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.

Comments

GMO itself isn't the problem. Its how its used

[Jailbrekr]

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.

Re:GMO itself isn't the problem. Its how its used

[Strider-]

The bigger issue is the Intellectual Property issues associated with the GMO crops. As part of the license agreements that come with the GMO seeds, Farmers are no longer permitted to keep behind a portion of their crop to plant the following year, should they wish, and are thus forced to buy new seed every year. Yeah, it may be profitable in the good times, but it dramatically reduces their self-sufficiency.

Re:GMO itself isn't the problem. Its how its used

[Pharmboy]

That is the real problem, and why some 3rd world countries won't use them. You become a slave to Monsanto. If you are willing, and you can make good money, then fine: you are a well compensated slave, but a slave nonetheless.

Re:GMO itself isn't the problem. Its how its used

[Copid]

That's nothing new, though. Seed license agreements long predate modern transgenics and farmers go along with them for a lot of reasons. Keeping seeds is not as common as most people think. Very often, the traits that they want don't breed true anyway, so your next generation is a total mess. Just buying seeds every year gives you a consistent product with consistent yields without a lot of headache. Obviously, whether you can save seeds depends on the type of crop you're growing, but if seed saving was really a big thing across the board, seed companies would have been out of business a long time ago.

Re:GMO itself isn't the problem. Its how its used

[Crashmarik]

So it's OK to do fraudulent science as long as it furthers your agenda ?

Why not skip the science and leave it safe. Just go straight to rent a mobs shouting down anyone that disagrees.

Re:GMO itself isn't the problem. Its how its used

[Copid]

Yeah, that's not actually anywhere near any case that has ever happened.

Re:GMO itself isn't the problem. Its how its used

[Crashmarik]

Unless you live off the grid, grow your own food, and somehow don't pay taxes on your dwelling, you are most definitely a slave to someone.

Re:GMO itself isn't the problem. Its how its used

[CayceeDee]

As part of the license agreements that come with the GMO seeds, Farmers are no longer permitted to keep behind a portion of their crop to plant the following year, should they wish, and are thus forced to buy new seed every year.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Another myth spread by the organic foods industry. Top Five Myths Of Genetically Modified Seeds, Busted
Myth 1: Seeds from GMOs are sterile.
Myth 2: Monsanto will sue you for growing their patented GMOs if traces of those GMOs entered your fields through wind-blown pollen.
Myth 3: Any contamination with GMOs makes organic food non-organic.
Myth 4: Before Monsanto got in the way, farmers typically saved their seeds and re-used them. By the time Monsanto got into the seed business, most farmers in the U.S. and Europe were already relying on seed that they bought every year from older seed companies. This is especially true of corn farmers, who've been growing almost exclusively commercial hybrids for more than half a century. (If you re-plant seeds from hybrids, you get a mixture of inferior varieties.) But even soybean and cotton farmers who don't grow hybrids were moving in that direction. This shift started with the rise of commercial seed companies, not the advent of genetic engineering. But Monsanto and GMOs certainly accelerated the trend drastically.
Myth 5: Most seeds these days are genetically modified.

Re:GMO itself isn't the problem. Its how its used

[ArmoredDragon]

The issue has never been about GMO itself

That's not what Greenpeace says:

http://www.greenpeace.org/inte...

Which by the way, greenpeace is completely wrong about this issue. In fact, you ought to read the history about their opposition of Bt spliced plants. First their argument was that GMO plants contain too much Bt, but then when it was found that conventional plants are sprayed with an even higher quantity of Bt, their argument suddenly turned into GMO plants don't have enough Bt, even though the amount they have has been proven to be equally effective.

If Greenpeace was truly an environmentalist organization instead of the anti-science one they've become over the last few decades (and similarly why Patrick Moore, a co-founder, left them) they'd be in favor of GMO as it is already solving some environmental problems (namely, higher crop yield for the same landmass and needing less water) and has the potential to solve many more.

Anyways there are a lot of other organization opposed to GMO technology (and for similar nonsensical reasons.)

I don't care one way or another about Monsanto, by the way. When I speak about GMO, I'm referring entirely to the technology itself, which has great potential.

Re:GMO itself isn't the problem. Its how its used

[Galactic Dominator]

The issue has never been about GMO itself

Of course it has insomuch as any other thing which is beyond their immediate comprehension. There are oodles of people who will not consume food cooked on a non-stick skillet, yet go to a quack chiropractor believing the chiropractor cured them of MS using a foot bath. Others will spend their life savings investing in things like oil extracts believing it will prevent/cure things like nearsightedness and pretty much any other malady or the fake African currency years before the Internet became widespread. Still others have their sickly elderly parents drink silver water "for good health" and this on the heels of sending them to ER because they took St. John's wort(from the same child) in conjunction with HBP. Some claim to know people who were assassinated by the government because they knew the secret to make gasoline engines 100x more efficient. Others think the moon landing was a hoax. These are only examples from within my own extended family and I haven't even gotten to the crazy shit yet. Anyone else heard the "Obama is hoarding .22 rounds"? GMO is just another one these things.

People who are susceptible to conspiracy theories need no reason other than they don't understand it so it must be bad. And there is no need for them to understand it, as they see it -- poison in, poison out. Period. These people have already condemned themselves to perpetual indentured servitude and I have long ago given up on any hope of trying to use logic with them.

Re:GMO itself isn't the problem. Its how its used

[ArmoredDragon]

That is the real problem, and why some 3rd world countries won't use them. You become a slave to Monsanto. If you are willing, and you can make good money, then fine: you are a well compensated slave, but a slave nonetheless.

This is about as dumb as saying that if you use personal computers, you're a slave to Microsoft. And no, this isn't why third world countries don't use GMO technology; they don't use it because their politicians have been influenced by anti-science organizations like Greenpeace (which by the way, India has just revoked Greenpeace's ability to operate as a nonprofit in that country because of their anti-development agenda.)

Re:GMO itself isn't the problem. Its how its used

[Cyberax]

Monsanto patents on RoundUp resistance have expired. There are now several over competing companies providing these seeds.

Re:GMO itself isn't the problem. Its how its used

[ArmoredDragon]

Not only that, but he's trying to use FUD to fight the technology. Monsanto's patents on roundup ready seeds expired last year:

http://www.technologyreview.co...

Re:GMO itself isn't the problem. Its how its used

[ArmoredDragon]

Well that guy mentioned in the Wikipedia article is free to do it now because the patents have expired:

http://www.technologyreview.co...

Re:GMO itself isn't the problem. Its how its used

[Copid]

I have no idea why people use Schmeiser as a poster boy for Monsanto abuse. He's a poster boy for exactly the sort of thing IP protection exists to prevent, not an innocent victim. He intentionally isolated the small percentage of hybrids he found on his property and created his own unlicensed field of Roundup Ready crops. He admitted as much in court and the courts found him to be completely in the wrong. He was nowhere near being an accidental victim of uncontrolled cross-pollination. Actual incidental cross pollination doesn't result in 95% of 1000+ acres carrying the Roundup Ready trait.

Interesting thing to note: All of the anti-GMO web sites post their summary of the Schmeiser story, but none of them that I've found link back to the court documents that actually describe what happened. Monsanto's own web site links to the primary sources. What does that tell you about who is blowing smoke?

Re:GMO itself isn't the problem. Its how its used

[pipingguy]

"I have no idea why people use Schmeiser as a poster boy for Monsanto abuse."

Because people remember the headline and the soundbyte, and the plural of these is "fact".

Re:GMO itself isn't the problem. Its how its used

[ArmoredDragon]

The point is valid, if you use a computer to for you livelyhood, aka you die if you don't use it and Microsoft is the only supplier you can use, then yes you are a slave to Microsoft.

So what are you saying? We should throw out all of the benefits of personal computers, and go back to manually written spreadsheets and typewriters, because of Microsoft? Because that's effectively what you're arguing should be done about GMO technology, and for the same bad reasoning.

Oh and by the way, did I mention that Monsanto's patents have expired?

http://www.technologyreview.co...

Re:GMO itself isn't the problem. Its how its used

[ChromeAeonium]

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.

And how, exactly, are they doing that? What your are implying is not true at all. Farmers are free to buy whatever seed they liked, or save their own.

The issue has never been about GMO itself,

The opposition to genetic engineering started with the first one on the market, the Flavr Savr tomato, which had better shelf life due to a silenced polygalacturonase gene. This continued onto Bt corn, which is insect resistant and the Rainbow papaya, which was disease resistant, and now on to things like the low acrylamide Innate potato and non-browning Arctic apples, and even extends to things like vitamin A enriched Golden Rice. The only thing those have in common is the fact that they are all GE. Saying the GMO controversy is not about genetic engineering itself is disingenuous at best.

its when you use it to introduce resistance to toxic chemicals that you start to have a real problem.

First off, if true, explain why there is no controversy over conventionally bred crops like the Clearfield wheat and sunflower lines that to do the same thing? Yep, that's right, conventional breeding is used to do exactly what you just mentioned, and nobody cares or makes a fuss, probably because of how few people are really aware of any basic aspects of agriculture. Second, explain your alternative weed control method. The reason farmers do this is because, before, you'd have to have a certain number of pre- and post- emergent herbicides, a god number of which are worse than glyphosate (the main but not only one GE crops are resistant to, there's also the Liberty system which uses glufosinate) possibly combined with soil-eroding tillage, to control weeds. Now you've got a simpler system, with less toxic herbicides, and somehow that's a bad thing. Okay, fair enough, what do you suggest as a superior alternative to control weed control, baring in mind that weed control is not optional?

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.

That's very wrong. Like I said, the herbicide resistance systems are not about brute forcing things. You've got a plant producing a bacterial form of the enzyme inhibited by the herbicide (in glyphosate's case; glufosinate and glufosinate resistance have a different mode of action). This does not imply you get to 'douse' things in it; that's a bullshit anti-GE talking point. And if you do the EPA will be up your ass soon enough if you get caught. And it certainly doesn't stop a farmer from switching to another system the next year; in fact, switching is encouraged as it mitigates the emergence of herbicide tolerant weeds.

Your view is very common, and it is easy to see why it is a common view, but it is very wrong and very disconnected from actual agriculture.

Re:GMO itself isn't the problem. Its how its used

[Copid]

Well, they clearly understood the reason why IP might be important. They understood the value of agriculture (Jefferson, in particular, was hardcore into ag research himself). When they wrote about "Science and Useful Arts" in the Constitution, I doubt they meant, "everything except agriculture" considering that they were writing a constitution for an agrarian society. At the time, increased farm yields were up there on the list of things everybody wanted right below "getting into heaven" and "not having your kids die."

Given all that, I think they might at least give a passing nod to the idea that something that has so much potential to improve agriculture is worth the trade off that Percy Schemeiser doesn't get to skip out on licensing fees for stuff he intentionally copied. They might not all agree, but I think that at least some of them wouldn't be satisfied by the, "On my own land!" argument.

Re:FUD

[bloodhawk]

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?

Re:Fraud Detected In Headline?

[climb_no_fear]

According to wikipedia: fraud is deliberate deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain

In the article, it says " under scrutiny for alleged data manipulation". In addition, since the article states that "these papers have been used politically" (the potential gain), it sounds like they they are investigating potential fraud to me.

Oh really?

[tomhath]

Then why are people opposed to GMO crops? If you disagree with some corporation's tactics then oppose that, don't oppose GMO crops.

Re: FUD

[ArmoredDragon]

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.

return to reality, please

[ooloorie]

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),

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.

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

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".

Re:return to reality, please

[Cyberax]

And mustard is an insecticide. See the "-cide" suffix? Why are you eating toxic stuff??!?

Re:return to reality, please

[Copid]

And onions are deadly to dogs! Why do you hate America, onion eaters???

I find the GMO safety question itself meaningless.

[hey!]

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.

Re:The most serious potential problem with GMO

[Copid]

The same thing is true of hybrids as well, though. You never know when you're going to get something unexpected. But for some reason we treat "traditional" breeding like hybridization and the intentional creation of mutants as doing God's work and direct genetic modification as the thing that will kill us all. The wisdom of creating a novel organism depends entirely on the properties of that organism, not on how you created it.

Even an indirect cause is still a cause.

[dsmatthews9379]

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.

Re:Even an indirect cause is still a cause.

[Cyberax]

GMOs are actually evaluated for safety with animal and human studies. Yet any Joe Shmuck can go and create a genuinely toxic potato cultivar using purely classic selective breeding and then sell it as "100% organic.

And that actually HAS HAPPENED in the past: http://boingboing.net/2013/03/... !

Re: FUD

[ewibble]

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.

Who can blame anyone for being anti-GM?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Who can blame anyone for being anti-GM?

[Dorianny]

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.

When the majority of products on supermarkets shelves contain GMO's why in the world does it make sense to label those as GMO, when you can simply label the few that don't as GMO Free

Re:Science winds up requiring faith.

[TapeCutter]

Indeed "faith" is part of the philosophy of Science - The faith that the real world exists outside of our individual experience, ie: there's a "reality" that we can observe and agree about what we observe, it's not just a figment of our imagination. Unlike many other "ways of thinking" science does not require blind faith, nor does it claim "the truth", but if history is any kind of judge, it does offer an increasingly accurate approximation to it.

Re: FUD

[ArmoredDragon]

There is reasonable grounds to be skeptical of GMOs on economic grounds.

No, there's not.

http://www.technologyreview.co...

Re: FUD

[ArmoredDragon]

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.

Re: FUD

[Copid]

So butteflys didn't actually die fro BT crops?

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.

Bees are not sick?

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?

The roundup resistant crops are not causing other crops to die in Argentina?

I don't know what this claim maps back to, but the answer is almost certainly that no, they are not.

Re: FUD

[Copid]

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.

Re: FUD

[ArmoredDragon]

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.

Re: FUD

[ewibble]

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.

Re:Fraud Detected In Headline?

[Dcnjoe60]

If they altered data in an intentionally misleading way, they're fraudsters regardless of why they did it. As for personal gain, having a political agenda may not qualify as personal gain, but it's still a reason to commit fraud. Absent that, being able to publish something that gets a lot of attention may be enough. Publishing widely cited articles is a big deal in the research biz.

I agree with what you are saying, but that doesn't mean that the researchers in question committed the crime of fraud. If they fabricated data, that is definitely wrong, but not necessarily fraudulent. Regardless, fraud would need to be proven in a court and not on slashdot.

Re: FUD

[Copid]

The label on Roundup is terrifying indeed:

ROUNDUP ORIGINAL herbicide is no more than slightly toxic based on toxicity studies. No significant adverse health effects are expected to develop if only small amounts (less than a mouthful) are swallowed. Ingestion of similar formulations has been reported to produce gastrointestinal discomfort with irritation of the mouth, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Oral ingestion of large quantities of one similar product has been reported to result in hypotension and lung edema.

With an LD50 more than half that of table salt, we should all be very careful.

Re: FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Chipotle does, but only GMO-free E. coli.

Re:Fraud Detected In Headline?

[Copid]

I don't think people are talking about the crime of fraud in this context. I think they're referring to academic fraud. All the evidence points to this being a pretty serious case of academic fraud.

Re: FUD

[cat_jesus]

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.

Re: FUD

[ArmoredDragon]

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.

Re:"Science" used to Pushed an Agenda??

[Ol Olsoc]

No Way!!!!!

No, Science found out that fraud was fraud. Science was just doing it's job.

Re: FUD

[Ol Olsoc]

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?

Re: FUD

[Ol Olsoc]

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

Re: FUD

[ChromeAeonium]

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.

Re: FUD

[Dog-Cow]

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.

Re: FUD

[ChromeAeonium]

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.

Re:Fraud Detected In Headline?

[Copid]

There are allusions to fraud but no evidence: "sections of images of electrophoresis gels appeared to have been obliterated, and some of the images in different papers appeared to be identical but with captions describing different experiments" -Nature.com

Allusions to fraud but no evidence? Did we read the same set of articles? From Nature:

Tommaso Russo, a molecular biologist at the University of Naples who is responsible for coordinating the investigation, told Nature that the committee has found that the papers contain intentional data manipulation.

and

On 14 January, Bucci posted online his analysis of the papers under investigation, as well as of four more papers on GM feed co-authored by Infascelli, and a PhD thesis from Infascelli’s lab. The analysis claims evidence for image manipulation in all eight papers. Bucci has informed the rector and Infascelli of his findings.

At best, we're looking at somebody who is phenomenally sloppy, but even that's a hard argument to make, and it would really only explain mislabeled images. What's the valid reason for editing gel images? And if there was a valid reason, wouldn't the authors have mentioned it in their defence (or better yet, in the papers themselves) rather than apparently denying that the images were edited?

Re:Fraud Detected In Headline?

[Copid]

He's commenting on leaked allegations of a confidential investigation that "suggest that images in the papers may have been intentionally altered" -- this isn't evidence of anything.

No, I suppose not. It's just the word that the committee that examined the evidence decided that the images had been manipulated. It could be evidence that the committee is a bunch of idiots or that they have an agenda. But is that really what you want to hang your hat on? The findings are coming out in a few weeks, so your complaint seems to be that we're getting a sneak peek and it could be a total rumor.

He "commissioned" a lab to give him a report on the papers, and then posted his "analysis"/"claims" on the Internet -- again this isn't anywhere near evidence of something.

Can you provide me a definition of "evidence" that somehow excludes the analysis of images that are available for all of us to look at and draw conclusions from? Would that definition of "evidence" exclude things like DNA on a murder weapon or an investigator observing that a door appeared to have been kicked in?

And what's up with "commissioned" and "analysis" being scare quotes? He had an analysis done on the images and they found that they were most likely manipulated. And based on the actual images that were posted to the Internet, they look pretty damned manipulated. If this isn't at least "evidence" that suggests the images were manipulated, I have to wonder if we're both speaking the same language.

Your argument seems to be that he didn't provide evidence, just stuff for us to look at and an argument that that stuff points to certain conclusions. Facts, schmacts. You can use facts to prove anything that's remotely true!

Re:Fraud Detected In Headline?

[Copid]

I don't know why the organizer is misrepresenting the report, or why he organized the thing in the first place.

So your contention is that the organizer of the report is lying to us about what's in the report, and you're basing it on the fact that Nature's summary of it is written in the journalistic neutral tone? What evidence do you have of misrepresentation? There's a whole bunch of stuff going on here, and none of it is as arbitrary as you're trying to make it appear:

1) Independent scientist finds images in the papers suspicious and commissions an expert to investigate them. Expert says it appears images were reused and manipulated.
2) The author's university starts an investigation. The person coordinating that investigation leaks the results early and says they found manipulation. This is the part you're asserting is a lie. I have no idea why you think so.
3) Investigator from (1) posts his analysis online for people to look at. You're discounting his analysis and the posted images because... it's on the Internet or something like that. Presumably if the images weren't on the Internet, the claims would be untrustworthy because they weren't available for scrutiny.

On the second point, maybe it'll take more to convince me than a personal internet post from someone who claims he found evidence.

This isn't some random guy with no credentials claiming something on his own authority. This is somebody with real expertise posting his claim and the evidence that supports his claim. This isn't, "Trust me, they're manipulated." It's, "Look at this here!"

Notice Nature is being careful to not say they think the images have or not been manipulated.

That's not surprising. It's exactly what every publication writes about preliminary results of investigations of people doing bad things. The serial killer is always the "alleged" serial killer. That doesn't mean there's no evidence. It just means the findings are preliminary or that nothing has been proven in a court of law. You can still actually look at the evidence and make a decision rather than simply asserting that the evidence doesn't exist.

Question: If I asked you before this came out, "What's the probability that this journal article is fraudulent?" and you had to decide on a probability based on nothing, would your estimate have been the same as if I asked you today? Mine certainly would have changed, and that conclusion would be based on evidence.