Organic grown wheat contains GM impurities

[canndo]

Naturally, we should ban the study of biology. It's the only way to be safe.

Come now, you know better than to use hyperbole here Desert dude. You know full well that the study of biology is far removed from implanting permanent and artificial changes into our food supply. The question remains unanswered, how might we undo a discovered danger in that supply after slipshod, self interested "research" deeming this or that geneticaly modified organism is safe. I recall chemical companies have often claimed that this chemical (agent orange, or DDT) was completely safe. The good thing there is that after only a few hundred thousand exposures the truth came out and we managed to remove those chemicals from our environment (not really, as we detect DDT in our flesh even now). Could you posit a way for us to remove a particular DNA from our environment once it has spread? This country is all about choice, or so I have been told, do you really have the choice not to eat GMO products in the U.S.? Corn, soy, sugar beets, cotton and wheat. Should just one of those things prove dangerous over the long term we will have no way to correct the problem, unless you have some new idea.

 

[desert dude]

Come now, you know better than to use hyperbole here Desert dude. You know full well that the study of biology is far removed from implanting permanent and artificial changes into our food supply. The question remains unanswered, how might we undo a discovered danger in that supply after slipshod, self interested "research" deeming this or that geneticaly modified organism is safe. I recall chemical companies have often claimed that this chemical (agent orange, or DDT) was completely safe. The good thing there is that after only a few hundred thousand exposures the truth came out and we managed to remove those chemicals from our environment (not really, as we detect DDT in our flesh even now). Could you posit a way for us to remove a particular DNA from our environment once it has spread? This country is all about choice, or so I have been told, do you really have the choice not to eat GMO products in the U.S.? Corn, soy, sugar beets, cotton and wheat. Should just one of those things prove dangerous over the long term we will have no way to correct the problem, unless you have some new idea.

Good questions. What do you think we should do? Should we ban genetic engineering? Does the insertion of a gene that makes wheat/corn/etc resistant to roundup make those plants toxic somehow? Are plants that acquire resistance to round up the old fashioned way, via natural selection, somehow toxic to humans and other animals?

 

[Antidisestablishmentarian]

Not all products are safe. That's a given.

Yes, some companies will do what they can to continue to stay in business. I'm sure Monsanto is no different.

Also see: Johns Manville, any tobacco company, and CSR Limited in Australia.

It still doesn't mean all the products they produce should be done away with(though some should).

DDT eradicated a threat that has killed billions of people. I have read(not sure if true) that half of all deaths in human history are thanks to malaria.

Thanks to DDT, we do not have that deadly problem here in the states anymore. Nor in Europe.

GMO has the potential to do really great things for us as a species. We need to continue to develop them.

 

[canndo]

Good questions. What do you think we should do? Should we ban genetic engineering? Does the insertion of a gene that makes wheat/corn/etc resistant to roundup make those plants toxic somehow? Are plants that acquire resistance to round up the old fashioned way, via natural selection, somehow toxic to humans and other animals?

Yes, they are good questions that you can't answer. I have no trouble with genetic modification. I can see uses for the creation of novel drugs or ways of producing them. What I cannot see is DNA mod for the sake of economics - which is what round up ready organisms are - they do not reduce the use of herbicides, they do not consistantly increase yield efficiency, in fact they require more and more herbicides. You presume that the insertion of a gene is predictable in all situations and it is not. No amount of natural selection will have a gene from a bacteria combined within the genetic makup of a plant. No plant genes have ever inhereted the genes of a fish or a bug. I believe it is entirely possible that naturaly inherited genetic changes to non-natural chemicals might be toxic in some way to other creatures who feed upon them.


Now again, a little looking into the dissapearance of bees might be a clue to the toxicity of certain unnatural compounds used injudiciously on our food.

that is the key here desert dude, it is our food, it is not a drug that one can take or refuse as he or she sees fit, it is not even the creation of a toxic compound that we can simply refrain from making and perhaps destroy. (I commonly fish right over the largest DDT dump in the U.S. there were plans to remove it all but because it is a number of feet deep below the surface of the bottom of the ocean it was decided that we should leave it. So far, the fish constantly tested show no more than the "average" amount of DDT in the flesh).

In short desert dude, you argue for corporations unchecked contamination of the country and the world's food supply with little or no safeguards except upon the assurance of the comapnies themselves that they are doing no harm. Is that truly wise? I will ask yet again, how would you propose we rid ourselves of a geneticly altered plant that we find is indeed dangerous not only to ourselves but to the ecosystem itself?

 

[canndo]

Not all products are safe. That's a given.

Yes, some companies will do what they can to continue to stay in business. I'm sure Monsanto is no different.

Also see: Johns Manville, any tobacco company, and CSR Limited in Australia.

It still doesn't mean all the products they produce should be done away with(though some should).

DDT eradicated a threat that has killed billions of people. I have read(not sure if true) that half of all deaths in human history are thanks to malaria.

Thanks to DDT, we do not have that deadly problem here in the states anymore. Nor in Europe.

GMO has the potential to do really great things for us as a species. We need to continue to develop them.

DDT does not replicate itself within the ecology, it does not perpetuate itself - GMOs do, GMO corn is already spreading into places where it was never meant to be. We see in Oregon that GMO wheat, Banned, unreleased to the general public showed up in places it was never planted. We saw GMO corn meant for livestock (still an unwise practice) show up in our taco shells. There is no way to control these organisms except at the onset. I read recently that Monsanto has a testing facility in Hawaii! Hawaii is the source of geneticly pure seeds that are uncontaminated by pollen from anywhere else on earth - how long will it be before even these places are contaminated forever by our experiments?

GMO food is unsound, unwise, dangerous in the extreme. I have little doubt that mankind and animals and insects will eventualy incorporate even these items into the web of life but the cost would be huge, far more of a burden than we as a species could tolerate.

 

[desert dude]

Yes, they are good questions that you can't answer. I have no trouble with genetic modification. I can see uses for the creation of novel drugs or ways of producing them. What I cannot see is DNA mod for the sake of economics - which is what round up ready organisms are - they do not reduce the use of herbicides, they do not consistantly increase yield efficiency, in fact they require more and more herbicides. You presume that the insertion of a gene is predictable in all situations and it is not. No amount of natural selection will have a gene from a bacteria combined within the genetic makup of a plant. No plant genes have ever inhereted the genes of a fish or a bug. I believe it is entirely possible that naturaly inherited genetic changes to non-natural chemicals might be toxic in some way to other creatures who feed upon them.


Now again, a little looking into the dissapearance of bees might be a clue to the toxicity of certain unnatural compounds used injudiciously on our food.

that is the key here desert dude, it is our food, it is not a drug that one can take or refuse as he or she sees fit, it is not even the creation of a toxic compound that we can simply refrain from making and perhaps destroy. (I commonly fish right over the largest DDT dump in the U.S. there were plans to remove it all but because it is a number of feet deep below the surface of the bottom of the ocean it was decided that we should leave it. So far, the fish constantly tested show no more than the "average" amount of DDT in the flesh).

In short desert dude, you argue for corporations unchecked contamination of the country and the world's food supply with little or no safeguards except upon the assurance of the comapnies themselves that they are doing no harm. Is that truly wise? I will ask yet again, how would you propose we rid ourselves of a geneticly altered plant that we find is indeed dangerous not only to ourselves but to the ecosystem itself?

Simply untrue, Canndo. The human genome contains retroviruses, and retroviruses undoubtedly contain human genes that go on to spread to other humans, etc. This planet is one big soup dish of DNA that we are all swimming in. Like it or not, all of us critters share DNA.

You protest against "economic motivations" for genetic engineering. You are pissing into the wind. Humans are economic actors. Round up ready crops are popular because they make farmer's more productive and put a little more money in the pockets of the farmers who use them. Because farmers are more productive they are able to sell their produce cheaper, which puts more food in the bellies of everybody, particularly the poor. Drugs produced via genetic engineering are like-wise motivated by economics.

How to rid ourselves of a genetically modified plant that is a pest. This begs the question, but I will play along. Create an antagonist against the offending plant using genetic engineering.

Why would a company create a plant/animal/bacteria that destroys the earth. Do you really think the share owners of Monsanto want to die?

 

[canndo]

Simply untrue, Canndo. The human genome contains retroviruses, and retroviruses undoubtedly contain human genes that go on to spread to other humans, etc. This planet is one big soup dish of DNA that we are all swimming in. Like it or not, all of us critters share DNA.

You protest against "economic motivations" for genetic engineering. You are pissing into the wind. Humans are economic actors. Round up ready crops are popular because they make farmer's more productive and put a little more money in the pockets of the farmers who use them. Because farmers are more productive they are able to sell their produce cheaper, which puts more food in the bellies of everybody, particularly the poor. Drugs produced via genetic engineering are like-wise motivated by economics.

How to rid ourselves of a genetically modified plant that is a pest. This begs the question, but I will play along. Create an antagonist against the offending plant using genetic engineering.

Why would a company create a plant/animal/bacteria that destroys the earth. Do you really think the share owners of Monsanto want to die?

"USDA NASS data show that since 1996, the glyphosate rate of application per crop year has tripled on cotton farms, doubled in the case of soybeans, and risen 39% on corn. The average annual increase in the pounds of glyphosate applied to cotton, soybeans, and corn has been 18.2%, 9.8%, and 4.3%, respectively, since HT [herbicide tolerant] crops were introduced.[25]
Simultaneously, as glyphosate resistant weeds began to emerge as a result of over-reliance on glyphosate, farmers began using other - often more toxic - herbicides on crops:
"Growing reliance on older, higher-risk herbicides for management of resistant weeds on HT crop acres is now inevitable in the foreseeable future and will markedly deepen the environmental and public health footprint of weed management on over 100 million acres of U.S. cropland."[25]

How convenient for Monsanto - they claim that the results of their products will decrease herbicide (and pesticide - we haven't talked about BT), and we see every rising use of this chemical, the residues of which will remain on our food and in our water, but we find ourselves using more and more.

"economic motivations" - as opposed to feeding people or heaven forbid, nourishing them. Farmers are shown not to be more productive and right now, farmers that would like to sell their wheat, GMO free or not are no longer able to do so in China - because China doesn't want to take the chance - as is their right. It is entirely possible that all of our proposed exports will be tainted, limiting our global marketplace - not so economically friendly at all. Monocultures are unsustainable and only through the use of these chemicals and genetic tricks are we able to continue at all, there will be a crash as there always is and it will not be prevented using these products. I bring up what I do because arguments such as these always revert to "feeding the poor", when genetics so far has not been able to substantially increase our production at sustainable levels.

Now, let me see if I have this right. My simplistic scenario is that we discover 10 years into the widespread planting of a particular genetic crop that 1 in 70 children grow seriously sick. I did not bring into the equation what happens to the others who may only become marginaly ill, the old, the long term influence of this product, but never the less, we discover the problem and then - you propose that we simply engineer ANOTHER organism that wipes out the first. You have more faith in a science than most, as a quick look at history shows that we most often exacerbate the problems we seek to fix.... with another fix. There is no such thing as a good patch is what I learned long ago programing.

the last statement is one I see often, "why would the employees of a company seek to destroy...... (the neighborhood, the state, a mountain, a forest, fisheries, the air....) when they live here as well? Short term profit is the simple answer and we see that from Bhopal to Love canal to the gulf spill that they are not particularly concerned with long term situations. They really don't believe they are doing anything wrong, or do they? Why would they fight to keep gmo labeling from being mandatory? And how American is such a fight?

so many are under the asumption that the dose is the poison, that all things can be accepted so long as that dose remains lower than this or that arbitrary limit. There are things where this philosophy does not apply, where even the smallest amount of a substance will, eventually, give rise to health problems or ecological problems. I keep mentioning the bees. We are fairly certain the bee problem is in systemic insecticides. No, there is no difinitive proof yet but as I have said, when powerful "economic motivations" are at work, discoveries of problems can take a very long time. Tobacco is a prime example. Why would a company that knew without a shadow of a doubt that the products it sells will kill it's customers continue to not only sell that product but obscure the fact of it's dangers to the general public? And why again, did it hide that information for decades? Isn't it possible that monsanto is doing the exact same thing?

Why indeed? Again, you have more faith in corporations that I can muster.

 

[canndo]

The short of it is this, do you really want to have eaten a particular food, have no choice in the matter and then have the company that created and implanted that food into our culture and our econolgy come out and say "oops, sorry, we made a mistake, everything you have been eating, the corn fed beef, the farm raised fish, the oils and additives you consumed for these last 10 years will probably either shave years off of your life or make you miserable for the rest of it...... but don't worry, we can fix it for the future"


I don't.

 

[desert dude]

The short of it is this, do you really want to have eaten a particular food, have no choice in the matter and then have the company that created and implanted that food into our culture and our econolgy come out and say "oops, sorry, we made a mistake, everything you have been eating, the corn fed beef, the farm raised fish, the oils and additives you consumed for these last 10 years will probably either shave years off of your life or make you miserable for the rest of it...... but don't worry, we can fix it for the future"


I don't.

I get it. In some ways I even agree. There are lots of things about our culture that I don't like but I just have to deal with, the drug war for example. I simply see no evidence of a downward spiral in health, life expectancy, etc. In fact, I see the opposite.

The minute GM crops fail to offer an economic advantage, farmers will abandon them. Maybe China refusing to buy our wheat/corn/rice will be the economic nail in the coffin of GM crops, but I doubt it.

You have the option of buying "organic" and non-GMO staples if you want them. Personally, I plan to eat all the GM food I can fit in my mouth at any given time.

The anti-GMO crowd has done itself an extreme disfavor by embracing and promoting bogus science/witchcraft ala Seralini. When you pitch out a bucket of bullshit everything afterward is tainted. So far, I have seen nothing to indicate GM foods are any different than other foods, which fits my intuition and education on the topic pretty well.

 

[canndo]

Desert Dude - you make a valid point, when you throw out a bucket of bullshit everything afterward is tainted:

False advertising [edit]
The New York Times reported that in 1996, "Dennis C. Vacco, the Attorney General of New York, ordered the company to pull ads that said Roundup was "safer than table salt" and "practically nontoxic" to mammals, birds and fish. The company withdrew the spots, but also said that the phrase in question was permissible under E.P.A. guidelines."[114]
On Fri Jan 20, 2007, Monsanto was convicted in France of false advertising of Roundup for presenting it as biodegradable, and claiming it left the soil clean after use. Environmental and consumer rights campaigners brought the case in 2001 on the basis that glyphosate, Roundup's main ingredient, is classed as "dangerous for the environment" and "toxic for aquatic organisms" by the European Union.[115] Monsanto appealed and the court upheld the verdict; Monsanto appealed again to the French Supreme Court, and in 2009 it also upheld the verdict.[116]
Scientific fraud [edit]
On two occasions, the United States EPA has caught scientists deliberately falsifying test results at research laboratories hired by Monsanto to study glyphosate.[117] The first incident involved Industrial Biotest Laboratories (IBT). The United States Justice Department closed the laboratory in 1978, and its leadership was found guilty in 1983 of charges of falsifying statements, falsifying scientific data submitted to the government, and mail fraud.[118] In 1991, Don Craven, the owner of Craven Laboratories and three employees were indicted on 20 felony counts. Craven, along with fourteen employees were found guilty of similar crimes.[119]
Monsanto has stated the Craven Labs investigation was started by the EPA after a pesticide industry task force discovered irregularities, that the studies have been repeated, and that Roundup's EPA certification does not now use any studies from Craven Labs or IBT.[117]


There's your bucket, let alone the bucket of bullshit that Monsanto threw out that Agent Orange was safe.


And then there is this little gem:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/1999/12/22/gmfood991222.html

Now why would Monsanto opt to clear GMO products from it's own cafeteria I wonder, maybe the same reason so many tobacco industry execs quit smoking?


now on to your "well you can always buy organic" - that is the point of all of this, we all know pollen drifts - sometimes miles, in some cases tens of miles or more, what organic crop is safe when nature sees to it that everything shifts and pollen is meant to travel the wind?

 

[canndo]

and by the way, you can opt out of the drug war if you choose, you can opt out of any drug, any vehicle, almost any chemical, you can refuse to live in a polluted place but you cannot opt out of GMO foods - especially if they are not labled as such. I just found that the Monsanto cafeterias that do offer GMO foods, label them as such, why did they spend millions to prevent us all from having that very same information?

More buckets of shit and the taint that follows.

 

[desert dude]

Desert Dude - you make a valid point, when you throw out a bucket of bullshit everything afterward is tainted:

False advertising [edit]
The New York Times reported that in 1996, "Dennis C. Vacco, the Attorney General of New York, ordered the company to pull ads that said Roundup was "safer than table salt" and "practically nontoxic" to mammals, birds and fish. The company withdrew the spots, but also said that the phrase in question was permissible under E.P.A. guidelines."[114]
On Fri Jan 20, 2007, Monsanto was convicted in France of false advertising of Roundup for presenting it as biodegradable, and claiming it left the soil clean after use. Environmental and consumer rights campaigners brought the case in 2001 on the basis that glyphosate, Roundup's main ingredient, is classed as "dangerous for the environment" and "toxic for aquatic organisms" by the European Union.[115] Monsanto appealed and the court upheld the verdict; Monsanto appealed again to the French Supreme Court, and in 2009 it also upheld the verdict.[116]
Scientific fraud [edit]
On two occasions, the United States EPA has caught scientists deliberately falsifying test results at research laboratories hired by Monsanto to study glyphosate.[117] The first incident involved Industrial Biotest Laboratories (IBT). The United States Justice Department closed the laboratory in 1978, and its leadership was found guilty in 1983 of charges of falsifying statements, falsifying scientific data submitted to the government, and mail fraud.[118] In 1991, Don Craven, the owner of Craven Laboratories and three employees were indicted on 20 felony counts. Craven, along with fourteen employees were found guilty of similar crimes.[119]
Monsanto has stated the Craven Labs investigation was started by the EPA after a pesticide industry task force discovered irregularities, that the studies have been repeated, and that Roundup's EPA certification does not now use any studies from Craven Labs or IBT.[117]


There's your bucket, let alone the bucket of bullshit that Monsanto threw out that Agent Orange was safe.


And then there is this little gem:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/1999/12/22/gmfood991222.html

Now why would Monsanto opt to clear GMO products from it's own cafeteria I wonder, maybe the same reason so many tobacco industry execs quit smoking?


now on to your "well you can always buy organic" - that is the point of all of this, we all know pollen drifts - sometimes miles, in some cases tens of miles or more, what organic crop is safe when nature sees to it that everything shifts and pollen is meant to travel the wind?

One reason not to serve GM food products in a cafeteria in the UK is because it's not legal to serve them, it is an EU level regulation. I will admit that it makes for a more sensational story to say that 'even Monsanto distrust GM food products' though. The EU is thinking about overturning that ban and requiring labeling.

 

[echelon1k1]

Rachel Carson wrote "Silent Spring" and helped to create the wacko, dirt-worshipping left.

Fast forward to the spring of 2013 and the cicadas are deafening on the east coast. File Rachel in the "sky is falling" bin next to Ehrlich.

Carson wasn't wrong about anything IMO, she did a service to your country...

How ‘Silent Spring’ Ignited the Environmental Movement

 

[Red1966]

Show me the countries that banned DDT immediately after 1972 if you would. I have seen this false argument many times and it is promoted by the right, I did not call you a rightist, I said that this fairytale was a conservative tool which it is. I did not say you had a political motivation, you merely repeat this myth as fact and others pick it up and spread it further.

When the US banned it in 72?, they also banned importation of crops grown with it also. All the countries that export crops to us (most of the world) stopped using it. If you have heard this "false argument" so many times, why do you assume it is false? Do you think so because you know something everybody else doesn't or is it just because you don't want to believe it? Why do you claim only countries that officially banned it imediately after 72 count? If it takes them 5 years to legislate it, doesn't that count?4? 3? 2? 1?

 

[Red1966]

And that is the all important point here, they were not banned for use against malaria.

The damning of Carson is misplaced.

But yet, that use also stopped, nearly. Governments in subtropical countries could ill afford the use if there was no immediate payback.
Nobody's damning Carlson. But she either did poor research or didn't give a damn about the millions, yes, millions, who died as a result of her actions. Praising her is inappropriate.

 

[Red1966]

From your link:

"Seralini and his team decided to research the effects of the herbicide on human placenta cells. Their study confirmed the toxicity of glyphosate, as after eighteen hours of exposure at low concentrations, large proportions of human placenta began to die. Seralini suggests that this may explain the high levels of premature births and miscarriages observed among female farmers using glyphosate."

Seralini is damaged goods, Canndo. I don't believe a word the guy says.

Again, this is a study showing that Glyphosates are dangerous to people. Eating GM crops is not the same things as drinking a round up cocktail.

Is it supposed to be unusual the placenta cells outside the human body begin to die after 18 hours? How long had the placenta been outside the donor when they got it? Or did they butcher a pregnant woman on the spot to get a fresh one? This sounds like crackpot science, not a carefully controlled experiment.

 

[Red1966]

But I do agree that GM foods should be tested before being put on the market. Hell, they should be tested before they're allowed to be grown outside a sealed laboratory. But to ban all such research and/or production is unwise. The world's population still grows, tho at a much reduced rate, and we will absolutely need better and better food production in the future.

 

[canndo]

When the US banned it in 72?, they also banned importation of crops grown with it also. All the countries that export crops to us (most of the world) stopped using it. If you have heard this "false argument" so many times, why do you assume it is false? Do you think so because you know something everybody else doesn't or is it just because you don't want to believe it? Why do you claim only countries that officially banned it imediately after 72 count? If it takes them 5 years to legislate it, doesn't that count?4? 3? 2? 1?

Distinguish between crop pest control - and the point of the little myth, that because DDT was banned, people contracted malaria and died. As you can see, vector control was NOT banned and it is that vector control that was the heart of the offensive regarding malaria, not crops. I "assume" it was false because the logic, timing and particulars are incorrect.

 

[canndo]

But I do agree that GM foods should be tested before being put on the market. Hell, they should be tested before they're allowed to be grown outside a sealed laboratory. But to ban all such research and/or production is unwise. The world's population still grows, tho at a much reduced rate, and we will absolutely need better and better food production in the future.

Why do you assume that GMO crops result in "better and better production"?

 

[UncleBuck]

Pollen gets in your hair, clothes, and can travel miles.

intake filters, shower (good for more than just chickens), and a washing machine.