The forces arrayed against Genetic Modification of food sources have no shame. They come out of their lairs and put up misleading claims, but sometimes they offend their colleagues too much.
Genetically Modified is considered by some fanatics to be scary. Franken Food they say.
The noisiest and most publicized of the GM opponents is Jeremy Rifkin, whose predictions about the future of GM Food and his criticisms have been mostly about his anti progress agenda and his dislike of the biotech revolution.
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/10/11/peter-foster-rifkin-wrong-and-wronger/
But this little note is about a French natural food advocacy group opposed to GM that got confused about what’s science and what’s propaganda for political purposes. Kinda like the Union of Concerned Scientists.
They got exposed for putting up a junk science article claiming rodents got more cancer if they ate Genetically Modified (GM) Corn (called Maize in the plant science biz).
Those Frenchie French researchers cheated a little on the choice of strain of rodent fed the GM corn? Shocking.
The retraction statement by the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology said:
the retraction was because the study’s small sample size meant no definitive conclusions could be reached.
The sample sizes too small–well how about they did a toxicology study that was based on a premise that invites cheating.
I’d say the methodology is less reliable than just inadequate sample sizes. How about plausibility? I get tired of these people putting up studies with endpoints that are statistical, not biological. If you get my meaning. Premature death is a statistical phenomenon as used by cheaters, not a biological/pathological event. We can do better if we really do investigations instead of desk top number crunching.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/11/29/science-gm-retraction-idINL2N0JE0FM20131129
But you be the judge. looks like the critics also know the danger of doing “tumor” as an endpoint in mice.
We don’t know what causes cancer, then we call “tumors” in mice cancer when we know that they naturally have high rates of “tumors” anyway.
And after that it goes downhill. In pursuit of a scare about genetically modified food plants.
Genetic modification (GM) has been going on for a long time with great success to improve plant strains. Norman Borlaug, agronomist extraordinaire raised in Iowa and grad of U of Minnesota, won a Nobel Prize and was called the father of the green revolution because he developed methods for producing better strains of wheat and corn, even rice. He is credited with saving 1 billion people from starvation and is one reason Thomas Malthus was a failure. GM is now much more developed and allows for developing insect resistance.
Recently a Vitamin A containing rice was developed to prevent deficiencies in populations that have mostly rice diets, to prevent blindness. Greenpeace was condemned and criticized for trying to have the rice outlawed because of its irrational and junk science opposition to GM.
I am handsome because of a special genetic modification that eliminated the ugly from Irish ancestors, they couldn’t find a mate.
Beef bulls are selectively bred to produce offspring with mo’and better beef.
Genetic manipulation doesn’t produce toxic or carcinogenic DNA and nuclear material.
“Natural” and “Organic” is a religious word game with secret meaning for fanatics.
10 thoughts on “Let Them Eat Cake but No GM Corn”
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The American Academy of Environmental Medicine??? What is that?
The same group that advocates for sick building syndrome and poly sensitivities and dedicated bubble eco units for really neurotic patients?
GM foodstock is for food and all the silly talk above is symptomatic of the anxious nature of people who are looking for toxins everywhere.
So GM food has fats, proteins, carbos and sugars, and it goes in and the digestive tract makes it fuel and basic things to build with. Our bodies even deal with neruotic fussy eaters who don’t eat a balanced diet with few negative consequences.
GM doesn’t make some new toxin.
The comments above are clearly a product of anxiety–people, get a life.
Safety studies? On food, how about where someone creates a hybrid?
All the bulls it he pasture and all the plants in the fields are the product of Genetic Modification and culture science.
Norman Borlaug saved millions of lives with GM, but people who have contributed to the site above are opposed.
Some studies show higher cancer rates or some disease entities–give me a break–data dredging by Luddite enviros. I know you, i can smell your attitude and your deceptions because I am familiar with your nonsense.
Keep it up anxious ones, and you won’t be sure about even those “natural” “organic” foods you care so much for. Take your Doxy or whatever for the e coli or salmonella you might meet because of fecal based fertilization. You know one pass through a radiation chamber would make all food safe, but you can’t have that, can you, scared it will create some other form of Franken food. There is no saving the nervous.
And please skip the lectures about red meat–I need meat, and it’s much more nutritious than tofu or vegatebles–more minerals, vitamins and protein, even fat which is a proven life extender.
I’ll take a full size Snicker for my carbos and outlive you a bunch, besides being better lookin’ and more fun.
Put some sauce on it Darlin’.
I think your right-
http://www.nongmoshoppingguide.com/about-gmos.html
The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM)* recently released its position paper on Genetically Modified foods stating that “GM foods pose a serious health risk” and calling for a moratorium on GM foods.
Citing several animal studies, the AAEM concludes “there is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects” and that “GM foods pose a serious health risk in the areas of toxicology, allergy and immune function, reproductive health, and metabolic, physiologic and genetic health.”** The AAEM further called for a moratorium on GM food, with implementation of immediate long-term safety testing and labeling of GM food.
http://www.naturalnews.com/032834_humanitarian_aid_GMOs.html
Bill Gates, Monsanto hijack ‘humanitarian aid’ efforts to push GMO agenda
http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/category/obamacare/
GMOs Plus Obamacare: Your Ticket to Slavery
GMO crops were originally introduced with no human safety studies. The crops were given carte blanche because the whole approval process was rigged. People could be developing cancers as a result of eating GMO food and no one would know. People could be developing serious digestive disorders and neurological problems and no one would know. To pursue this in detail, read Jeffrey Smith’s classic, Genetic Roulette: The Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods. Smith lays out 65 GMO health risks, with references. He also shows how safety assessments of GMO foods fall horribly short.
The GMO overlords need a cover-story-diversion for the harm their foods inflict. That cover story will, increasingly, be fashioned and sculpted by Obamacare. Obamacare will eventually morph into a blueprint of all diagnosable diseases and disorders, and permitted treatments. This will allow a perfect cover for the protection of “favored toxins.” In other words, when disease strikes as a result of GMOs, pesticides, other environmental chemicals, and so on, the medical diagnosis will fail to name the true culprits. It’s called concealment.
So I don’t think it’s so cut and dry with GMOs. The bottom line- consumers have a right to know where their food came from and what’s in it.
James Corbett;Genetic Fallacy: How Monsanto Silences Scientific Dissent
“That a former Monsanto scientist should find himself in charge of a specially-created post at the very journal that published two landmark studies questioning the safety of that company’s products should surprise no one who is aware of the Monsanto revolving door. This door is responsible for literally dozens of Monsanto officials, lobbyists and consultants finding themselves in positions of authority in the government bodies that are supposedly there to regulate the company and its actions.
“Find out more about Monsanto’s ability to suppress scientific dissent in this week’s edition of the BoilingFrogsPost.com Eyeopener report.”
Both selective breeding and hybridization do not go into cells and add or subtract DNA from unrelated species.
Genetic manipulation isn’t that controllable, or there wouldn’t be third generation hamsters fed gm soy with hair growing in their mouths.
No, it’s not. Both selective breeding and hybridization seek to modify the genetic code of the plant in question. You just don’t have much control over what is modified and have no idea if something subtle has been introduced that will cause problems later. Direct genetic manipulation is more precise and controllable. You have just bought into the argument that if we don’t know all the potential risks of something that we must assume the worst case. That mentality precludes the possibility of technologically advance and all the benefits it can create. Yes, sometimes risk taking does produce negative results, but we can’t let fear freeze us to the point of inaction.
That is nonsense. Genetic modification is entirely different from selective breeding or hybridization.
As for the “testing”. a 9 week feeding study isn’t long enough for testing something which will be eaten over a life time.
Judy,
Everything you eat today has been systematically and purposely genetically modified. Before direct genetic manipulation was possible we just did it blindly by trial and error. It took a long time and we never really knew what we were going to get. Just because a plant was bigger, or produced more food didn’t mean that it was “safe”, but we typically just assumed it was with little testing. Today we have much better control the the genetic changes and target only a few at a time. We also perform much more testing. So it’s very likely that “GMO” food is actually “safer” than hybrid varieties of the past, which you have been eating your entire life.
Got any references for gm cannabis or tobacco? So far there is speculation about a gm tobacco being used to fight rabies, but nothing about the smoking kind.
I find all the heartache over GM to be simply ridiculous. There are two plants which are the products of highly advanced genetic modification, but all heck would break out if you tried to ban them. They are tobacco, and marijuana.
Since the Seralini study was a complete replication of the original study Monsanto submitted to the FDA, a 6 week chronic toxicity study, not a cancer study,the criticisms of it are rather specious. The French team extended the time to two years, There were not looking for tumors….they appeared, and that is worrisome. Whether it is the genetic modification or the Round-up itself, we do not know….but that is grounds for more research, not less.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2013/15184-journal-retraction-of-seralini-study-is-illicit-unscientific-and-unethical