It's all over but for the sweating?

[suspectnumber961]

New European food safety guidelines affirm methodology, findings of Seralini's GM corn lab rat study


"After vehemently criticizing a researcher's groundbreaking study and inappropriately calling into question the validity of his rigorous scientific research methods, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has made a surprising about-face. According to new reports, the agency recently vindicated Professor Gilles-Eric Seralini's published paper on the long-term health damage caused by eating Monsanto's genetically-modified (GM) NK603 corn, affirming that the study is, in fact, valid.

As reported by GMOSeralini.org, the EFSA's indirect approval of Prof. Seralini's study comes as the agency issues new guidelines for how long-term feeding studies are to be conducted in the European Union (EU) moving forward. Believe it or not, the EFSA, which is essentially Europe's version of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is modeling these guidelines after the very same ones that Prof. Seralini used to show that GMOs cause organ failure and cancer."

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Meanwhile...in the US...GMOs are basically promoted by the Whitehouse...for your eating pleasure. Except that the Prez eats organic...LET THEM EAT GMOs.

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[freebeard]

There exist people who, when a new GMO crop is announced, will eliminate that entire category from their diet. Because adequate labeling to inform the consumer is actively resisted. With me it's more of an intention than a practice. I had the best success with beef after mad cow disease and milk during the BGH peak.

Food disparagement laws suck. And organic ain't what it used to be.

[suspectnumber961]

I avoid most processed foods. Most likely to be GMO are corn and soy...which are fed to farm animals....at CFOs. Dairy cows eat GMOs also.

You could test the effects of GMOs on yourself by eating lots of corn chips. If the high sodium and poor oils don't get you...the GMO corn might.

They taste test foods on kids (sugar) and truck drivers (salt and fat)....lots of sugar...salt...cheap oils.

If the ingredients are cheap and will store for a long time (I worked in a food warehouse for a short while) and kids and truck drivers like the food....they will sell it to you.

The "food" just needs to use cheap ingredients and
"taste good" to make big profits. People are conditioned to like cheap processed food from an early age.

Beginning of the end?

http://www.naturalnews.com/041737_Mo...dge_funds.html

[freebeard]

Why humanity will achieve victory against Monsanto

That's actually a heart-warming story.

[Occasionally6]

If we take GM to mean anything other than selective breeding, using whatever variation in gene sequence that happens to occur spontaneously, vilifying GM is silly. It is only a description of the techniques used. There is nothing inherently wrong with it. It is what is done that matters, not how.

I am aware of 'GM' being used to quickly and cleanly assess the effects of differences in particular gene sequences. When the desirable changes were determined, selective breeding techniques were used to obtain the same sequences so it didn't have to be labelled as 'GMO'. Extra time and expense, and inevitably additional untargeted changes, all so the stigma of 'GMO' could be avoided.

Given the problems the world is facing, I don't think we can afford to dismiss such useful tools.

[NeilBlanchard]

Genetically modified means gen splicing in the lab, for the specific ends of letting the plant in question be "immune" to some herbicide or pesticide. It benefits no one but the patent holder. And it risks a great deal - and one result is super-weeds that are also immune to the chemicals.

Gee, what a great outcome...

[freebeard]

There is no cause for alarm.

[niky]

We have had pesticide/herbicide resistant weeds since we started using them.

Toxin resistance predates laboratory-based genetic engineering.

Just as genetic manipulation of food crops and animals predates laboratory-based genetic engineering.

The only difference is, with specific genetic insertion, you avoid all the other genetic anomalies and side-effects created by intensive cross-breeding and monoculture.

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And, as I've pointed out earlier in this thread, there are non-profits that carry out this research and who don't pursue the same cut-throat agenda as certain companies do.

[Occasionally6]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Genetically modified means gen splicing in the lab, for the specific ends of letting the plant in question be "immune" to some herbicide or pesticide. It benefits no one but the patent holder. And it risks a great deal - and one result is super-weeds that are also immune to the chemicals.

Gee, what a great outcome...

So, one application GM has been used in is to provide resistance to glyphosate pesticides. That does make it easier to spray for weeds and increase crop yields from a given piece of land and other inputs. If nothing else, that increase in efficiency should result in lower prices (to someone) and lower greenhouse gas emissions for a given yield. Those are benefits.

"Super weeds", resistant to glyphosate, how though? As far as I know there's been no transfer of genetic resistance from crop plant to wild plant and the resistance has arisen due to simple selection pressure. That is known because there are different mechanisms by which resistance is conferred in the resistant crop plants and in the wild plants.

You might argue that glyphosate herbicides could be used more intelligently, such as using them in conjunction with herbicides that kill by a different mechanism, in order to catch the plants that do evolve resistance. That can just as easily apply to using any single herbicide alone, with or without GM crops.

There are concerns with GMO's but there are also significant, realised and potential (which are huge), benefits.

Labelling has been resisted because it tells you nothing of value about how a crop has been grown. It's more nuanced than GM vs non-GM.

[Arragonis]

Mark Lynas » Lecture to Oxford Farming Conference, 3 January 2013

So I did some reading. And I discovered that one by one my cherished beliefs about GM turned out to be little more than green urban myths.

I’d assumed that it would increase the use of chemicals. It turned out that pest-resistant cotton and maize needed less insecticide.

I’d assumed that GM benefited only the big companies. It turned out that billions of dollars of benefits were accruing to farmers needing fewer inputs.

I’d assumed that Terminator Technology was robbing farmers of the right to save seed. It turned out that hybrids did that long ago, and that Terminator never happened.

I’d assumed that no-one wanted GM. Actually what happened was that Bt cotton was pirated into India and roundup ready soya into Brazil because farmers were so eager to use them.

I’d assumed that GM was dangerous. It turned out that it was safer and more precise than conventional breeding using mutagenesis for example; GM just moves a couple of genes, whereas conventional breeding mucks about with the entire genome in a trial and error way.

But what about mixing genes between unrelated species? The fish and the tomato? Turns out viruses do that all the time, as do plants and insects and even us – it’s called gene flow.

But this was still only the beginning.