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Genetically Modified Crops Are Safe, Report Says (nbcnews.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: Genetically modified crops on the market are not only safe, but appear to be good for people and the environment, experts determined in a report released Tuesday. "The committee delved into the relevant literature, heard from 80 diverse speakers, and read more than 700 comments from members of the public to broaden its understanding of issues surrounding GE crops," the report reads. Panel members read more than 900 reports. A lot of concern centered on health effects. The committee determined the following: there is no evidence of large-scale health effects on people from genetically modified foods; there is some evidence that crops genetically engineered to resist bugs have benefited people by reducing cases of insecticide poisoning; genetically engineered crops to benefit human health, such as those altered to produce more vitamin A, can reduce blindness and deaths due to vitamin A deficiency; using insect-resistant or herbicide-resistant crops did not damage plant or insect diversity and in some cases increased the diversity of insects; sometimes the added genes do leak out to nearby plants -- a process called gene flow -- but there is no evidence it has caused harm; in general, farmers who use GM soybean, cotton, and corn make more money but it does depend on how bad pests are and farming practices; GM crops do reduce losses to pests, and if farmers use insect-resistant crops but don't take enough care, sometimes pest insects develop resistance. The National Academics of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have put the evidence up on a website for skeptics of the report. The report also includes a 'Summarized Comments Received from Members of the Public' section for people to look up the facts to answer their concerns.
There are people today who are concerned that there is DNA in their food. They will not believe this report any more than the people who think global warming is a lie or that the creationist 'museum' is factual..
The issue of GMO food has passed rational debate and entered into religious fervor. Some silly report isn't going to change a thing.
No self-respecting member of The Church of the All Natural Plant Food would EVER stoop to disbelief in a report about The Great Satan GMO!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
It says it's from NBC News, but it reads like the opening speech at the annual Monsanto company picnic.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
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Do they say who financed the report ?
Who are the scientists that wrote the report ?
Full disclosure guys, full disclosure.
If it ends up being financed by Monsanto or written by scientists financed by big agro double lol.
The report really knocks the value of GMOs as begin completely over blown and of little value. Further, the report points to many unresolved ares of substantial risk.
Beyond that, people think if you eat genetically modified RNA, it will get into YOUR DNA.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
As I understand, it's pretty much consensus that more pesticides equals to less bees.... or am I totally wrong?
I don't doubt that GM crops are safe. But what about the dirty tricks companies play, such as patenting a gene sequence? Or writing contracts that forbid farmers from harvesting seed, forcing them to buy new seed each time? Or deliberately modifying the genome so the plants are fine with respect to food, but don't produce viable seeds?
Are those things really in society's interest?
If natural is better how come it's better to live in a man made house than a cave or a tree? If natural is better how come poisonous mushrooms, ivy, and hemlock will kill you? GMO is safe, people eat natural food and die. How did people die 100 years ago before there was any GMO? Actually if we hadn't used our instincts and brains to develop technology such as plant hybridization thousands of years ago humans would probably be extinct like most of the other species that existed on the planet. Without our ability to make things and to modify natural stuff we would be dead. GMO is safe, I have been eating GMO tomatoes and other stuff for decades and I am not dead yet. Obviously there is a way to eat GMO and not die. Just because you don't know every possible ramifications of something doesn't mean it isn't safe. You don't know every possible outcome of driving on the highway yet you do it. How can you be sure a drunk driver won't get you?
Cancer research has been casting doubt on the safety of roundup (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/roundup-ingredient-probably-carcinogenic-humans/). There is a huge interest in burying the dangers being discovered. The most common GMOs are those modified to work with roundup.
I liked the part of the report which stated that people who eat GMO foods are better looking, make more money, and have sex with supermodels far more often than their non-GMO-eating counterparts.
#DeleteChrome
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Do they say who financed the report ? Who are the scientists that wrote the report ? Full disclosure guys, full disclosure.
If it ends up being financed by Monsanto or written by scientists financed by big agro double lol.
Go to the website and do your own research.
"And Gould said all the vested interests are revealed on the website. "They can look to see if something we reference is funded by industry," he said.
It's from the National Academy of sciences, so you are in denialist class denial if you don't give it some credence.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The report was done by the National Academics of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine which is non-profit research organization. And they posted all of the findings on the Internet along with a summary of the public submitted comments and information on the researchers who created the report. How much more can they disclose? And just because the report may benefit the companies that develop genetically modified crops that doesn't mean the reported findings are false or misleading. In this case you have already made up your mind that the agro companies are evil and no amount of evidence will make you change your position.
Now they are "skeptics". How about they get to be called genetics "deniers"?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Just throwing this out there if anyone's interested. I thought The Windup Girl was a pretty good (YA) dystopian biopunk story by Paolo Bacigalupi set in the 23rd century after GMO farming and global warming have taken their tolls. Heard his following book, Ship Breaker was good too, but haven't read it.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
The only POSSIBLE reason you could have for not labeling is that you don't want people to have the ability to make an informed decision.
This is a non-problem, because it is already perfectly legal to label non-GMO food, and thousands of products are already labeled "GMO Free" or "Organic" (which implies non-GMO). Anyone who wants to avoid GMO foods already has the information available to do so.
I find it interesting, how when what has been identified conclusively as "science denier" criticism in the past, one of the "Tells" of it being science deniers doing the criticism is the people and the expertise of the people doing the criticism have some red flags. They are (not an extensive list, but enough to raise an eyebrow)
1- They use the same tactics used by tobacco companies to spread the argument that there is a 50/50 debate amongst experts, when there is a strong consensus. they say things like "there is no conclusive evidence that cigarettes cause cancer" for example or "there is no conclusive evidence that global warming is occurring".
2- The people providing the criticism, are not experts in the field that they are commenting upon, and interestingly they have more political and public relations backgrounds rather than scientific backgrounds on the subjects that they are commenting on. This is compounded by the fact that they over report the numbers of the "scientists" that support their positions. The bottom line is that in these cases of "skeptics" as they call themselves or "science deniers" as everyone else calls them, the positions are being taken and reported and referenced by the same hand full of "experts" in the news media. This means that there are a few people who are saying that their skepticism is representative of a much larger number of experts than it is.
3- The real clincher is that in the cases of science denier reporting and criticism, The same hand full of "skeptics" are popping up and representing themselves as a majority of science skeptics when, they are the same small group of people that popped up before and were spreading FUD about the consensuses that are accepted now by 90% of scientists across the world about (again not an extensive list but enough to spread a lot of doubt about their integrity) Denial that tobacco is a major cause of cancer, that global warming is occurring and is conclusively connected to carbon emissions from fossil fuel usage, denial about the consensus on cancers being caused by dioxin and flame retardant chemicals used in consumer products and denial about the conclusive nature of the science on high carbohydrate consumption through added high fructose corn syrup in sodas and food products being a major causal factor in obesity, heart disease and type 2 diabetes epidemics since the 1970s.
I think the reason these same people pop up on Fox news and CNN to report about the false "debates" on these issues is because they have a track record of arguing and spreading FUD to confuse the issue when conclusive science is reported to the public.. and they do this (judging by their actions not their words) because they have been paid to by industries, based on their expertise of arguing and spreading false doubt, all the way back to the days of spreading FUD about the conclusive science on the cancer causing nature of tobacco products on the behalf of tobacco companies.
Just watch.. if these same people pop up and say that there is no consensus when there is.. you can bet someone with a lot of money somewhere paid them to make up their same bullshit arguments and spread "science denier" brands of "Skepticism" when the science has been done and points in a direction their corporate masters do not like.
Another tell about these types that is pretty damning is how they try to shift the argument from scientific evidence to the argument being about "Freedom" . "You want freedom to smoke if you want to?" or "You want freedom to drive and support the economy?" or " You want freedom to have a house that won't burn down form a carelessly discarded cigarette?" The freedom to do these things was never up for debate, just the argument that the scientific consensus was that these things are or are not harmful. When they try to shift the argument to an argument about freedom.. it is a tell that they are just spreading FUD.
I suspect the same thing is going to happen here about the safety of GMO products. We will see. We do have quite a lot of experience what happens when science conclusively proves something and industry hires shills to try to shift public opinion with tactic that are less than honest.
I don't doubt that GM crops are safe. But what about the dirty tricks companies play, such as patenting a gene sequence? Or writing contracts that forbid farmers from harvesting seed, forcing them to buy new seed each time? Or deliberately modifying the genome so the plants are fine with respect to food, but don't produce viable seeds?
Are those things really in society's interest?
Sometimes.
And they're not all "dirty tricks," although some of them are really, deeply inappropriate.
Big companies that spend billions on research legitimately should be able to patent their discoveries for a while in order to fund the research. That's the whole idea of patents. The case law on patentable subject matter is a real mess at best, and more realistically is intellectually dishonest. (More out of frustration with the existing rules than out of any real intent to be evil.)
The contracts are perfectly fine when there is competition--the problem arises when one company has too much market power and abuses it, creating contracts of adhesion in an anti-trust monopolistic way.
As to modifying the plants so they don't produce viable seeds, the LAST thing we want is lots of GMO activity where the plants have the potential to reproduce on their own. Bioengineering is a field of incredible potential and incredible danger. It may give us the opportunity to grow new trees that can handle our warmed planet--but it also risks creating invasive species that never existed in nature.
Real lawyers write in C++
In this case you have already made up your mind that the agro companies are evil and no amount of evidence will make you change your position.
I've made up my mind, agro companies want to make money over everything else. Generally it is easier to make money being evil. Good requires work and other people being good to create more wealth. .
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I first read this as "Genetically Modified Cops Are Safe, Report Says", which would have made for a much more interesting article.
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
So they've determined that selling GMO plants doesn't lead to increased monopoly control over the food supply?
That's my primary objection. I'm hard to convince on the other points, but I know myself well enough to realize that this is mainly because nothing has altered my main grounds for opposition: monopoly control over the food supply. I could be convinced that chemical pesticides are safe...it would take better evidence than I've seen, but it could be done. However this wouldn't change my opposition to GMO foods unless it could be shown that they didn't lead to increased monopoly control.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Can we extend the definition of "astro-turfing" to this kind of thing?
It rings true on several levels.
Humans selecting for specific genes through breeding is not the same thing as genetic modification any more than predators putting selective pressure on a population is—unless, of course, you can show me how I would naturally cause a frog to mate with a corn stalk and produce interesting results.
The thing is, saying that GMO foods are "safe" is nonsensical. That's like saying that cars are safe. That can be true for every car built today, and then someone can resurrect the Pinto design or whatever. The problem with GMO foods is not that they aren't safe, but rather that companies are arbitrarily mucking with genes in ways that we don't fully understand, with results that we don't fully understand, then unleashing them on an unsuspecting public with little or no scientific testing. So the products today might be safe, but the next product might be a disaster waiting to happen, and we might not even know about the damage until suddenly there's a huge uptick in colon cancer rates or heart disease or breast cancer after thirty years that correlates with areas where they consumed a particular GMO crop.
IMO, the public has a right to know when they're part of a giant science experiment, and that's what this is. Any claims to the contrary are disingenuous at best. People have a right to obtain the information required to judge the risks themselves, and to make decisions based on that judgment. Hiding that information prevents them from making an informed decision.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
And how exactly is resistance to a GMO-produced toxin different from creating resistance to spray-applied pesticides?
In the case of GMOs internally creating Bt toxin, there is no chance of overspray, or spraying too many times, or the spray getting into the groundwater. Not so with a tractor dragging a tank of Tristar around a field. By that definition, GMOs cause far less harm than sprayed pesticides.
If there is an argument about "harm" here, it should be on whether or not pesticides should be legal. It would have nothing to do with GMOs.
John
This report according to Monsanto and funded by the large farming conglomerates.
Dude artificial selection and hybridization is also doing things we don't fully understand. It's not throwing gens around haphazardly scientific understanding about biology and genetics is quite advanced. That aside, we don't understand the laws of physics fully, yet we build bridges based on mechanics. The Romans built the aqueducts using granite without even understanding the atomic theory. Just because something may present an unknown risk doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. What if Queen Isabella of Spain feared that Columbus would encounter a dragon that would have followed him back to Europe when he found America. GMO is safe. Fucking around with genetics, which happens randomly in nature anyway is safe. If it's not, then we will find out about it and make it safer.
Easy enough: that's in the report's FAQ: http://nas-sites.org/ge-crops/...
"Who is sponsoring this study?
The study is sponsored by the New Venture Fund, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the National Academy of Sciences."
I don't see a lot of evil, conspiring corporations in that list. I also don't see people who want to prove their version, either. I see people and organizations who have a genuine interest in food safety, and who really want to know if GMOs are safe or not. They arrived at a conclusion based on facts, not on desires. And the facts are that current GMOs are safe.
If they didn't arrive at your personally preconceived results, it's probably because your biases came from non-scientific sources. You should closely examine the sources where you get your "news", as they aren't exactly proving themselves trustworthy here.
John
...the label would be useless. GMO is too broad a term and...
But people want to know. (period)
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
How does a GMO crop cause cancer? We know that tobacco has carcinogenic chemicals too numerous to list that induce mutations.
There is no science to backup any claims about GMO foods causing cancer or any other disease. Most of you GMO nuts refuse to learn anything about genetics, proteins, or molecular biology.
huh...
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Glyphosate, a consequence of GMO modified crops is in people's urine and mothers milk, worst of all in BEER!!!!
And it has "probably" no effect on human's health, not even thinking about the whole soup of endocrine disruptors messing up our bodies or the compound effect of all the goodies additions feeding us so well taken together.
Interesting the timings of those - does no harm - reports coming out - Glyphosate is due for renewal in the EU in July (or so).
When was this trans-fat goodie discovered and put to use? 1800's, right and how long did it take to show adverse effects recognized and get it shut down?
Building blocks of DNA (what they are using to spice the crop's DNA is probably a secret) are swapped between organisms and that process is far from fully researched.
Round-Up-Ready DNA is taken in by weeds and yoii, are they putting it to use. Next is stronger and more complex poisons...
The underlying issues - profit and growth the only criteria, unlimited population growth in a limited environment is too hot a potato to be touched by a politician dependent on "sponsors", if it's even recognized by those conditioned brains convinced that all is OK, gods will or things are just not true...
All-together, just one big Yuck! Fish are dying - can't breath any more.... no more "thanks for all the fish"...
Really I have never seen that. Usually the antiGMO freaks I have encountered are anti vaccine too. I haven't done am proper survey though.
Where's that study so we can critique it?
It's impossible to say walking outside is safe. A meteorite might hit you or a bird may sh*t on your face.
This is a non-problem, because it is already perfectly legal to label non-GMO food, and thousands of products are already labeled "GMO Free" or "Organic" (which implies non-GMO). Anyone who wants to avoid GMO foods already has the information available to do so.
Not entirely true. Soy lecithin and corn starch are excluded from the list of GMO ingredients for "USDA Organic". You can have up to 5% of these GMO ingredients and it can still be stamped with "USDA Organic".
And other "organic" marks are not subject to much control at all.
The problem isn't whether those 5% are safe to eat or not, but that I will give money to those who experiment with genetic modifications; something I don't think we are quite ready to do safely yet. Companies that accept a risk for an experiment gone bad escaping or affecting other flora and fauna, on behalf of all of us, and with no chance to put the genie back into the bottle, that is not what I want to reward with my money.
One day in the future, when we have better understanding of what we do, but right now it's at the stage of "let's see what happens".
Whether what happened so far is good or not doesn't mean I think it's a good idea. Not yet. And especially not privatized, by companies without means to clean up a world wide contamination should it occur.
Since the companies are aggro, they may not be so much evil as simply belonging to a hostile faction . . .
The fact that the above post was downmodded so fast proves that Monsanto did 9/11.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Those that what to join the grand experiment, feed these Adam Henry's GMO foods and see what happens after about 20 years.
I know agricultural researchers and Monsanto is a regular topic of discussion. The influence of Monsanto is there but it's less direct that funding the meta-study by the National Academy of Sciences. Monsanto funds huge amounts of research at the world's leading agricultural research centres while convincing governments that they don't need to fund so much of the research. The ag research community has become somewhat dependent on them. Maybe a researcher isn't currently working in a department that is partly funded by Monsanto but they may do so in the not too distant future. How many agricultural researchers do you think are left who aren't afraid of publishing papers that would negatively impact Monsanto's share price?
BTW, here's an example of what often happens when someone does actually publish evidence against Monsanto's interests: http://www.nature.com/news/wid...
Such a small fragment of truth you should have at least tried to verity. From a quick Google search the number is more than 140 lawsuits filed by one company (Monsanto) against farmers. This does not include any of the other companies performing genetic modification or licensed by Monsanto to use their seeds and their lawsuits.
The fragment of truth is that one lawsuit made it to the Supreme Court who upheld Monsanto's rights to sue.
The second tiny fragment of truth is that one patent expired. There are hundreds of thousands of seeds on patent.
All that said, when Monsanto goes after a specific farmer even if the patent is expired the claim generally puts farmers out of business.
The problem is not GMO as much as shit business practices who ensure that consumers get fucked because competition does not exist. A pox on all the people modding down anything that can possibly be perceived as anti-GMO.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Given that we've practiced some form of artificial selection for centuries, it is pretty much safe to say that crossing two organisms that produce edible food will almost invariably result in a new organism that produces edible food. Most of the things that we don't know are ecological, e.g. the risks of creating a monoculture that is susceptible to a specific disease that doesn't exist yet. Those issues are certainly cause for concern, but they're unlikely to be a health issue.
By contrast, when manually editing genes, it wouldn't be entirely implausible for someone to accidentally slip a recessive gene sequence into an apple tree seed that, when present in both chromosomes, would cause the production of cyanide. And then in the second generation that isn't supposed to exist, suddenly you have fruit that look normal, but kill people....
Look, I'm not saying that GMO foods are bad, or that they don't provide significant benefits for humanity, particularly when it comes to creating drought-resistant crops that can survive in areas affected by famine, etc. What I'm saying is that no one has the right to force someone else to take unknown risks without that person's knowledge or consent, and deliberately unlabeled GMO foods do just that.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Actually, those vaccines are required by law to identify whether they contain Thiomersal/thimerosal, though there are some sticky edge cases. And if you ask the doctor and the doctor lies to you, that's probably legally actionable.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Yes those evil companies trying to invent ways for humans to produce more and better quality food with less pesticides
One of the type of genetic modifications performed involves modifying the plants so that you could actually use more chemical crap without hurting the produce. Now it may be safe for human consumption but it turns out that it can have unitended consequences for local environment in general. For example, using more herbicides and fertilizer to promote the growth of crops using the latter but preventing weeds from doing the same using the former results in the Gulf of Mexico becoming a eutrophicated, dead zone.
Ezekiel 23:20
I wouldn't worry so much about the safety of GMO food, but the "intellectual property" bullshit involved. What could be the consequences of giving certain few corporations so much power over something as essential as a country's food supply? That's just insane.
Circumcision is child abuse.
I've heard that eating GMOs can alter your DNA, giving you perpetual diarrhea. I guess it's true, diarrhea runs in your genes.
"The NRC has chosen to include numerous scientists who work on promotion or development of genetically engineered (or GMO) crops and who have financial ties to biotech companies, which have an economic and political agenda in this debate."
Maybe the only person here who gets it.
Patent trolls will reproduce like rabbits because of this.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
No you're thinking of Roundup resistant crops.
And no, you'll still use more herbicides and insecticides on "organic" crops.
Why? Lower overall efficacy.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
How much more can they disclose?
Disclosure is good but there is more than that to good science: it needs to be independently peer reviewed. Unfortunately they seem to have avoided going the usual peer-reviewed journal route and have arranged their own reviewers themselves which is unusual. I've also never heard of this group before despite being a physicist who worked in the US for a few years.
That's not to say that the science in the report is wrong it's just when a group you have never heard of publishes it's own report without going through a well known and respected peer reviewed journal which is how science is typically published it raises a few red flags of concern. This could have been largely avoided by publishing the report as a peer reviewed paper.
It's from the National Academy of sciences, so you are in denialist class denial if you don't give it some credence.
I've been over this with the anti-GMO crowd before. There are actually a lot of organizations, ranging from government to nonprofit organizations, that are very much in favor of GMO technology. However each time you list one of them, the anti-GMO crowd comes up with some excuse as for why they're not trustworthy. Here's a list I can name off of the top of my head:
World Health Organization
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
U.S. Academy of Sciences
American Medical Association
American Heart Association (Nifty little tidbit I might add: http://newsroom.heart.org/news... but don't let any anti-GMO people see this or else they'll think the AHA is in on the Monsanto conspiracy as well.)
Girl Scouts of America
The last one in that list is particularly interesting. Why? Because they've been the target of change.org petitions and massive parental protest against what is perhaps their biggest source of income: cookies. And yet still they remain steadfast in their opinion that, indeed, GMO is safe.
And you know what? I happen to agree. I also don't have any financial interest in GMO or any other agriculture, nor do I work for one. In fact I actually work for a major non-profit health care provider. I also happen to believe that GMO will eventually completely solve issues like world hunger and foodborne illness, and possibly even chronic disease as well.
Soy lecithin and corn starch are excluded from the list of GMO ingredients for "USDA Organic".
That makes sense since soy lecithin and corn starch don't contain any DNA. It makes no sense to worry about them being GMO, unless you believe in homeopathy.
First, there's TTIP (where US want to force Europe, which forbids GMO to be sold for human, to change the laws and the sanity laws to buy their products).
Now, there's *this*, made by... US, telling that GMOs are OK and wonderful.
And for those GMOs-are-great-other-people-are-stupid, let me point you to "milk" and see why the Chinese can't drink it in adulthood and we Europeans can.
Now, show me what the GMOs can really do *in the long term*. Ops, you can't. Why?
And last, think, if such intolerance comes from just natural milk, what could happen with GMO? And a last thought, couldn't it be possible that the last increase of milk-intolerant people in the US be related to the consumption of GMOs? (Because the same trend does not happen in Europe and we have immigrants from Asia too).
One of the type of genetic modifications performed involves modifying the plants so that you could actually use more chemical crap without hurting the produce.
That is a misconception. It doesn't enable you to use 'more' herbicide, it enables you to change when and what you use. Instead of a series of pre- and post-emergent herbicides you can have fewer applications of a less harsh herbicide. Ideal? No, but do you have a better weed management strategy?
For example, using more herbicides and fertilizer to promote the growth of crops using the latter but preventing weeds from doing the same using the former results in the Gulf of Mexico becoming a eutrophicated, dead zone.
That's actually the exact opposite of true. Because of herbicide tolerant crops, more and more farmers have switched to no-till systems, and have used herbicide applications instead of tillage for weed control. Thing with tillage is, it helps with weeds, but tears up the soil and contributes to soil degradation and fertilizer runoff, the nitrogen from witch causes eutrophication. If dead zones are your concern, you should be supportive of things that facilitate no-till farming.
This wasn't really a study in a journal; it was a synthesis of many published studies into an over 400 page report. Not exactly the sort of thing to be published in your average journal yeah? And you've really never heard of the National Academy of Sciences?
Do you eat the soil the plants grow in? No? Then what does that have to do with the safety of eating GMO products?
Overall I think GM food could be done well and would be a benefit to society. However, they have been some terrible examples so far. There is a lot of fear of GM foods, but when your body digests food from a GM crop, the DNA is broken down into mononucleotides. The original structure of the DNA is lost and resulting mononucleotides would be the same weather the original food was from a GM and Non-GMsource (because DNA is DNA). I have not heard of, or seen any studies showing any difference at this level. But this is where a lot of the fear-mongering over GM foods reside. For the vast majority of people there should be no adverse impact fromGM foods. If you live in the US and have had corn chips without getting sick, congratulations you are (most likely) living proof that GM foods can be safe for humans. So the DNA is not an issue, but the proteins created by the DNA must also be digested and metabolized and this could be an issue for people with food allergies. People can be deathly alergic to some proteins, e.g. peanuts. This presents a significant problem for GM foods, especially with trans-genic modifications. Trans-genic modifications take a DNA sequence from one species and put in a completely unrelated species. If you were allergic to fish or eggs, it may not be enough to stick to a vegetarian diet. It is possible that a GM crop could use a DNA sequence from a food you are allergic to and put it in a food you would never expect the allergen to occur. Here in the US there is NO labeling requirement and this makes it devilishly hard to trace back from an allergic reaction to the food that actually made you sick. I think it is a good idea to require GM foods to be labled and without labels, I personally think it is reasonable to oppose them outright. I really would love to see a process that allowed consumers to find out a bit more about the GM foods, specifically what species were used for the DNA in the GM food. This would allow people who do have food allergies to protect themselves. But I think this is unlikely in the world of I.P. and trade secrets. The second issue I have with GM crops is the environmental impact caused by certain crops. For example BT corn contains A DNA sequence from the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis which allows the plants to produce a protein lethal to common pest insects. In essence the plant makes it's own insecticide. Some early studies showed that the pollen contained significant quantities of the protein and since corn is wind pollinated the possibility of unintended consequences is substantial. More recent studies have dismissed most of the concerns. Still, I'm hesitant to declare victory because we are seeing a loss of Monarch butterflies and song birds in America. There are surely many contributing factors and the presence of GM crops may not be a direct cause of these losses. However it is quite possible that this is a contributing factor. A similar case can be made for GM crops that make the plants resistant to herbicides. The ecological concerns are harder to prove because the environment does not limit itself to a single cause when producing the effects. But sorting out multiple causes is very hard and so most studies try to reduce complex systems down to simple, repeatable, mechanisms. The one thing that is clear, the law of unintended consequences does not appear to have any difficulty scaling to the level of human activity. As we do more and bigger thing, we get more and bigger consequences. It this keeps up, it may some day be a good idea to choose precaution over profit, but I fear this too is unlikely.
Most of those organizations are pro business growth at any cost, that's why they like GMO and fund research to sell it. The farmers of the world that GMO claims to help are so sick of top down reorganization they will not buy it , its that simple. GMO farming is buying into a system you don't control that will ultimately control you. Notice the careful wording about the situations where pests become resistant, that's because its not magic. If you offer a choice to indiginous farmers (without destroying their land first) they reject it.
[site]
I suppose the fact that these things are tested before seeds are sold is completely lost on you. Do the anti-GMO fuckwads also stay away from modern pharmaceuticals?
When you wrote It's IMPOSSIBLE all of them are safe, did you mean that literally or "literally"? Because it's absolutely possible that they are all safe. Only idiots would say otherwise.
I leave it to the experts to determine the probability that they are all safe...
Your donkey.
the effects of using more and stronger pesticides on the crops, and quenching the soil and groundwater with it, and how Big Farming reins farmers in and keeps them on a leash, like slaves.
And the argument about vitamin A deficiency? How fucking desperate. You make it sound like it's a big problem around the world. The people who are dying from vitamin A deficiency are doing so because they don't have any food to begin with, and with Big Farming working for profit only, refusing to distribute food evenly, your little bit extra vitamin A in your pesticide-laced corn is not going to help anyone.
Was this report also funded by Monsanto, perhaps?
A lot of GM crops are significantly more hardy than the original variants. This means that, if they breed true, then they are going to displace all of the originals and you will end up with a homogeneous group, which is then vulnerable to a single parasite/bacterium. Humans already have a dangerous lack of diversity in our food crops (go and look up the WHO's projections on how many millions would starve to death if wheat production were threatened globally) and GM crops are likely to decrease diversity even more.
The second problem is that many of them don't breed true or, indeed, at all. You must keep buying new seeds from the same company, you can't collect your own seed stock. This means that your food supply becomes entirely dependent on a small number of companies. This is less of a problem for the USA, but the EU spends a lot of money subsidising farmers to ensure that we have an independent food supply and making it dependent on seeds bought from the US seems to counter this quite effectively.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
This is where I get worried:
They left "yet" off the end of that and the rest of their findings. It would be fairer to say, "GM foods are safe at this time so far as we know". How about leaking out of the plant world into ours - is that possible? The idea that we should study the wider impact of unnatural DNA by letting it wander round the environment, then find out what it's up to seems reckless to me.
Since it's so wonderful and safe, you should label it so we will know which foods have it in the supermarket!
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Seriously- if you want to get people to go for GMO, just label it and start selling it for 10% less money. Within 6 months, 99% of the population will be eating it to save money even if it gave them green skin. It's the refusal to label it that is making it an anathema.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
No you're thinking of Roundup resistant crops.
Exactly, but that's an intentional genetic modification.
Ezekiel 23:20
That is a misconception. It doesn't enable you to use 'more' herbicide, it enables you to change when and what you use. Instead of a series of pre- and post-emergent herbicides you can have fewer applications of a less harsh herbicide. Ideal? No, but do you have a better weed management strategy?
I was thinking of robotics. I'm not sure how much this is feasible (including the distant future), but a machine that could mechanically (or electrically, or in some other way) destroy weeds selectively and leave the desired plants alone could perhaps do the trick. (Well, obviously, that's really more of a solution for the distant future.)
That's actually the exact opposite of true. Because of herbicide tolerant crops, more and more farmers have switched to no-till systems, and have used herbicide applications instead of tillage for weed control. Thing with tillage is, it helps with weeds, but tears up the soil and contributes to soil degradation and fertilizer runoff, the nitrogen from witch causes eutrophication. If dead zones are your concern, you should be supportive of things that facilitate no-till farming.
And the increased local concentration of said chemicals is without any side effects of its own?
Ezekiel 23:20
And more of such blah-blah. No word on what / who they really are. No indication that this is a real science organization or an organization of scientists. Also, the URL suggests that the "study" is from 2014.
I'd guess about half the anti-GMO rhetoric I've heard is directly attributable to something Monsanto did or has done. You'd think they had a total monopoly on GMO R&D from what people are saying. Yeah, Monsanto is a big, wriggly bag of cocks, but their behavior shouldn't color the entire field.
That makes sense since soy lecithin and corn starch don't contain any DNA. It makes no sense to worry about them being GMO, unless you believe in homeopathy.
You miss the point. It's not about whether the product differs, chemically, but that people refuse to reward companies that use GMO. Some of us want the products to be GMO free for ideological reasons, and want to be able to vote with our wallets.
It's like buying furniture that's marked with a "sustainable" mark, but they avoid mentioning that the lacquer and glues were made from unsustainable sources because the lacquer and glue is chemically identical.
Or produce marked as "locally grown". If it's mixed with non-locally grown produce, it is a lie even if there's no way to tell the difference.
It's not about the end product; it is about the production.
Monsanto = Bad
GMOs = Good
Monsanto != GMOs
what a fucking croc of shit
financed by Monsanto ?????????????
Go well
Drugs require a long trial, and so should genetically modified food. Why shouldn't we be just as cautious about what we put in our bodies just because it looks like the food we know? Just because we just haven't had something go wrong doesn't mean that it won't.
Because even wheat contains protein, there could be a prion or something that we don't know of, and it could wipe out a good percentage of humanity before we even notice it.
The GM food we already have on the market might even be having effects we aren't considering, because there's no monitoring. It's likely not, but what if celiac disease is caused by GM wheat? It's likely not, but a problem like that is possible, and there's no long term testing on animals or humans of any kind.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
I have two objections to GM crops: biodiversity and lock-in (though they don't both apply to the same crops).
This, this! Not the other alarmist crap, should be the biggest worry with GMO products.
I just want to know what food I'm buying, and make my own informed decisions...what's wrong with that?
We already have ingredients on most prepared foods at the grocery store, we already label seafood with place of origin....why not GMO labeling?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Such a small fragment of truth you should have at least tried to verity. From a quick Google search the number is more than 140 lawsuits filed by one company (Monsanto) against farmers. This does not include any of the other companies performing genetic modification or licensed by Monsanto to use their seeds and their lawsuits.
The fragment of truth is that one lawsuit made it to the Supreme Court who upheld Monsanto's rights to sue.
The second tiny fragment of truth is that one patent expired. There are hundreds of thousands of seeds on patent.
All that said, when Monsanto goes after a specific farmer even if the patent is expired the claim generally puts farmers out of business.
The problem is not GMO as much as shit business practices who ensure that consumers get fucked because competition does not exist. A pox on all the people modding down anything that can possibly be perceived as anti-GMO.
Have you looked at the suits? The only guys Monsanto has brought cases against are those that were using Monsanto seeds without buying them from Monsanto. The very simple problem farmers face is choosing to buy seeds from Monsanto and using Monsanto seeds, or to not use Monsanto seeds. In both those cases, Monsanto is never gonna darken their door with any legal action. The only time Monsanto comes after farmers is when they attempt to use Monstanto seed without buying it from Monsanto.
You're free to disagree with Monstanto's right to do that if you wish, but don't misrepresent the situation by projecting your own biases, Farmers are making their own choices and if they aren't make the choice you think is the right one it's really none of your business.
Most of those organizations are pro business growth at any cost, that's why they like GMO and fund research to sell it.
That, dear sir, is one of the most amazing accusations I've heard in a long time. There are some who would say the opposite.
The farmers of the world that GMO claims to help are so sick of top down reorganization they will not buy it , its that simple.
You seem to think that GMO=Monsanto, and throw all GMO under the bus with Roundup ready seeds. That's really unfortunate, and wrong minded.
GMO farming is buying into a system you don't control that will ultimately control you. Notice the careful wording about the situations where pests become resistant, that's because its not magic. If you offer a choice to indiginous farmers (without destroying their land first) they reject it.
And more of the same. GMO foods, even if you don't buy into my idea that given the inherent nature of sexual reproduction, everything is genetic modification, and we've been doing it manually for a long time. But since a lot of people don't understand genetics, we can narrow it to just modern laboratory based manipulation.
So since anti-GMO kooks are all pissed off at Monsanto - which in itself is not a bad idea, given that they are inadvertently breeding some kickass Roundup resistant weeds - they allow their outrage to extend to fruits and vegetables that have been engineered for better nutrition, longer shelf life, and other very positive aspects that make the produced food actually better in all measurable ways than the base food source.
And even when we don't do it in the lab, we've been doing it since we harvested wheat and corn, selecting for the seeds that stayed on the shafts first by accident, and later by cross breeding for desired characteristics.
And just to be certain, we sometimes created things that were bad for us using this method - enter the Lenape potato: http://boingboing.net/2013/03/...
So in your hatred for Monsanto, and your apparent wish to throw all GM under the bus because of that, do you now want to freeze all genetics in their present form, so that everything stays exactly the same? REduction to absurdit isn't difficult when the basic premise is absurd to begin with.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I also happen to believe that GMO will eventually completely solve issues like world hunger and foodborne illness, and possibly even chronic disease as well.
Indeed - This is the big takeaway from GMO - we have overpopulated the earth, and since we have produced this many people, we have to figure out a way to feed them all.And some of these foods will provide much better nutrition as well, so yeah.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
BTW, here's an example of what often happens when someone does actually publish evidence against Monsanto's interests: http://www.nature.com/news/wid...
You are seeing objections to the claims of round up causing cancer because it's false. The studies showing cancer in mice and rats was when exposing them round up used high doses. In practice, that means that eating round-up is probably carcinogenic, as reported. The trick is, in ag practice, people don't taste test chemical before putting them in a sprayer. After spraying round-up on a crop, it breaks down within days. By the time any crop hits the market, it's nearly impossible to find any trace of it, and that's looking at ppb. The cancer in rats quantity was many, many times higher. For reference, we might wanna measure radioactive isotopes on produce near coal plants too, it's probably at equally worrying levels as round up. That's proper scope of the 'problem'.
The second problem is that many of them don't breed true or, indeed, at all. You must keep buying new seeds from the same company, you can't collect your own seed stock.
Better not eat any apples - a natural food that I've been told has a 1 in 10K chance of seeds from any apple of reproducing true.
This means that your food supply becomes entirely dependent on a small number of companies.
And yet the seed catalogs are full of different varieties, including heirloom varieties that will make for kickass results if you are willing to put in the work. No one is forced to buy Roundup ready seeds. Heck, I've only seen a few in my area that do - certainly many farmers have the breeds vintage posted at the edge of their fields, either as the main or in demo fields.
This is less of a problem for the USA, but the EU spends a lot of money subsidising farmers to ensure that we have an independent food supply and making it dependent on seeds bought from the US seems to counter this quite effectively.
I wonder if the EU today would object to the fine grapes that are living because when their disease prone roots rotted away, were transplanted on to the inferior american rootstocks. They should have stayed pure, and allowed the industry to die out of principle.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
What happens? They deny it in a completely reasonable statement? They didn't kill anyone over it, threaten to sue anyone, or attempt to have the report blocked in any way. What are you trying to suggest?
The science is settled.
Dark Reflection
Safety is a red herring.
When you are talking about GM the technology and whether it should be used, safety is the only consideration that matters, because that is the only unknown (that and effectiveness). Every other consideration is concerned with the industry of agriculture itself and has nothing to do with GM directly.
I have two objections to GM crops: biodiversity and lock-in
Biodiversity was a concern long before GM crops were on the scene. Any kind of controlled breeding and selection of popular varieties (driven by the free market) can create problems with biodiversity. Cavendish bananas are not genetically-modified, and yet they are by far the most widely used cultivar globally. Lock-in is a more valid concern, although the recent Supreme Court decision on the patentability of genes may make it less so. If seed companies can only patent the seeds, but not the actual genetic modifications, it would be the same situation as currently exists with patentable crop varieties where there is plenty of room for free market competition. Of course, the government could also refuse to recognize any patents on food crops. Either way, it is a regulatory problem, not a technology problem.
It's not about cancer. There are many other ways to be harmful to our continued existence.
OGMs that are unable to produce offsprings are very dangerous for the world, and by that I mean humans.
If something goes wrong, we are potentially in big trouble.
_ We need diversity, so a plant do not go the way of the banana of the 50s (and soon, it seems, the current one).
_ If the developper goes belly-up (for any financial, technical, catastrophic reason), the farms cannot produce anymore (starvation)
_ OGMs should be produced in the country/region they are used, for what I believe are obvious strategical reasons. They become a kind of weapon (no production or production of "nasty" strain).
_ If OGMs spread through "normal" cultures, they could infect farms with their copyrighted dead genes, reducing (killing?) the crops and making the already difficult work of farmers even harder.
As for the seeds that do not die in a fixed number of generations, it should be forbidden to lawer-up against farmers having OGM'ed productions. It feels wrong to copyright life. Besides : life evoles, so there are probably a lot of changes at the DNA level between a OGMed seed and its surviving next generation (disclaimer: I'm not a biologist),
Irrelevant news and morons using moderation to mod down what they disagree on. 2018 resolution: so long.
The summary neglected to mention a very important NAS finding: that the use of GMOs has NOT increased the rate of gain in productivity. In that sense, they are contributing nothing.
"eventually"... can't argue with that, because who knows? There are as many reasons to doubt it as to expect it. But for the recent past, no, according to the NAS, GMOs have not accelerated the rate of productivity.
Also, I support the Girl Scouts, but they've made mistakes before, like selling cookies with transfats long after they were known to be detrimental to human health.
Genes mutate all the time, the risk of a toxin being produced by random mutation is probably even worse. Most foreign genes in cells are usually destroyed by proteases or they trigger cell suicide. So just by being able to survive in the cell it already has to pass a number of tests. If it can get produced in a cell without killing it it's probably safe. I mean especially in the case of GMOs that take a gene from one species and put it in another. Stable expression across different species cell lines shows that the protein is non toxic inside the cell of two different species that is actually a remarkable thing. Anyone who has with expressing proteins knows what I am talking about.
Thanks for the attention, I hope your masters pay you well for being a liar.
For the innocent bystander, this is more propaganda. Law suits about "stealing seed" relate to what farmers call "bleed" where plants grow on areas of land which are not farmed and not maintained. At least one of those cases was brought about by the farmer suing Monsanto because their seed started creeping into their land, and Monsanto successfully sued them for patent infringement in retaliation.
There is a very well known revolving door between the highest Federal offices and Big Business, Agriculture is a part of this cronyism.
When businesses behave altruistically they can be treated as such, and I would defend them and their altruism. They don't, so I don't.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Thanks for the attention, I hope your masters pay you well for being a liar.
For the innocent bystander, this is more propaganda. Law suits about "stealing seed" relate to what farmers call "bleed" where plants grow on areas of land which are not farmed and not maintained. At least one of those cases was brought about by the farmer suing Monsanto because their seed started creeping into their land, and Monsanto successfully sued them for patent infringement in retaliation.
There is a very well known revolving door between the highest Federal offices and Big Business, Agriculture is a part of this cronyism.
When businesses behave altruistically they can be treated as such, and I would defend them and their altruism. They don't, so I don't.
Give me a single solitary example and I'll admit I'm wrong.
Percy Schmeiser is the most commonly cited example. He admitted in court he took his own seeded Canola that bordered his neighbours's Monsanto round-up ready crop. He then sprayed his own seed crop with round up, and then took the few surviving plants and used this to grow his own Monsanto seed. That's not 'bleed' over, it's a concerted effort to acquire Monsanto's seed.
Fifteen years ago, China noticed pesticide in U.S. grain shipments.
That pesticide was grown by the GMO crop itself.
The U.S. response was, sorry, that GMO crop was meant for livestock feed only and somehow got in the human supply.
This became a bigger problem because grains all get mixed in storage elevators,
so non-GMO grain effectively became pesticide embedded GMO grain.
One can say GMO crops are usually healthful to eat, but grains can be GMO modified to actually kill people.
You don't want to allow anybody's GMO modification to be sold!
There is a "GMO" modification that presents no problem -- remove genes (rather than add genes).
Nature itself often removes genes.
CRISPR cas9 technology, arising from bacteria's defense against viruses, can selectively remove genes.
This was done with button mushrooms, removing a gene that created ethane, so those mushrooms don't get slimy and brown as quickly.
Yum.
Why do animals avoid GMO foods when put side-by-side with non-GMO? In tests with wild birds they put plates of GMO-grain and non-GMO grain side-by-side. The GMO grain is pecked at and left untouched, the non-GMO grain is eaten. I think the animals are smarter than the human who wrote this report.
I hadn't realized it's been 20 years since any GMO crop had been released into the wild. Where does the time go? Guess I've been busy.
At any rate, there's no point in even getting upset over GMO plants now. Why? Because it's already proliferated throughout the ecosphere of the planet by now; it's too late to do anything about it, if there's damage done, it's now irreversible anyway, we couldn't take it back if we tried. If in another 20 years, or 50 years, or 100 years, we discover that it was, indeed A Huge Mistake, we'll just have to deal with the consequences then -- assuming there's anything we can do at that point.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
did i mention monsanto ? no .
yes, selective breeding is one type of genetic modification, well done have a cookie (you might want to check the ingredients , if you are allowed to)
There are many types of GMO which is another reason why this study is suspect , its making massively wide claims about all types of GMO being safe which is not what real scientists do, you can't use generalisations like that.
I want GM to be something that is openly and honestly explored with the utmost safety without corporate interests (be they Monsanto, syngenta , bayer et al) contaminating the process as they have shown themselves to be greedy and untrustworthy. If there are benefits they must be realised for everyone or they become weapons.
I realise that governments aren't much better but its a start
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The second problem is that many of them don't breed true or, indeed, at all.
No hybrids breed true, and this is the case regardless of whether or not the seed is GMO, conventional, or organic. Further, it's also the reason that most farmers don't save seed.
Now, the "or, indeed, at all" ... I am really not sure what you are talking about here. There are no seeds sold with a "terminator gene". Period.
GMO is not an ingredient, it's a breeding method. Labeling it conveys no useful information. The only thing serves to do it to confuse the public with regards to the safety.
I don't hear you wanting (organic) produce bred with mutagenesis, hybridization, or cross breeding labeled.
I'm an advocate for GM (corn is not a naturally occurring species as a stark example), but I shut my ears when something gets labeled as having come from "the experts".
Because the problem solves itself. Since there are enough people convinced that GMO is the spawn of the devil, you could just label non-GMO foods as such, and those people can buy their non-GMO food. Similar to how you might label something as kosher since there's a market for it, rather than making everyone else label as non-kosher.
Most of those organizations are pro business growth at any cost
That comes with a massive [citation needed].
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Lots of crops are already somewhat homogeneous, and I'm not sure I agree that GMO is going to make that more likely. If anything, GMOs should let us add resistance genes to crops faster than they would evolve them on their own.
Most crops that large farms use don't breed true either; plants are weird, and often there's a "hybrid advantage" where it's advantageous for the plants to be heterozygous at a number of different genes. If you breed those together, most of the offspring aren't going to be as good as the parents, so you can't collect seed stock from them either. Yes, this makes the food supply a little more tenuous, but GMO isn't really different from farming that's going on right now anyway.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
A situation that happened entirely without GMOs is why we shouldn't use GMOs? Now that's some interesting logic.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Companies are free to label their food GMO or not GMO. There's no reason to force them to label it one way or another, however, since we don't label many other things on the food. Mingot's reply points out some of those.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
No need for funding to be evil for it to have an agenda
"The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine ... funded by Congress ... foundations, state governments, the private sector, and philanthropy from individuals"
http://www.nationalacademies.o...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
'However, the committee acknowledged the âoeinherent difficulty of detecting subtle or long-term effects on health or the environment,â they wrote in an accompanying statement.'
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One thing people need to be aware of however. Many pesticides are currently a non-renewable resource. The more crops/people/pesticide use, the fast we use up the non-renewable manufacturing sources. At some point, we will need the crops to do the job. It's unavoidable and likely to occur within the next 70 years.
Another issue is that insects are going to adapt to it. But maybe perfect robot workers can crawl the field catching insects and killing them manually?
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
You are the denialist.
So denialism is now accepting the science?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Your libertarian ideals are great right up until the real world gets applied to them.
Imaging yourself, you the consumer having contracted an incurable, debilitating illness from a new GM soybean product. Of course you have no way of knowing what caused your illness. There's no regulatory environment requiring oversight that would have identified the problem with the soybeans. Maybe it was the factory down the road, maybe it was something you ate, maybe you just happened to win the genetic lottery. All you know is that you life has been irrevocably destroyed, you can't work, you have mountains of medical bills you can't afford. Of course you're not the only one, thousands of others have had a similar experience, similar illness. But it's a mystery, others have gotten sick so it probably has nothing to do with the factory since many don't live near you. Perhaps it's something everyone eat. But what? Ten years later, after manyfold more people have had their health shattered, young children have died, etc. a young university student makes the correlation. This particular soybean has boomed into a billion dollar industry. "Unfounded", "baseless accusations" they, say "millions around the world eat food made from our beans and they're not sick." Fortunately an ambulance chasing lawyer group steps up to create a class action lawsuit against the megacorp responsible for the bad beans. Unfortunately, the case is thrown out for lack of evidence. Aside from the correlation findings by the university student, no one has been able to prove it was the beans. License to use the GM soybeans prohibits any use other than to produce food, independent research on the beans is stymied. Not that it would have mattered much, your health has continued to deteriorate, you stand in financial ruin living off of government disability pay (good thing the Libertarians didn't take that away). A financial windfall might have been salve to your money woes but what difference would it make when you're laid up in bed wracked with pain most of the time. Why, oh why couldn't someone have discovered this problem early, before I ate all those french fries fried in soy oil?
BTW, I'm impressed with your confidence in GM plants not being harmful. Personally I'd be quite concerned with a food plant that produces its own pesticide that works by causing hemorrhaging in the gut. Particularly given that gut inflammation continues to be found at the root of many health problems. Or herbicide resistant crops that can crossbreed with weeds to likewise gain a resistance.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Well, if they are indeed safe, then there should be NO objection to labelling foods as GMO or not.
Because it would be like labeling foods as grown by Republicans, Democrats, Teabaggers or Social justice warriors. Or if they use organic inks to print the label.
Given your post, I might be forgiven if I assume that you would't buy anything labeled as GMO? Perhaps you wouldn't buy anything grown by Republicans or some other group
As well - define GMO.
For myself, I don't care if it is labeled or not.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
GMO is not an ingredient, it's a breeding method. Labeling it conveys no useful information. The only thing serves to do it to confuse the public with regards to the safety.
I don't hear you wanting (organic) produce bred with mutagenesis, hybridization, or cross breeding labeled.
Another weird offshoot of "Organic" food is that I buy lettice that is grown hydroponically, Completely artificially grown. But never a lick of pesticides. Beautiful stuff.
I do buy and eat organic as much as possible. I'm also smart enough to know that we have passed to point of being able to sustain the world with only using crops that haven't been hybridized or manipulated in some form. Roundup ready is stupid and doomed to faiure as plants develope resistance, but there is a whole world of good nutritious food that has been modified.
I'm holding out for glow-in-the-dark cauliflower.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Because the problem solves itself. Since there are enough people convinced that GMO is the spawn of the devil, you could just label non-GMO foods as such, and those people can buy their non-GMO food. Similar to how you might label something as kosher since there's a market for it, rather than making everyone else label as non-kosher.
The problem of course, is that it's saying that completely non-scientific bullshit can be forced uppon manufacturers as science.
Forcing GMO labeling is just as asinine as forcing the teaching of intelligent design.
You want to sell food products as something blessed by Gaiia or Jesus or Chany Binks - go ahead. But forcing others to do as such is as sensible as requiring Organic food producer to put a disclaimer "You might like this stuff, but it isn't a damn bit better than anything else."
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The fact that:
A) the FDA and EPA are both heavily staffed by ex-monsanto employees
B) crop diversity is reduced by GMO's (If you are pro-science, than it should be obvious that that is a terrible thing).
C) companies like monsanto are buying up seed supply businesses that sell non GMO seed
D) companies like monsanto are patenting non GMO seed (go ahead and fight us in court)
E) monsanto goes after individual farmers
is evidence enough for me that it isn't safe, there are ulterior motives involved, and that huge multinationals controlling the strings to most of the food supply is not good. There are bigger implications here regardless of the safety issue.
Ever hear of what happened in Bolivia when Bechtel owned the water supply? Why are people so eager to be in the same situation themselves one day?
Anyone with any amount of foresight can see this coming.
I chose to end my comments, not with a rim shot, but a long decaying F#7sus4
By contrast, when manually editing genes, it wouldn't be entirely implausible for someone to accidentally slip a recessive gene sequence into an apple tree seed that, when present in both chromosomes, would cause the production of cyanide. And then in the second generation that isn't supposed to exist, suddenly you have fruit that look normal, but kill people....
That's really no more likely with manual editing than it is for random mutations. Your characterization of them as having gone through little or no scientific testing also isn't accurate.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
"and no I've never heard of the US national academy of sciences" Follow the link the above poster has provided and educate yourself.
Yes? AND?
We've been INTENTIONALLY modifying our crops for thousands of years. Selecting the traits that best suit our needs.
People are just ticked that we did it playing God in a lab this time, rather than playing God with controlling natural selection.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
To be fair, we have not waited GMO to fail mono-cultures. Take the Gros Michel banana for instance.
But indeed, GMO pushes a lot toward this this kind of failure
A mixture? Horrified. An ionically bonded molecule? Not so much.
But thiomersal breaks down into inorganic mercury in the bloodstream, and inorganic mercury exhibits neurotoxicity. Just because a dangerous substance is bound into a compound doesn't mean it isn't dangerous.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Scientists swore for decades that smoking was safe, until it was proven otherwise.
Scientists swore that thalidomide was safe, until it was proven otherwise.
Scientists swore that fen-phen was safe, until it was proven otherwise.
The list goes on and on. This is just a sample: http://prescriptiondrugs.proco...
So forgive me if I don't trust the "scientists". Do I believe that GMO in inherently bad? Of course not. It's simply a method. It's how that method is used that concerns me. When it's done for profit, then I am highly suspect of its safety. When it's done for strictly humanitarian reasons with no profits involved I'd be much more willing to be open to it.
Our history is rife with companies that would poison their own mothers if they could make a buck from it.
They fund businesses not individuals, therefore they are pro business growth.
They have made no statements about limits to growth so a pro business growth at any cost.
Other organisations have raised concerns about limiting growth to sustainable levels for a finite planet but
these particular ones are notable for not expressing that concern. I have a theory on why,
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People are just ticked that we did it playing God in a lab this time, rather than playing God with controlling natural selection.
No, people are ticked that this God demands payment. Not only for the seed, but for its progeny.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
I'd prefer not to eat the latter, while I have no problem with crossing plants of the same species....like how carrots and many cruciferious veggies have been done over the years to give the great varieties we have today.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
They fund businesses, government institutions, and academic institutions because those places are the ones doing research that is of interest to them. Paying a business to do something for you does not mean you are "pro business growth". What kind of growth do you want them to limit? Population, economic, agricultural?
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
when a group you have never heard of
And this is why you're opinion doesn't matter. You can't be talking about peer review, journal publications or the validity of research if you've never heard of the National Academy of Sciences.
Most of those organizations are pro business growth at any cost, that's why they like GMO and fund research to sell it.
Did you happen to notice how prophetic my third sentence was?
The farmers of the world that GMO claims to help are so sick of top down reorganization they will not buy it , its that simple. GMO farming is buying into a system you don't control that will ultimately control you. Notice the careful wording about the situations where pests become resistant, that's because its not magic. If you offer a choice to indiginous farmers (without destroying their land first) they reject it.
Really? Perhaps you could explain this one then:
https://www.technologyreview.c...
Safety is a red herring. I have two objections to GM crops: biodiversity and lock-in (though they don't both apply to the same crops).
The biodiversity issue has nothing to do with GM crops and is a problem with agriculture as a whole, regardless of where the seeds come from.
This means that, if they breed true, then they are going to displace all of the originals and you will end up with a homogeneous group, which is then vulnerable to a single parasite/bacterium.
In case you haven't noticed, this already happens. None of the shit we grow on farmland even exists in the wild. Take bananas for example; notice how they don't have any seeds? How do you suppose they breed? At least with GM technology, if a pathogen spreads that begins to kill off a given crop, we can fix the problem in a much shorter amount of time than is the case with conventional breeding.
The second problem is that many of them don't breed true or, indeed, at all. You must keep buying new seeds from the same company, you can't collect your own seed stock. This means that your food supply becomes entirely dependent on a small number of companies.
Not only have you just contradicted yourself (with regard to your earlier statement about GMO being hardier and replacing their conventional counterparts -- you can't have it both ways here) but this is false. Although Monsanto patented terminator genes, they've never actually sold anything with them. Besides, your argument is horribly out of date:
https://www.technologyreview.c...
Anyways go back to your food religion church to congregate.
Not a farmer, an agribusinessman there is a big difference. The famer loves and cares for the land where as the later just uses it until its broke and moves on to go break somewhere else
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Not a farmer, an agribusinessman there is a big difference. The famer loves and cares for the land where as the later just uses it until its broke and moves on to go break somewhere else
Except the one you describe as "agribusinessman" typically has owned their farm for many generations. I think the term you meant to use was "hippie". And yes, greenpeace is full of hippies that oppose GMO, and even vehemently oppose a GMO crop that can easily solve TON of chronic diseases in eastern countries (such as blindness) called golden rice.
Why? Because again, greenpeace are hippies, and they oppose it just over the principle of the fact that it's GMO, and really don't give a shit about the people with chronic illness, nevermind that there's no actual profit motive for golden rice (if the target consumer of golden rice actually had money, they would be able to afford more than just rice, and wouldn't have any problems related to malnutrition.)
And as is well known, hippies will never be satisfied until agricultural technology reverts to the way we had to do things 70 years ago.
GMO products should be proudly labelled "Made better with genetic science".
Yep, Greenpeace totally wants them to go blind, and doesn't suggest alternative solutions, they're not at all concerned that this magic bullet isn't effective, and isn't a scam taking money away from other options that are proven to work. [greenpeace.org]
Honestly you're an idiot if you think any of that is true. Seriously this is the same shit that anti-vaxers claim, only for a different "conspiracy".
Better than 80 years ago, when we had the Dust Bowl, but I guess you'd blame that on the Hippies too.
Eh sorry, not falling for your straw man argument.
What happens? They deny it in a completely reasonable statement? They didn't kill anyone over it, threaten to sue anyone, or attempt to have the report blocked in any way. What are you trying to suggest?
kill, threaten, sue, block: The reactions that you've suggested are irrational and unnecessary. I doubt any corporation in Monsanto's position would ever consider them. All they have to do is make sure that the few researchers that publish papers critical of Monsanto have their funding dry up, that this is broadly known among researchers, and that other researchers understand why. All they have to do is promote the idea/belief that critical papers are professional suicide, and they're pretty good at it.
...and yet strangely I have written papers and been peer reviewed which seems like more relevant experience than knowing about a national organization in a country of which I am not a citizen. The link the other poster provided did show that they are responsible for PNAS which I have heard of in the context of biology but since I'm not a biologist and not American and I am not aware of anyone publishing in PNAS in my field the US National Academy of Sciences is not really that relevant.