That's partially true, even though metabolomics is an utterly powerful tool. I love metabolomics.

But metabolomics will not give you all the metabolic profiles of the transgenic plant under all the different situations a plant may be subjected to during its life.

But anyway, I really do not argue the "since we cannot know anything then we cannot trust it" at all. I already said that even with selective breeding we select for desired traits but we do not know exactly how they are will be different 5-4 generations of selection down the line. Quite a few end-products during the intense selective breeding duiring the Green revolution in 60s and 70s were turned down because tthey were very undesirable.

I wonder however if anyone can find the FDA standards for a transgenic crop to become edible. which are the tests? Are they strict enough or are they way too loose? Can we find anything?

For sure one can do very strict tests and be over 99.999% confident that the transgenic plant is safe. But these tests take loads of time and money. Do the companies always do them? I was reading a paper pushing the idea that Monsanto was testing its transgenic soya for safety by feeding it to chickens and then analysing their blood pressure, protein levels, weight etc thus "proving" that their soya is safe for human consumption. This is poor criteria in my opinion to decide for the safety of transgenic soya as foodstuff for humans.

True and we both know the same applies to traditional breeding. But its also possible to set up more and more experiments but again thats more and more money so its as usual a cost benefit issue. Everything is though.



This did happen with potatoes. They were producing so many alkaloids (which made them resistant) that they made people sick and had to be removed from the market. I forget the strain name.



I am under the impression that its easier to get a pharmaceutical approved then a GMO crop (because its in food many more people will take it). But I do not have a list of the SPECIFIC guidelines. It might be on the FDA webpage. But its so involved actually its not like do experiments 1-10 and there you go so I am sure there are guidelines but they might have to be adjusted on certain case by case bases. There still of course is a "base" level of requirements however.



Again I think the cost is more then a pharmaceutical. But anyway I think that paper is deliberately being deceiving and not telling the entire story. I think I'd need the specific details to make a judgement call however. I highly highly highly doubt that was it.

Don't believe the hype!

Genetically modified food is evil!

If the technology were used responsibly and tested over lifetimes by a super advanced and caring civilisation, perhaps it couldbe a good thing. We are not that civilisation, instead we have evil greedy companies hiding the dangers to make their directors rich and their shareholders happy and their scientists employed (yes, the scientists are to blame too, eager to create jobs for themselves).

Anyone who eats anything other than the stuff our ancestors have eaten for thousands upon thousands of years is a fool. I suppose it's fine if you really want to eat MSG every day and go blind from cataracts, that's your choice. If you want to drink milk or eat meat full of growth hormone and grow man-boobs, go ahead. I wouldn't say that about BSE because I don't think anyone was told they were feeding cows their relatives' mushed up brains and spinal chords... scientists decided that was "safe" at some point, just as scientists decided it was safe to use asbestos (it wasn't, ask a builder dying of asbestosis), and just as doctors decided it was safe to give pregnant women phalidomide (they shouldn't have, ask their deformed children).

If you start growing GM food all over the place, where is the choice? We will all be forced to eat it, because these plants could never be contained separately from the rest of the ecosystem, and even if they could be it's an uphill struggle trying to get the suppliers to identify that they are GM.

Of course it is not environmentally friendly- not being able to save seed for next year, cross-fertilisation, gene transfer and plants spreading from test sites into the rest of the environment, putting things like pesticides into plants when in something as complicated as an ecosystem the effect on the ecosystem can never be accurately predicted.

GM crops cannot be contained. This is a dangerous geoengineering experiment. YOU do not have the right to gamble with OUR planet and OUR health. Gamble with your own health if you want, go play russian roulette, I don't care. But if you act stupid in a way that could harm me, then you are a despicably selfish person.

This is such a non-argument, I can't be bothered to dig up the numerous scandals and concerns surrounding GM food. They're everywhere, we've all seen them.

I do not trust companies and scientists when they say something is safe. They are not thorough enough, and maybe econonomically speaking they could never be thorough enough. I made a few examples earlier of when scientists have been horribly wrong, and there are many more. Scientists are not gods, they are flawed human beings, they can be blinded by pressure from their employer, blinded by their own greed for funding or prestige, blinded by their overoptimistic faith in their own abilities and judgement and methods. How can scientists say it's safe to eat GM food, have they been eating it their entire lives to see how they fare in the long term? No. However informed you are, you're only guessing if you say it's safe. I don't trust them. And we all know how companies function psychopathically in human terms.

Burnt, if you want to convince people, why don't you eat an entirely GM diet for the rest of your life? I'll continue on my organic diet. Let's see who dies first, you or I.

Neither MSG nor growth hormones has anything to do with genetically modified food at all. While I am not a big fan of GMO myself, it is important not to mix such vastly different subjects.

Evening Glory, I think you missed my point. My point is that time and time again what scientists say is safe turns out not to be. I could've gone on forever citing further examples. Burnt says that GM is safe and that scientists think it is safe. Even if scientists were unanimous in saying that it is safe (which they aren't), how can they be trusted with such hindsight?

For something this important, I do not like the odds. There shouldn't even be any odds. If there is not 100% certainty that a geoengineering experiment is 100% safe, then it should never be attempted. It's not fair on the rest of us. We've been doing fine eating the food our ancestors ate, what's the point in risking all we have?

I very much agree with you ohayoco and im glad for your input here

one thing though, we can never be 100% with anything, as infundibulum well pointed out selective breeding is also not guaranteed safe and yet basically all food (and pet animals and so on) we have is selectively bred


but yeah exactly as you said, im much more satisfied and with a clear-conscience with my organic preferably locally grown diet, and arguments aside, I also dare anybody to eat GMO-only and see who stays healthier

There is something uneasy with this post and your previous one. I think that what you do here distracts from the main points of discussion and that could go on forever. You draw some examples of scientists having been wrong, then I can draw some examples of scientists having being totally right and beneficial, then you pick some more examples of scientist being wrong and then I pick some more examples of scientific advances that have been right etc etc... this thing can go on forever.

What you basically say is that scientists have been wrong in the past so they may be wrong. This is not really attacking the issue here, it is beating around the bush and it is borderline ad hominem.

You have to take odds about everything. You can never be 100% about everything. You do not know if after leaving your house in the morning you'll return safe back in in the afternoon. But you weight out the odds and say that it is more beneficial to leave the house and work than just stay in and be protected from stabbing out in the street.

Now, back to the subject, I believe that the extent to whether GMOs are safe has been answered. Now, what is important to discuss is whether the GMO technology is really necessary worth taking the risk in order to help the world. In other words, is it worth taking the risk of introducing GMO to increase the welfare of people? Once upon a time the all-evil nuclear power was (and still is) the saviour of so many people's lives that had to work in coal mines. Coal mines is no joke place.

The all-organic, agroecology permaculture design is very admirable and beautiful but not a realistic solution. Proposing people to go an each make their own farm is not the solution. We have ever-growing populations that demand more food every year. You have to make the best out of your crop.

Ohayoko, what do you propose? how do you plan to keep on feeding people?

If everyone switched to organic agriculture right now their would be mass famine.

THERE IS NO EVIDENCE. I repeat NO EVIDENCE that organic food is ANY safer for human beings. Anyone who believes that has NEVER looked at the evidence. People are studying this and no one has found any significant advantages to eating organic food as opposed to conventional food.

There have been studies where organic food was less nutritious then conventional food there have been studies that organic food is more nutritious then conventional food. What does this tell you? There is no difference!

There is also no difference with taste. This has been extensively tested again. Taste has to do with freshness not whether or not its organic.

The entire organic food movement is built on a fallacy. Sure organic farmers have some practices that are beneficial for the environment. But ALL of those practices could be utilized by conventional and GM farmers too. Organic farmers think natural is better because they are naive and spoiled enough to have the choice of how to grow their food. Most people in the world don't have that choice.

My conscience would be worse off if all I ate was organic food. If I told other people all you should eat is organic food I would be doing something that globally is morally wrong. I would be supporting an industry that claims to care about the environment but at the same time doesn't care about the people who benefit from conventional farming practices. The industry again is built on a total fallacy that "natural is always better". I refuse to support such an industry built on such a false ideology.



Glutamate is a natural compound (what do you think MSG stands for?). It doesn't make you go blind but some people are prone to get headaches from it (oooo). Growth hormones in the diet have NEVER caused someone to grow man made boobs. But again none of this has anything to do with GMO's and none of the things you said are as unsafe as you are saying. Your lieing and misinformed.

The story of Phalidomide was a mistake. Mistakes happen. Do you think mistakes wouldn't happen if everyone lived a 100% natural life? First of all thats impossible and makes no sense to live a 100% natural life. Second mistakes would still happen and people would die from all kinds of things they now don't die from because of technology.



These GMO populations are not that good in the wild. They couldn't survive without human beings cultivating them. There are totally natural plants that can't produce seeds its not because of GMO's that certain plant varieties don't produce seed. Although yes with GMO you can make it not produce seed.

The effect on ecosystems needs to be tested before GMO crops are approved. Your demanding a kind of safety that can't be predicted with ANYTHING we do. Your demand for 100% natural would kill millions upon millions in the world.



Scandals? Wow you are misinformed. So misinformed.

You honestly going to tell me that you don't care about poor farmers in africa who can benefit tremendously from GMO don't deserve it? They deserve to be stuck with subsistence farming while you rich people get to run around dancing in your organic farms all day? Your the selfish one. Your the one who doesn't know dick about these issues yet makes judgement calls on everyone else. Thats the definition of selfish and uninformed.



Again this just shows how you don't know the issues.

Golden rice. You think that people in south east asia don't deserve a kind of GMO rice that could save thousands of children from nutrient deficiencies? Blindness!?

Its clear you dont know any facts about the issue from your statements all you've statement is baseless rhetoric about safety that no human technology can garuntee not even organic food (sometimes organic food contains more mycotoxins which are seriously natural poisons).

You walk around promoting organizations to help poor people in the Amazon yet you don't give two shits about people all over the developing world who could benefit tremendously from this technology. How hippocritical can you be?

again, burnt, same as with infundibulum.. all this 'GMO to save starving people' argument would only stand if GMOs WERE actually being used to save poor starving children.. are they? AFAIK GMOs are being in consumed in masses by western non-starving wasteful people (while giving money to big corporations a-la monsanto), or for feeding cattle, or for fuel like american corn, and NOT (or very little) by poor starving people which are still poor and starving

and yours and infundibulum's arguments about organic not being enough for feeding people, I always hear this from non-organic eating people, and yet Ive never seen one hard data supporting this.. Monocultures and extensive farming are highly unsustainable practices, organic are usually very sustainable practices.. sure maybe one can fit less of a certain crop in a given area with organic, but looking at the long term its obvious that monocultures just wont cut it, they are depleting the soil that need to be highly fertilized, fertilizers that cost a lot of energy/resources to be made somewhere else and transported, etc etc..

burnt it makes no sense imo that you say buying organic is morally wrong because its an industry that doesnt care about this or that.. Did you ever go to an organic farm? They are not an industry backed by mega corporations, they are not super rich people, they are mostly small producers or small organizations of producers that get together and follow certain practices of how to grow food... they are not NOT caring about others, this is just a projection you are making. Of course there are natural stores and the resellers that do fool people and exagerate the benefits of organic, but thats the resellers, NOT the farmers

The phalacy of 'natural being always better' is not something that the industry is based on, it might be something that some of the consumers believe, but not necessarily the only argument for organic.

Personally, Id rather buy certain locally grown yet non-organic food, than certain organic food that comes from the other side of the world, becuase the consequence of transports (energy/pollution/etc) is not worth it IMO.. yet, given two locally grown food, Id rather buy organic/fair trade.

as for what can we realisticaly do to change this all if buying organic is not the end solutio? I think as a conscious consumer buying organic/fairtrade/local products is one of the parts of the solution, yes.. Another is trying to grow awareness through education on wasteful habits, recycling, etc, all of which diminishes our strain on earth and therefore freeing resources for the really important things (like organic food ) ..

Also a more intelligent managing of resources (for example the fact that some industries waste product is the needed material in some other industry, and yet what usualy happens is industry A throws away their waste products and industry B gets to extract some product fresh from somewhere else, being a stupid waste of course). If resources were more intelligently managed in a network-based scheme, it would definitely help

What I dont think is that putting all our efforts in GMOs and 'paliative' solutions is the best way.. There is too much people, there is too much waste, this is the problem that needs to be addressed in the first place imo.. I think it might help in more immediate terms in some cases, but that we have to put more effort elsewhere.. thats just my opinion of course

I'll get back to organic farming as an industry after I make this point (there are massive industrial organic farms whose manure waste alone constitutes an environmental hazard). A few of my friends are organic farmers so I know all their arguments. But yes we want hard data which I'll get to later. I also want to discuss what I think are the real solutions to agriculture and food safety on a global scale. But first...

I want to point out the sheer misinformed nature of the organic anti GMO attitude using a very specific example. Bt corn. You keep asking "how do you know its safe"? Well organic folks please explain to me why organic farmers spray the bacteria that produces the Bt toxin on their crops!!!!!!! Its an approved "organic" pesticide!!!!! Furthermore its been in use as a pesticide for about 80 years! So don't tell me its not safe. That's baseless. If its not safe why do organic farmers use it? If its not safe why wasn't it banned 40 or so years ago along with DDT?

Now I want to show how the GMO approach is BETTER for the environment then the organic approach. Organic farmers can just randomly spray Bt producing spores whenever they want which can effect non target organisms (like the butterflies they claim to care about). However GMO corn now only produces Bt toxin in the leaves! Which humans don't eat and which non target organisms don't eat so.

Do you see? Do you see how GMO corn is better then taking the organic approach?


Now the real solution for the future to make farming more sustainable, environmentally friendly and to feed to world is:::

ALL 3 ways of farming combined! Organic plus conventional plus GMO is the future. You use each technology in the most efficient way when its necessary and useful for the farmer. More efficient less impact less input farms IS THE SOLUTION! This can only happen by combining the good parts of all technology when necessary. Not subscribing to some ideological type of farming based on false pretenses. This is often refered to as integrated farming (which also uses things like integrated pest management). Its designed to reduce impact on environment at the same time improving efficiency.

Also endlessness you keep saying you would think GMO is ok if it were actually being used by developing nations. I want to say that there are projects going on by large corporations like (the almighty evil ) Monsanto to do just this FOR FREE (in a number of cases)! Companies are working with developing nations to give them a head start so they will be customers in the future. Of course there is an incentive for the company. But the incentive of the researchers and farmers in developing countries is the obvious benefits that do work. Watch the documentary I posted it explains all this.

Its people who promote the organic only philosopher that are actively protesting actions like this. Organizations like greenpeace are doing this. They are stopping people from using technology that can bring them out of the cycle of being stuck forever poor as subsistence farmers. These people already use organic farming and guess what!? Its not enough for them! Not everyone lives in sunny california and can grow organic strawberries all year round.

Here is some propaganda by the almighty evil monsanto ( ) about the people who are benefitting from GMO.

http://www.monsanto.com/...asp?cname=South%20Africa

http://www.monsanto.com/...tech-gmo/asp/country.asp

Why would the Swiss Parliament extended its ban on the cultivation of genetically engineered (GE) plants for three more years.
(Originally enacted in 2005, Switzerland will stay GE-free until at least 2013.) If GE food and plants where so safe and so wonderful?
I think its inhumane to ship off and spread GE food to third world countries to feed them if the GE crops also pose unpredictable risks to human and animal health.

Its in the first world countries interest to keep food scarcely available to the third world counties so that they stay poor and easy to control and corrupt... There is enough food for everyone to be fed there is no need to implement GMO...Its only due to corruption that millions starve...



Endlessness

Nicely said my friend i completely agree...


Much Peace and Happiness

Here are some documents about the safety, sustainability and necessaryness of GM foods. They say it better than I, so please read these. [P.s.: I also read New Scientist and that's full of articles about the potential dangers of GM, but I simply don't have time to dig up articles to find their references]

The GM companies are lobbying to legalise GM contamination of neighbouring crops... obviously they don't have any regard for other people's businesses, or people in general. If we can't trust them to respect the rights of others, why trust them to determine that their products are safe?

I've learnt not to get into arguments with you so I'm not going to read the rest of your post, the pdfs outline my stance. Care to post a credible source for your outrageous first sentence?! Note the word credible, not the work of conspiracy kooks like the ones you've posted before as evidence, nor GM companies and their allies with proven track records of deception.

As for your second sentence, we have been eating organic food since before we were even genetically human, so there is no need to prove its safety. The onus of proof is on GM, not organic. GM has to prove it is safe, organic doesn't! What a stupid comment to make, there is no point arguing with someone who uses such backwards logic. That's it from me.

I will make more research on Bt so I can make a more informed argument here... but notice that, when you say something is 'better', you must have certain criteria for what is good or bad, measuring the pros and cons.. In the way you have proposed it, sure it might seem better but you are not counting the possible unknown side effects for humans or for the environment either.. plus, as I already mentioned, GMOs are nearly always associated with extensive monoculture, which is a problem on itself. Also the whole issue of dependency on GMO companies and so on and so on.. its not as simple as you put it




Ill get back on this later



I already gave my argument against this.. of course monsanto didnt do it "for free".. as I said, its like sayign mcdonalds is good for having ronald mcdonalds foundation, but its a minuscule percentage compared to the shit they do and to their humongous profits. Maybe monsanto didnt get paid directly but of course they are using the prestige for doing so (which is a payment, of course), not to mention the whole seed dependency issue which maybe now they are "giving the head start" but later on they say "ok help is over, now pay us for using our seeds from now on! dont want to pay? ok try to grow anything that is not from monsanto in this crappy soil our seeds left you with, or anyways doesnt matter we will find our genes in your plants and sue your ass"

Id rather these people got help from non GMO companies.. You do know that a lot of the problems in africa farming is from bad management, right? There are all these cases of productive lands from white/western people that were taken over by government or poor people and land turned unproductive, because they couldnt manage it (im not arguing western people are better, im just saying this did happen and its an example how its not about GMO, its about inteligent management, which africans/poor people could do if they had true guidance and not just fake 'free´ help from greed-powered companies such as monsanto).



poor farmers are kept poor not because they dont have GMO but because of twisted government rules and taxation/incentive systems, because of bad management, because of unfair practices by big farmers that fuck up small farmers (temporary excessive drop in prices to kill competition, etc), because of climate change, because of earth getting more and more problematic, etc etc

Organic and sustainable farming has nothing to do with being able to grow the same crop all year round.. sustainable farming is well aware of seasons and it adapts to it. Apart from what I said about buying organic/local food, its important to buy season food also.. Eating food that are not from the season imply extra resources spent for the artificial climate or transport, and therefore its in direct contrast with sustainability.

Just saw this quote in Endlessness's post. Um, it's not organic if it's had pesticides on it, Burnt! That's just regular farming. Do you mean 'non-gm farming' when you say 'organic'? Or maybe the rules are pretty lax where you live, and they're fobbing you off with something that isn't actually organic. Where I come from, organic means no pesticides whatsoever. They rely on traditional methods of reducing pests, crop rotation and biodiversity for natural predators etc.

And Endlessness is right to say people are not starving because they don't have GM. Mostly it's a social problem. Even then, scientists have developed ways to perform feats such as reverse desertification using simple techniques such as planting shrubs to act as wind barriers to hold the sand back, so land can be reclaimed for farming. With the vast pooling of worldwide traditional tecniques throughout history, sustainable strategies for farming are abundant. They just need to be put into practice, and that requires only education.

Organic food has been shown to contain up to 17 times more trace minerals, because conventional farmland has become barren due to lack of proper crop rotation and is now often completely reliant on bought fertilisers. It could turn out that these trace minerals improve health.

I'm guessing you work for a GM company, Burnt? Or are a member of the establishment in some other way? You argue for extreme capitalism, GM, etc, and your attitudes seem to mirror those of the right-wing geoengineers.

Even organic farmers need to use pesticides. They are just allowed to use approved organic pesticides (some which are worse then synthetic). Only very small very local farms can get away with using no pesticides and even then its not perfect. They can only get away without them by selling their food for higher prices which is something most of the world can't afford.

You people have no idea what you are talking about its a waste of my time argeuing with you.

You people dont know dick about science or agriculture. Fuck this.

Read the documents, many of their statements are poor. Overall, not trustworthy reading.


My man, read better...burnt said that there is not evidence they are safer , not safe.

So your answer does not apply!


One thing I do not understand is how this discussion went into politics, especially from the GM opposer's side. This is counter-productive and uses anti new world order scare-tactics (or whatever that is called) to divert the focus on their actual safety. IU don't care about the evilness of monsanto as long as their product has high quality standards.

Infundibulum:

well its all connected, isnt it? I mean, how can you talk about any human endeavor by itself without being able to analyze the context in which it arises (and in this case connecting GMO with politics, sustainability, crop management, world population, etc)? As I said, I dont think GMO is absolutely bad but it feels to me that its a paleative solution, has too many unknown consequences, and also I feel that its bad the fact that its headed by companies such as monsanto.. Maybe for you its no problem as long as they have high standards, but I feel like wherever I spend my money, it connects me to all the practices related to what I buy.

For example, if I buy a t-shirt made by children slaves, I dont think its just about whether its good quality shirt or not, I feel that me paying for that shirt is like saying 'yes I agree with their practices therefore am morally responsible for what they do".. I feel monsanto is not the kind of people I want to give money for, Im informed enough to decide I rather give my money to small local producers, than to GMO using monsanto-backed farmers... is that so bad?

each one for their own of course, you will do what you feel is the way to live your life and I will act the way I feel right.. just expressing this side of the equation so you understand better

Burnt:

If we dont know about science, show us better.. I am very open to scientific knowledge, thats why I asked you directly to show me first of all any data that shows GMO's in the long term is more sustainable than organic farming.. Secondly, I would appreciate any data that shows that most (or a significant) percentage of GMO's are actually being used to feed the poor and not the wasting western bastards..

Its no need to get angry, we're all open minded people and I know im ready to admit im wrong, but for me to change my opinion I need more than some isolated arguments.

In the meanwhile, I'll enjoy a wonderful organic meal now, rice, quinoa and beans, salad, and some vegetables in the oven.. yum yum

(Ill check the video u posted later and tell u what I think)

Infun, I just don't have the time to dig out scientific articles I've read and analyse them, those are just things I could find quickly that get the point across in laymen's terms. I agree that environmentalist groups can be overcautious and alarmist, but I think that's preferable to undercautious and harmful. They are taking their cues from scientists, just as Monsanto are, yet coming up with very different outlooks: one group driven by desire for profits, the other group driven by desire to protect people and the habitat we rely on from harmful exploitation. This isn't a science forum so I'm not required to present only peer reviewed sources surely?! I'd love to do that if I had the time, but I can't. Aren't there debates like this on a neutral science forum somewhere that can be linked to? Surely there must be.


And you do? You preach your beliefs as if you speak for science itself, or economic philosophy itself, or political philosophy itself. There are scientists and other relevant disciplines more qualified than you who disagree with your views, yet you ignore any studies which contradict your chosen belief and only present that which suits your argument. That is the only reason why I oppose your preachings.

If you gave a more balanced perspective, I wouldn't find fault with anything you say. I just don't think it's right how often you present your personal beliefs and conclusions as scientific fact. That's just misleading, unscientific, and I believe dangerous because there are many people who will be dazzled by the 'scientific' front you cultivate. Hence why I get a little het up at times.

I never even said that GM crops weren't safe, I just said that we are no way near knowing for sure. Anyway, no hard feelings I hope