Genetically Modified Maize Is Toxic — Greenpeace 655
gandracu writes "It appears that a variety of genetically modified maize produced by Monsanto is toxic for the liver and kidneys. What's worse, Monsanto knew about it and tried to conceal the facts in its own publications. Greenpeace fought in court to obtain the data and had it analyzed by a team of experts. MON863, the variety of GM maze in question, has been authorized for markets in the US, EU, Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Mexico, and the Philippines. Here are Greenpeace's brief on the study and their account of how the story was unearthed (both PDFs)."
Summary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Monsanto says "cases of liver and kedney damage not statistically significant."
greenpeace says "liver and kidney damage cases are statistically significant." Rats not fat.
No data is given.
Maybe judgement should be reserved until someone has seen this data. I believe both sides here would have no problem with manipulating data for thier own interests.
Re:Summary? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Summary? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Summary? (Score:4, Interesting)
From the WP article:I've always wondered how many other interesting things have been discovered as side-effects of people attempting to off themselves.
Re:Summary? (Score:4, Informative)
Journal looks high quality: Springer published (Score:5, Informative)
RTFA. The peer reviewed journal noted is "Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology" published by Springer. http://www.environmental-expert.com/magazine/spri
Looks a proper journal to me.
"Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology is a repository of significant, full-length articles describing original experimental or theoretical research work pertaining to the scientific aspects of contaminants in the environment. It provides a place for the publication of detailed, definitive, complete, credible reports concerning advances and discoveries in the fields of air, water, and soil contamination and pollution, human health aspects, and in disciplines concerned with the introduction, presence, and effects of deleterious substances in the total environment. Acceptable manuscripts for the Archives are the ones that deal with some aspects of environmental contaminants, including those that lie in the domains of analytical chemistry, biochemistry, pharmacology, toxicology, agricultural, air, water, and soil chemistry.
All manuscripts are subject to review by workers in the field for significance, credibility and accuracy, as well as for proper arrangement (format, style, language, etc.) Review articles, abstracts, short communications or notes will not be accepted for publication. Where appropriate, these will be referred to Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, or Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. "
Re:Journal looks high quality: Springer published (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why, IMHO, these studies should be independent and any oversight at arms length. The FDA should ask the NIH to award the research to a qualified lab based on competence and independence, and the award should be funded through the NIH using the funds of the firm that needs the research. A second lab would in charge of reviewing the result. Though this would be add an unfortunate level of bureaucracy, it would also help improve the reputation of these firms, a reputation that has been tarnished over the past decade by an effort to put goods on the market that do not provide a net benefit, as defined by the FDA.
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What? You trust the NIH?
"It was Ancel Keys, paradoxically, who introduced the low-fat-is-good-health dogma in the 50's with his theory that dietary fat raises cholesterol levels and gives you heart disease. Over the next two decades, however, the scientific evidence supporting this theory remained stubb
Re:Journal looks high quality: Springer published (Score:5, Informative)
You have the Science Publisher Springer: http://www.springer.com/ [springer.com]
And then you have the Axel Springer Verlag, which produces the Bild: http://www.axelspringer.com/ [axelspringer.com]
Do not let the common "Springer" part confuse you
Re:They're (not) associated (Score:4, Informative)
"Springer Verlag" is the (german) root of the scientific publisher founded by a man called "Julius Springer" in 1842 which is now "Springer Science+Business Media" (Which is basically the Springer Verlag merged with Kluwer Publishers). If you are interested here is the company history: http://www.springer-sbm.de/index.php?L=0&id=165 [springer-sbm.de]
The "Axel Springer Verlag" is a completely different company, which was founded by a man called "Axel Springer" in 1946. See also: http://www.axelspringer.com/englisch/unterneh/fra
The founders of both companies shared the last name, hence the "Springer" in both company names.
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Proteins can be toxic (Score:5, Informative)
And _you_ did your research, then? (Score:4, Insightful)
Now Monsanto basically says, "yeah, but it's not toxic to mammals." Greenpeace says, "whoa, actually that data says that it's somewhat toxic to rats."
Now both positions _could_ be true. It _is_ possible for something to be toxic to insects without being lethal to humans. (See coffeine. It really evolved as a paralyzing poison against insects. See why Robusta is a hardier crop than Arabica: the Robusta plant simply produces more of it. Yet a human can drink lots of it for decades without being too harmed in the process.) On the other hand, the opposite _can_ be true too. And without proper testing how would you know?
So, pray tell, without even seeing the research, how _do_ you know which side is right and which is wrong? Or are you just motivated enough to rant against Greenpeace even when you have no fucking clue what is it about? At least, even as motivated studies go, they did at least do and publish one. You did... what? to get your info on which to base such a swift judgment.
Hand-waving about mutations happening randomly in nature is at best brain-damaged too. Equally random mutations in plants include atropine (nightshade), ricin (deadly in 0.2mg doses and no antidote), solanine, cyanide (wild almonds), etc. And that's just the short list of the most known ones. We could go into a couple hundred other fun natural stuff, including such exotic effects as immuno-suppressors in some moulds. Just because something _could_ have occured naturally doesn't make it automatically safe. All the poisons in this paragraph occured naturally, yet _aren't_ safe at all.
Plus, it often is false as such anyway. Just because something was created via genetic engineering does _not_ automatically mean it could have occured as a natural mutation any day now. There's plenty of GM stuff, like renet-producing moulds or goats whose milk contains spider silk, which would _never_ evolve on their own, not even in another billion years. There's simply no natural advantage in producing those (wake me up when any plant needs to digest fresh milk, which is what it would take to make renet an advantage), and in fact it's a serious disadvantage to waste your energy and aminoacids on producing them.
So, you know, if you're going to go into a whole rant about who's ignorant or worse, it would be nice if you at least took the time to read a bit and have at least some minimal clue what you're talking about.
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I agree that introducing an insecticide does require tests. But what is "somewhat toxic"? Tomatoes and potatoes are somewhat toxic too.
Yes I am. People think that Greepeace is ideological and speaks the truth, well th
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Greenpeace lives on people's donations that are fed by fear of technology.
Reducing what Greenpeace does to just being fearful of technological progress seems very cynical. I'd say that in this case and most other cases as well being cautious about introducing something untested like Monsantos product to both nature and our own food supply has nothing to do with fear of technology, it's just common sense. I don't know about you, but I would be very reluctant to eat something which is surrounded by so much secrecy as MON863 seems to be, and Monsantos very poor track record on si
Re:And _you_ did your research, then? (Score:5, Interesting)
Greenpeace is not driven by a fear of technology. Some new technologies are actively supported by Greenpeace, others are not. Greenpeace is motivated by conservation of our natural habitat, and that sometimes leads them to speak out against certain technologies they see as damaging. I tend to believe that if Greenpeace had existed when Tesla wanted to broadcast electricity instead of running it through a wired grid, they would have opposed that too. That's what they do.
This is a method I agree with wholeheartedly, and I think any sane and rational person with a modicum of intelligence would also agree with. They have a well publicized political position, and they assess technologies from that position and advocate or oppose accordingly.
Whether or not you agree with their political position, it's not wise to endorse or discount what they say on the basis of who they are and your prejudice about their support base; rather read their argument and make an assesment based on and limited to the case at hand.
In some cases I have disagreed with them, in particular their opposition to high temperature incineration of toxic waste, but as in this case I think it is best to keep an open mind, listen to their point of view and wait until I have read the studies and can make an informed decision. They have alerted me to a potential danger here and I need to find out more. I am thankful that someone with a vested interest is taking an opposing view to Monsanto, which also has a vested interest, because I feel it makes for a more balanced debate.
Knee jerk reactionaries have no useful place in public debate, except of course in tabloids, mainstream biased media and trolling on /.
;-P
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I am very much aware that rats have different metabolisms, but then it's still common sense to have it tested, including on human volunteers, before selling it. Is the difference big enough to make it safe for humans? We don't know basically. We have a whole process for testing and approving, say, medicine, so I
ignorance can be toxic (Score:5, Interesting)
They need to have their incorporation charters pulled at a minimum, IMO. Just a bad news company all in all. Buying up outside seed companies then stopping production on various strains, to further eliminate competition. I mean, this list goes on and on and on. It is NOT a good idea to reduce biodiversity, that's REAL science. Trying to impose monopolies on food is just pure damn evil, stupid and retarded, no two ways about it. In fact, just from a strictly scientific viewpoint, it is *insane*.
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It's not so much that mad cow disease (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or BSE) can cross the species barrier, it's more that it and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (or vCJD) have essentially the same cause - a misshapen protein called a prion [wikipedia.org]. The effect is the same though; eating infected beef can indeed give you (the human form of) the disease.
Re:Toxicity based on what? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Ah, but you forget that this is Monsanto corn. The corporation's aura of sheer evil caused the toxicity!
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I love how this got modded +5 insightful.
Re:Toxicity based on what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because it's natural does not mean that its non-toxic. There are a lot of poisonous enzymes that occur naturally in the environment. For example, naturally occurring almonds have a poisonous enzyme. A quote from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almond):
Re:Toxicity based on what? (Score:5, Informative)
But even if this corn does NOT produce anything un-natural, you still have the issue of farmers being able to indiscriminately spray pesticides on their fields without affecting the corn. Undoubtedly this means that more RoundUp is getting on the corn, in the ground, etc., than would otherwise be possible, so I wouldn't doubt that some of the pesticide is moving up through the food chain to us. Either way, you have non-natural chemicals entering the human food supply, which could easily have adverse health effects.
While we're on it, I want to say that Monsanto is about as virulently evil as Greenpeace when it comes to protecting their interests. They have actually made patents on seeds, and have gone after farmers for "patent infringement" if they find evidence of seed on their fields with similar genetic code. Farmers have been jailed over this; Monsanto's kind of like the MPAA of grain. They are even pushing "Terminator" seeds, which are sterile, forcing farmers into purchasing seed from suppliers every year instead of keeping their seed for the next crop. Monsanto tried to cover up reports of the adverse health effects of BGH (bovine growth hormone), the list goes on and on. The wikipedia [wikipedia.org] has decent, somewhat unbiased (IMO) coverage of the issue and I'm sure you can google up some more.
Terminator technology. (Score:5, Interesting)
Even worse, the Terminator genes are dominant. Which has a very devastating effect if introduced by a single farmer in places where farmers still use some of their harvest as seeds for the next year.
Re:Terminator technology. (Score:5, Funny)
Even worse the Terminator genes have been known to travel back in time and attempt to stop Greenpeace by killing its leaders while they were children.
Re:Terminator technology. (Score:5, Insightful)
Even worse, the Terminator genes are dominant. Which has a very devastating effect if introduced by a single farmer in places where farmers still use some of their harvest as seeds for the next year.
And even worse than that is when the seeds from a farm growing the monsanto crops gets carried (by wind/birds/whatever) over to a neighboring farmer's fields, who is NOT using Monsanto seeds to grow crops... The farmer is now violating the seed patent as his plants are partly from this other seed, and he cant get rid of them with the normal herbicide since they are resistant. Add to that, that if he is trying to re-use his seed for next year's crops, and happens to mix in some of the monsanto seeds, his whole seed crop is now violating the patent, and when Monsanto finds out, they will demand their fees for this "use" of their technology. Luckily with the terminator gene, the crops just wont grow. But then again, since pollen is spread in the wind as well, and carries the genetic info, and the pollen from the monsanto field blows across the other farmers, which then starts producing seeds with either the roundup resistance or terminator gene or both... well you see where Im going. Not that its happened or anything [percyschmeiser.com].
Tm
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I think we need to clarify what we mean by the terms "natural" and "non-natural" before we can debate which of those categories Monsanto's GM food products fall into.
Re:Toxicity based on what? (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't give those nations a hand up, we put them on life support.
Just another example of how free enterprise and secular science benefit the poor by the innate goodness of their natures...
Ok, maybe that was a poor troll. But only for being obvious, not for being false
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Really, I'm not clear on what this has to do with whether or not it's a good thing to give people "Terminator" corn. You could give people seeds that grow golden Cadillacs, but if the cars all break down after a year you're not really addressing a transportation issue with them, are you? And while you're fielding questions, can you tell me what my own charitable donations have
Re:Toxicity based on what? (Score:4, Interesting)
I own a piece of land that has some tillable acres. It had a history of rotated corn and beans sprayed with herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers. I planted it to pasture. http://mikesmind.com/home/?p=33 [mikesmind.com] What amazed me more than anything is that I couldn't find an earthworm on the tillable portion! The earth was basically dead. It's starting to come back now.
Genetic modifications and the subsequent application of chemicals is poisoning our land.
Re:Toxicity based on what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Scenario.
1) Farmer A plants terminator seeds.
2) Farmer B plants non-terminator seeds in the next field over.
3) Farmer A's terminator crops cross-pollinate with Farmer B's crops, reducing Farmer B's yield.
4) Nice sales person from company M shows up at Farmer B's door offering a low introductory price on terminator seeds.
5) Profit.
You can't claim this won't happen because it already has. Cross-pollination by RoundupReady crops has already been the basis for a legal case in Canada, where a farmer noticed that some patches in his field were pesticide resistant and deliberately saved and replanted those seeds. Monsanto sued and won.
The certain truth of GM foods is that the genes will get loose, and the terminator gene in particular is nothing more than a weapon of commercial bio-terrorism, a gun aimed at the head of innocent farmers whose fields happen to be adjacent to those who choose to use terminator seeds. To employ your silly analogy, how would you feel if any Windows machine on the same subnet progressively reduced the capability of all your Linux or Mac boxes? Would you be perfectly happy with your neighbours or the company down the street buying Windows?
Personally, I think it should be considered a serious crime to allow GM crops to cross-pollinate any other crop, and that both farmers who use them and companies that sell them should be liable for triple damages for any losses that occur, and unable to claim any recompense for benefits that accrue, to innocent farmers of adjacent fields.
If I recall... (Score:4, Informative)
At least, that's how it was explained to me some time ago. I could very well be wrong.
Re:Toxicity based on what? (Score:5, Informative)
Umm, most plants produce natural toxins they use for biological warfare against other plants and animals. Most genetic modification is an attempt to either increase a toxin to kill a pest (rootworm) or increase a resistance to a toxin to fight another plant or a artificially introduced toxin. In this case the corn was designed to create a toxin (Bt-toxin (Cry3Bb1)) and as a byproduct also is said to create (Cry1Ab).
So the most probable indication is that one of those two toxins has more of a negative affect upon rats and thus possibly other mammals like humans than was previously believed. Greenpeace responsibly refrained from making specific claims about the intermediate causation as that is still not yet determined. There is, however, a reasonable amount of evidence that this strain of GM corn could be dangerous to humans and animals and should be investigated and possibly pulled from the market or at least labeled until the topic is fully investigated.
Greenpeace is a bunch of marketing people for the most part. It is possible every tuesday night they gather beneath an abandoned monastery and eat human babies.That doesn't however, speak to the accuracy or implications of this research.
Genetic engineering is a science where people mess about with code without understanding the full implications of what that will result in. It's like modifying software while only having read and understood a small portion of the code and not the other code dependent upon it. As such, I think that while it is promising, extra caution and care needs to be exercised and I don't think the FDA or the commercial enterprises involved give a damn about anything but money and are uninterested in taking appropriate precautions.
Genetically modified foods almost all produce toxins. The question is did some change to the genetic structure cause it to create different ones or toxins in different levels and what does that mean for normal people? Another part of the problem is the food almost always appears to be the same as non-modified food and is often not labeled. Would you eat some random plant when you did not know if it was edible and no one had ever seen it before? Every GM food is one of those. Most are probably fine, just like most plants are. Some might be developing toxins that are harmful or concentrating something from their environment which is harmful. If we made it to other planets and found them with ecosystems very much like the earth, but separated by millions of years of evolution, would you trust that something that looks like corn has not adapted in such a way that it is poisonous? That's sort of what GM food is, a common food, modified not by evolution but by man in a way we don't fully understand the consequences of. Often the results are beneficial, but caution should be the byword and thorough testing and serious consideration of possible problems. The fact that this corn might be at the grocery store near you with no indication that it is not the natural corn most people expect it to be is a deception and needs to be considered.
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Any process that changes the genetic composition of a plant or animal has some potential to cause problems. We need to have standards in place to ensure the food supply is safe - and it amounts to more than just banning products that use recombinant DNA. Farmers have practiced selective breeding since the age of Mendel
Re:Toxicity based on what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The real issue with genetic modification is the increases scope and speed of such changes. A person breeding corn might be able to breed to different strains to produce a new one and it could conceivable result in higher levels of some dangerous toxin corn naturally produces. But, given both strains of corn have existed for some time and have presumably been safe to eat, it is a lot less likely than if someone actually targets the genetic code that controls toxicity levels. GM opens up whole new avenues of change that selective breeding and random mutation are highly unlikely to ever touch and as such more caution is required.
When people go to the store and buy a corn, they have expectations. Those expectations include that the corn is from one of the many strains that have been being consumed for a long time, or a combination of those strains. They don't expect that corn to have significant changes to its genetic code, and unless it has been exposed to a significant mutagen they are right. I'd argue that passing of corn that has been genetically modified or heavily exposed to mutagens as "normal" corn is not in their best interests and is deceitful. There is a real difference in the risk posed between "natural" corn and GM corn, although to most people educated on the subject that delta is pretty small. By being honest, however, companies investing in such products are motivated both to produce benefits end users care about and to make sure the testing process is thorough so that GM foods earn/develop a reputation for safety.
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Change is the only constant.
Re:Toxicity based on what? (Score:5, Informative)
April 8, 2003: The German competent authorities publish their assessment of the MON863 application. In their report they state that the amino acid sequence of the Cry3B1 toxin produced by the MON863 maize has similarities to some other toxins. Most notably, the German authority found some "homologies to sequences from Clostridium bifermentans, Caenorhabditis elegans, Vibrio cholerae and Bacillus popilliae." These homologies are of high relevance in respect to human and animal health.
It seems warranted to at least be concerned about the unknown effects of introducing a protein which is classified as a toxin into one's diet. Particularly where the "science" backing it up is not analyzed independently, and cannot be reviewed, as the underlying data submitted to the regulatory agencies is held to be confidential.
Alternatively, you seem to suggest that data or experience suggesting the safe use of substances independently of each other somehow implies they are safely used together. It's fairly easy to come up with counterexamples in everyday life (ammonia and chlorine as cleaning supplies, for example), let alone in the more complex and unpredictable field of biochemistry.
Re:Toxicity based on what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Assume for a second that Greenpeace is correct, and that rates of liver damage are statistically significant. That means that, all things being equal, eating this corn is harmful to the rats' livers. Case closed. Aside from figuring out what that reason is in order to fix it, there's no reason to go through all of that--it is a simple application of Occam's Razor.
It looks like you're going through troubleshooting steps..."It can't possibly be this...and it can't possibly be that either!" DO NOT make the mistake of discounting the study because you cannot come up with a root cause right away. First off, in biology it's typically a bad idea to conclude, a priori, that certain variables are not an issue: it's simply a more complex and less well-understood discipline than something as clean-cut as, say, orbital mechanics. Second, you have a much greater potential for interaction effects and emergent properties--stuff you can never predict, but which becomes blatantly obvious once you see it and characterize it...for example, ant colony behavior: if you get some huge number of ants together, the coordination and patterned behavior is fascinating, but it's not obvious from the random behavior of a single ant that such behavior would ever emerge. Once you see it, however, you can easily experiment and track it back to things like pheremones.
The mindset issue comes down to the difference between bottom-up and top-down analysis. Bottom-up analysis will tell you facts, but is poor for integrating those facts. That's what I think you're looking to do. At some point you have to look at the big picture--a view that doesn't tell you much aside from how the facts fit together, and where you should look next. Good analysts do both. Bad analysts either never research facts (this is in fact what you are accusing "religions" of doing) or they fall into the trap of extreme reductionism, wherein you discount observations if your radically simplistic understanding of the universe cannot explain them.
This last is what a friend of mine, who is an aero engineer, does all the time. He knows that physics informs chemistry informs biology informs psychology informs political science--but since he cannot explain election results in terms of the Newtonian motion of atoms, he dismisses any such study as bullshit, as well as the conclusions draw from that bullshit. But you don't have to explain things at the lowest level possible in order to draw meaningful conclusions, such as in this case: Better hold off on eating that Monsanto corn for the time being.
That doesn't seem too alarmist, nor am I trying to vilify genetic engineering. The fact that Monsanto apparently should have made that announcement and instead decided to gloss over it, and thereby profit from others' loss (what you accuse Greenpeace of doing), does tend to make them somewhat vile in my eyes, however.
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"My Liver!"
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That being said, I'd prefer that aggressively GM'd crops had to be labeled as such, so I could do my own damn research. Likewise meat products treated with x, y, or z hormone/antibiotic/preservative. If I bought a damn pop tart, I'd know more about what was in it than in a steak which costs 10 times as much.
Re:Summary? (Score:5, Insightful)
So don't spout the industry line at me, that any requirement for them to share data which they damn well collect will cause all prices to go through the roof and end food production as we know it...Hell they said that when the inspections to make sure that meat was freshly killed and relatively free of human fingers were instituted (a hundred and one years ago), and it doesn't seem to have destroyed the industry, despite what the industry maintained at the time.
You may be happy to have people feed you whatever they want to, but I'd at least like to know.
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Meat inspections done by the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) do not check for all drugs and hormones used on cattle. They only check for things that are known to be harmful (i.e. Mad Cow) and that can be determined by simply inspecting a carcass.
While a single farmer may know what they give to their cattle, a single slaugterhouse will have cattle from multiple farmers. My fathe
Re:Summary? (Score:5, Informative)
The reason they can trace mad cow to individual cows is because the inspections done to test for mad cow disease are done very early in the process. The only thing they do know about the cow at that point is which farm it came from. They still dont know anything about what the cow was fed, what injections it has recieved, etc.
And the cases where they have singled it down to single cows were in Canada (as far as I know), where the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has developed a Canadian Cattle Identification Program for cattle and bison. This was necessary because of the BSE scare, because no responsible government would spend that kind of money if it wasnt to help out an industry that was being damaged by bad PR.
This Identification Program is not that hard for a country that slaughters 65,000 cattle per week. In the US we slaughter about 100,000 cattle per day. That is a huge difference. The same rules and procedures do not always scale up easily by that level.
I just need to know that they have to have a method to keep from double dosing animals
The problem is not only tracking this data, but verifying it. You are correct that individual farmers mostly keep track of what is happening to their herds. But if they are going to be passing on that information then you need government/industry oversight to check their claims. Without this oversight the farmers could just lie. This is where the costs come in, not just the price of the hard drives and data entry people necessary to keep track of the numbers.
And with meat costs already going up because of the rising price of corn (because of ethanol), this is the worse time to add extra costs to our meat inspection/packaging process.
As for public panic, I frankly don't care. If they worry that people will stop eating their produce because of what they put in it, maybe they should think twice about what they put in it.
Not caring about public panic is a very irresponsible attitude. Public panic did enormous damage to the Canadian and UK cattle markets, even though the actual damage from BSE was very minimal. It cost their governments alot of money in subsidies to keep the industries going. Even if it was the fault of the leaders of the cattle industry, why should individual farmers who had no idea what was going on suffer also?
Public panic can often make problems much worse. For instance if there was a disease outbreak in a major city, a public panic would cause people to flee the city and spread the disease further.
--
Re:Summary? (Score:4, Insightful)
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It seems to me that if you modify a plant to provide as little nutritive value as possible, contain an anti-bug enzyme, and essentially make the stuff permanently shelf-stable, it's no longer something that should be considered edible.
Not even for the GMO fear that a lot of humans (both smart and incredibly stupid) have.
Re:Summary? (Score:4, Interesting)
I believe the judgment not be reserved until the data is seen and the assumption should always be that genetically modified material needs to be tested vigorously and that any potential problems be assumed dangerous. There is enough room in the genetically modified realm to stick to things that don't exhibit any bad effects to spend any time with ones that do.
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Would you like to eat products containing this? I think the problem here is not 'do we have clear proof' - this is about whether it is right or not to sell foodstuffs that can be suspected of being poisonous. This is like the BSE infected cattle - for a long time nodoby was actually sure that eating the meat from a cow with BSE was dangerous, but UK still slaughtered just about every cow in the country and burned them, because of the risk.
I
Re:Summary? (Score:5, Interesting)
Here is all the data I need:
the variety of GM maze in question, has been authorized for markets in the US, EU, Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Mexico, and the Philippines.
So this corn has been eaten in all these places and no one has gotten sick yet? Now here comes Greenpeace, who has proven [mindfully.org] that they would rather see populations starve to death than have them eat GM foods, claiming that these foods caused liver problems in rats, and therefor should be banned, even though in all these countries, no one has gotten sick off this corn. I call Bullshit! [imdb.com]
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Because ever liver disease and kidney failure in these countries would have immediately been connected to the consumption of corn.
</SNARK>
Have you even put 2 seconds of thought process into this before typing your comment?
Re:Summary? (Score:4, Interesting)
To quote the wikipedia entry: 'On February 22 2002, Monsanto was found guilty of "negligence, wantonness, suppression of truth, nuisance, trespass, and outrage" Under Alabama law the rare claim of outrage requires "conduct so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency so as to be regarded as atrocious and intolerable in civilized society".'
I dont see Greenpeace being beyond being manipulative, but Monsanto is in a whole different league. In fact, I have a hard time understanding why the company isnt permanently terminated and its governors banned from conducting any business anywhere.
Progress ? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't call whaling "technological progress". Also, I haven't seen Greenpeace protest against technological progress in the field of, say, solar power.
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Re:Progress ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Cleared rainforest land doesn't stay productive for very long due to the very thin layer of fertile soil underneath the rainforest. If you want to keep production up, you need to keep clearing rainforest (until you run out), and essentially leave behind an unproductive desert.
Essentially, you can play this game for maybe a handful of decades, then you're back at the starting point, minus all of the rainforest you started with. I wouldn't call that sustainable, exactly.
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Hmm. (Score:2, Informative)
Cigarette makers concealed smoking is addictive (Score:5, Interesting)
There are two sides to this:
(1) GM is bad, and this corn is a good example - see the potential damage
(2) GM is new, some food are bad for you, this is an example where some people are sensitive to...(blah blah blah)
GM peanuts would be pretty toxic to a small percentage of the population, and might even have a (small but barely significant) increase in reaction from those sensitive.
TFA is light on detail, and I'm not a biogeneticist. I think I'll pass on judgement here right now. I don't trust Monsanto to tell the truth, but I also don't trust GreenPeace to not have an agenda.
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Some would argue the exact same thing about Greenpeace. Those running Greenpeace do make a living based on its success, after all. The firm is intelligent enough to (PDF Warning) embed the costs of salaries [greenpeace.org] with their campaigns so there's no way of know the % spent on salaries.
I would probably prefer Monsanto's demise to Greenpeace's though.
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Not conclusive (Score:4, Insightful)
However, it is also apparent that no experiments have been carried out to investigate this product's effect on human subjects. The toxicity symptoms found in rats should have been a springboard for further investigation, but it seems it was not (unless this has been covered up).
Unfortunately these days corporate dishonesty is not seen as unusual or unacceptable in any way, so what we need is smoking gun evidence of toxicity in human beings, exceeding such toxicity as may be found naturally in other foodstuffs.
You mean like Aspartame? (Score:5, Insightful)
Aspartame has some of the "smoking gun" evidence you mention, yet it is still on the market. The number of people actually poisoned by Aspartame are very low, and treated as "statistically insignificant", so the product continues to be used.
Even if the GMO corn is used by humans and someone is killed by it (not just poisoned), there would just be a number of studies and some finger pointing to show that it was actually something else that may have been responsible for the poisoning. As long as something else may be responsible, there is reasonable doubt and the GMO food would remain on the market.
You need a lot of "smoking guns" to get a product off the market after it's been established. It's much easier to keep such products off the market in the first place.
In reality... Aspartame's a good example. (Score:4, Interesting)
not make the substance less problematic or any less toxic. Many people have a higher toxicity threshold
for that substance than do others.
PKU people can have severe problems from it- there's a very real reason that they put that warning on
the packaging that the stuff's in the food, a PKU person can die from much lower consumption levels.
Normally they'd avoid the foods with the Phenylalanine, but they put Aspartame into the damnedst stuff
these days. Sort of like all the HFCS they keep putting into things like bread, sodas, etc. High
Fructose Corn Syrup's actually more problematic to humans than Sucrose because refined Fructose in the
concentrations we consume makes humans fat and causes those who might have a some level of risk for
Type II Diabetes to actually GET it.
While I understand your sentiments, the things we have in our food supply is disturbing. Things we really
probably ought not to consider acceptable. Aspartame's one of a bunch of them that really do fall under
the category of, "This is probably not a good idea in the first place..." and should be pulled off the market.
I suspect Splenda may even fall under that category (Chlorinated Hydrocarbons are pesticides in most cases
and if you just straight chlorinated Sucrose, you get a deadly toxin to humans...) but since it's less
problematic on the surface for me, as a Type II Diabetic, I'm forced to choose either nothing at all (Other
choices due to market considerations and FDA not approving some viable answers are barred to me...) or Splenda
stuff.
Nice.
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Re:Not conclusive (Score:4, Insightful)
Since you are typing on a computer with Internet access, I assume you live in an area where you are free to eat whatever you want. Unfortunately, not everyone has that luxury. There are places in the world where the best meal a family can hope for is a spoon full of rice that Sally Struthers provided. Granted, it's something to eat, but it has little nutritional value other than the carbohydrates. Now let's say you can genetically modify this rice to contain vitamins (such as "Golden rice" [goldenrice.org]) and even human breast-milk protein [dailymail.co.uk]. Now, this bit of rice can be a nutritionally complete meal that could possibly be grown in these local areas to feed starving populations.
Unfortunately, in the meantime [mindfully.org], groups like Greenpeace have convinced the governments of starving nations to reject GM foods and allow their populations to starve. Yes, that is correct. Greenpeace would rather let men, women and children starve to death than have them eat GM foods. And people wonder why I think that Greenpeace is more concerned with their own political agendas than the welfare of the people they claim to be trying to help.
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What? (Score:5, Funny)
Keep calm, mazes are not that hard. There is no reason to get that stressed out. Just follow one of the walls at the entrance and you'll eventually get out.
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It's not the maze, it's the Minotaur.
Any data? (Score:2)
They talk about "statistical significance" and "normal variation", but dont say what the actual data shows. What are the standards for natural maise? Are they much different than the genetically engineered products? I am definetly in favor of quality control, but are they just holdin
This time, it's personal! (Score:2)
Wow, Greenpeace did something constructive! (Score:3, Insightful)
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Phew (Score:4, Funny)
Greenpeace? (Score:5, Insightful)
This may or may not be true (I'm skeptical when it's just one single study that had some ambiguous questions), but Greenpeace is not the one that ought to report it. Yes, the messenger does matter. If this is really true, give it to a mainstream organization and let them figure it out.
Of course, we know Greenpeace won't do that, since they're all about the publicity.
Re:Greenpeace? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hypothetical timeline of inconvenient fact dissemination:
+0 days: greenpeace reports it
+5 days: fox news denies it
+6 days: daily show lambasts fox for denial
+10 days: CNN reports that inconvenient fact may or may not probably be verifiable, "scientists say," but "detractors detract"
+35 days: Science includes an article detailing the overwhelming, peer reviewed obvious correctness of evidence supporting the inconvenient fact
+37 days: WSJ publishes cleverly rehashed but thouroughly debunked fox news talking points; states but does not state that inconvenient fact is a convenient scam promelgated by liberals, homosexuals and communists
+38 days: my boss makes fun of me for supporting communist conspiracies & continues drinking only pure grain alcohol
This just in: (Score:5, Funny)
It has been discovered recently that virtually all food products known to mankind contain either fat-soluble vitamins or other compounds shown to build up and eventually damage the organs that process them when consumed to extreme excess. Even water-soluble vitamins and yet other compounds have been shown to dilute blood, deplete salts, and otherwise wear down the various organs they come in contact with in extreme amounts.
Moreover, it has been shown that virtually all physical objects are toxic in these same regards. Air in too high or low concentrations is extremely toxic. Even completely filtered air has been shown to be linked to negative effects on the immune system, and thus even the cleanest living ideals can be considered toxic!
Furthermore, even non-physical things can be considered toxic - most ideas taken to extreme have been shown to have negative physical consequences for the holders of these ideas. From peace extremists, to defense extremists, to health extremists, to even low-stress extremists, virtually all philosophies and ideas can be shown to be completely toxic in large doses.
Ryan Fenton
Greenpeace data? Same as Monsanto's data (Score:3, Informative)
Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology: http://www.springerlink.com/content/02648wu132m078 04/fulltext.html [springerlink.com]
So the "Independent Scientists" for Greenpeace got the Monsanto data and reanalyzed it and say there are significant biological differences (which is different from statistically significant). The only definite conclusion though I can find is that rats should not subsist entirely on this genetically modified corn.What about the BEES ??????? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't want to be sounding like a luddite but I have some really bad feeling about GM foods now. These bees just disappear. Empty hives and no clues?! WTF? And, so far none of the usual suspects are to blame.
That 2012 date is sure looming more real to me.
cheers
Everything is toxic - Especially Greenpeace (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cant we just eat corn as it was created by natu (Score:5, Insightful)
Genetic engenerring just speeds up the process a lot. Not that we shouldn't be careful: There are dangers in modifying foods, and the amount of change has a direct bearing on the amount of danger.
Just don't claim that 'non-GM' corn is 'as nature intended'. It just took humans longer to modify it.
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And thus people grew accustomed to eating the variations over the centuries. When you modify something and it's vastly different than what the body can handle it can cause serious issues.
I have no opinion on what should and shouldn't be done but I certainly haven't seen all that much benefit, so far, to what we have played with to "help out" nature.
Re:Cant we just eat corn as it was created by natu (Score:5, Insightful)
Corn and tomatoes are indigenous to the Americas. When the settlers from Europe or wherever arrived, they ate corn and tomatoes, that had been selectively grown for centuries. They were not accustomed to eating the variations over the centuries and yet they suffered no ill effects.
Have you ever eaten anything for the first time?
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It's not the water that gives you the runs, it is the bacteria in the water. Small traces of bacteria are far more likely to cause illness than a new food, or even a food with small traces of chemical toxins, because bacteria are capab
Re:Cant we just eat corn as it was created by natu (Score:5, Insightful)
If that's the case, if it's nothing new, how can it be patented?
Re:Cant we just eat corn as it was created by natu (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Cant we just eat corn as it was created by natu (Score:2, Insightful)
We've been (trying to) improving nature as long as we exist. That corn you think was created by nature is already the result of careful breeding for centuries.
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http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/20
Don't read this answer, then :-) (Score:2)
Ever heard of mutations? The plant you ate your corn off might have mutated and generates some nerve poison...
I doubt the allegations, since if Monsanto really tried to cover up toxic effects in food that it was selling, it'll lose much more than it ever could earn.
I'll wait for more dependable sources like NY Times or Washington Post (Sci American took a downturn a decade or two ago; seems to be argue politics a lot).
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Nixtamalization (yes, really). (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're looking for this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization [wikipedia.org]
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No, maize is corn.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maize [wikipedia.org]
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How does genetically modified food save lives?
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So ? How is GM going to solve the problems of distribution (as in: how do you get food to people in a frickin war zone ?) ? Starvation isn't a problem of there being not enough food on this planet (not yet, anyways. This might change with the growing world population, overfishing of the oceans and climate change). It's a problem of getting the food where it is needed. Usually, the people there could feed themselves just fines if it wer
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Even if it is basically impossible these days, since it's in just about everything.
When the fuck did using regular fucking sugar become a problem?
Oh, wait, that's right. Cuba. Duh.
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Wow, nice ad homenim attack you've got there. "All people who disagree with me are doody heads, neener neener neener"
Has it occured to you that people are leery of GM products because there is no evidence to suggest it is safe? The people making this stuff say "you have no evidence it's unsafe", and dismiss any criticism of putting things which have been barely studied into our food supply. So
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There have been cases of selective breeding gone wrong, in both plants and animals -- I'm not sure any of t