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On September 20 2012 10:21 TMStarcraft wrote:
I hope OP updates with some of the criticisms leveled against the paper from the BBC article. Non-statistically significant sample sizes, use of a rat species prone to developing tumours, emotive presentation of results etc all strike me as extremely poor form for a scientific paper.
I'll wait for peer review. It would be just as bad to put random criticism from random articles. It's a heated subject with powerful lobbies. If even scientist are sometimes paid to defend bullshit, caution is needed.
Wait a few days and we will get reactions from both sides.
Edit : as an example, if the samples are not significant, then it means most samples from the majority of food studies are not significant; if this species of rats is a bad choice, then how come it is used in so many tests supposed to determine what is healthy enough for our plate; when is a picture considered an "emotive" representation of results; etc.
Leave science to science.
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you guys realize a lot of the foods we consume are GM afflicted in some way or form?
Tomato is up there. Normal ones are not as big or as ripe as you see in the grocery stores and don't last as long as the GM ones.
maize corn is the funniest one of all. Real corn does NOT look like that at all what you see in stores (i.e real corns have outside hard, protective shell). They have gone through selective breeding...
edit:
should probably wait for the review myself. The paper seems really flawed...I mean 200 rats, prone to tumors... Yea not buying it until then.
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On September 20 2012 08:03 Sufficiency wrote:
Reserving this until I have read the actual paper, but from the OP it seems fishy already.
EDIT: looks to me from Figure 1's top left panel that the herbicide Round-up actually reduces mortality! Oh the humanity!
Yes I was being sarcastic. But really, I don't see any convincing evidence that the GM corn actually caused higher mortality in rats.
Rats, a species of being extremely prone to tumors and cancer got said diseases and died. I've had 5 rats as pets in my life, all died from tumors..... perhaps it was the food I was giving them ;p
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Having skimmed the figures, I'm a bit confused. They refer to a "control" group, but all I can see data for are three groups: roundup alone, roundup + GMO maize, or GMO maize alone.
If I'm interpreting that correctly, that means the study is not powered to study the effects of GMO maize. It can only study how GMO maize interacts with roundup, above and beyond any independent effects. And it's just sloppy not to have a no treat group. It's so sloppy, in fact, that I'm hoping someone will correct me and say I've misinterpreted the paper. But if they did have a control group, why is it not included in the figures?
Also, quick skim at their acknowledgments shows funding by at least two anti-GMO interest groups. I'm as skeptical of this publication as I would be of a study by Pfizer that sounded too good to be true.
Edit: I am indeed mistaken. I see they took their 100 mice and divided them into 10 groups. It appears they're showing and analyzing subsets. But they did have a no roundup, no GMO maize control. The analysis is done in an odd way. Never seen that particular statistical method, and it's not particularly well explained. But for those curious, there do only appear to be 10 mice per group.
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United States5955 Posts
On September 20 2012 10:41 bmore_bulldog wrote:
Having skimmed the figures, I'm a bit confused. They refer to a "control" group, but all I can see data for are three groups: roundup alone, roundup + GMO maize, or GMO maize alone.
If I'm interpreting that correctly, that means the study is not powered to study the effects of GMO maize. It can only study how GMO maize interacts with roundup, above and beyond any independent effects. And it's just sloppy not to have a no treat group. It's so sloppy, in fact, that I'm hoping someone will correct me and say I've misinterpreted the paper. But if they did have a control group, why is it not included in the figures?
Also, quick skim at their acknowledgments shows funding by at least two anti-GMO interest groups. I'm as skeptical of this publication as I would be of a study by Pfizer that sounded too good to be true.
They didn't publish their control data though they say they had one.
Honestly the big issue is that their groups had an n=10. No wonder there aren't any p-values in the paper..
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On September 20 2012 10:45 ZeaL. wrote:
They didn't publish their control data though they say they had one.
Honestly the big issue is that their groups had an n=10. No wonder there aren't any p-values in the paper..
Yup, as you can see from my edit above, I came to the same conclusion right before you posted. And another reason they don't have any p-values is because they are using some VERY exotic statistical techniques. Never come across that particular method. And not sure why a simpler technique wouldn't do.
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On September 20 2012 10:50 bmore_bulldog wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2012 10:45 ZeaL. wrote:
They didn't publish their control data though they say they had one.
Honestly the big issue is that their groups had an n=10. No wonder there aren't any p-values in the paper.. Yup, as you can see from my edit above, I came to the same conclusion right before you posted. And another reason they don't have any p-values is because they are using some VERY exotic statistical techniques. Never come across that particular method. And not sure why a simpler technique wouldn't do.
"Researchers studied 10 groups, each containing 10 male and 10 female rats, over their normal lifetime - two years."
Hell? This is so shitty... Such a small size...this is almost laughable. This already breaks the cardinal rule of statistics...
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Wait how are they not publishing the negative control? (I am assuming you all have access to the original paper.) The dotted line in Figure 1 and Figure 2 is the rats that ate the non-GMO form of the maize.
So guessing from what Heh said before, I guess the average number of rats used for this type of study is 1000?
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On September 20 2012 10:26 SnipedSoul wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2012 10:21 TMStarcraft wrote:
I hope OP updates with some of the criticisms leveled against the paper from the BBC article. Non-statistically significant sample sizes, use of a rat species prone to developing tumours, emotive presentation of results etc all strike me as extremely poor form for a scientific paper. Same, scientific publications are supposed to be neutral.
did they release who funded it?
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http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Monsanto_and_the_Roundup_Ready_Controversy
Just if anyone wanted to do some background reading. But you all are missing a HUGE, GAPING point, and the reason they don't do a control; Roundup is an herbicide; plants absorb it and die. It's not a pesticide that is sprayed on and washed off. It is sprayed everywhere for weed control, and while the weeds die, the Roundup Ready Maize simply absorbs the herbicide. This means that the GMO RR-Maize, by definition, CONTAINS ROUNDUP. You can't simply wash it off.
Hence, Roundup alone would technically be the "control", as they are trying to see just how much Roundup is in the RR Maize and if those levels are really as safe as originally believed.
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Good god. Roundup has always had a rightfully terrible rep, and now this :O
Peer-reviewed, legitimate paper...looks serious.
Edit: wait....that's definitely a very very small sample size though.. -_-
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Kukaracha I think you need to put up a point in the OP mentioning that they grow their own maize. they don't take it from a random farmers field. This is why I hate media reporting on scientific articles, they never bother mentioning the details. The people who do these studies over 2 years are not dumb. Do you think they would leave off a control that important? Do you not think the article reviewer will not notice something like that. lol
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MURICA15980 Posts
For things like this, its best to trust the thousands of science professionals who actually know what they are talking about to be the whistle blower. Just being a google-master will not give you any clear answers for something so complicated.
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On September 20 2012 11:03 AUGcodon wrote:
Kukaracha I think you need to put up a point in the OP mentioning that they grow their own maize. they don't take it from a random farmers field. This is why I hate media reporting on scientific articles, they never bother mentioning the details. The people who do these studies over 2 years are not dumb. Do you think they would leave off a control that important? Do you not think the article reviewer will not notice something like that. lol
The GM Maize in question is patented by Monsanto; they can't simply grow it themselves, they would have to ask for a source of the genetically-modified strain to do a study. Do you think Monsanto would just give it to them, considering the study shows things they would rather were NEVER looked into?
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On September 20 2012 10:53 AUGcodon wrote:
Wait how are they not publishing the negative control? (I am assuming you all have access to the original paper.) The dotted line in Figure 1 and Figure 2 is the rats that ate the non-GMO form of the maize.
So guessing from what Heh said before, I guess the average number of rats used for this type of study is 1000?
Thanks for that, helps clarify. The control group are the vertical lines. Really odd way to represent it. So the dashed bars are the SEM of the control lifespan. But when did the first mouse in the control group die? I don't believe they say. Why plot SEM for control and show entire survival curve for experimental? My guess would be that the effect looks much less profound if the control group is plotted the exact same way as the experimental groups.
10 mice/group may or may not be an appropriate size, depending on how powerful the effect is. So you need to run some statistical tests to make sure you have enough mice. The test they chose is really complex and not well described at all, nor do they really say why they needed to do this test and not a simpler one.
Convoluted presentation, unnecessary complexity, funded by GMO interest groups...all signs point to bullshit.
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On September 20 2012 11:07 JackReacher wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2012 11:03 AUGcodon wrote:
Kukaracha I think you need to put up a point in the OP mentioning that they grow their own maize. they don't take it from a random farmers field. This is why I hate media reporting on scientific articles, they never bother mentioning the details. The people who do these studies over 2 years are not dumb. Do you think they would leave off a control that important? Do you not think the article reviewer will not notice something like that. lol The GM Maize in question is patented by Monsanto; they can't simply grow it themselves, they would have to ask for a source of the genetically-modified strain to do a study. Do you think Monsanto would just give it to them, considering the study shows things they would rather were NEVER looked into?
From the paper itself
Plants, Diets, and Chemicals
The varieties of maize used in this study were the R-tolerant NK603 (Monsanto
Corp., USA), and its nearest isogenic non-transgenic control. These two types of
maize were grown under similar normal conditions, in the same location, spaced
at a sufficient distance to avoid cross-contamination. The genetic nature, as well
as the purity of the GM seeds and harvested material, was confirmed by qPCR analysis
of DNA samples. One field of NK603 was treated with R at 3 L ha1 (Weather-
MAX, 540 g/L of glyphosate, EPA Reg. 524-537), and another field of NK603 was not
treated with R. Corns were harvested when the moisture content was less than 30%
and were dried at a temperature below 30 C. From these three cultivations of maize, laboratory rat chow was made based on the standard diet A04 (Safe, France).
The dry rat feed was made to contain 11, 22 or 33% of GM maize, cultivated either
with or without R, or 33% of the non-transgenic control line. The concentrations of
the transgene were confirmed in the three doses of each diet by qPCR. All feed formulations
consisted in balanced diets, chemically measured as substantially equivalent
except for the transgene, with no contaminating pesticides over standard
limits. All secondary metabolites cannot be known and measured in the composition.
However we have measured isoflavones and phenolic acids including ferulic
acid by standard HPLC-UV. All reagents used were of analytical grade. The herbicide
diluted in the drinking water was the commercial formulation of R (GT Plus, 450 g/L
of glyphosate, approval 2020448, Monsanto, Belgium). Herbicides levels were assessed
by glyphosate measurements in the different dilutions by mass
spectrometry.
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For anyone with knowledge of biotech, genetic engineering, etc., here is a detailed description of exactly which genes were modified, for what purpose, and the exact technique used (from the Center for Environmental Risk Assessment's Genetically Modified Crop Database).
http://cera-gmc.org/index.php?action=gm_crop_database&mode=ShowProd&data=NK603
@ Above poster, yea, I never really considered that they aren't using the NK603 Maize for commercial purposes, so they are free to do it. But nonetheless, I think it's worth looking at the details of the GM crop (linked above).
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Sorry I forgot no sarcasm.
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On September 20 2012 11:20 jdseemoreglass wrote:
OMG it's a study which stokes fears which I already held against things that are strange and confusing to me like science and genetic modification and pesticides, they all sound so scary and dangerous and now these people did a study confirming all of my worst fears, that my children are going to grow up with a third arm growing from their head because of these evil and greedy corporations who I also fear and distrust. Thank god the internet exists to inform me of these dangers so that I feel conviction in my heart and not some vague and unjustified suspicion, and thank god we have organic farm growers who I can buy pea sized apples from with worms in them for double the price.
I'm as skeptical about the dangers as you are, but you don't have to be ignorant or closed-minded; after reading the paper, a few other sources, and what people have said here, I can't argue with the science. My opinion has changed, on this particular subject.
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They publish none of their controls, and there are like 10 rats in each group. Show us how the apparently normal rats fared, and then we'll talk. Oh, but the study's power is negligible anyway, so I guess it doesn't even matter.
It's pretty depressing how easy it is to stir people up into a frothing anti-GM histeria.
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EPT
