I remember talking to a lot of farmers about Roundup Ready soybeans and what a disaster they were. They had fewer weeds, but yields were often much lower. The really sad part is that a number of them were willing to “try” them again. I think there are a lot of desperate farmers who believe that if you don’t get bigger, you will fail. But once you are bigger, that’s a different sort of farming. A mega farmer has no hope of making his land produce like the land of a well-managed, small-scale, diversified farm. If we want better food and more of it we need more farmers on less land not the other way around. This would also require us to eat a better, more varied diet. One can take excellent care of only so much land, no more. We will need it tomorrow. Real stewardship won’t come from a test tube, it can really only come from the farmer. We should do our best to support our farmers in this.

Nobody’s asking the farmers what they think. Of course, given the rising tide of “anti-cornism “and the fact that farmers often like the bt corn, they are part of the evil empire, aren’t they?

Much of the social impact of GM crops in the 3rd world hasn’t been all that good. That’s another, related, issue. But unless we DRASTICALLY change the way we produce food in the US, unless we drastically change the US food policy, we have to consider bt corn, and we have to be willing to pay more for food, perhaps a lot more. How much do you want to pay for food? If you can afford to protest GM crops with your wallet, good for you. Many of us can’t. For instance, you can’t buy much with foodstamps or WIC, and you don’t have a choice of products when you get food from a foodshelf.

In general, I am troubled by GM crops and even more troubled by the behavior of companies like Monsanto. But I’m also aware that the issues are not clear cut, they are not simple, and they elude easy answers.

“Why would a GM plant spread, outcross with wild native plants and take over the country side any more than an organic banana plant would?”

GM plants are built, designed to resist certain conditions that may be harsher for conventional plants, they also actually PRODUCE pesticide in many cases, thus, it follows when bugs come to attack crop as they usually do, the plant+(plant produced pesticide) crops will last and reproduce in higher numbers than plants without this plant produced pesticide… I guess you can think of them as the “stronger’ form of the species in evolution.. the one that will overtake, or dominate.

I don’t disagree with you that maybe SOME Anti-GMO peple are motivated to be against GMO because of their views against big corporations, religious issues or capitalism.

But, regardless of whatever their views are and their motivations, the truth is, GMOs are altering the natural gene pool, yes pesticides may have already helped a bit, but nowhere near as much as a seed massively reproduced with a certain DNA.. i.e. chemicals that have randomly modified plants have a MUCH MUCH slower taker over time because the seeds that contain this resistance and information are not massively reproduced in a factory, rather through a longer term natural process.. i.e. In terms of take-over power they don’t compete with GMOs because their seeds are not massively reproduced.

This post is getting long, so I’m going to get to the point.
Don’t you think that people should have the right to choose whether they eat something natural, or whether they eat a human-made product. Especially if the only tests that Monsanto has carried out are short-term, while our ancestors have eaten “natural” crops for thousands of years? Let’s see 90 day study versus thousands of years.. hmm doesn’t seem like a tough question for me.

Also, if people do have a religious reason for not eating something, shouldn’t the US protect their choice of freedom? Maybe, anti-GMO people should sue Monsanto and Dupont based on that reason.. could they win that? I wish Monsanto would be held responsible for the spread of their seeds, that they would actually pay to take it out of farmer’s soils (those that were forced to pay Monsanto b/c the seed flew into their crop). Let them keep their patent, but let them also take the responsibilities that come with ownership. Let them pay to take it out. That’s my opinion.

No different to every other plant on earth. Why would a GM plant spread, outcross with wild native plants and take over the countryside any more than an organic banana plant would? (Most conventional and organic crops have been randomly geneticaly modified by toxic chemicals/radiation in the past by the way but you can ignore that……as you always do)

Anti-GMO people should just admit they either have issues with capitalism and big corporations or religious issues with humans altering God’s work. Your scientific arguments never make any sense so stop using them/making them up.

Best wishes.

Jonathan

You’re denying the expanse of time, even a few meters from a few poorly managed fields of spread annually, will… well you can pretend like it’s not going to spread while you evaluate how life marched across the barren plain.

You’ve created a product that regenerates itself and is patented. Thanks you smarty-pants science types, thanks a lot. Yes. I am pissed. I’d like to avoid your products just on principal, but, alas, I cannot. Thanks for that. Real gentlemanly of you.

The burden of disproof is an impossible one. Disprove to me that the Flying Spaghetti Monster did not create all the universe…

Yes, let’s look at the media hype over BPA, made before any direct links have been identified. The “latest” tells us that there’s a correlation with heart disease, diabetes, and thyroid problems. Sounds serious and warrants more investigation, but it is not causative. Could it just be that the containers associated with BPA are also commonly associated with high fat/carb, processed food stuffs that are known to have direct links to these health problems?

You can’t just go around banning everything because you suspect a problem. You have to show an existing problem and exactly how it works. That’s the scientific part. Science can’t prove a negative. At what point are you going to be satisfied that GE is safe? Before you answer, consider that every food item consumed by humans is toxic at some level of exposure, so all would fail a zero tolerance policy. The precautionary principle has merit, but as practiced by, say the EU, it is paralyzing.

“It is not ‘easy’ for me ascertain that the French decision (or that of other European countries) was solely political.”

Your call, but when I read that more than 40% of the committee (mostly the scientists) disagreed with the conclusions as written by the chairman because they were “not objective”, the red flags went up.

“Seralini advocates testing these products through the full lifecycle of a mouse
(2 years) instead of the 90 day cycle that Monsanto has been required to do. This would
allow them to assess how ingesting this food would effect a mammal’s early development, adolescence, adult life, and reproductive health. Let us not pretend that we are giving this food to humans of a particular age range for only 90 days.”

Fine. And since we’re not giving any food to humans for just 90 days, let’s test all that too. After all, many of those (developed by good ol’ traditional methods) are known, not just suspected, to harm and even kill humans. Where do you draw the line? Who gets to decide that?

And if we do your testing and some small percentage of these mice (highly genetically modified themselves) show adverse effects, what then? Is there an acceptable limit (as with drugs)?

“Without this ‘full lifecycle’ vetting (by an independent party), Americans should be given to opportunity to choose to eat GMO food or not. Since they are not told what food is GMO, their only choice is to buy 100% certified organic.”

Why? By labeling you are implying that GMO is dangerous, when that hasn’t been established at all. Your assertion is that “100% organic” is somehow safer, when that hasn’t been established either. Organic produce could easily contain ecoli, for example, or cause an allergic reaction. There is no evidence it is better than any specific GMO. If fact, the GMO might be bred to detect ecoli or be non allergenic. Why aren’t these “organics” tested for toxic effects? Clearly, they could cause problems. Why does the precautionary principle not apply here?

“In terms of the influence of politics that Pdiff mentioned, please remember that the US is not immune from this practice. ”

I never said it was. I was simply pointing out that the “references” you and others put out here are hardly unbiased either. If there are regulatory issues regarding bias or the intensity of testing to deal with, then so be it. They can be changed. But that says zero about the technology itself and does not warrant discarding it dogmatically like the EU has.

“I would like to salute Discover for opening the discussion into this issue. Important points have been raised about the science in both articles. In the interests of balance and further elucidation, I would be very interested to see Discover request comment from and post Dr. Seralini’s responses to both articles and the comments contained within.”

I’ll second Tito’s comments here and would like to see comments from all involved parties, including the regulatory end. It has been enjoyable discussing this with you Tito.

Pdiff

Seralini advocates testing these products through the full lifecycle of a mouse
(2 years) instead of the 90 day cycle that Monsanto has been required to do. This would
allow them to assess how ingesting this food would effect a mammal’s early development, adolescence, adult life, and reproductive health. Let us not pretend that we are giving this food to humans of a particular age range for only 90 days.

Without this ‘full lifecycle’ vetting (by an independent party), Americans should be given to opportunity to choose to eat GMO food or not. Since they are not told what food is GMO, their only choice is to buy 100% certified organic. Unfortunately, the high cost of such food, since it includes both non-GMO and non-pesticide food, as well as strenuous certification standards (due, in some part, to the prevalence of some GM crops in the US food chain), makes this choice prohibitive or impossible for many American families.

In terms of the influence of politics that Pdiff mentioned, please remember that the US is not immune from this practice. A ‘revolving door’ of Monsanto executives and counsel into the US government (particularly regulatory agencies) has been occurring in every US administration since the first Bush admin. Linda Fisher and Michael Taylor are two examples of this trend.

I would like to salute Discover for opening the discussion into this issue. Important points have been raised about the science in both articles. In the interests of balance and further elucidation, I would be very interested to see Discover request comment from and post Dr. Seralini’s responses to both articles and the comments contained within.

DrHenry:

As I had replied in my lost submission to Tito, the French decision was easily shown to be political, not science based. The majority of scientists on the committee assigned to assess 810, objected to the decision of the chairman (a well know environmentalist supporter) saying that the conclusion was not objective. The chairman got his way. Similarly, other European committees have followed the same pattern. Search on “Did Monsanto’s GM maize lower the fertility of mice?” for more information. (Sorry, I’m avoiding links here as I think that killed my last submission). I suspect that, due to the influence of the Green party in Europe, the response to a politician supporting GE in Europe is similar to a politician admitting atheism in America. See the recent flap in England if you doubt that.

Obviously, six European countries are not comfortable with allowing GM corn to be grown within their boundaries. Are the research, science, and policy of each entirely without merit or consideration?

Why did the Austrian Ministry of Health find the same GM corn (Mon 810) to cause infertility in mice?
http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Austrian-ministry-links-GM-corn-to-infertility

Why did the Italian National Institute for Food and Nutrition find that the same GM corn (Mon 810) disturbed the immune system of mice?
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf802059w

When a Hungarian researcher released his findings that the same GM corn killed two endangered species in the area and one rare insect, why did Monsanto refuse to supply him with more corn to test?

So stop throwing things at them. Start making GM plants that encourage beneficial insects instead of trying to kill the ‘baddies’. Insects won’t develop resistance to good things.

Pretty simple, actually.

How did we ever survive without Monsanto? Better still, How will we survive WITH Monsanto?

High fructose corn syrup is in everything from soda and fruit juices to soups, sauces, you name it. Read your labels. And unless you know it is organic or non-gmo, assume that it is gmo. See the following data from USDA Economic Research Service for numbers on percent of gm corn state by state. Overall 85%. http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/BiotechCrops/ExtentofAdoptionTable1.htm
Don’t kid yourself that it is not in your food.