I remember the introduction of GM food into the food chain was rather swift and asked myself why there didn't seem to be any mainstream news on any long term studies of GM food.
Well this article is really scary:
Shocking findings in new GMO study
I remember the introduction of GM food into the food chain was rather swift and asked myself why there didn't seem to be any mainstream news on any long term studies of GM food.
Well this article is really scary:
Shocking findings in new GMO study
I remember when starting a thread about a highly controversial topic took more than two lines of "I hate it, it sucks, I don't like it".
Lots of things are bad for rats. Aspartame can cause cancer for them. It doesn't mean it does the same thing for us.
There of lots of different methods and reasons for genetically modifying foods. They're all different, and I highly doubt they would all cause the same problem.
Also, everything's bad for us these days
And your point is?Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvo
I understand what you are saying but it does sound concerning when Dr Michael Antoniou, molecular biologist, King's College London says, 'This research shows an extraordinary number of tumors developing earlier and more aggressively - particularly in female animals. I am shocked by the extreme negative health impacts. We can expect that the consumption of GM maize and the herbicide Roundup, impacts seriously on human health.'Quote:
Originally Posted by Indeed
And France's Jose Bove, vice-chairman of the European Parliament's commission for agriculture and known as a fierce opponent of GM, called for an immediate suspension of all EU cultivation and import authorisations of GM crops doesn't sound too good either.
Yes there are lots of bad things these days, but who knows what the effects will be in the long term, I think I did read somewhere not so long ago that there has been an explosion of cancer in the US inrecent years. Pure conjecture of course but something must be responsible.
My main concern is the there's the obvious fact that GMO's are monopolized patents, and the US government is supporting it. It's going to drive up the price of food in the same way that medicine gets ridiculous here.
I'm not a fan of monsanto or of roundup in my food, but that article seems pretty sensationalist. I smell strong bias, need to find other sources...
If you actually read the article you'll find that the rats were fed GM crops and chemical fertiliser.
I find it very unlikely that GM crops inherently cause cancer. They're just making proteins found in other plants.
Thanks for the article. I am not saying no problem exists, but I see a few issues with the info. First, the poor rats were being feed round-up herbaside. How can we evaluate the effect of the modified food if the rats ALSO receive a known toxin? Second, that type of tumor is extreamly common in rats. I mean extreamly common! I raise rats for pets, and they eat normal bulk food like oats and pasta. I have had them more often than not develop tumors. The tumors are like those pictured and can get to be the same size as the rat. So, the pictures may look freaky, but are only pictures of a common ailment amongst rats.
One thing you all may not know, is that almost every food crop we eat was genetically modified back in the early part of the century, or mid century. The process made giant versions of the wild crops and much healthier crop, so every type of food and garden flower were modified. It is a basic process of poisoning the parent with Cholchicine. The parent gets warped and half killed. Crossing two plants poisoned this way, sometimes causes an off spring with two sets of every dna starnd. It is called tetraploidy. The offspring, are more than healthy, they are the supermen of there species. It was impossable to compete with tetraploid crops, and they were easy to make, so everyone did it. That is true, almost every plant used by man has allready been seriously genetically modified many, many decades ago.
I may be exagerating, maybe some of those little purple potatoes, or some garden grown plants are not modified, but I would guess way more than half of the harvested plants underwent this process. It was to good to be true. Instead of tomatoe the size of golf balls, you could make them the size of soft balls.
Well, the obvious next step would be to isolate the GM corn and fertilizer, and compare each independently to a control group. If they are claiming that the corn itself contains dangerous levels of fertilizer as sold, and that that causes health issues, then that's a different matter - however they did not isolate that variable (come on scientists, I'm a college freshman in CS). As it is though, this does not provide a valid argument against genetically modified foods.
Yeah, anybody with a moderate degree of scepticism would call bullshit as soon as they read the first words of that headline. "Rats fed GM crops grow horrifying tumours"... so what? Rats fed normal rat diets grow horrifying tumours.Quote:
Originally Posted by sivason
It's easy to miss if you're not thinking too hard about it, but especially funny is the shocking fact that 50% of the male rats die earlier than expected.
I remember reading an article a while back and they did a survey to find out the worlds most evil corporation and Monsanto was listed number one by far. If you know me, you know I love all the new technology and I am in favor of things like genetically modified stuff. However that company is crazy, I wouldn't trust them with anything.
They pay off scientist to get results they want, they bully farmers and they bribe corrupt politicians. A lot of their stuff has been banned from countries.
It's a shame people conflate GM, which is positive knowledge and technology, with Monsanto, which is a company. GM has probably saved hundreds of millions of lives.
Xei....I know where you're at with this, but you know tens of years ago doctors were endorsing cigarettes right? The European Union only allows a certain amount GMO's and the others wont even touch their soil. In other countries (US) those same GMO's that your government has deemed harmful in some way (rather to the animal or it's consumer) our countries have okayed it. For every hundreds of millions of lives you think it's saved in the short term, it has either damaged or profited by that many lives equally....and that number will continue to grow as long as it becomes a patented (damn near unregulated) product.
If a company claims they save X amount of lives because of a product they own a monopoly over.....why should I believe in that? Why wouldn't a product get to them in the first place? Why are people refusing handouts from other countries because it's making them more sick than the supposed cure? And no, I'm not talking about that BS site in the OP. I'm talking about products that have basically legalized animal cruelty.
Things just don't add up bro. I'm not a mathematician like yourself, but when I see a country that has a high percentage of overweight people with cancer that feels like it needs to modify food just to help out other people, then something is wrong. You can't trust a skinny cook, but you can't trust one with a microscope either.
Yes, I know food has been GMO'd...but it's not the same as picking the sweetest apple that originated in china, and it's not the same as picking female Marry J plants to get the most THC....people are breaking down genetic code and putting bacteria in plants without even knowing what the end results will be.
But we've never failed with unknowns right? Aerosols, CFCs, Carbon Emissions, Plastics.....all that jazz...those products have saved hundreds of millions of lives.....and doomed the entire planet.
That is the worrying thing, that they take the stance it is all safe and so none of it should be tested. And in some regards they have succeeded in convincing the US government that it doesn't need to be tested.
HahahahahahahahhahaQuote:
Originally Posted by Auron
Good joke.
I briefly read the artcle very quickly and it crossed my mind too. They must have found traces of the herbicide on all samples of the GM corn that they were going to feed the rats so they had to include that chemical compound in thier study. But it then makes it a vague study in the sense that the study does not determine whether it is GM corn or the herbicide is at fault. The article was poorly written from this viewpoint as it is saying that GM food is the cause. It could well be that the herbicide maybe at fault. I remember clearly when my father used to use paraquat as a herbicide to spray on his crops. It is now known today to be very bad for a human's health and is not allowed to be used as a herbicide in certain countries.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
They made a plant one time (corn, I think) that was supposed to create a pestacide to protect it from pest bugs. Turned out it killed ALL of the pollinating bugs, like bees and others. It had to be destroyed, but had the pollen got out into the system, it would have been a disaster.
The big problem, is that some GM plants may be a wonderful thing for man kind, tetraploidy plants sure were, but some have the potential to cause mass mahiem. The companies want to rush the products into production. So, some bad ones can get out, in the rush to earn money. Also, many of them pass the traits through pollen to their off-spring, so plants tested in say Mexico, with no regulation, could spread to the US by pollenation.
Some interesting info regarding the study
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SzXvBwvhd4
Yes... then they were overturned by the mass of evidence. Decades ago doctors were also endorsing exercise. I didn't even apeal to doctors in the first place so... I really don't see your point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Auron
I don't think, I know. And it will continue to save them indefinitely.Quote:
The European Union only allows a certain amount GMO's and the others wont even touch their soil. In other countries (US) those same GMO's that your government has deemed harmful in some way (rather to the animal or it's consumer) our countries have okayed it. For every hundreds of millions of lives you think it's saved in the short term, it has either damaged or profited by that many lives equally....and that number will continue to grow as long as it becomes a patented (damn near unregulated) product.
I know the EU is squeamish about GM technology, but could you please give some specific circumstances where the GM crop was designed for something benign but actually proven dangerous? The EU rejects a lot of stuff on the basis of the (often vague and flawed) principle that something needs to be 'proven' harmless, not because it has been proven dangerous.
Again... I never appealed to the testimony of companies? Companies aren't renowned for being honest. They're not scientists.Quote:
If a company claims they save X amount of lives because of a product they own a monopoly over.....why should I believe in that?
It's a technology. Technology isn't inherently good or bad; a technology is simply power. Atomic energy isn't inherently bad; it's just that evil people have used the technology to make bombs. In exactly the same way, I'm saying that GM isn't inherently dangerous. Obviously if you design it to do something immoral, you'll get an immoral consequence.Quote:
Why are people refusing handouts from other countries because it's making them more sick than the supposed cure? And no, I'm not talking about that BS site in the OP. I'm talking about products that have basically legalized animal cruelty.
Treating Americans as a homogeneous mass of fat, uncaring idiots is an odd thing to see from somebody who isn't foreign...Quote:
Things just don't add up bro. I'm not a mathematician like yourself, but when I see a country that has a high percentage of overweight people with cancer that feels like it needs to modify food just to help out other people, then something is wrong. You can't trust a skinny cook, but you can't trust one with a microscope either.
Apparently the following truism is necessary: Americans are different. Some Americans are humanitarians.
And look, I'm really not interested in any of this stuff. I don't see what America or foreign aid or cigarettes or anecdotes about people rejecting it etc. etc. has to do with anything... if they are supposed to be arguments against what I said, they are very poor and fallacious. As a reminder, what I said was that I find it very unlikely that GM is inherently dangerous: that is, the technology of rearranging genes. Obviously if you put a gene which produces a toxic pesticide in a crop, that will be harmful, and will be flagged as such, and rightly banned. What I'm talking about is harmless genes, like the gene in golden rice which makes beta carotene (from daffodils) to prevent vitamin A deficiency. The only relevant evidence will be some kind of statistical study demonstrating that putting genes which produce some desirable protein in some other organism causes dangerous side-effects. If you don't have any such evidence, you don't actually disagree with what I've said (or at least have no basis to), so please don't respond with some other tangent.
You realise this puts you in an extreme luddite position? Literally never do anything new. What about these newfangled 'lightbulb' things? Maybe they create some unknown kind of energy ray which makes you explode after five years. Sure, there's no reason at all for thinking it's the case, but can you disprove it? No, didn't think so. Let's ban 'em. Satellites? Ban. Penicillin? Ban.Quote:
Yes, I know food has been GMO'd...but it's not the same as picking the sweetest apple that originated in china, and it's not the same as picking female Marry J plants to get the most THC....people are breaking down genetic code and putting bacteria in plants without even knowing what the end results will be.
But we've never failed with unknowns right? Aerosols, CFCs, Carbon Emissions, Plastics.....all that jazz...those products have saved hundreds of millions of lives.....and doomed the entire planet.
Obviously the reasonable thing to do is weigh up the potential benefits of any new technology against any reasonable risks. Genes mutating and moving around is something that happens all the time in nature. It's where we got wheat from in the first place! It's just that only very rarely will a mutation survive which benefits humans (because it confers no advantage to the plant); GM allows us to change that. That it may have some inherent danger is about as reasonable as the risk that mixing custard together with chilli powder will create a poison. Sure, nobody's never done it before, but we can still use our common sense to conclude that it would be very unlikely.
I scrolled down the page. Saw the title. Clicked into the thread. Saw that the link lead to Natural News.
Safe to say that if it's from Natural News, you should approach any claims made with the GREATEST amount of skepticism possible.
pictures don't lie
http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...70730914_n.jpg
You have failed at understanding basic scientific process.Quote:
Originally Posted by Original Poster
Clue: rats naturally get tumours.
True! Picture J could be an exact picture of my sweet little Darla, who developed a tumor exactly like that. She only ate normal foods, like oats and rice and pasta. She was not a lab rat. That picture looks completely normal for a rat. They get those tumors all the freaking time. It is just something that happens to rats. By the time she died it was a bit larger than that one pictured.
Plus, to repeat from above, they freaking feed the poor rats round-up! Maybe if the round-up ends up on the parts of the corn we eat in large enough amounts, that may be relevent. It says nothing about the corn.
Bovine somatotropin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
@ xei, As for the rest of your wall of text, I'm too lazy to disagree with it. This place is like the lounge on hard mode.
My cousins are farmer and when they have to buy special GM tomatoes (They're only small scale). If you buy the seeds it costs you 100 per bag but the plants you get cant reproduce. If you want to buy the ones that can it costs 60000 for a bag :shock:.
Well that doesn't surprise me at all. I can see a possible future day when industrialised societies collapse where pure organic seeds may replace gold and silver as the best currency for bartering for goods and services.Quote:
Originally Posted by dutchraptor
Lol. Well for your information the link was pointless, I'm not defending pumping animals full of growth hormone.Quote:
Originally Posted by Auron
Pumping animals full of growth hormone is GM. My main point is that some GM is complete garbage, but some of it isn't regulated as strictly as in other states. I agree with with you that it does have some beneficial uses...but when it gets monopolized by companies and our choices limited to the point where individual farmers can no longer make a living due to paying for patented items, then it gets silly. Of course GM =/= corrupt corporations, but they're the people who are running it and running everyone else out of business because of it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
I don't have a problem with GMO's if they're safe, but it's hard to support them when the people who are pushing for advancements are the same people who want to monopolize food.
Okay. Well I was just talking about actual GM, not corrupt business practices, which are of course immoral and should be totally decoupled from any discussion about the actual facts of GM itself, because misinformation about GM is causing solutions to serious problems to be withheld.
Roger that....I completely agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
If I feed someone a mixture of cyanide and vitamin C, does that mean I then get to claim vitamin C is really bad for you? I mean, look, it clearly kills you!
And to echo what Xei has been saying, just because the law currently supports companies engaging in unethical business practices (something I completely disagree with) that doesn't make the technology inherently bad.
The fact is, not only has genetic modification been occurring for thousands of years by other mechanisms - modern 'natural' crops give vastly superior yields to their original counterparts - but it has the potential to help a very large portion of the world. Whether that potential is ever realised is another matter entirely.
The problem with these discussions are that they're invariably presented as "GM food is bad for you", not "This strain, brought about by GM, is bad for you". They always try to present it as if the process of gene modification itself invariably leads to dangerous food, which is clearly not true. It's the same kind of thinking that makes people say stuff like "Synthetic chemicals are bad for you".
Usually as a result of the media causing a panic and getting the idiot masses to believe it's all Frankenstein science.
What's especially ironic is that people will readily eat products of plant grafting which is far more like Frankenstein's monster than genetic modification could hope to be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Auron
The companies can argue that it does not count as a monopoly, using screwed up logic. They can say "this typr of tomato was invented by us, but you could still grow the other kinds of tomatos." On one level that is true, but as I mentioned about all of our crops being modified into tetraploid crops, it becomes impossable to compete against the new crop. Wild tomatoe stains made small tomatoes the size of golf balls; the tetraploids could be the size of an orange; how could anyone compete with that? It is like allowing steriod use in sports. You can say 'hey, you can choose not to take them" but if you allow it, then the 'natural' athletes will not be able to compete.
I see no good answer. The companies would not invent these amazing new crops, if they could not get a patent. But, if the new crop is good enough, no one can continue to grow the older crop and survive; so that does make it a monoploy.
You guys do realize that the one of the most popular methods for GM plants is to use a virus to literally infect the cells with foreign dna? The virus is replicated along with the plant. Then we eat it. What are the effects? The producers of GM seed don't even know, they'd rather test it on you to find out.
Food has never been so alien to the human body.
A huge health problem with GM plants is why they are modified to begin. While supporters love to say "larger yields!" thats not the whole truth. The real truth is they wanted to create plants that could absorb as much pesticide and toxins as possible without damage to the plants. The whole idea is, if the plant can survive a ton of pesticides then they can gas the field 24/7 and kill every freakin bug.
Its working. GM plants are doing a great job absorbing the toxins while staying alive.
The toxins stay in the plants system. Then you eat the plant, the virus infecting dna and toxins. To argue that these toxins are safe to eat is completely ridiculous and ignorant. There is no argument that these toxins are safe. Its plain and evident on the freaking labels of these pesticides. Farmers have to wear hazmat suits while handling these dangerous toxins. Gardners using liquid versions have to wear gloves. Failure to do so leads to all sorts of diseases. ITS ON THE LABEL. Dont drink the stuff!
Thousands of farmers can't have children as a direct result of the toxins they get into everyday. Small towns near these farms - where the farms pesticides and toxins flow into the water supply - have witnessed a reduction in the number of male children being born. Governments have taken this seriously and several countries have already banned the use of certain pesticides and fertilizers.
We know that these certain pesticides and fertilizers are bad to the human body. We know that GM plants are modified to be able to take on large quantities of both. And we know that GM plants keep these toxins in their system at a significantly higher rate than non-gm plants.
Scientists know this means disease for human beings. Theres just no way around that.
The only reason why just "correlation" isnt because the science behind it is weak..no the science is strong. The reason why its "correlation" is becuase the scientists dont have any control of the situation!! Literally, they've got NO CONTROLS. In the US, GM food doesn't have to be labeled. Without this labeleing, its just "correlation" and the GM companies can get away with anything.
The next time you purchase conventionally grown produce, ask yourself "Does the label inform me whether or not its a GM using systemic pesticides?". And if you become sick, how can you ever know it was the food?
Again, this is an argument against evil business practices, not GM.Quote:
Originally Posted by juroara
Wrong. This is not "one of the most popular methods". Use of viral vectors is increasing but there are several other techniques, and the technique is in its infancy. Oh and good use of loaded language too. I shouldn't have expected any less. Hint: it's not an infection which by definition causes harm.Quote:
You guys do realize that the one of the most popular methods for GM plants is to use a virus to literally infect the cells with foreign dna?
Ooooh, scary. Aside from the fact that it's not infectious at this point, you'll also eat actual infectious DNA every single time you take a bit to eat due to all the microorganisms on your skin, on your food, and in the air. Have fun eating in future!Quote:
the virus infecting dna
Nonsense as usual. Aside from the fact that many genes that are introduced are already consumed in some form, GM products have to go through extensive testing to demonstrate their safety.Quote:
What are the effects? The producers of GM seed don't even know, they'd rather test it on you to find out.
*sigh*Quote:
The real truth is they wanted to create plants that could absorb as much pesticide and toxins as possible without damage to the plants. The whole idea is, if the plant can survive a ton of pesticides then they can gas the field 24/7 and kill every freakin bug.
Do you have any idea how organisms deal with toxic substances? No of course not, I shouldn't expect you to know some fairly basic biology should I? Allow me to enlighten you.
There are several mechanisms:
1) Resistance to absorption: the species cannot absorb the substance due to changes in the cell structure or environment. If this occurs in the roots for example, it won't even enter the organism.
2) Resistance to the substance itself: changes occur such that it no longer has the effect it used to.
3) Denaturing: creating chemicals that bind to it to render it inert, or creating a chemical environment that renders it inert.
4) Destruction: the species creates enzymes to destroy the toxin
5) Storage: the species stores the substance within its cells. An example is a salt-tolerant plant which will store the excess salt within its cells.
6) Excretion: the substance can more readily be removed preventing its toxic effects from becoming an issue
Most of these would render the plant perfectly safe for consumption because the chemicals you complain about are not present. It's not as if say, Glyphosate is being stored in every cell and humans get a massive dose of it when they eat that carrot. It would not be allowed to be sold if it had that level of chemicals in.
Yes, because in my country this is required by law. If you don't like the lack of this in your country, lobby to get the law changed. I'm guessing that ignorantly bitching about a topic you have barely any understanding of is much easier however.Quote:
The next time you purchase conventionally grown produce, ask yourself "Does the label inform me whether or not its a GM using systemic pesticides?"
And half of your nonsensical rambling is about business practices not science.
Please keep the debate within the parameters of forum rules, i.e. - do not insult members with abusive language.
HahhaahahaQuote:
Originally Posted by melanieb
This information I learned from my horticulture class. GM food is dangerous when used in combination with systemic pesticides. Which is why the terminology systemic pesticides even exists in the horticulture world - because it goes into the plants system and traces of the chemicals stay in the plant long after harvesting. While we're talking about trace amounts it still adds up after years of consumptions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Photolysis
It's pretty delusional to think GM is about science. Its always been about the money.Quote:
And half of your nonsensical rambling is about business practices not science.
Quote:
Originally Posted by juroara
That is why I did not go into to GM science, even though it was my first choice. I loved the science and came up with some ideas for experiments, but in the end I realized that commercial gain, would always be the single driving force. I would have been forced to try and make fatter pigs or reduced gluten wheat, or some other money based idea (I just made up the wheat one).
You can't separate the two, thats the problem! Theres all these pro arguments that GM is going to save the world and end starvation. Come on, its a front. GM is big business.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvo
However the argument against the consumption of GM has to do with
1. the actual process of genetically modifying plants introduces organisms that are foreign to the human diet and therefore not necessarily compatible with the human being. This is the part still being researched
2. GM goes hand in hand with "round up ready" mutants. The systemic pesticides remain in the plant and end up in you.
That said, the ethical practices of GM corporations are enough to boycott them even if their plants were safe to eat
You can't separate the two. That's the problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by juroara
Correct. Also, some people have used chemistry to create deadly weapons. It's big business. Chemistry is a front, including all products of chemistry such as medicine. I am being facetious.Quote:
Theres all these pro arguments that GM is going to save the world and end starvation. Come on, its a front. GM is big business.
I take it from this that you don't eat any kind of meat, dairy, fruit and veg, or cereals?Quote:
1. the actual process of genetically modifying plants introduces organisms that are foreign to the human diet and therefore not necessarily compatible with the human being. This is the part still being researched
The problem isn't genetically modified food, it's pesticides. I haven't even read the article in the OP and I'm fairly certain it was the pesticides that caused most of the harm.
While we're on the topic of pesticides, a pretty cool technology that's being developed right now is automated weed killers that use hot organic oil. I think this is the kind of technology we should develop if we want better crop yields, along with GM that doesn't involve harmful pesticides (although non-harmful genetic modifications that increase resistance to insects and whatnot are good as well).
Link: Can weed-seeking robots replace planet-killing herbicides?, Agricultural robots may reduce costs of organic produce | KurzweilAI
You lack knowledge in basic biology. I won't say I know a lot, but even with entry level biology, I know that everything you are saying is wrong, and is most likely just some 'science' you figured out while having a bowel movement.Quote:
Originally Posted by juroara
You're not missing much. The article was completely biased.Quote:
Originally Posted by MindGames
The strange thing is...there really isn't much info in basic biology on the subject (at least what I was taught). I mean, even in microbiology, we learned about the PCR process to produce insulin, and transgenic plants, but all together (that and my biology class) there were only a few pages.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvo
That aside, it's difficult to find any hard unbiased scientific evidence that GMO's are "really really bad". Now the cynic in me says, "there has to be something wrong with it", due to the relative ease that all of this stuff got approved by the FDA, and the actual process of what some of the GMO plants do (secreting toxins that bugs wont eat). Of course the toxins are found in other plants, but they're generally found in dicots that people and most bugs don't eat.
Until the day arrives when there is actual scientific proof to back up what I may personally feel about certain GMO's...it will always be a useless argument.
It's not a matter of GMO or not, it's just the general way Juroara talks about the subject.Quote:
Originally Posted by Auron
the actual process of genetically modifying plants introduces organisms that are foreign to the human diet and therefore not necessarily compatible with the human being.
Really? Really?
lol, what are you trying to say? Even vegans who depend on soy support monsanto. You can't avoid it in the states because theres no law that gm has to be labeled and gm has destroyed so many family farms. Its a monopoly of food no matter what your diet is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
As soon as I get a patch of dirt im growing my own food
no, not good enoughQuote:
Originally Posted by Marvo
I need you to explain why Im wrong. Systemic pesticides is an actual technical term in horticulture. Farmers make a choice whether to use a pesticide that stays in the plants system or a pesticide that only sits on top of the leaves and washes with rain. (both equally bad) Viruses have been used to inject-infect plant cells with foreign dna. How does any of that go against biology? Viruses already do that....
edit: Here is an example of a gm method that has people alarmed
"Not only can genes be transferred from one plant to another, but genes from non-plant organisms also can be used. The best known example of this is the use of B.t. genes in corn and other crops. B.t., or Bacillus thuringiensis, is a naturally occurring bacterium that produces crystal proteins that are lethal to insect larvae. B.t. crystal protein genes have been transferred into corn, enabling the corn to produce its own pesticides against insects such as the European corn borer. "
People are alarmed by this mixture of dna, as far as I understand, never before seen in nature or in the human diet in this manner. Why does eating something we've never eaten before sound so scary to people? Because eating things that was never a part of our evolutionary diet causes diet related diseases. Even if its just a simple allergy.
Whats the result of eating plants mixed with non-plant dna? Dont pompously lie to me and pretend you know exactly what this means, no one really knows what it means. In the US, the FDA allows companies to test on the populace. And the poppulace has no right to know. GM companies have also proven they had no real understanding of how it would affect the wilderness. The after effects of gm are UNKNOWN.
Im NOT saying that eating plants modified in this way is bad for you. What I am saying is people have legitimate reasons to be skeptical of eating something thats a complete bastardization of a natural process
Take the bees for example.
Farmers decided it was smart to control the insemination process. They take the queen bee, stradle her and rape her with needle as she squirms and squirms trying to break free. Intuition tells us this is obviously wrong. It takes a while for the left brain to figure out why it doesnt sit well with the right.
Whats the real scientific verdict of controlling who the queen bee mates with?
The scientific verdict is - its going horribly wrong.
Its not like queen bees were having trouble having sex! They were mating with up to 20 on a single flight. This created a genetic diversity keeping the bee population healthy.
But after years of controlling the bee genes, we've bred weak, sickly bees. Entire colonies die to something they should have had immunity for. In otherwords, we were pretty absurd and stupid in thinking we should control bee sex.
Yes, there is a real genuis behind the science of genetic modification. But like bees, theres complete absurdity in why we were modifying genes to begin with. Farmers wanted their plants to be free from all pests. But the problem wasnt in the plants genes, the problem was monoculture was a paradise for pests. Farmers wanted bigger and better crops. But the problem wasn't in the plants genes, the problem was the soil sucked.
Statistics show that organic farming DOES NOT produce more crops than conventional farming. This has ironically been used to argue that organic is not any better than conventional, with all its pesticides and expensive (very expensive for the farmers) gms. But its the other way around!
Organic came first. This means that conventional farming with all of its super gm seeds, are NOT producing higher yields or better crops.
Wait, if genetic modification and pesticides aren't producing higher yields or better crops, then wouldn't farmers just use conventional farming techniques? I doubt they would use more complicated/costly farming techniques if they offered no benefit over the original methods.
Now this is a lot more interesting, I really can't disagree with much of what you are saying. Once again, I will simply repeat what has been said a few times. What you are describing is evidence of evil business practices, and also a government that is so desperate for cheaper food, that it's willing to put the health of its citizens on the line. In Europe none of this happens, and if it does, it's clearly said on the packaging of the food.Quote:
Originally Posted by juroara
What I don't like about your posts is the very emotional descriptions you weave in, such as
"They take the queen bee, stradle her and rape her with needle as she squirms and squirms trying to break free."
and
"a complete bastardization of a natural process"
These kind of remarks do not in any way make us, the people you are arguing against, have more sympathy for the cause you fight, we simply take it as evidence that you really don't know what you are talking about, and instead try to appeal to our emotions.
lol you don't know anything about food.Quote:
Originally Posted by juroara
All of the things I listed were created by man via artificial selection. Wheat, milk for human consumption, pigs, cows; none of these things existed, let alone were eaten, before the agricultural revolution some 15,000 years ago. Wheat for instance was brought into existence by genes from various different grasses mixing in a single plant. This would have been useless and the plant would have quickly disappeared had man not intervened.
The mixing of genes which you think you're so opposed to is actually responsible for civilisation itself, and you eat its products every day. I guess that makes you a willing slave to corporations. Or something.
You need to restrict your rats' diet.Quote:
Originally Posted by sivason
The effects of patterned calorie-restricted d... [Carcinogenesis. 1993] - PubMed - NCBI
The rats used in this study ate too much. This breed of rat gets tumours when not given a restricted diet.
"And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go off and use my advanced modern technology that's completely unnatural"Quote:
a complete bastardization of a natural process
You're going way off here. I never said that breeding was bad, youre just making that assumption. But for the record, I think we should just let the animals have sex the old fashioned way.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
What I said about gm has to do with mixing plants with non-plant dna. This has never happened before. This is brand new in the realm of science. Can you imagine what they can create in 100 years time?
Im glad to have emotions and sympathy and I dont know why you make the assumption that because someone does this means they dont know what theyre talking about. Scientific application removed from all emotion and sympathy leads to abuse. So yeah, we do need to bring that other human side of us when asking "Sure we can do this, but should we?"Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvo
There's no difference between plant and non-plant DNA. They have exactly the same structure and do exactly the the same thing, which is make proteins. If the protein coded by the gene isn't harmful in the original organism, there's no reason to think it will be harmful in the organism it is transferred to. Do you have a single piece of evidence to the contrary? And your claim that it has never happened before is once again plain wrong, it's called 'horizontal gene transfer', and has occurred in nature from, for instance, bacteria to plants.Quote:
Originally Posted by juroara
Excluding the bee sex, and dna part (cause I don't know anything about the bee sex stuff)...I agree with some of what Jurora said...the transgeneic processes and monoculture are the things I don't like....but what can a farmer do when billion dollar companies are buying one single type of product. This year we (the US) had some serious droughts in the Midwest, and mega farmers weren't able to make much money....same thing happened down south near my area. There was a lot of rain, and because of it, we generated more strawberries than most harvests. So they were complaining about how they wont be able to sell them because they have too much or they'll have to be super cheap. They both ended up getting bailouts from the government. (IMO they should have gotten it from the business but that's another story all together) Things like that get on my nerves, but the only way we'll see any real change is if all the consumers made different choices about what they bought. It would have to take a huge shift in everyone's consumptions. The organic market wouldn't be able to keep up with the demand, and eventually we'd have to go right back to getting whatever is available unless they caved in. Essentially it would be easier trying to remove all the whale piss from the ocean.
Also in before monarch butterfly/corn maize craziness.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
I disagree, it's not unreasonable to be wary of unintended side effects of gene modification. We don't understand the full complexity of DNA so changing it could bring about unwanted changes. Even if the gene functions as predicted, the proteins that are produced could be different, seeing how they're in a different environment.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
Haha oh wow.Quote:
Originally Posted by juroara
What you'd get is a bunch of proteins which failed to fold properly. Is there any evidence that they would be dangerous with anything but a vanishing probability? Is there any reason to think that misfoldings due to GM wouldn't be completely dwarfed by the background levels of misfolding in nature?Quote:
Originally Posted by khh
And in any case, isn't it easy for the GM scientists to tell whether the protein is folding correctly or not in the host organism?
Don't Prions come from misfolding of genes? Lets hope the scientists get it right.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
Yes, and I was mindful of prions when I wrote that post. Over millions of years, with a test tube consisting of millions of organisms with millions of proteins, nature has only given us one example of a prion (they are all based on the same protein), so the probability of that event occurring is apparently vanishingly small; and if misfolding events occur all the time at a huge frequency in nature, why should we be worried about a couple of extra instances?
Well, I just have issue with one thing being discussed (because I don't want to get into the rest)...but any DNA we consume gets digested into nucleotides by pancreatic enzymes in the gut. If...and that's a really big IF...there is the rare instance that the DNA you consume somehow remains in your system and doesn't get broken down properly, it's not going to actually do anything, even if it remains in your leukocytes (white blood cells) and lymphatic system. Assuming that dietary DNA will somehow be incorporated into the human genome just seems misguided to me. I haven't done much research about this topic, as it's not of huge interest to me...I just wanted to comment because it struck me as odd that consuming dietary DNA was a point of contention. I can understand how someone might think it is scary to ingest foreign DNA, and that the DNA you ingest would be incorporated into the human genome and cause mutations etc. but that's just not the way it works.
The point of my post is not to say that I think GM is bad or good. Merely that we don't need to fear ingestion of DNA. Prions are a different story of course. I think that it is generally unsafe to encourage something like GM when it seems we don't fully understand the consequences, but we've been doing stupid stuff like that for centuries and it's not going to change anytime soon.
Also, Auron...we didn't talk about this in my biology or microbiology classes either. I took genetics as well, and it was barely touched on. Not that I'm complaining, as I said, not very interesting to me, but it is a little surprising that we didn't spend even a day talking about it in a genetics course.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tommo
Thanks for the link. My last rats had a never ending food bowl, but the new ones do not get as much.
Is that really all they do? Because from what I understand the modifications make the plants resistant to super pesticides that kill just about everything. Some of them make it so the plants make their own pesticide.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
I think whether they cause cancer or not needs to be further researched, as do the effects on humans generally. The way the FDA has handled the issue has been pathetic, probably because the people working for the FDA at the time were ex employees of the companies making money on GM foods.
However the way we are using this technology is having negative environmental impacts. I'm lazy and am not gonna look up sources but it is. The technology itself could probably be useful, but it seems obvious to me that we need to do more testing before we go planting things that could potentially fuck up entire ecosystems.
If you read my posts, I've already covered this. Obviously if the protein does something harmful then there will be harmful effects. I'm just defending benign proteins in benign hosts.Quote:
Originally Posted by StonedApe
I didn't, I just skimmed the first page. I was just trying to wrap my head around what actually goes on. I didn't know that you could make a pesticide from proteins, but I guess it makes sense, has to be made from something.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
That's what a gene does, it makes proteins (except a few which make RNA). Proteins basically control all chemical reactions in the body, so either the protein itself is a pesticide, or the protein catalyses reactions which produce a pesticide.
It doesn't help that the plants are grown outdoors and get cross pollinated with normal crops.Quote:
Originally Posted by StonedApe
Pharmaceutical companies are testing modified sunflowers that produce drugs and they just plant them out in the open.
How much dumber than that can you possibly get?
Monsanto its a pesticide company.. They created agent orange and DDT, I don't exactly trust them to make my foods.
If GMO is as safe as they claim it to be you would think they would be proud to label it as such. Nope, quite they opposite, they have raised millions of dollars to fight prop 37 in California.. One of their reasons to oppose labeling its it would be too expensive. Rather ironic of you ask me, lol.
Also, GMO's are outlawed or have to be outlawed in over 100 other countries... Not to mention that once GMO's are grown on the land, that land is tainted and non GMO cannot be grown again.
I am sticking to real food.. If that's even possible anymore.
I meant to say outlawed or have to be labeled
Considering what they done in the past, Monsanto is not a company to be trusted.
They have ties with the federal government as well as the FDA.
I only read the first page and saw this mentioned a lot, but my girlfriend keeps rats for pets and every one of them has died from cancer. Some of them get tumors so large they can't walk. It's quite horrifying, but normal with rats. Cancer is pretty much the leading cause of death for rats, although I've seen a lot of respiratory infections too.