|
The health effects of a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize (from 11% in the diet), cultivated with or without Roundup, and Roundup alone (from 0.1 ppb in water), were studied 2 years in rats. In females, all treated groups died 2–3 times more than controls, and more rapidly. This difference was visible in 3 male groups fed GMOs. All results were hormone and sex dependent, and the pathological profiles were comparable. Females developed large mammary tumors almost always more often than and before controls, the pituitary was the second most disabled organ; the sex hormonal balance was modified by GMO and Roundup treatments.
Taken from the original paper (PDF).
This study has made a lot of noise lately, both because of the unusual way it appeared (journalists who had seen it had to sign a non-disclosure agreement that prevented them from writing anything before the "official" day of release) and the extreme conclusions it contained. The aim of Seralini's team was to prove that GMOs are toxic on their own, without the impact of the infamous Roundup pesticid. Here is how it goes : 200 rats are divided in main 4 groups, wich are in turn divided in 2 (male and female).
- The first is the control group (no NK603, no Roundup)
- The second is only fed NK603 maize
- The third is fed NK603 maize and Roundup
- The fourth is only fed Roundup
The NK 603 maize is homegrown, to ensure that it is not already contaminated with Roundup. Note that of these 200 rats, only 40 are used in the final conclusion (the raw data hasn't been yet published as far as I know).
A controversy sprung over the quality of the paper, as many voices suggested it provided unsufficient data analyzed through a questionable methodology. Is the study really that dubvious?
- The albino rat used fo the experiment, called "Sprague Dawley is allegedly extremely prone to cancers. Nearly 80% are struck with cancer after two years of life. They are also very sensitive to stress and changes in their diet.
-->These concerns are indubitably legitimate. However, it is not limited to this study : Sprague Dawley rats are among the most commonly used animals in lab testing! Not only that, they are the race used in the validation process of the NK603 maize(PDF).
- GMOs are already tested and no problem has been found yet.
-->The studies are limited to 90 days, which represents less than 10% of the tested rats' life span.
- The number of tested rats (200) is too low to draw any sort of conclusions
-->True, and yet it is much more than the number usually seen.
- The CRIIGEN and DR. Seralini are openly anti-GMO.
-->They are indeed. Both their data and the data provided by Monsanto is to observed precaciously.
Here is an article that sums the situation pretty well :
NK603 is a type of corn, or maize, that has been engineered to make it resistant to Roundup and is used by farmers to maximise yields.
The authors of the study said it was the first experiment in GM food that followed rats throughout their lifespan, as opposed to just 90 days.
Premature death and tumours were far higher among rats, especially females, that had been fed the GM corn or given ordinary corn supplemented by water to which low concentrations of Roundup had been added, they said.
At the 14-month stage of experiment, no animals in the control groups showed any signs of cancer, but among females in the "treated" groups, tumours affected between 10 and 30 percent of the rodents, the study said.
"By the beginning of the 24th month, 50-80 percent of female animals had developed tumours in all treated groups, with up to three tumours per animal, whereas only 30 percent of controls were affected," it said.
Males which fell sick suffered liver damage, developed kidney and skin tumours and digestive problems.
But other scientists said the study was too underpowered, had questionable gaps in the data and raised doubts more about Roundup than the NK603 corn itself.
It entailed 200 rats divided into 10 experimental groups, of which only 20 were "controls" fed ordinary corn and plain water.
This sample size is too small to rule out statistical quirks, especially as the rats were of the "Sprague-Dawley" laboratory strain, which is notoriously susceptible to mammary tumours, said Maurice Moloney, research director at Britain's Rothamsted agricultural research station.
Source (AFP)
What can we conclude from this? Not much, it seems. The study provides insufficient data, although the innovative approach calls for more investigation : can GMOs really affect the human body on the long term? The reproduction of a long-term analysis would give us a good answer about the legitimacy of our fears in regards to genetically modified food. However, the results from one type of GMO don't tell much about GMOs as a whole.
The most interesting aspect revealed by this affair is the problematic state of scientific control and review over the biotech industry, a problem that we can probably extend to other fields (think pharmaceuticals). Validation tests are severely lacking, while most extensive studies come either from Monsanto themselves or direct opponents. Monsanto has also quite a history, as the maker of the Agent Orange and the center of many controversies (PCB pollution, Indian green revolution, etc).
More about Monsanto :
+ Show Spoiler +"Marie-Monique Robin travelled the world to meet scientists and political figures in order to investigate Monsanto's actions, controversy over GM crops, and the effects of the globalization of industrial agriculture on farmers in the developing world. Those interviewed include Shiv Chopra, a Canadian researcher who was fired by Health Canada for revealing an attempted bribe by Monsanto regarding the attempted introduction of bovine growth hormone into Canada. The author of the research met several independent scientists around the world who tried to warn the political authorities about the use of genetically modified seeds. According to Robin, most of these scientists actually lost their jobs as a consequence of their speaking out. The "revolving door syndrome" is also pointed out in the research as a threat to the quality and independence of the scientific conclusions about the effects of Monsanto products, especially those reached by the Food and Drug Administration.
Robin travels to India, Mexico, Argentina, and Paraguay to see how Monsanto's genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have affected local farmers using it for their crops. The claim is that suicide rates of farmers in India have increased as farmers are finding it harder to earn a living using more expensive Monsanto seeds that, despite claims, still require specific pesticide and fertilizer (see above). Mexico, having banned GMOs, is trying to limit contamination and crossbreeding from subsidized U.S. GMO corn imported through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for eating. Argentinian farmers are giving up farming and moving to urban slums because they cannot compete with GM crops and are finding their farms, livestock, and children being negatively affected by pesticide runoff. Paraguay was forced to accept GMO crops as it was being imported anonymously and grown en masse, so prohibiting its export would have damaged the economy. In all cases genetic variation is reduced as a result of monocropping and ownership is increasingly concentrated."
Closing words by Pr. Eisen, from the University of California, Berkeley :
It’s a really messed up field. The vast majority of research on GMO safety – on both sides – is done by people out to prove something rather than investigate something. This affects every aspect of the work, from study design, to execution, interpretation and publicity.
This particular study was so poorly designed – the highly sensitized line, the inexcusably small number of animals – that you didn’t even have to look at the ridiculous statements from the lead author (like “GMOs are a pesticide sponge”) to see that it was biased.
The result of all of this severely tainted work (and there’s plenty from the pro-GMO side too) is that the really good science in the field gets drowned out, and isn’t taken seriously because people just assume that it, too, must be biased. Total mess.
PS : further explanation from TL posters :
+ Show Spoiler +AUGcodon This is probably the most relevant graph for discussion Mortality graph Fig. 1. Mortality of rats fed GMO treated or not with Roundup, and effects of Roundup alone. Rats were fed with NK603 GM maize (with or without application of Roundup) at three different doses (11, 22, 33% in their diet: thin, medium and bold lines, respectively) compared to the substantially equivalent closest isogenic non-GM maize (control, dotted line). Roundup was administrated in drinking water at 3 increasing doses, same symbols (environmental (A), MRL in agricultural GMOs (B) and half of minimal agricultural levels (C), see Section 2). Lifespan during the experiment for the control group is represented by the vertical bar ± SEM (grey area). In bar histograms, the causes of mortality before the grey area are detailed in comparison to the controls (0). In black are represented the necessary euthanasia because of suffering in accordance with ethical rules (tumors over 25% body weight, more than 25% weight loss, hemorrhagic bleeding, etc.); and in hatched areas, spontaneous mortality. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/9wIjx.png) Cancer graph Legend:Fig. 2. Largest non-regressive tumors in rats fed GMO treated or not by Roundup, and effects of Roundup alone. The symbols of curves and treatments are explained in the caption of Fig. 1. The largest tumors were palpable during the experiment and numbered from 20 mm in diameter for males and 17.5 mm for females. Above this size, 95% of growths were non-regressive tumors. Summary of all tumors are shown in the bar histograms: black, non regressive largest tumors; white, small internal tumors; grey,metastases. Direct link to the graphGMO represent just the the crop, GMO + R is the crop and pesticide, and R is just the pesticide. This graph basically tells you how fast rats develop the tumor. The dotted line represent the rats who do not eat GMO. The continuous line represent the rats that are fed by the GMO. the thinnest line is when their diet consist 11% of the GMO, the medium bolded line is 22%, and really bolded line is 33%. So, when you look at females, you see those fed in GMO develop tumors much faster than themselves. the effect is less dramatic in males.
+ Show Spoiler +On September 19 2012 22:41 Heh_ wrote:
Okay, so I read the whole paper, courtesy of AUGcodon (start, if you know what I mean). I'll present my interpretation of the paper as unbiased as I can possibly get:
Figures:
Figure 1:
They looked at the lifespan of the mice and the causes of death. It’s pretty similar across the board. The authors nitpicked at a few cases where the Roundup-treated mice developed some problems relative to control, but it’s not noteworthy at all. When you’re looking at populations, 1 or 2 outliers hardly matter; the overall trend matters more. Problem is that their population size is hilariously small (10). Females got more mammary tumors… no shit Sherlock.
Figure 2:
They looked at tumor sizes. The females had tumors that were big.. really big that it caused obvious problems. Untreated controls appear to have smaller tumors, but by a small margin except for 1 group. No statistics done though.. no way to get anything with such a small sample size so we don’t even know if that difference is statistically significant.
Figure 3:
Gross pictures of tumors, tumors everywhere. While they claim that this is the trend observed, it could also have been a deliberate selection of pictures in order to justify the trend they want to observe. They did do some quantification in Table 2 and it does indeed seem like the Roundup-treated rats have more tumors though. More elaboration below.
Figure 4:
A pretty useless picture, trying to show how bad the cancer can get. It really contributes nothing to the rest of the article, no point commenting more.
Figure 5:
They claim to show that the physiological parameters are similar between groups. Why do I use the phrase “claim to”? Because their graphs make totally no sense. They don’t show which groups are getting compared, nor any biologically relevant numbers, just some really weird coefficients. Figure 5B is a bigger offender; this time they look at individual parameters and can’t even label the Y axis in an easily-understood manner. All I can decipher is that controls are different from treated rats. The authors claimed that they were statistically significant, but I shall not go into a long tangent about statistical manipulation, because this figure reeks of that. Also, the first time I’m seeing error bars in this paper. Too bad it has no meaning at all..
Others:
Problems with methods:
The strain of rat used is particularly susceptible to mammary tumors, which is what the researchers found. One source is found here (http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/5/1037.abstract). They did find many other tumors, but again no statistics. I have a concern that they could have been biased when examining the rats (more observant for tumors in the strains that they want them to appear in), but let’s hope that they were unbiased, or at least took some steps to make the examination unbiased.
Problems with statistics:
Each group has only 10 animals (100 of each gender, divided into 10 groups). That’s way too little for statistical analysis. You need a lot more to establish any statistical significance from the results. Anyway, from the graphs, there’s no significance at all.
In conclusion:
Basically, the paper states that the survival of the treated and control rats are similar, although the treated rats have a non-statistically significant increased tumor incidence. The biggest flaw of this paper is really the number of rats per group; 10 is wayyy to little. 50 would be good, 100 would make for convincing statistics. The last figure was really digging deep for something to comment on, but it’s really a waste of space. All in all, they made a point, but they did not prove it beyond reasonable doubt.
Unrelated:
You’re not supposed to house rats in cages alone. They’re supposed to be socially housed, according to IACUC (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee) guidelines.
|
|
|
|
|
Most likely because there's a huge amount of hysteria in the UK over GM foods. Many businesses make a point of avoiding GM products there simply because it's easier than dealing with the public paranoia.
|
Great writeup ! Thanks for this.
|
On September 26 2012 21:27 Jumbled wrote:Most likely because there's a huge amount of hysteria in the UK over GM foods. Many businesses make a point of avoiding GM products there simply because it's easier than dealing with the public paranoia.
Even if you dismiss the valid health concerns over GM you still have the issue of herbicide resistant 'superweeds'.
And have the scientists in the US figured out why all the bees are dying over there yet or is it all still a big 'mystery'?
|
He was the one that opened the previous thread as well. To his credit this thread is much less openly bias'd against genetically modified crops than the first thread. Kukaracha has improved a bad thread but unfortunately cannot fix a broken study.
The points from the previous thread (which I am tempted to repost) still hold up. It was a flawed study and although I do not hold GMO infallible- there is no legitimate evidence in this study.
|
From the previous thread:
On September 19 2012 22:41 Heh_ wrote:
Okay, so I read the whole paper, courtesy of AUGcodon (start, if you know what I mean). I'll present my interpretation of the paper as unbiased as I can possibly get:
Figures:
Figure 1:
They looked at the lifespan of the mice and the causes of death. It’s pretty similar across the board. The authors nitpicked at a few cases where the Roundup-treated mice developed some problems relative to control, but it’s not noteworthy at all. When you’re looking at populations, 1 or 2 outliers hardly matter; the overall trend matters more. Problem is that their population size is hilariously small (10). Females got more mammary tumors… no shit Sherlock.
Figure 2:
They looked at tumor sizes. The females had tumors that were big.. really big that it caused obvious problems. Untreated controls appear to have smaller tumors, but by a small margin except for 1 group. No statistics done though.. no way to get anything with such a small sample size so we don’t even know if that difference is statistically significant.
Figure 3:
Gross pictures of tumors, tumors everywhere. While they claim that this is the trend observed, it could also have been a deliberate selection of pictures in order to justify the trend they want to observe. They did do some quantification in Table 2 and it does indeed seem like the Roundup-treated rats have more tumors though. More elaboration below.
Figure 4:
A pretty useless picture, trying to show how bad the cancer can get. It really contributes nothing to the rest of the article, no point commenting more.
Figure 5:
They claim to show that the physiological parameters are similar between groups. Why do I use the phrase “claim to”? Because their graphs make totally no sense. They don’t show which groups are getting compared, nor any biologically relevant numbers, just some really weird coefficients. Figure 5B is a bigger offender; this time they look at individual parameters and can’t even label the Y axis in an easily-understood manner. All I can decipher is that controls are different from treated rats. The authors claimed that they were statistically significant, but I shall not go into a long tangent about statistical manipulation, because this figure reeks of that. Also, the first time I’m seeing error bars in this paper. Too bad it has no meaning at all..
Others:
Problems with methods:
The strain of rat used is particularly susceptible to mammary tumors, which is what the researchers found. One source is found here (http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/5/1037.abstract). They did find many other tumors, but again no statistics. I have a concern that they could have been biased when examining the rats (more observant for tumors in the strains that they want them to appear in), but let’s hope that they were unbiased, or at least took some steps to make the examination unbiased.
Problems with statistics:
Each group has only 10 animals (100 of each gender, divided into 10 groups). That’s way too little for statistical analysis. You need a lot more to establish any statistical significance from the results. Anyway, from the graphs, there’s no significance at all.
In conclusion:
Basically, the paper states that the survival of the treated and control rats are similar, although the treated rats have a non-statistically significant increased tumor incidence. The biggest flaw of this paper is really the number of rats per group; 10 is wayyy to little. 50 would be good, 100 would make for convincing statistics. The last figure was really digging deep for something to comment on, but it’s really a waste of space. All in all, they made a point, but they did not prove it beyond reasonable doubt.
Unrelated:
You’re not supposed to house rats in cages alone. They’re supposed to be socially housed, according to IACUC (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee) guidelines.
On Sep 19 2012 22:35 GreenManalishi wrote:http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/19/us-gmcrops-safety-idUSBRE88I0L020120919The study had too small a sample size and Seralini has made his career off of writing anti-GM literature. Profoundly flawed study on a subject where there have already been 100s of studies performed. No blind testing, no description of the methodology in the controls, and non conclusive results. Sounds like a nice piece of anti-GM propaganda with no real scientific merit.
|
This was already brought up and the study was defined as non conclusive and biased. I don't trust Monsanto and don't like their business practice but this study is bullshit.
|
On September 26 2012 21:38 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2012 21:27 Jumbled wrote:Most likely because there's a huge amount of hysteria in the UK over GM foods. Many businesses make a point of avoiding GM products there simply because it's easier than dealing with the public paranoia. Even if you dismiss the valid health concerns over GM you still have the issue of herbicide resistant 'superweeds'. And have the scientists in the US figured out why all the bees are dying over there yet or is it all still a big 'mystery'?
We dismiss invalid health concerns, not the valid ones. Herbicide resistant weeds as a result of using GMO is issue that should be solved by cost-benefit analysis as I see no problem with them per se. Also there are no ,even slightly well evidenced, links between GM and dying bees. The only proposed ones are based on artificial feeding of bees with high-fructose corn syrup. Even if that was the cause it would just mean that beekeepers should just not do that.
|
On September 26 2012 22:02 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2012 21:38 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:On September 26 2012 21:27 Jumbled wrote:Most likely because there's a huge amount of hysteria in the UK over GM foods. Many businesses make a point of avoiding GM products there simply because it's easier than dealing with the public paranoia. Even if you dismiss the valid health concerns over GM you still have the issue of herbicide resistant 'superweeds'. And have the scientists in the US figured out why all the bees are dying over there yet or is it all still a big 'mystery'? We dismiss invalid health concerns, not the valid ones. Herbicide resistant weeds as a result of using GMO is issue that should be solved by cost-benefit analysis as I see no problem with them per se. Also there are no ,even slightly well evidenced, links between GM and dying bees. The only proposed ones are based on artificial feeding of bees with high-fructose corn syrup. Even if that was the cause it would just mean that beekeepers should just not do that.
Obviously the more herbicide resistant superweeds in a crop the less the farmer will get for that crop.
Then you've got the fact that farmers are now using freaking KEVLAR tyres because the GMO crops are so tough they are ripping through tyres that would normally last 5 seasons within one or two seasons! link : http://www.autoblog.com/2012/08/02/gmo-crops-so-tough-that-farmers-are-turning-to-kevlar-tractor-ti/
So like you said about cost-benefit analysis-I think farmers will start moving away from GM crops because of the decreased yields, increased inputs like the new kevlar tyres and finally the fact that Europe pays less for GM crops than non-GM.I believe around $7 per tonne less for GM canola than GM free, thats if they even buy it as the people in Europe just don't want it.
|
It is truly a sad thing for almost all of the information about biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries are so biased. Since much of the industry is just mega-corporations butting heads and trying to dominate everything, and the FDA is dominated with ex-Monsanto employees. 
Personal health aside though, there are still several negative environmental impacts to growing GM crops, the most prominent of which is of coarse the infamous "superweeds." With more pesticide being needed, this destroys the soil, leaving them the only thing that can grow in it are the GM crops, leaving Monsanto with many needy farmers. However, if GM crops do indeed have more crop yield, then where can we draw the line which is more environmentally friendly, as hypothetically it would require less land for farming that would be forest or another habitat for animals.
All things aside, the one who suffers the most is the consumer in these cases, which is why I think is still important to avoid GM foods whenever possible, until someone that has the resources to do such a study should use them to make a valid study and not just try to make more profit one way or the other.
|
Well GMO is basicly the same as the one obtained by selection. If some GMO is faulty and causes health issues just remove it and get some other one?
|
Isn't the 'golden rule' for statistical significance at least 30 observations? Why would anyone conduct an experiment with 10?
And if you are going to make a weak scientific study with manipulated facts, why not make it a strong study with better manipulated facts? I don't see the logic.
|
As a biologist its beyond me how an informed person could even get the idea that modifying the genetic code of an organism somehow makes it harmful to eat it.
When natural mutations occur, or when we randomly mutate a genome using mutagens like EMS or radiation people think that is fine, but if we do a specific mutation by inserting one gene its somehow a problem.
So basically, if we dont know what we do and mutate a whole genome randomly everyone is cool with it, while when we know what we mutate they object to it. Its just retarded.
I guess overall its just a lack of knowledge that fuels the GMO scare. You fear what you dont understand.
|
Since it's not actually been put through a scientific peer-review process it cannot really be viewed as legit.
|
Don't know why OP describes it as 'innovative'. Though I'm mostly only familiar with econometric studies the method pursued seems to be fairly standard. Everything else about the study was wrong though, and I cringe at the liberties they take with statistical inference because it would be the kind of stuff that would get me failed my some of my courses.
The problem is that the scientists who did this can get away with it because the general public which applies pressure on governments and whatnot are not familiar with proper statistical methods and as long as announcements like these come with "published" and "peer reviewed" people are willing to accept it. That said, it's a wide-spread problem and at risk of sounding elitist the only way around it would be to take lightly papers not published in leading journals for their field (not 100% problem free admittedly).
On a lighter note I am always amused by term 'power' in the statistical sense.
|
On September 26 2012 22:56 Redox wrote:
As a biologist its beyond me how an informed person could even get the idea that modifying the genetic code of an organism somehow makes it harmful to eat it.
When natural mutations occur, or when we randomly mutate a genome using mutagens like EMS or radiation people think that is fine, but if we do a specific mutation by inserting one gene its somehow a problem.
So basically, if we dont know what we do and mutate a whole genome randomly everyone is cool with it, while when we know what we mutate they object to it. Its just retarded.
I guess overall its just a lack of knowledge that fuels the GMO scare. You fear what you dont understand.
As a medical student I have to agree. I fail to see the whole point of the study. Obviously the Roundup ingested together with the food by the rodents can cause all kinds of illnesses. The genetic mutations themselves should be completely innocuous unless the mutated (or inserted) gene product is somehow toxic for the human (e.g. highly potent human hormone), which would be pretty dumb, while the normal or lacking product isn't.
|
On September 26 2012 22:39 Derrida wrote:
Isn't the 'golden rule' for statistical significance at least 30 observations? Why would anyone conduct an experiment with 10?
And if you are going to make a weak scientific study with manipulated facts, why not make it a strong study with better manipulated facts? I don't see the logic.
I have read an interview of the guy who made the study and he says that Monsanto didn't make a stat test with 30 observations for this maize either. So basicly he is arguing that his work might be incomplete but that there are no better studies available for this variety.
|
On September 26 2012 22:56 Redox wrote:
As a biologist its beyond me how an informed person could even get the idea that modifying the genetic code of an organism somehow makes it harmful to eat it.
When natural mutations occur, or when we randomly mutate a genome using mutagens like EMS or radiation people think that is fine, but if we do a specific mutation by inserting one gene its somehow a problem.
So basically, if we dont know what we do and mutate a whole genome randomly everyone is cool with it, while when we know what we mutate they object to it. Its just retarded.
I guess overall its just a lack of knowledge that fuels the GMO scare. You fear what you dont understand.
Well you could insert genes that encode, say, neurotoxins into corn too. Or you could just tweak the corn so it grows faster with more nutrition. The point is genetic modification isn't intrinsically bad or good, it can be used to do both and people are right to be wary of GMOs that come out of corporations like Monsanto which seem to be more profit motivated than anything else. On the other hand, anti-GM people are frequently luddites who don't understand biology and seem to think that genetic modification makes organisms suddenly super evil and dangerous.
Edit: Not sure why this thread is open again, this paper has been shown to be almost completely useless. It would be better to start a thread on GM/non-GM foods without this ridiculously biased paper in the OP. This is like starting a climate change thread with a paper from Exxon showing how climate change isn't real.
|
If it gives rats cancer it must be good for you.
|
Monsanto is one of the biggest USA lobbys, they are harming americans everyday and want to harm everybody else.. Thank god EU has resisted but i don't know for how long they will.. hopefully we can survive this stupid lobby
|
On September 26 2012 22:56 Redox wrote:
As a biologist its beyond me how an informed person could even get the idea that modifying the genetic code of an organism somehow makes it harmful to eat it.
When natural mutations occur, or when we randomly mutate a genome using mutagens like EMS or radiation people think that is fine, but if we do a specific mutation by inserting one gene its somehow a problem.
So basically, if we dont know what we do and mutate a whole genome randomly everyone is cool with it, while when we know what we mutate they object to it. Its just retarded.
I guess overall its just a lack of knowledge that fuels the GMO scare. You fear what you dont understand.
I think the fear is that the people doing the modification are so consumed by greed that they willingly allow for bad effects from mutation to reach the consumer. Basically a rehash of the fear when pesticides were used on crops that harmed the consumers.
|
On September 26 2012 21:44 Probe1 wrote:
He was the one that opened the previous thread as well. To his credit this thread is much less openly bias'd against genetically modified crops than the first thread. Kukaracha has improved a bad thread but unfortunately cannot fix a broken study.
The points from the previous thread (which I am tempted to repost) still hold up. It was a flawed study and although I do not hold GMO infallible- there is no legitimate evidence in this study.
On September 26 2012 21:52 NeonFox wrote:
This was already brought up and the study was defined as non conclusive and biased. I don't trust Monsanto and don't like their business practice but this study is bullshit.
Read the conclusion. Everyone pretty much agrees that the study is unsufficient, although interesting.
On September 26 2012 22:39 Derrida wrote:
Isn't the 'golden rule' for statistical significance at least 30 observations? Why would anyone conduct an experiment with 10?
And if you are going to make a weak scientific study with manipulated facts, why not make it a strong study with better manipulated facts? I don't see the logic.
I have no idea, I believe CRIIGEN claimed they didn't have enough funds. I find it believable though I'm really not familiar with the costs of studying 200 rats for two years, to say the least.
On September 27 2012 00:04 elt wrote:
Don't know why OP describes it as 'innovative'. Though I'm mostly only familiar with econometric studies the method pursued seems to be fairly standard.
Long-term research.
|
On September 27 2012 00:54 ZeaL. wrote:
It would be better to start a thread on GM/non-GM foods without this ridiculously biased paper in the OP. This is like starting a climate change thread with a paper from Exxon showing how climate change isn't real.
Well If you want a GM/non-GM foods thread you can always start one. This one is about the paper, no matter how bad people think it is. As far as I am concerned I would never have found out how poor the paper is without this thread.
|
The paper may be useless, but I think that the call for more long term studies than the general(?) approach of 90 days seems fair enough. Especially since it seems most cancers occur at 4 months or later.
On a side note, overexpressing an enzyme with a modified substrate binding cavity to produce resistance will always make me suspicious. It's probably harmless and hopefully well tested. I will remain suspicious all the same.
I believe that guilty until proven otherwise is the prudent course in the biotech industry. After all they are playing around with the biosynthesis pathway of phenylalanine, tyrosine and tryptophan. Not to mention their derivates. I would definately rather err on the side of caution when it comes to manipulating our stable food sources.
That being said, I am definately a proponent of GMO's. I believe that they can be extremely beneficial and hope that they will gradually make an entry into society. I just hope the legislative panels will be able to tell the ingenious contructions from the bad ones. Because judging from all the bad science out there, there will be bad constructs and ideas along the way.
|
What to make of this?
1) Lobbyists are zealously trying to discard this study. I would appreciate that people show the same scientific skepticism with studies just as bad and statistically insignificant showing GMOs are safe.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691511006399
2) Said study has been published in the Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology, which is definitely peer reviewed contrary to what some people seem to think, and even has a decent impact factor (impact factor=3). Curious how some journalists (typically in forbes or other pro big corporations newspaper) are eager to dismiss it. If it is fraudulent, it will be retracted. In any case, more higher quality studies will be conducted.
3) Why does Monsanto put restrictive end user agreements that limit independent research?
from Wikipedia+ Show Spoiler +The value of current independent studies is considered by some to be problematic because, due to restrictive end-user agreements, independent researchers cannot obtain GM plants to study. Cornell University's Elson Shields, the spokesperson for a group of scientists who oppose this practice, submitted a statement to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) protesting that "as a result of restrictive access, no truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions regarding the technology".[294] Scientific American noted that several studies that were initially approved by seed companies were later blocked from publication when they returned "unflattering" results. While recognising that seed companies' intellectual property rights need to be protected, Scientific American calls the practice dangerous and has called for the restrictions on research in the end-user agreements to be lifted immediately and for the EPA to require, as a condition of approval, that independent researchers have unfettered access to GM products for testing.[295] In February 2009, the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) agreed that they "would allow researchers greater freedom to study the effects of GM food crops." This agreement left many scientists optimistic about the future, but there is little optimism as to whether this agreement has the ability to "alter what has been a research environment rife with obstruction and suspicion."[294]
Also http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/impacts_genetic_engineering/suppressing-research.html
4) Finally I can't believe in the so called US free market people would argue against labeling GMOs. Organic food is the de facto label, but it is not enough.
|
I love Monsanto.
I think they are one of the most exciting companies in the world, doing really amazing research.
But the left has got a hard-on for them and GM-food in general, so hatred for inovation will continue.
The facts are simple. We are going to make nature our bitch, and Monsanto is leading the charge in that frontier. Such a shame that the EU has such restrictions on GM-food. We are going to be lagging behind because of government, whilst America is letting inovation free and will reap the largest fruits (pun intended).
|
On September 26 2012 22:17 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2012 22:02 mcc wrote:On September 26 2012 21:38 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:On September 26 2012 21:27 Jumbled wrote:Most likely because there's a huge amount of hysteria in the UK over GM foods. Many businesses make a point of avoiding GM products there simply because it's easier than dealing with the public paranoia. Even if you dismiss the valid health concerns over GM you still have the issue of herbicide resistant 'superweeds'. And have the scientists in the US figured out why all the bees are dying over there yet or is it all still a big 'mystery'? We dismiss invalid health concerns, not the valid ones. Herbicide resistant weeds as a result of using GMO is issue that should be solved by cost-benefit analysis as I see no problem with them per se. Also there are no ,even slightly well evidenced, links between GM and dying bees. The only proposed ones are based on artificial feeding of bees with high-fructose corn syrup. Even if that was the cause it would just mean that beekeepers should just not do that. Obviously the more herbicide resistant superweeds in a crop the less the farmer will get for that crop. Then you've got the fact that farmers are now using freaking KEVLAR tyres because the GMO crops are so tough they are ripping through tyres that would normally last 5 seasons within one or two seasons! link : http://www.autoblog.com/2012/08/02/gmo-crops-so-tough-that-farmers-are-turning-to-kevlar-tractor-ti/So like you said about cost-benefit analysis-I think farmers will start moving away from GM crops because of the decreased yields, increased inputs like the new kevlar tyres and finally the fact that Europe pays less for GM crops than non-GM.I believe around $7 per tonne less for GM canola than GM free, thats if they even buy it as the people in Europe just don't want it.
Herbicide resistant superweeds and destroyed tires(if the story even checks out) are not a property of GMO in general, just some specific instances. Non-GM organisms are just a subset of GM organisms  There is no special mark of GM organisms. If I gave you two organisms and withheld information about their history you have no way of recognizing which one is which accurately. The point is that creating other GM organisms that do not have those properties and are still better than "natural" ones is quite possible.
The move away from GM (if any) will be shortlived as European customers are just plain stupid in this regard and the aversion to GM food is a fashion-like, not rational, choice that will go away instantly if money get tight.
|
On September 27 2012 00:40 Boblion wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2012 22:39 Derrida wrote:
Isn't the 'golden rule' for statistical significance at least 30 observations? Why would anyone conduct an experiment with 10?
And if you are going to make a weak scientific study with manipulated facts, why not make it a strong study with better manipulated facts? I don't see the logic. I have read an interview of the guy who made the study and he says that Monsanto didn't make a stat test with 30 observations for this maize either. So basicly he is arguing that his work might be incomplete but that there are no better studies available for this variety.
This just means that there is nothing known as his study is worthless.
|
Meh GMO foods are nice to have.
Again corn and tomatoes are heavily GM considering tomatoes naturally don't last long and corn has undergone genetic selection eons ago.
Also can we please move away from this study? A test that is inconclusive has no value in discussion, imo.
|
On September 27 2012 02:38 zalz wrote:
I love Monsanto.
I think they are one of the most exciting companies in the world, doing really amazing research.
But the left has got a hard-on for them and GM-food in general, so hatred for inovation will continue.
The facts are simple. We are going to make nature our bitch, and Monsanto is leading the charge in that frontier. Such a shame that the EU has such restrictions on GM-food. We are going to be lagging behind because of government, whilst America is letting inovation free and will reap the largest fruits (pun intended).
Monsanto is pretty ugly company and their products should be studied and banned if found lacking. The problem with the OP and other anti-GM people is not the fact that they want more checking of GM food and are criticizing, often deservedly, Monstanto and similar companies. Problem with them is that they generalize, out of ignorance mostly or fear maybe, properties of one GM product to all GM products.
If we are testing long-term effects of GM products, non-GM products should be tested as rigorously as they are as likely to be dangerous. The only way how GM product can be more likely to be dangerous on its own is for the creator to actually want to create harmful product. In that case it is much easier to do with GM food.
|
On September 27 2012 02:54 heroyi wrote:
Meh GMO foods are nice to have.
Again corn and tomatoes are heavily GM considering tomatoes naturally don't last long and corn has undergone genetic selection eons ago.
Also can we please move away from this study? A test that is inconclusive has no value in discussion, imo.
So your not interested in what your eating?
|
|
|
On September 27 2012 02:29 harlock78 wrote:What to make of this? 1) Lobbyists are zealously trying to discard this study. I would appreciate that people show the same scientific skepticism with studies just as bad and statistically insignificant showing GMOs are safe. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S02786915110063992) Said study has been published in the Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology, which is definitely peer reviewed contrary to what some people seem to think, and even has a decent impact factor (impact factor=3). Curious how some journalists (typically in forbes or other pro big corporations newspaper) are eager to dismiss it. If it is fraudulent, it will be retracted. In any case, more higher quality studies will be conducted. 3) Why does Monsanto put restrictive end user agreements that limit independent research? from Wikipedia + Show Spoiler +The value of current independent studies is considered by some to be problematic because, due to restrictive end-user agreements, independent researchers cannot obtain GM plants to study. Cornell University's Elson Shields, the spokesperson for a group of scientists who oppose this practice, submitted a statement to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) protesting that "as a result of restrictive access, no truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions regarding the technology".[294] Scientific American noted that several studies that were initially approved by seed companies were later blocked from publication when they returned "unflattering" results. While recognising that seed companies' intellectual property rights need to be protected, Scientific American calls the practice dangerous and has called for the restrictions on research in the end-user agreements to be lifted immediately and for the EPA to require, as a condition of approval, that independent researchers have unfettered access to GM products for testing.[295] In February 2009, the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) agreed that they "would allow researchers greater freedom to study the effects of GM food crops." This agreement left many scientists optimistic about the future, but there is little optimism as to whether this agreement has the ability to "alter what has been a research environment rife with obstruction and suspicion."[294] Also http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/impacts_genetic_engineering/suppressing-research.html4) Finally I can't believe in the so called US free market people would argue against labeling GMOs. Organic food is the de facto label, but it is not enough.
This post basically says it all.
What is shocking is that most studies on the effect of GMO and the likes are just poor overall (short amount of time, small number of experimentation) and made by labs that are more or less linked to the group that made the product in the first place. I don't understand how people can think such studies are more "scientific" that the study discussed in this thread. Let's wait for other studies maybe ?
But the real problem behind GMO is that it makes a lot of farmer completly dependant to crop that are made by one and only industry, especially in under-developped countries.
|
I don't get the "general opinion" that it has no value. It has a new approach and show some difference between groups with and without OGM food. It might not be perfect, but it has some results that people are way too fast to contradict and call the authors biased.
However the analysis done by the GMO producers themselves which are the one that are currently done in the industry are considered unbiased ?
I think it's normal to call for doubt here and conduct more studies (which is also the conclusion of the study's authors btw). The fact that people generally seem to dismiss it entirely in the name of science baffles me a bit. Science says that if experiments do not prove 100% the theory, and do not undisprove it, then you need to keep testing. It's not what happening when people say "stop testing, GMO". The correct answer should be "GMO are safe, let me do more experiments to show it".
Also peer review should be done on this study for sure, but as for now it's mostly been journalist comments and a few fast comments by other scientists. It's not a proper peer review, which usually also let's the possibility for argumentation to the authors. It's not the case here. I think a 2 year study could use more than a few day analysis before being called "trash".
Edit: for whitedog: I believe as I wrote here that the industrials have to conduct the tests themselves in most cases and provide the results to the FDA (for USA). It's standard procedure not only for GMOs, but also for drugs. In France it's the same I believe.
|
On September 27 2012 02:38 zalz wrote:
I love Monsanto.
I think they are one of the most exciting companies in the world, doing really amazing research.
But the left has got a hard-on for them and GM-food in general, so hatred for inovation will continue.
The facts are simple. We are going to make nature our bitch, and Monsanto is leading the charge in that frontier. Such a shame that the EU has such restrictions on GM-food. We are going to be lagging behind because of government, whilst America is letting inovation free and will reap the largest fruits (pun intended).
If GMOs were introduced in a well controlled and responsible manner, most would be fine with it.
GMOs and nuclear power are similar in a way. Lots of promises and lots of potential issues. GMOs are not a 1 dimensional issue. Don't forget that beside health, there are many other problems from environmental diversity destruction, patent and dependence issues etc...
You can just dismiss any potential risk hoping that progress and science will fix it. Then you d better hope that a disaster will not occur before science can resolve the side problems it created itself (nuclear proliferation, global warming ...).
Last thought. You can say: based on our understanding of molecular biology, GMOs should be safe. But you cannot say GMOs have been proved to be safe (most of these studies are bunk). The best you can say is there is no short term adverse effect.
However that often assumes a coding gene in total isolation from the surrounding complex organism. If you introduce some cockroach gene into a tomato that supposedly protects from some parasite, you hope that the gene will just code that protein, not affect anything else, and that the protein itself has no adverse effect other than what you think it does.
Hybridizing two breeds that have been part of our consumption in our evolutionary history is not the same thing as introducing genes from completely different species into another.
|
300 trillion (with a t) servings of GM food have gone down people's gullets and not a single person has gotten sick from it. Anti-GM advocates can't even find a properly done study to support their position and the explanation is "Oh well Monsanto didn't do theirs right either"? Monsanto Monsanto Monsanto, go hide under your beds it's the Monsanto Bogeyman. Some people in this thread might as well be dogs in the cage with Pavlov outside tossing in steaks with "Monsanto" grilled on them. Everything causes cancer. If cancer is the reason to ban GM foods, find a better reason.
If you want to avoid a few billion people starving this century from a Malthusian catastrophe, better stop worrying and learn to love the GM food. Or you can give the finger to Africa and Asia and tell them to figure out how to feed 2 billion more people by the end of the century on their own. Maybe "organic" farming can produce the yields necessary... oh wait it can't never mind.
|
On September 27 2012 04:10 DeepElemBlues wrote:
300 trillion (with a t) servings of GM food have gone down people's gullets and not a single person has gotten sick from it. Anti-GM advocates can't even find a properly done study to support their position and the explanation is "Oh well Monsanto didn't do theirs right either"? Monsanto Monsanto Monsanto, go hide under your beds it's the Monsanto Bogeyman. Some people in this thread might as well be dogs in the cage with Pavlov outside tossing in steaks with "Monsanto" grilled on them. Everything causes cancer. If cancer is the reason to ban GM foods, find a better reason.
If you want to avoid a few billion people starving this century from a Malthusian catastrophe, better stop worrying and learn to love the GM food. Or you can give the finger to Africa and Asia and tell them to figure out how to feed 2 billion more people by the end of the century on their own. Maybe "organic" farming can produce the yields necessary... oh wait it can't never mind.
Lol. Talk about Pavlovian reflex.
Aside from the fact you have no idea who got sick for those 300 trillions of GM serving, do you really think the agro business care about Africa?
About the UN/World bank study on effect of GM crops
http://www.councilforresponsiblegenetics.org/GeneWatch/GeneWatchPage.aspx?pageId=46
|
|
|
Two things on your argument are flawed :
- first you assume that GMO would be a direct cause for disease where you could say for 100% disease = GMO. Except that it doesn't work with cancer. Things can favorise cancer without it being the only cause or the only factor.
- Also no long term study has been done yet (that's the point of this one) which is also important when you do cancer research. For instance this particular 2 year rat study would be something like 20 years in human years. It's a long time. Like a lot of things that were considered safe and weren't in the long term. Take asbestos for instance. 20 years ago saying that it was unsafe would have made people laugh at you. Does it mean that GMO does it? No! Does it mean it needs more long term studies? Why not? Why refuse to be safe?
Also please don't mention "incoming food problem we need gmo". There's a lot of other different factors to it (the FAO has emitted a report on it which is quite interesting), and also it's a total other discussion that isn't related to its intrinsic safety (it's a straw man argument).
|
3rd thread to be opened about GMO studies, last 2 were closed...
What can we conclude from this? Not much, it seems. The study provides insufficient data, although the innovative approach calls for more investigation
Taken from the article itself. Why are you posting this ffs? Theres nothing to discuss really.
|
You know what I love about science? It's not partisan. It doesn't seek to prove an argument, it seeks to find the truth. You make an experiment that other people can replicate and produce objective results that enhance our understanding of the world.
Oh, if only it were so. What I described above is what science SHOULD be; oftentimes, that's not how it really works. Because science had (past tense) this reputation of an impartial arbiter and our best tool for finding the truth, unscrupulous parties have sought to abuse this reputation to advance their own agendas. A great example of this at work was mentioned by ZeaL on the first page of this thread; global warming. The global warming alarmists make "scientific" models predicting future warming and assume strongly positive feedback effects in their predictive models (which is a very strong assumption that guarantees alarming results), while the oil companies commission their own "scientific studies" whose conclusions were most likely determined at the outset as well.
What to make of this? Scientific studies cannot be trusted blindly, especially if you have reason to suspect they are politically motivated. There's a very strong possibility that the data and/or methodology will have been structured in bad faith, and the results will be interpreted in the most convenient way possible, seeking to prove a particular point rather than to find out the truth in the most objective way possible; a collection of half-truths that end up being wildly misleading.
What is presented in this study as impartial evidence that GM food is inherently carcinogenic in nature, looks like anything but impartial to me. In this highly political issue, the best way forward is to proceed with a healthy dose of skepticism, ideally diving as much as you can into the actual science yourself in order to have an informed opinion, and keeping an open mind for any future developments and evidence. My own understanding is that there's no reason to believe that GM food should be any more (or less) carcinogenic than non-GM food; the only exception to this that I can think of would be if the GM foods have a greater or smaller concentration of particular chemical elements that have radioactive isotopes, such as Carbon-14 or Potassium-40.
|
On September 27 2012 04:43 DeepElemBlues wrote:Show nested quote +Aside from the fact you have no idea who got sick for those 300 trillions of GM serving, do you really think the agro business care about Africa? No one got sick. That's the point. No one. Who cares whether the agro business "really cares" about Africa or not? What does that have to do with raising crop yields to meet increased population? Absolutely nothing? Yes, it has absolutely zero relevance. Pointing out that the agro business doesn't raise crops out of the goodness of their hearts is entirely irrelevant. People are either going to get fed or they're going to starve to death. That is what is relevant. Why would you think that whether agro business cares or not has anything to do with anything? You going to complain about literally every business in existence because they don't "care" personally about you?
Don't bring up feeding Africa to shove GMOs down everyone's throat then.
Have you looked at all alternatives? At how does production match to the actual demographic increase, with all the waste going on. I bet you are also saying that any alternative to full out Oil and Gas is doomed to fail, be it energy savings or renewable energy, because Exxon experts have said so?
I don't care about convincing you, democracy and alternative opinions are there to "keep them honest" and hopefully advance toward a better solution, not the necessarily the one preferred by a given business.
|
I think GMOs are the future. We selectively breed plants to make new plants that can serve a different, maybe better purpose. Same with animals. Same with humans, to an extent (selecting a fit mate, sperm and egg donors) GM is just an application of technology to that process. It carries risks, but so does any use of technology. Key is not to go full Luddite and go around smashing and condemning technology because of risks, which blind you to what will eventually be massive benefits.
|
On September 27 2012 03:23 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2012 02:29 harlock78 wrote:What to make of this? 1) Lobbyists are zealously trying to discard this study. I would appreciate that people show the same scientific skepticism with studies just as bad and statistically insignificant showing GMOs are safe. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S02786915110063992) Said study has been published in the Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology, which is definitely peer reviewed contrary to what some people seem to think, and even has a decent impact factor (impact factor=3). Curious how some journalists (typically in forbes or other pro big corporations newspaper) are eager to dismiss it. If it is fraudulent, it will be retracted. In any case, more higher quality studies will be conducted. 3) Why does Monsanto put restrictive end user agreements that limit independent research? from Wikipedia + Show Spoiler +The value of current independent studies is considered by some to be problematic because, due to restrictive end-user agreements, independent researchers cannot obtain GM plants to study. Cornell University's Elson Shields, the spokesperson for a group of scientists who oppose this practice, submitted a statement to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) protesting that "as a result of restrictive access, no truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions regarding the technology".[294] Scientific American noted that several studies that were initially approved by seed companies were later blocked from publication when they returned "unflattering" results. While recognising that seed companies' intellectual property rights need to be protected, Scientific American calls the practice dangerous and has called for the restrictions on research in the end-user agreements to be lifted immediately and for the EPA to require, as a condition of approval, that independent researchers have unfettered access to GM products for testing.[295] In February 2009, the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) agreed that they "would allow researchers greater freedom to study the effects of GM food crops." This agreement left many scientists optimistic about the future, but there is little optimism as to whether this agreement has the ability to "alter what has been a research environment rife with obstruction and suspicion."[294] Also http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/impacts_genetic_engineering/suppressing-research.html4) Finally I can't believe in the so called US free market people would argue against labeling GMOs. Organic food is the de facto label, but it is not enough. This post basically says it all. What is shocking is that most studies on the effect of GMO and the likes are just poor overall (short amount of time, small number of experimentation) and made by labs that are more or less linked to the group that made the product in the first place. I don't understand how people can think such studies are more "scientific" that the study discussed in this thread. Let's wait for other studies maybe ? But the real problem behind GMO is that it makes a lot of farmer completly dependant to crop that are made by one and only industry, especially in under-developped countries.
You understand that there can only be one industry making "crops", kinda from the definition of industry.
|
On September 27 2012 03:31 Bellygareth wrote:
I don't get the "general opinion" that it has no value. It has a new approach and show some difference between groups with and without OGM food. It might not be perfect, but it has some results that people are way too fast to contradict and call the authors biased.
However the analysis done by the GMO producers themselves which are the one that are currently done in the industry are considered unbiased ?
I think it's normal to call for doubt here and conduct more studies (which is also the conclusion of the study's authors btw). The fact that people generally seem to dismiss it entirely in the name of science baffles me a bit. Science says that if experiments do not prove 100% the theory, and do not undisprove it, then you need to keep testing. It's not what happening when people say "stop testing, GMO". The correct answer should be "GMO are safe, let me do more experiments to show it".
Also peer review should be done on this study for sure, but as for now it's mostly been journalist comments and a few fast comments by other scientists. It's not a proper peer review, which usually also let's the possibility for argumentation to the authors. It's not the case here. I think a 2 year study could use more than a few day analysis before being called "trash".
Edit: for whitedog: I believe as I wrote here that the industrials have to conduct the tests themselves in most cases and provide the results to the FDA (for USA). It's standard procedure not only for GMOs, but also for drugs. In France it's the same I believe.
The industry-backed studies are often as worthless as this one. Plus this study was not about GMO, it was about specific product. Whatever it says about that product has absolutely no bearing on GMOs in general. As for why in case of lack of studies to show that GMOs are harmful I am defaulting to a position that they are ok ? Because there is no apparent mechanism for them to be harmful. They are just normal food with possibly some additional proteins. So unless the additional proteins themselves are harmful the better guess seems to be that they are safe.
|
On September 27 2012 03:58 harlock78 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2012 02:38 zalz wrote:
I love Monsanto.
I think they are one of the most exciting companies in the world, doing really amazing research.
But the left has got a hard-on for them and GM-food in general, so hatred for inovation will continue.
The facts are simple. We are going to make nature our bitch, and Monsanto is leading the charge in that frontier. Such a shame that the EU has such restrictions on GM-food. We are going to be lagging behind because of government, whilst America is letting inovation free and will reap the largest fruits (pun intended). If GMOs were introduced in a well controlled and responsible manner, most would be fine with it. GMOs and nuclear power are similar in a way. Lots of promises and lots of potential issues. GMOs are not a 1 dimensional issue. Don't forget that beside health, there are many other problems from environmental diversity destruction, patent and dependence issues etc... You can just dismiss any potential risk hoping that progress and science will fix it. Then you d better hope that a disaster will not occur before science can resolve the side problems it created itself (nuclear proliferation, global warming ...). Last thought. You can say: based on our understanding of molecular biology, GMOs should be safe. But you cannot say GMOs have been proved to be safe (most of these studies are bunk). The best you can say is there is no short term adverse effect. However that often assumes a coding gene in total isolation from the surrounding complex organism. If you introduce some cockroach gene into a tomato that supposedly protects from some parasite, you hope that the gene will just code that protein, not affect anything else, and that the protein itself has no adverse effect other than what you think it does. Hybridizing two breeds that have been part of our consumption in our evolutionary history is not the same thing as introducing genes from completely different species into another.
For a long time we have been doing much more than artificial selection. In creating new foods we are for a long time using radiation to create random mutations. Those are not considered GMOs and are basically everywhere. We already started doing much more than what you describe long time ago.
|
GMOs use genetics, not some weird growth chemicals or some crap. Its not like weed killer or some rather. Its helping specific genes be expressed, no different than breeding. Its just done faster. I can't believe this thread is permitted to stay open. Anyone with a mild education in biochemistry or genetics knows that.
|
On September 26 2012 21:52 NeonFox wrote:
This was already brought up and the study was defined as non conclusive and biased. I don't trust Monsanto and don't like their business practice but this study is bullshit.
|
On September 27 2012 05:15 Zooper31 wrote:3rd thread to be opened about GMO studies, last 2 were closed... Show nested quote +What can we conclude from this? Not much, it seems. The study provides insufficient data, although the innovative approach calls for more investigation Taken from the article itself. Why are you posting this ffs? Theres nothing to discuss really.
Information. To share my personal conclusion.
I don't see how my OP is strongly biaised now. I'm skeptical about GMOs and their necessity (which is not evident, believe me (see India's green revolution, and the ressource management field), but if they're proven safe after serious studies, hey, no problem. However, what can I say when highlighted research on the matter can be that poor on both sides?
I also dislike Monsanto's complete lack of ethics and monopolist attitude, but I have nothing against the technology.
On September 27 2012 09:47 Souldrinkah wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2012 21:52 NeonFox wrote:
This was already brought up and the study was defined as non conclusive and biased. I don't trust Monsanto and don't like their business practice but this study is bullshit.
Read the OP, it's the least you could do before answering a thread.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
