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I've not noticed you puffing out your opposition to this, are you simply unaware of the local food movement? Is it only the people who want GMO labeling that earn your ire?
The whole food religion does actually. You could, in a sense, say I'm on a crusade. There is all of about zero proven benefit health to things like organic food and even locally grown food. However both of them cost people more money. I think it is immoral to lie about a benefit of your product when it costs more money.
The whole "local food movement" is what I refer to as the Food Religion. I'm opposed to it just as one might be opposed to Scientology.
GMO food, contrary to popular belief, is actually cheaper than even conventionally non-organic food, and has all of the same nutritional benefit, which comes from a reduction in materials used and a reduction of farmland. Furthermore, now that Monsanto's patents have expired, it's going to get even cheaper.
Until the Food Religion is exposed for what it really is (a big fat fraud) then I'll continue to post in places like this.
You're right on most of this, but locally-grown food is better for you under certain conditions--namely, if you're buying fresh foods, and that's merely because if it's not flash-frozen pretty much all fruits and vegetables will be losing nutritional value with time. The same goes for anything picked not quite ripe and allowed to ripen in transit, though you can often add in flavor to what suffers from the experience.
However, that's...pretty much the only place there's a difference, and it's mostly only worth considering when trying to decide on fresh vs frozen vs only getting it when locally in season. (For some fruits and vegetables, if you want a variety that's tasty you pretty much are stuck buying local because 'ships well' and 'tastes good' seem to be mutually exclusive qualities, even if they don't have to be picked before being ripe and allowed to ripen in transit...)
But notice that the local food movement on the whole doesn't seem to want to talk too much about the other factors involved in making your food nutritious, such as how you cook it, so odds are you're still pouring a good deal of the nutrition down the drain anyway. The movement is weird, but I'll still buy some things only when local and in season because I prefer the flavor.
That said: Fine with GMOs, especially having followed up on the cases where Monsanto looked to get crops destroyed. (They stuck to intentionally-planted, accidental escapees were fine.) I don't care about organic, except in the chemistry sense. The whole non-GMO thing makes very little sense to somebody who knows how to make their own GMOs, anyway. The only important worries there seem to be ones that should be amply handled by being careful to maintain seed banks, and if that's the reason for keeping seed banks that convinces people...well, I will complain that it's the stupid reason that works, but only that.
There is no GMO wheat on the market.
There are no GMO cows on the market.
The big advantage to the "Local Food" movement is that the chances are the food is fresher, and the natural anti-oxidants are not consumed resisting spoilage, the disadvantage is if the local soil is missing an essential nutrient, you will not get it in your local food. My garden will never be organic, the closest I could come is "Transitional", but my bell peppers taste better than any sold in a super-market, you can smell the difference 6 feet away.
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It's only related in the sense that anti-GMO people routinely use it and other issues as part of a red-herring, straw-man, and/or appeal to nature tactic, all three of which are logical fallacies.
Well, if we're going to complain about logical fallacies, listing types of logical fallacies as if it was meaningful is something I'd consider a logical fallacy. Now if you want to discuss the subject of what constitutes a logical fallacy, that could be an interesting, if divergent topic, but I don't think that's your intent.
You're just using that recitation as if it were an argument. It's not. You need to make the connections, show your work, demonstrate your evidence.
Yes, killing somebody with malice aforethought is murder, but that's going to suffice for a discussion of an actual death.
You're choosing to say these things. That's yourself taking up a banner. I'm merely pointing out how mixed up you seem to be from my perspective.
I do take up the banner against the Food Religion and all of its talking points. The local economy argument is not related to that however.
And yet I disagree. I think it is very important to the discussion of the food industry. But there you go again, "all of its talking points" well, that is one of them.
You brought that up by the way, not me, and as I have said repeatedly, I'm not interested in it. Again, I need to stress, that issue is entirely not related, and as I mentioned before, the local farmers can use GMO seed if they want to. Having said that, please explain exactly why you think it's relevant to GMO food.
If you look above in this thread, you're the one who said "The whole food religion does actually." and ""The whole "local food movement" is what I refer to as the Food Religion." when I asked you if you were talking only about the people who want GMO labeling. You're the one who is connecting them, so that would be why I think it's relevant when talking to you.
You had the chance to make a distinction, you didn't. You lumped everything together in one great big mess.
No, rather I'm speaking in the more broad sense, because it is routinely brought up by anti-GMO people.
Oh good, you didn't miss it then? You are prepared to acknowledge that I have stated that I did not mean to mislead you?
Monsanto is just an identifying company, no different than General Motors when talking about the auto industry, or Phillip Morris the tobacco industry. The latter even changed its overall corporate entity's name because of it.
Don't put too much stock in it.
Except that's not what they're doing, strictly speaking. They're typically using that argument in and of itself as a means to call for a ban and/or stigmatize (through labeling) GMO food.
Yeah, the thing is, I genuinely don't see things that way. Maybe my experiences vary considerably from yours. For example, when I see people talking about GMOs, instead of being worried about something like any mutagenic effects, perhaps they're concerned about what effect it has on the local farming industry, leading to say, a near monoculture, that drives out the local small farms. Not that GMOs are unique in doing that, but they a way it happens.
So I can see why some groups do want to ban GMO-foods from the "local" food concept, as allowing it in can defeat the whole purpose.
Yes, the global economy has done a lot of good, but like Roman imports from the Nile, it has caused some bad.
Weighing them? A complex issue to be sure. But one that can't be myopically ignored if you want to throw out the broad statement that you have chosen to make.
It's one thing to attack the industry, but it's another thing to use that as a basis to ban the product itself. Make sense? If you don't think that's the case, then I challenge you to find an an
E. Coli is an essential organism,You wouldn't be alive without E. Coli growing in your gut, providing you with vitamin K without which you would bleed to death. Some strain don't play nice and cause illness, but most are content in their symbiotic relationship with us.
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Dumping of GMO food stocks in the third world have also bankrupted communities by putting their farmers out of business, making them dependent on third parties for basic sustenance. In many cases this "relief" or "agriculture aid" have actually increased poverty in the longterm by gutting an entire local economy, and if the aid food runs out before they can start farming again then you end up with starvation and poverty on a greater scale. it would literally be better to dole out cash first only do small supplements of food stocks as needed.
Disclaimer, I work for an NGO who deals with the fallout from this limited thinking all the time.
I actually love GMO's, but I pretty much hate how they're being applied to the developing world. Most of it is being applied in a way that is strangely beneficial to the westerners and treats the natives like livestock "for their own good, those ignorant idiots".
So you are saying... if GMO food is labelled and is then proved safe then they could win a judgement for defamation.
Which effectively means you want be allowed to defame GMO foods without fear of retribution.
Did I get that wrong?
What tortured system of logic do you use to come to the conclusion that it should not be up to companies to decide?
Probably the one that says the customer is the one to decide, because when you want my money, what I want matters.
If people don't want to purchase GMO food, they are free to tell companies themselves. Companies are free to act on this information. There's already truth-in-advertising laws to prevent or punish companies who falsely claim their products are GMO-free. We don't need more laws.
You may think that, but others may be unsatisfied with the results, maybe there isn't enough punishment, maybe the information isn't available because it's held under proprietary standards of protection. Maybe we have too many laws. Like, for example, the laws banning recording of food processing facilities.
I'm saying that GMO food makers could sue non-GMO food makers for defamation when the non-GMO makers try to distinguish themselves by mentioning that they're not GMO. Something like this case about milk and bovine growth hormone. I have no problem with someone who wants to avoid GMO (for whatever reason floats their boat) being able to get the information needed to do so. I do have a problem with saying "GMOs are bad, even though we have no evidence, because they scare me". Unfortunately there's an area in between, where someone could say "My stuff isn't GMO, and you know what that means *nudge nudge wink wink*" and imply superiority without actually proving it or saying anything bad about GMO. I can't think of a good way to resolve that given my personal feelings on freedom of expression, but I have hope that as time goes by folks will start to be less fearful.
Vast quantities of salt are sprayed on a regular basis in close proximity to major population centers. You don't hear anyone complaining that we're poisoning our children when we're de-icing the roads, do you?
Yes, actually I do. Maybe you would too, if you were in the right circles.
http://news.discovery.com/autos/salt-roads-environment-technology.htm
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/science-nature/what-happens-to-all-the-salt-we-dump-on-the-roads-180948079/
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_lantern/2010/02/salting_the_earth.html
http://www.accuweather.com/en/outdoor-articles/outdoor-living/salt-good-on-roads-bad-on-cars/44537
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/7229424/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/scientists-road-salt-may-harm-environment/
Feel free to research the topic, but don't make comments dismissing a matter of public concern unless you want egg on your face when somebody decides to show your example is false.
Actually, even that is a common myth. Organic growers are allowed to use both pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Just not all of them. And, like most religious strictures, the rules are a little bit arbitrary. They don't like to mention it because a big part of their customer buy-in is because most people erroneously believe that "organic" means "pesticide free." In reality, one of the most common pesticides in organic is the same pesticide that the anti-GMO people freak out about when it's produced by GMO plants. It's super dangerous when plants produce it, but it's totally safe for us to spray it onto organic crops.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Well, if we're going to complain about logical fallacies, listing types of logical fallacies as if it was meaningful is something I'd consider a logical fallacy.
It's not when they've all been used even in this discussion we're having right now.
And yet I disagree. I think it is very important to the discussion of the food industry. But there you go again, "all of its talking points" well, that is one of them.
And here you go contradicting yourself.
If you look above in this thread, you're the one who said "The whole food religion does actually." and ""The whole "local food movement" is what I refer to as the Food Religion."
Let me adjust my sentence: It's part of it. However the main part of that movement is about organic food, which as I've stated, is a fraud. But again, I never brought up the economic argument. You did.
You are prepared to acknowledge that I have stated that I did not mean to mislead you?
Yet you pretty clearly did anyways, which is your fault, not mine.
Anyways this is kind of dumb, you aren't even debating GMO here, making this way off topic. This is also my last reply to this thread, have a nice day.
Probably the later.
Being anti GMO is every bit as nonsensical as being an anti-vaxer. There's all of about zero credible scientific data against it.
Furthermore, the efforts to label it are purely for the purpose of stigmatizing it and shouldn't be taken seriously. The reason ingredients are labeled is to help people with dietary concerns (such as allergies) however there's no dietary or other concerns with GMO food, hence labeling serves no useful (other than perhaps religious) purpose.
I am anti-GMO, not for reasons of safety, but for taste, and texture. I grow tomatoes in my garden from non GMO seeds, and in one other area with GMO seeds.
The non GMO versions are softer, have more flavour and are juicer. That also makes them less resistant to bruising and for handling.
The GMO versions have hard flesh (comparitively), less liquid under the skin, and it feels more pulpy. That feeling applies when one slices either type of Tomato for a sandwich. The GMO will stay in place, and its juice will not run. The "pure" tomato will wet the bread.
Apples, Oranges, corn, beef all come out as more resistant to damage, but are substantially less flavourful.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
It's not when they've all been used even in this discussion we're having right now.
That doesn't make what you did not a logical fallacy, sorry. Perhaps you missed this line of mine:
"You need to make the connections, show your work, demonstrate your evidence."
Get my point, yet? All you did was list logical fallacies. Interesting for one discussion, but not the one you want, I should think.
And here you go contradicting yourself.
How so? At least give me an example of your reasoning. Perhaps you're confusing what I'm saying, or perhaps I misspoke. Can't know without a bit more elucidation on your part. I see no contradiction in saying that the "food Religion" despite your ignorance of the subject, does in fact, consider the impact on the local economy.
Maybe you should look up Slow Food and Via Campesina, or even just go to your local "Organic Foods" store. Like a Whole Foods for example.
Let me adjust my sentence: It's part of it. However the main part of that movement is about organic food, which as I've stated, is a fraud.
Ok, slight improvement there. I might differ with whether or not I consider it the main part, but first things first, why is organic food a fraud? What is your problem? Please give me more than a recitation of types of logical fallacies.
But again, I never brought up the economic argument. You did.
I wouldn't say I brought up the economic argument, I'd say that various persons advocating in what would fall under the concept of "Food Religion" did, you just didn't seem to be aware of that facet of the discussion.
Now if you want to say you haven't looked into it, or something, that's a valid statement. I can understand choosing to focus your words, to try to limit the scope of your words...but unfortunately, you took yourself up as a crusader, and already described yourself as myopic above. When combined with expansive statements, that's a bad combination.
Yet you pretty clearly did anyways, which is your fault, not mine.
And? I've already said I should have chosen a better expression. Did you miss "My bad with that, if you did think I believe the only problem is with Monsanto, or if my choice to use their name cut off your thinking." where I was was already saying that.
That said, a review of the conversation indicates your own use of Monsanto. So perhaps you were already thinking of them anyway. But I happened to think of the possible misdirection that could cause to the discussion myself, and I didn't want you to be under the impression they're the only actor of concern in the industry.
They're not. Far from it.
Anyways this is kind of dumb, you aren't even debating GMO here, making this way off topic.
Well, again, it was you brought up the subject of the locality from which a food can be located, so take the responsibility for broaching that yourself. Me, considering that I see you railing at a perception of the "food religion", which you, yourself, described as a crusade, and from your own quoted words, you painted broadly, and not retracted, well, I see it was very appropriate for me to bring it up to you.
Because as I said, it's apparent to me that your knowledge of things is a bit...inadequate.
At the least, maybe you could try to focus the topic of your ire a bit more narrowly. Say "the people in the organic food movement who do..." whatever it is that offends you.
I'm sure there are people among it who do stupid things, but then, that's true of everything. There's a reason I suggested going to an agribusiness's marketing seminar.
This is also my last reply to this thread, have a nice day.
Well, that's your choice, I cannot compel you to anything, but in the future, I hope you do chose to be more informed, and at least take up the subject of PDOs (Protected Designation
not sure there are any or many drought resistant GMOs actually grown. The usual "breakthroughs" are announced, but often these plants compete less well with drought resistant varieties developed with conventional breeding methods. Can you provide a link on how millions of people have accessed drought resistant GM crops? As for the scientists, they are people doing their jobs and getting handsomly paid by their employers. Just as the engineers at VW. I am not anti-GM in itself, but rather the corporate control it is subject to. The agricultural sector wreaks havoc in the environment and this techno-centrist approach promoted by Monsanto and the likes might be great for their stock, but hardly for the planet. Glysophate resistant crops in the US have seen a surge of Glysophate resistant weeds in the past years, which in turn increased the amount of pesticides used. So if you can reduce esticide use for 10 years but then have to apply double the next decade it is not a huge improvement, and in fact you now have to contend with superweeds. In a nutshell I dont think we will ever win an arms race against nature. As for drought resistance, bring it on. Only it seems GMOs are slower to develop, more expensive and really outcompeted by non-GM breeding methods. Same for nutritionally enriched crops. The famous vitamin A rice is not prefered by farmers as the varieties they grow perform better under their climatic conditions, have better yields and at the end of the day they prefer the taste. So if I am getting 2.5 tons of traditional rice per hectare, why grow vit A rice for 2 tons per hectare? I can simply use the money from that extra 0.5 tons to buy or plant carrots and more importantly the FAT that is needed to absorb vit A. Tech fixes can seem cool. But hunger and malnutrition are economic (poverty), political (war, deprivation) and social (cray food culture in the US/UK, spreading fast to the world). And if agriculture does not address KEY issues such as soil, water contamination, Co2 intensity etc, then a seed will not fix the problem.
Being anti GMO is every bit as nonsensical as being an anti-vaxer. There's all of about zero credible scientific data against it.
Hm. If you are talking about being anti-GMO because you are afraid it will kill you or cause cancer if you eat it, sure.
What if you are worried about whether or not a particular gene combination that would not "normally" exist in nature spreads far and wide across a single type of crap, say potato(e)s and that some bacteria or fungus somewhere develops some sort of appetite for it and wholesale destroys all potato crops for a year?
This has happened naturally but that is not an argument for creating such a thing.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
That not only happens in nature but in domestic crops as well. It could happen in any of the "naturally" bred versions of crops we plant. It has nothing specifically to do with GMO whatsoever. By not planting GMOs, you do absolutely nothing to mitigate that risk. So people who are anti-GMO because of that fear are also not basing their opposition on any good reasoning or science.
In fact, transgenics provide potential solutions to those types of blights when they happen. For example, the papaya industry in Hawaii. More recently, researchers have made progress on the citrus greening problem in Florida, which is on its way to being a major crisis.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Does it make sense to ask "are electrical circuits safe?" Circuits are designed, and some designs are safe and others are dangerous.
All designs are dangerous, once built, if used improperly.
A crayon, for example, can be put into somebodies eye.
So can an electric circuit.
In many cases they aren't just as toxic but considerably more toxic as the amount you need to apply is rather large compared to modern chemical approaches. What is even more interesting is when they compare they nearly always compare against old/no longer used chemicals as they are horrid for the environment and terrible for human consumption.
Your refutation doesn't exist.
Salt is a problem on roads. Salt is a problem for agriculture. Salt is a problem in foods.
Salt management is a serious discussion. Instead of a counterexample, you just demonstrated your ignorance.
This isn't a good standard, because you can't prove this for unmodified crops!
I think every issue should stand or fail on its own merit. I don't buy absolutists arguments about not being able to prove this or that as an excuse not to act.
The basic fact is humans are tinkering with food in ways that cannot possibly occur naturally. There are not hundreds of years of experience to fall back on. This should not be discounted just because mutations exist. Labeling specific human creations is on a relative basis easy.
There's always that chance that there was a mutation in the next potato you eat, perfectly 'organic', that happened to cause it to resume producing Solanine.
As such, GMO foods, properly tested, can be rated to be no more dangerous than non-GMO, and sometimes healthier(they recently produced a GMO potato that's less prone to bruising and also doesn't produce a carcinogen).
Your absolutely correct in that the means of production do not matter. What matters is outcomes. Plenty of "natural" stuff can hurt or kill you, humans have been playing god by selective breeding for thousands of years...etc .. etc. ad nausea.
If it is tractable to label particular notable mutations in a useful way than I'm all for it as well because it would serve the same purpose.
I'm just going to be brutally honest here: You're an uneducated idiot if you think GMO is all about roundup.
I am an idiot who has never claimed GMO is all about roundup but don't let me stand in the way of your straw man arguments.
Furthermore, the efforts to label it are purely for the purpose of stigmatizing it and shouldn't be taken seriously.
Patiently await evidence all possible strains of GMO ever produced are forever guaranteed to never prove harmful.
And now you've just invoked a massive logical fallacy. Seriously go to school before you come here and try to argue this.
You mean the logical fallacy like "go to school" ... Parent made a nonsensical comment about labeling and I responded in kind to highlight how absurd the original comment was.
The rest of your post is equally uneducated, and not worth a response.
Humanity is full of idiots who don't have the capability or means to predict outcomes of their tinkering. This is why trial and error testing is required before bringing new strains to market and why they should be labeled.
Goodie! Fresh meat! You wanted evidence? You can't handle the evidence, And my little chachalaca, I will definitely expect more thasn a one sentence off the cuff dismissal
Oy Vey ... lets examine what parent said.
Being anti GMO is every bit as nonsensical as being an anti-vaxer.
This statement is worthless not because of anti-vaxers. The statement is worthless because it dismisses GMO by association without offering any specific supporting evidence.
That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
What I want evidence of is how all GMO can be blanket assumed to be safe when the means of production and amount of tinkering are infinitely diverse carrying varying levels of risk. I am not anti GMO... I am anti people who make blanket assertions about the safety of GMO without specific supporting evidence specific to each strain produced.
The vaccine / autism links while interesting are not relevant.
But that's provable. and Roundup ready crops are no excuse to ban all genetically modified food.
I have never claimed nor desire a ban on all genetically modified food.
but I need to get this straight. You support teh fraudulent use of research as long as it fits with your preconcieved ideas of reality?
Because if you have to fake data in order to be right, you ani't right, spunky.
My only purpose is to object to blanket claims all GMO is safe period. The vaccine links are irrelevant.
Sorry. you answerd my question. You don't accept fraud, you actually applaud it.
You are just an other denier. You are the moral equivalent of a AGW denier, a Creationist evolution denier, and an Aniti vaxxer denier. Your truth matters more than reality. Now dismiss my evidence.
You are responding entirely to straw men and ghost assertions having never been made.
I deny only that the capability exists to blanket assert all GMO is safe. This is objectively true because a showing of safety is required by many governments to bring new strains to market. I only believe every strain must be treated separately from safety standpoint, people should have the right to know what they are getting retaining their ability to make their own decisions.
What I want evidence of is how all GMO can be blanket assumed to be safe
That isn't remotely possible. For the same reason that genetic manipulation the old fashioned way cannot be blanket assumed to be safe
Witness the Lenape Potato http://boingboing.net/2013/03/...
Anything we eat should be tested, especially new food sources never touched by the hand of man. Never contaminated by any other than the natural gene pool the plant was born with.
Which of course leads us back to the topic at hand, that when the piece of evidence that has been cited so often by the Anti-GMO people is shown to be fabricated, to be fraudulent, Are you going to accept that as legitimate? Do you believe that in pursuit of what you believe, that the outcome justifies fraud?
I don't know if you looked at the investigation work, but it is damning. Pretty amateurish as well. Anti-GMO advocates might try the conspiracy defense. 8^)
You might be amused to know I eat almost all organic. I think it tastes better. I'd not be upset if I had an ear of Roundup Ready corn though. My family and I were foodies long before it was fashionable. Do my own charcuterie, sausage and bacon from properly raised - you know, no antibiotics, field roaming - animals and can my fresh organic veggies. You haven't lived until you've tasted my Hungarian sausage, or if vegan, my assortment of picked and canned in a morning veggies and pickled stuff as well. I can afford it, much of the rest of the world cannot. For good or evil we're on an experiment to determine the loading capacity of the planet. So its GMO or 6 feet below for most of the world.
I'm neither pro nor anti-GMO. I am interested in truth, not wishful thinking. But I cannot abide fraud.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
All safety testing by GMO seed and herbicide developer companies committed fraud in their safety testing and lied about it. All the junk anti-science safety test data are hidden under proprietary trade secret rules to conceal the fraud and hide the toxic effects. Meanwhile all the pro-GMO shills paid by the biotech industry and public university scientists with grants by biotech troll the published papers and Internet sites criticize any document that exhibits data of GMO and herbicide toxicity. The mainstream media, including Nature, National Geographic, Discover, and most news sources have been either bought out by biotech companies, or outright threatened with loss of advertising money or frivolous lawsuits claiming libel. Censorship by corporate bullying. Decide for yourself, readers are challenged to try to obtain any safety test studies done by biotech companies and you will find these unavailable under proprietary trade secret rules, but must be publicly available.
Also, you can decide for yourself by reading "Seeds of Deception" by Jeffery Smith, and "Altered Genes, Twisted Truth" by Steven Druker. Download the following publicly available peer reviewed independent studies that the biotech industry tried to silence: "Republished study: long-term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize" Séralini et al, European Sciences Europe, showing toxicity from GM maize, Roundup, and the worse, GM maize sprayed with Roundup. "The Séralini affair: degeneration of Science to Re-Science?" Fagan et al, European Sciences Europe, documenting the illicit attempt by the biotech industry to retract the Séralini et al paper. "Genetically engineered crops, glyphosate and the deterioration of health in the United States of America" Swanson et al, Journal Organic Systems, showing the very strong correlation of the rise of use of GE crops and glyphosate usage since 1995 and the epidemic of chronic deadly diseases as a result, including cancers, organ failures, hepatitis C from the cauliflower mosaic virus used to produce GE plants, all told, 22 total specific diseases. "Glyphosate, pathways to modern diseases III: Manganese, neurological diseases, and associated pathologies" Samsel and Seneff, Surgical Neurology International and "Glyphosate, pathways to modern diseases IV: cancer and related pathologies", Samsel and Seneff, Journal of Biological Physics and Chemistry, both papers explain how these 22 disease are caused by glyphosate (Roundup) acting as a manganese chelation agent, anti-bacterial agent to kill the soil microbes and the gut microbes that prevent diseases. The authors found additional evidence linking glyphosate to more cancers. The last paper documents how the authors obtained the actual approval test documents submitted to the US EPA by Monsanto which showed toxic effects, rigged testing, fraud, fabricated data, and filed away as proprietary trade secret by the EPA. Monsanto knew as far back as 1981 that glyphosate is toxic but hid the data to sell tons of the product to spray on all Roundup tolerant crops and is now used on non-GE crops as a drying agent prior to harvest. Glyphosate residues can be found in lakes, streams, rivers, drinking water, animal organs, human urine and breast milk. This is an absolute human health disaster brought to you by the biotech industry and promoted by governments.
Decide for yourself by doing your own research reading, and remember to follow the money and beware of conflict of interest.
A reader
I think every issue should stand or fail on its own merit. I don't buy absolutists arguments about not being able to prove this or that as an excuse not to act.
1. I'm not an absolutionist.
2. This isn't an excuse, this is an explanation for a desired course of action.
Specifically, the standard being required is unobtainable and can't be applied to all food. If you're going to require a 'level of safety', it should be both obtainable and applied, as you mention, equally.
The basic fact is humans are tinkering with food in ways that cannot possibly occur naturally.
One thing I've learned is to not discount biology. 'cannot possibly occur naturally' is a much higher standard than most think. Most of our changes could actually happen naturally.
If it is tractable to label particular notable mutations in a useful way than I'm all for it as well because it would serve the same purpose.
This is basically what I was trying to get at. Labeling something GMO or not - with no further information, isn't useful. It's a scare tactic requirement so people who have been fooled into believing that 'natural' = safer can be satisfied. Due to human nature, this would decrease food efficiency because the government wouldn't force labeling if there wasn't a danger, you know? Thus you'd end up with a larger 'natural' crowd, and non-GMO food is more expensive and generally less safe(I've read the studies; a number of organic foods are more dangerous/contaminated then their non-organic versions).
Now, labeling the specific GMO - rice modified to produce beta-keratin, the potato lacking the carcinogen, BT tolerance, etc...
I don't read AC A human right
You don't hear anyone complaining that we're poisoning our children when we're de-icing the roads, do you?
Yes, actually I do.
Do you? You've linked a whole slew of problems that exist with road salt (all of which I agree with), none of which contradict what I was saying. My claim was a narrow one: that the AC was full of crap when he asserted that salt would poison people if it were sprayed around like RoundUp. And I backed that up by pointing out that we're spraying salt around in massive quantities already (as your first link says, 22 millions tons on the roads each year in the US alone), yet we're not seeing the salt poisoning epidemic he would have us believe would be happening.
Is road salt free from issues? By no means! But those other problems are orthogonal to the discussion at hand. If you actually are claiming that road salt is poisoning our kids, give me a link and I'll take a look, since that'd be news to me, but otherwise, it seems a bit premature to suggest that I have egg on my face.
Do you?
Yes, that's why I said I hear the complaints. It's also bad for adults, for plants, for animals, for the cars, and even for the roads.
You've linked a whole slew of problems that exist with road salt (all of which I agree with), none of which contradict what I was saying.
Ah, but they do. They show the existence of complaints about road salt. You just assumed there were no problems, since you see it being done, and thought "Ah hah, I can claim this and win the argument" but you didn't do enough research to sustain your argument.
My claim was a narrow one: that the AC was full of crap when he asserted that salt would poison people if it were sprayed around like RoundUp. And I backed that up by pointing out that we're spraying salt around in massive quantities already (as your first link says, 22 millions tons on the roads each year in the US alone), yet we're not seeing the salt poisoning epidemic he would have us believe would be happening.
Given that nobody claimed a specific figure for salt poisoning, why would you assume he believes anything in particular about that amount? Besides, if we're being nitpicky, Roundup is spread on food products, roads are not food, and thus it's not similar at all.
Doesn't work for you to try to rely on such technicalities, they are easier to use against you.
Your claim, however, was ultimately a rhetorical one, look at all the salt we spread, it's not raising any concerns or complaints.
But it is. Despite your ignorance to it, it is very much a concern.
And I didn't even mention the other prevalence of salt, namely in food itself. There's plenty of concern about that.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/salty-truth-popular-foods-unhealthy-amounts-salt/story?id=30053359
That's actually closer to the point.
Is road salt free from issues? By no means! But those other problems are orthogonal to the discussion at hand.
You're the one who tried to use road salt's lack of issues to make a rhetorical point. That was your free and willing choice.
The thing is...it doesn't actually serve that way as there are lots of concerns about spreading road salt and its impact. You're now trying to dodge around it, but that fails to help you, as it only serves to make your example less pertinent.
If you actually are claiming that road salt is poisoning our kids, give me a link and I'll take a look, since that'd be news to me, but otherwise, it seems a bit premature to suggest that I have egg on my face.
You said "You don't hear anyone complaining that we're poisoning our children when we're de-icing the roads, do you?" and the fact that there are complaints shows your example was faulty rhetoric.
You're just trying to dig yourself out of a hole you dug yourself. Getting down into the mud with a reliance on technicality won't help either.
You should just stop with the rhetoric, and try a real method of persuasion, it'll be better for all concerned.
It's just like Mitt Romney, making comparisons about the size of the US Navy, or the Air Force, to irrelevant historical points. He'd have been better off articulating a real grievance.