(This is the second in a series. Part I can be found here — JH)
Want to know about Congress’ most recent effort to trash organic foods?
Genetically engineered (genetically modified) foods – coming to poison meals and fields near you.
If they haven't already.
Market surveys around the planet show nobody wants to eat mutant meals. In the US, GMO labs made certain the USDA and FDA would not tell us this crap is in our food. That's why most Americans have no clue that
“Currently, up to 45 percent of U.S. corn is genetically engineered as is 85 percent of soybeans. It has been estimated that 70-75 percent of processed foods on supermarket shelves–from soda to soup, crackers to condiments–contain genetically engineered ingredients”
GMO’s – commonly known as Frankenfoods or Frankenseeds – are the ultimate pollutants. They copy themselves with each harvest season, contaminating the normal plants around them with genetically modified pollen.
All non-GM farmers in North America are finding it very hard or impossible to grow GM-free crops. Seeds have become almost completely contaminated with GM organisms (GMOs), good non-GM varieties have become hard to buy, and there is a high risk of crop contamination.'
So a bunch of farmers plant different seed. Who cares? What does that mean to us city folk?
Genetically modified organisms are plant (or animal) mutants with alien species’ DNA forced into their genetic material. Unlike conventional plant or animal breeding, many Frankenseeds are not genetically stable. Their genetic instability means that each successive generation can express new genes, and so each generation has unpredictable new proteins.
But protein is good, right? That’s what we eat. Proteins are like people. Some proteins help us – some kill us. Egg protein nourishes us; castor bean protein (ricin) is a deadly poison. Edible mushrooms taste good because of proteins that affect our taste buds. Poison mushrooms kill because of proteins that affect our livers.
Over the past several thousand years, what we know as agriculture was the slow process of finding which plants killed us and which plants fed us, and then getting good at growing the ones that fed us.
Thousands of years of trial and error figuring out which plants had toxic proteins. Less than two decades of Frankenseeds later, GMO potatoes, soy, and corn have turned back the clock to 10,000 BC.
What proteins do these GMO mutants actually make? What happens when we eat this stuff?
Nothing good.
GMO corn, soy, and potatoes show toxic effects on living animals. The GMO soy (Monsanto’s Roundup-Ready soy) we grow and eat in the US is so toxic that more than half of baby rats fed with the stuff die in just three weeks.
Hey – it's only 85% of the US soy crop, right?
The rest of the planet doesn’t want to eat this crap any more than we do. In the EU and other nations where GM foods are labelled as such, demand is zero. US export markets for rice and corn (maize) have been severely damaged by GM contamination.
To protect the public and organic farmers, four California counties banned GMO crops. Rice farmers in Arkansas and California protected their crops with laws preventing contamination by GMO crops. In fourteen other states, local and or state laws ban GMO’s.
GMO’s banned in part or all of sixteen states – almost a third of the US is protected from mutant food, right?
Not any more – the GMO labs did an end run yesterday in the House Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry, and the GMO labs won. Sec 123 of the new Farm Bill effectively precludes local control over GMO contamination.
If the Farm Bill passes with Sec 123, our sole protection against toxic GMO foods will be the USDA organic standards.
Until the GMO labs and their servants at USDA get rid of them.
But don’t worry – we’ll have seven days to comment.
Bon appetit.
(Photo of Chinese factory by Ariana Lindquist for The New York Times, via Goldy)
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Kirk, you’re everywhere!
zed?
And that’s an organic Zed!
I seem to recall a lot of GM of crops such as tobacco to make it blight resistant and such. Now if they could just do things safely but instead we are continually treated to more examples of the Laws of Unintended Side Consequences.
HotFlash @ 3
Good on ‘ya, HotFlash!
For the record, no electrons were harmed in the writing of this post.
The only thing gotten rid of is US food security, by shrub. Let’s not forget that these are the same nice people that’ve cut inspections of imported foodstuffs by 50%, despite the fact that under int’l trade conventions it now falls to the importing country to police the quality of foreign goods (from countries like China). Ensuring food security apparently requires a government bigger than that which Grover can drown in his bathtub, and is, therefore, inconsistent with rethug policy.
dakine01 @ 4
For our food crops, the wonky stuff up above about
means that “safely” will never be possible with many GMOs. The unstable genome means every new crop may carry completely unknownand untested toxic proteins.
Hey – it’s only 85% of the US soy crap, right?
fixed your typo ;)
HotFlash @ 1
He travels light-speed when necessary…
Adie @ 9
All credit to Scottie.
Following the pet food poison and bee colony collapse stories, I received several phone calls asking me who is a nurse what was safe to eat.
Asked someone in a grocery store if the meat was safe and the checker had no idea what I was talking about [Trader Joe’s].
What are the signs of a THIRD WORLD country?
Unsafe Food and Water…and living under a Junta… are we there yet?
and so what are the cows, pigs and sheep eating…….?
i wish this were only a Phillip K. Dick novel.
Apart from the genetic pollution let loose upon the world, the general drift of why these plants are modified is to make them resistant to the pesticides and herbicides these companies (they are chemical companies) make.
So when you make crops resistant to your own chemicals, the farmer can apply your chemicals with impugnity and not destroy the crop. In fact, your line of chemicals are part of the bundle. If the farmer buys your seeds, he’s also got to buy the chemicals they were designed for. Nevermind the consumer, who then eats this chemical-rich crop. And fuck the environment.
Great post, KJM.
I don’t understand why *ALL* GM food is being categorically branded as bad. DNA is DNA is DNA. A gene from one organism can function in most others as long as the regulatory elements are compatible. There is nothing that you can consider ‘foreign’ about a particular gene, except that you know it had evolved in another organism first. Now in some cases (especially the insecticide-producing GM plants), the proteins added may be expressly harmful, and that should be studied and guarded against. It is the particular generation of GM foods, which has the aforementioned characteristics, which makes them problematic.
Not only that, but here in Canada a canola (note 1) grower name of Percy Schmeiser is being sued by Monsanto for royalties. Their RoundupReady GMO canola cross-pollinated Percy’s heritage-seed grown crop, Monsanto’s goons came on Percy’s land and took samples and Percy is going to court in Jan 2008 b/c they say he owes them $15./acre.
That Monsanto would do this is terrifying, but depend on it: They will spend millions to set a precedent here. As Percy says, “In my case, I never had anything to do with Monsanto, outside of buying chemicals. I never signed a contract. If I would go to St. Louis and contaminate their plots–destroy what they have worked on for 40 years–I think I would be put in jail and the key thrown away,”
More about Percy’s situation here, and if you could drop him a couple of bucks for his legal fees it would help defend us all.
Note 1: Canola is rape, an oilseed crop. Looks like wild mustard or rapini gone to seed (which is more or less is). It produces a light unsaturated edible oil sold as-is(cooking oil)and in many, many prepared and processed foods such as shortenings and margarines, salad dressings, baked goods, fried foods and on and on. The Cdn Rapeseed Growers Assoc decided that they needed a name change and invented the work Canola. I agree, much nicer.
why is this not even covered by the msm?
sorry. dumb question.
Elliott @ 8
Thanks, Elliot. I’m still blown away that the baby-killing soy isn’t Oprah-headline news.
OK, baby rats – but still: first they’re cute, then they’re dead. Three weeks!
Knowing about the study makes me avoid any non-organic soy product.
Scary stuff.
PS – do the folks down stairs know of our chemical-free thread?
Blub @ 6
you mean something like this?
I’m not sure it takes TWO med flies
“PS – do the folks down stairs know of our chemical-free thread?”
Yes, if they read down far enough :)
katymine @ 11
call it a Zeroth World Country…. a post-democratic society of media-overdosed zombies ruled by self-serving rulers utterly indifferent to the welfare of their subjects. Max Headroom anticipated all this back in the mid-eighties…
Elliott @ 18
Oh my gosh. That’s perfectly horrible.. and I bet those “orders” go up higher than just the immediate supervisor too… we SO need that Independent Counsel.
Thanks for the two posts on this KJM. The more information being spread on the threat to our food supply the better. The frightening thing is you cannot even be safe if you grow your own food anymore.
A month or two ago, I read a short blog post on the HuffPost blog, in which the poster highly recommended the book: The Way of Ignorance: and Other Essays by Wendell Berry. I read it and agree that it’s great “food for thought”. The author is what I’d call a philosopher-farmer; he’s been farming in KY for 40 years. He not only writes about food production and Big Agricultural companies and sustainability, but also touches on human nature and violence, among other themes.
The title of Barbara Kingsolver’s book pretty much encapsulates what agriculture has been and could be–Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. But corporate farming is not into vegetables animals or miracles. Monsanto, Farm Bureau, corporate hog factories, etc., etc. How to be a family farmer in this day and age? Organic was a hope for small farmers, but now that’s in jeopardy, too? Maybe this is what is meant in the old adage about bought the farm? Just die already.
Gotta love it.
At some point does not common sense enter the equation?
I mean, just because we can does not necessarily mean we have to does it?
And the one about the guy fighting Monsanto?
Oh yeah, I hope he sues the pants off of ‘em.
Trespassing just for starts.
BSE should have been a wake up call to BIG FOOD. The consequences of even relatively well understood ’standard’ farming practices can’t be predicted.
You said we have 7 days to comment. To Who or what entity do we call/ write/ email/ get pissed off at in order to protest Sec 123 of the Farm bill?
Even though I’ve studied various aspects of science for most of my life, about four years ago it took hearing a well informed talk by Jello Biafra, of all people, to get the scoop on Frankenfood.
from the linked article
There is enough good science that questions the use of GM food that there is no need to resort to using un-reviewed, one-off studies. If we want to use science to support our stands on such things as GMOs and climate change then we must use good science and not fall into the trap of tossing around numbers that are not supported by the science.
Let’s not do the bad guys’ work for them. Only use good, peer-reviewed studies for bold faced comments so that they don’t get the opportunity to say “see they are just scaremongering”. Remember, we are the ones that believe in reality and as long as we stick with that we will do just fine
DakkonA @ 13
Well, DakkonA, many of them may be fine. But it doesn’t look that way. Here is an article from Le Monde, I have linked to an English translation at Truthout.org but the French is available through the link, too, if you’d prefer. Here are a couple of quotes:
And this is also disquieting:
and finally, there are even questions about how to do research on food and whether the tests normally done can tell us if a food is safe or not:
DakkonA @ 14
this is a really good question that, imo, shouldn’t be ignored.
i suppose, it’s theoretically possible that there could be a gm food that wouldn’t be dangerous (either as a food or in the environment).
but who decides? and how to test? the risks are enormous – both to our food supply and to our environment.
in today’s political/regulatory environment, i strongly advocate a total ban on the release of gmos into the environment.
and frankly, in even the best poltical/regulatory case, i’m inclined to think there just aren’t sufficently robust ways to test gmos before they are released into the environment. and once released – there is NO recall process.
just fyi – i don’t have a moral objection to genetic engineering… heck, i genetically engineering a mouse strain as part of my phd thesis work…. but i want them to be kept caged in an SPF facility – and not released in field near you.
you’re right, brotha…there is a LOT of good science about the dangers of GMOs, and just about all of it suggests that it’s not a good idea to standardize the genome.
but that’s hardly-but beside, too–the point, which is that there’s now 30 years (at least) of really GOOD science on the phenomena of anthropo-genetic climate change which is STILL being denied, and lied about, and camoflaged by the trillion-dollar-per-year public relations campaigns…
we didn’t scare enough people enough 30 years ago…and the consequence is the chaos we now confront…
the genome of corn can be eternally altered in three generations…
people aren’t smart or good or pure enough for that kind of power…
.
DakkonA @ 14
DakkonA, thanks for asking this important question.
The question brings up a few topics:
Who determines safe?
How do we know what “safe” is?
With respect to Frankenfoods, much of the “safety” testing done by Big Mutant Food used experimental designs intended to show nothing.
One obvious example was bovine growth hormone. Toxicity studies submitted by industry used milk held at pasteurization temps so long that the the biological activity of the proteins would be destroyed. The study was meaningless.
Where independent scientists have looked, they’ve found lots of toxicity.
What is currently wholly lacking in any GMO food is any long-term data demonstrating an absence of risk.
Industry does a great diversion with (tobacco; global warming) GM foods – lots of little invalid studies waved about. Even well-intentioned MSM covering science can think “objectivity” means covering PR releases in lab coats, so the non-sceintific “proofs” that the stuff really isn’t toxic get out in popular opinion.
At that point the science becomes almost irrelevant.
Trust Us, We’re Experts
and
Toxic Sludge Is Good For You Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry (both by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton) dissect the process in detail.
The sad fact is that pre-merket toxicity studies by industry and USDA did show toxic effects with multiple GMO foods, but the products were licensed for political resaons.
This regluatory Kabuki goes on wherevere Big _______ will make more money if their glop has customers. Big Glop almost always win, and their stuff comes to market.
The precautionary principle ends the whack-a-mole game. WItht e PP< new substnaces and technologies have to be demonstrated to be free of adverse effects before release.</p>
THe current sytem treats GMO products as if they are defendants with rights. The pp appropriately returns new technology nad chemicals to the role of supplicant: they have to be invited by society before they can come play on our planet or in our dinners.
THe pp is already the basis for environmental regualtion in the EU.
With it, almost all the GMOS in the US would not chave come to market.
The rush to GMO foods is about corporate profiteering, as is continued oil dependence. If our foods poison us, if our daily living warms the earth they don’t care. The costs in death and misery will be borne by us and the profits will go to them.
What a moronic post.
You show absolutely zero understanding of farming, agriculture or molecular genetics, just like most of the morons hooting and hollering about genetically modified foods.
There are issues with genetically modified foods, but safety issues aren’t one of them.
IF you had raised hell about mega-agricultural firms monopolizing seed production and decreasing genetic diversity of staple food crops, then you would have a point. Worrying about some Bacillus thuringiensis gene sequence that has been inserted into a crops DNA to kill a class of insects is moronic. Would you rather have the crops sprayed with insecticides to kill bugs instead?
Oooh, Kirk! Looks like a minder! You’ve hit a nerve.
HotFlash @ 34
All it will take is for one mutation to go the wrong way in a mass consumed food crop that gets past any inspection and into our foodchain.
Can’t collect profits from a whole bunch of dead people that can’t buy your product anymore.
“GMO’s banned in part or all of sixteen states – almost a third of the US is protected from mutant food, right?”
btw.. maybe someone can try to explain how this works… Agricultural supply chains just don’t work this way, unless there’s customs checkpoints, walls and, yes, wind barriers, on the state lines.
I grew up thinking Wonder Bread was a wholesome food. Who knew? But how ironic that we’re flipping genes and making new (what?–I am not a scientist) species at the same time we are wiping out biodiversity, assaulting rainforests, and trying to patent indigenous plants. That’s what gets me. A tribe has used a medicinal plant for thousands of years and a multinational picks it and patents it.
Topanga-lib @ 27
Thanks Topanga-lib.
I need to edit.
The vote on 123 in the House “Chicken” Subcomm was last week. It passed.
The seven day deadline was a comment period on USDA defining chemical food as organic food. That window closed May 22.
WyldPirate @ 35
I think a lot of Dr. Murphy’s concern, well addressed in his essay, is that this legislation would pre-empt existing laws or any new local laws designed to protect organic farmers from contamination by GMO pollen, etc.
Kirk James Murphy, M.D. @ 40
So is there no way to get a voice in this issue?
HotFlash–Wasn’t Percy Schmeiser in litigation with Monsanto some years ago? About the contamination of his crop? I fuzzily remember reading about him a while ago…
Okay, so the Agriculture minister in Japan commits suicide for cooking the books. Do you suppose any of the crooks in our government would be honorable enough to even be embarrassed?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..er-death/?
Thanks for another great read, Kirk.
WyldPirate @ 35
I don’t disagree, from a very short term perspective, but over the longer term there are real food security issues that arise out of gengineered foods, with respect to i. the maintenance of crop resilience through the preservation of genetic diversity, ii. with respect to broader environmental sustainability issues and iii. with respect to possible (but as yet still controversial) nutritional/immunological concerns with having food that is “too perfect” or “too clean”. I for one do not believe we will so much be “poisoned” by uncontrolled application of GMO technology to foods as we will harm our agricultural industry and hence our food security and probably our health over the long-term. In the short term it is far more likely that food imports (both GMO and non-GMO) under shrub’s murderously negligent inspection policies will kill us first.
What’s the background on the current makeup of the U.S. House subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry? Leonard Boswell, the chair, is only familiar to me as one of the first pilots in the Vietnam War to fly the Huey Cobra gunship. A friend served in his unit in 1969-70. Boswell appears to get a lot of campaign money from unions, and not a lot – considering he’s from Iowa – from corporate agriculture. Any info on how this language trumping local authority on GMO legislation actually got put into the bill?
WyldPirate @ 35
how safe was it to put peanut genes into soybean? Not much forethought on that project. But hey, what’s a few less kids, eh?
WyldPirate, thankyou for your contribution to our discussion. As I look at scientific matters from an academic perspective, please forgive me if I decline to join the ad hominem track.
I find pie fights are a compelling distraction from relevant data.
An excellent book Seeds of Deception discusses the FDA scientists’ severe concerns before the political decision to approve GMOS:
WyldPirate @ 35
I just finished dinner here in Paris: haricot vert with organic butter, a tomato from Provence, and an omelet with potato, Jambon d’Auvergne, a very fresh goat cheese, and fresh basil. Total cost: about 5 Euros for two people (I didn’t count the Bordeaux, which I opened yesterday). It was so good! I’d move to Europe for the food alone. Why can’t I eat like this in the US?
masaccio @ 50
’cause the great American diary oligopoly (and their lobbyists’ stranglehold on Congress) still won’t let us import the really good non-pasteurized cheesy stuff
For the French- food (and sex) are more of a religion than a daily habit. They can make a festival out of an egg.
hey pups – still responding to comments here – slow toobz here this AM – sorry for delay…
Hi Busted,
Yup, screwing with staple crops seems like a disaster waiting to happen. Like ignoring human caused of global climate change. In ordinary risk analysis, a .001% chance of causing 50% global anihilation should be treated as gravely as a 50% chance of killing .001% of the earth’s 6 billion people. Practically speaking, it should be unthinkable.
But they always believe it can’t happen to them, and you can be pretty sure they can spend the extra bucks for organic. Except it won’t really be.
It’d be nice to think that the govt. who is charged with the safety of foods would take care of this so that americans wouldn’t have to worry about it. Guess not.
rwcole @ 55
kinda like they’ve become the Enemy. We need to get the foxes out of our henhouse.
rwcole @ 55
I’m from the government, trust me.
Right?
Sure.
masaccio @ 49
Great question, masaccio. Much of the answer lies in our current Farm Bill and Corps of Engineers budgets. The US spends billions each year tosubsidize the growth, harvest, and transport of commodity crops (with great use of fossil fuels). The funds spent bypass the vast majority of familty farms, but do help Bi AG and BIg Commodity.
Unfortunately, almost none of the funds are spent to produce anything you’d directly want to eat. IIRC organics fights for 50 million – total net US farm subsidies (as seen by WTO types) amount to 12 billion per annum.
Bon appetit!
rwcole @ 55
Hehe. Nah. Shrub lets ConAgra, Cargill, Phillip Morris, Monsanto, Tyson etc etc worry about our food safety… It’s called outsourcing :P
Look, “Dr” Murphy. I’m not saying that the modified DNA sequences inserted into food crops are the best thing since sliced bread. Nor am I saying that the effects of toxins or gene sequences which modify chemicals such as Roundup and render the plant immune to its effects shouldn’t be tested.
What I am complaining about is the hysteria hyped by people who should know better.
NAturally grown organic foods are great, but many food stuffs have carcinogens and mutagens in them naturally and, if eaten in large enough quantities by test animals, even organically grown foods can show deleterious effects.
The facts are that sufficient organic foodstuffs cannot likely be grown to feed the planet’s population. Furthermore, if it were not for advances in agriculture in the 20th century, we would likely have difficulty feeding folks now. And mind you, those advances were in large part due to agribusiness folks like you love to pound on.
You should also tell your dear readers that the little rat study you presented isn’t peer reviewed and was very small. OF course that would take away the dramatic effect, now wouldn’t it?
HotFlash @ 54
where’s Cheney’s 1% doctrine when it really matters?:
suskind
Ed*ard Teller @ 46
Great questions, ET!
I hope someone here can shed light on the first (and is the Bosworth you mention related to the cotton magnate in CA?)
For the second question: Yes – our dear pals in industry want to eliminate local regulations.
Costs too much, ya see.
DakkonA @ 14
Obviously, not all GM food is bad as such. The real issue is what is an acceptable risk? Everything, and particularly everything mankind does, carries the risk of some kind of bad thing.
The problem with GM crops is that the risk is way too high. In the first place, the crops are not isolated from the environment during testing, so GM pollen contaminates the outside world. Then, when deployed, the same risk presents itself. Even if we could be certain of the long-term effects of the modifications (which we can’t), that the modifications are unstable and highly variant means that any such certainty is temporary.
This means that the risk is very high, in the sense that if one of the crops proved disastrous, the disaster will spread and affect the whole ecosphere. Even if that chance is small, the effects would be so large that extreme caution is called for, and extreme caution is not being applied. Even moderate caution isn’t.
And look at what kinds of modifications have already been deployed: plants that create their own pesticides (poisons), plants that only create sterile seed, etc. A little imagination brings to mind all kinds of bad possibilities.
My main objection is that the whole world, and people specifically, are being used as guinea pigs on a scale that is unprecedented. We’re seeing a complete disregard for risk management in a context that could, to be only a little hyperbolic, threaten the existence of mankind itself.
So the main issue isn’t, for me, near-term health effects of eating GM foods. It’s the potential for ecological disaster in developing and growing them.
We drove here through the French countryside from Provence, including several long stretches on back roads. We often saw cattle, pigs and sheep in pastures, rarely more than 25 in any one field, all eating the local grasses. The meat here just tastes better than what I get at my local Kroger store. The week before we left, I cooked a Smithfield pork loin, which weighed about two pounds, and which I hoped would last for three meals for two. It was about 10% of some kind of solution, and tasted only of those chemicals, with a texture like firm oatmeal. In Strasburg, I had choucroute garnie, with a cut of pork that tasted like some other species of animal than whatever that thing was from Krogers.
Our food just isn’t as good as the food here.
masaccio @ 50
Because you didn’t eat at our place. Today we’re having smoked trout on morel tagliatelli, and arugula-lemon basil salad with Windsong Farm organic mozarella, and homemade rhubarb-strawberry sorbet.
masaccio @ 50
i gotta pal camping out in paris in the 6th arr, who’d love to know the name of that cafe?
Elliott @ 61
Nah. You’re ignoring the role of the rethug gods in all this. If there is just a 1% chance of the unimaginable coming due act as if it is a certainly if and only if such action results in a diminishment of constitutionally protected rights and advancement of the rethug agenda. Otherwise, the rethug gods will provide and we must have faith.
The operative phrase should be ‘go slow’. I trust Mother Nature above all else. deliberately modifying functional genes in a system that is dynamic and delicate is introducing an unpredictable kind of change. It’s not that genetic change isn’t constantly happening. Through random mutation it IS always occurring but the success or harm of mutations occurs in concert with Nature’s plan.
Modifying genes can be helpful or harmful but with every action there is a reaction. It’s a gamble that, when associated with deliberate human meddling, must occur with built in mechanisms to track long term safety not to just people but first to the environment, and second with mechanisms to assure accountability when harm does occur.
The scale of effects can be difficult to assess in the relative short term which doesn’t match well with the life span of a self centered adult CEO. Correcting a harmful outcome is all the more difficult when you didn’t understand how one might cause a problem in the first place.
60WyldPirate says
You have valid points but a lousy bedside manner.
Even taking into account the boons of modern agriculture there are still legitimate concerns about side effects from things such as antibiotic resistance from livestock, growth hormone accelerating puberty in our children and myriad other concerns.
with gmo, just as with gfreenhouse gasses, by the time the harm is visible enough to convince those with an investment in being blind to the problem, it’s too late to do anything about it…
the precautionary principle, people…think 7 generations out,, ya know? those folks were onto sumpin…
hijole, chuy!
Insulting the front page poster by putting his earned credential in quotes simply is not done here, madam or sir at 60.
So what should we do about this?
seepeesate @ 63
Actually, I would argue that the real issue here is the dependability and integrity of the regulatory structure. GMO foods would be far less of a concern if we were assured of stringent testing and ongoing oversight and due diligence by regulators with teeth — good regulation over time diminishes the risk. However, we have already established that the regulatory structure is awful, shrub has effectively defanged them and made the industry self-regulating (or non-regulating). Under such an environment of regulatory forbearance we can only assume that the largely un/under-regulated producers will eventually make something dangerous or muderous that slips through the ever-widening cracks in the shrub regulatory net.
Unfortunatey, this problem does not just apply to GMO food, but also to foreign imports and domestic production of non-GMO food.
Did the rat study use genetically engineered rats?
TeddySanFran @ 71
well said. thank you.
TeddySanFran @ 71
beat me to it. Lighten up, “WyldPirate.”
rwcole @ 72
one thing is not to consume gmo products…
boycott ‘em, spread the word…
their big selling point is ‘feeding the poor’…
but of course ‘we’ could feed the poor now, and would, if it were i n our immediate, selfish interest to do so…
famine is almost never a problem os supply, but of allocation and distribution…
.
rwcole @ 72
Break the regulatory parts of the USDA & FDA off into separate departments.
rwcole @ 72
Here here. Late to the thread. So great to see Kirk working through this with all of us. What can we do?
rwcole @ 72
Fix the regulatory structure, to assure decent oversight.. not further relaxation of restrictions and requirements as contemplated under the current legislaton mentioned in the post and in other shrubbish/rethugish measures.
An interesting aspect of GM crops is their suspected role in killing of bees.
Bees are a primary mechanism for pollination and are critical for agriculture. Without bees crop yields drop significantly. The past few years bee populations have been dying off en masse with little explanation. Scientific research suggests that the bees are dying from otherwise common organisms that healthy bees used to be able to survive with. The findings suggest that the deaths are being caused by significantly lowered immune systems – the cause of which is unknown. Some have hypothesized that genetically-modified crops which contain genes purposefully toxic to insects may be the environmental factor to blame for such catastrophic collapse of bee colonies across the globe.
Here’s a link to a report from Germany:
Are GM Crops Killing Bees?
WyldPirate @ 60
What have you been eating to make yourself sound sort of sarcastic and a bit mean in that last paragraph? Maybe you are wrong. Maybe you are right, but you sure are not very polite.
wgg: tokin lib’rul @ 66
I made it myself in the apartment we rented in the 18th Arr. (for a whole lot less than the cost of a decent hotel, we have a lovely kitchen, a living room and a bedroom, I recommend http://www.vrbo.com).
The food came from Monoprix, a chain store, because this is a holiday here, one of several this month alone. Tomorrow the regular stores and markets will be open, and I will be going to a local butcher shop and cheese store.
I just bought 25 pounds of rice. Is it gmo? How would I know?
It’s clear that there are a lot of people and milions of dollars lobbying in support of GM foods. There are ALSO a lot of people who are makin money out of organic farming. So who the hell do ya trust here? There’s money at risk on both sides- and both sides have propoganda machines- and “studies” they have paid for.
Blub @ 79
Right after we get Bush and his cronies out of office and on trial.
smapdi @ 78
Agreed, but the success of such a split would still be contingent on shrub and the rethugs being out of power… preventing conflict of interest through regulatory design isn’t really an issue when the Unitary Executive is working actively to subvert the very concept of government regulation.
Re WyldP : “The facts are that sufficient organic foodstuffs cannot likely be grown to feed the planet’s population. Furthermore, if it were not for advances in agriculture in the 20th century, we would likely have difficulty feeding folks now. And mind you, those advances were in large part due to agribusiness folks like you love to pound on.”
Where the rubber meets the road : world population growth and what population is sustainable for the long haul.
Right on, Busted! Our posts overlapped there :)
In retrospect, my original wording of “moronic” referring to Dr. Murphy’s post as “moronic” was probably a poor choice of words. “Hysterical” would have likely been better.
So0, my apologies to you Dr. Murphy.
Blub @ 79
that sounds like the job for the guy who raised $27MILLION to build a museum of Creation Evidence in Kentucky…
the inattention to gmo foods is part and parcel with the systemtic subjugation under the busheviks of all regulatory oversight…
.
despairing @ 44
Yes. Monsanto holds the patent on the altered DNA . The don’t sell the seed, they license farmers to use it but the gene still belongs to them. That’s why how they got Percy, since they said and the Courts agreed, that the DNA is Monsanto’s even though it got into Percy’s crop by wind pollination.
The Federal Court upheld Monsanto’s claim in a decision on March 29, 2001. Percy appealed. On May 17, 2007 the Canadian Supreme Court upheld the Federal Court’s decision that Monsanto owned the DNA in Percy’s rape, but ruled that since Percy hadn’t benefitted from it (in fact his own heritage seed from his own 40 years of plant breeding has been contaminated) he doesn’t have to pay royalties.
Percy is now trying to sue Monsanto to remove *their* plants from *his* fields. They won’t unless he signs an agreement with them that is basically a quitclaim and he won’t do it.
He’s got lots of info on the story here. He doesn’t always date stuff so takes some work to follow but it’s been going on since 1997 and he figures it’s cost him $200,000 — his retirement savings. His wife is now(?) suing Monsanto for $140, the cost of getting volunteer Monsanto canola out of her organic garden. Monsant said that she should spray Roundup on everything and what didn’t die they’d come and pull out.
Seems theres a guy in ND, Roger Nelson, with a similar fight on his hands.
HotFlash @ 36
You sure called that one right, HotFlash.
In 1997 or 1998, a mom in LA dropped her kid off school land and watched him disappear into a cloud of pesticide sprayed by LAUSD.
Robina Suwol started a group to change LAUSD pesticide policy; the group pestered the school board to start meetiings with LAUSD officials.
Men form Monsanto (makers of Round-Up) showed up at the very first meetings.
Round-up and GMOs are Monsanto’s future (the toxic soy comprising 85% of our crop is “Round-Up Ready”.)
Monsanto obscures scrutiny of these appalling risks with:
1) defamatory statements
2) irrelevant counter-arguments
3) trolls
Oh – the LAUSD story – media scrutiny of the Monsanto Men helped raise public awareness. Tehy stopped coming, and in 1999 the LAUSD adopted a new less-toxic pest management plan formally embracing the precautionary principle – the 750,000 student district is the largest goverment entity to have so in the US.
So far.
P @ 81
This is highly speculative. I’m in an academic environment, and had a chance to discuss the bee die-offs with two leading ecologists studying the issue. It seems that damaged bee immune systems resulting from broader environmental contamination issues and possibly from climate change are the more likely suspects.
Blub @ 73
Well, good regulation is critical (and we don’t have it), but I disagree that it’s the real issue. The issue is what standards is the regulation ensuring? This recent law change, for example, does not reduce the amount of quality of regulation itself. It relaxes the standards that are considered “acceptable”.
I would be far more comfortable with GM foods if they were developed and grown in complete isolation from the outside world. Huge greenhouses or something. But there’s no law that compels this, so even the highest regulatory effectiveness doesn’t affect it.
After you read Jane Goodall book on this subject you will be appalled. I loan it out to all my friends who are brave enough to read it.
Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating by Jane Goodall,
This appears to be one of those issues where the difference of opinion is so intense that there is not even a common agreement on what evidence would look like. That’s probably the place one needs to start. Without agreement on the relevent criteria- this thing can in principle never be resolved.
The thing that worries me about GMOs is that our theoretical understanding of the genome is so limited. We used to think that genes were discrete items. Then it turned out that the total number of genes is not very large, certainly not large enough to account for the apparently vast differences between monkeys and people. Now we think that there are all sorts of interactions among genes, RNA, and other constituent parts of the body, that lead to different outcomes. When we introduce different genetic structures into our diets, could this have an impact on our bodies?
The brush from the Bush Brush Ranch is fully organic. Let us all give thanks for having a rancher/oil man/veteran preznit.
All right, all right. At least he usually wears the right costumes in the right places.
Badwater @ 98
So did Ronnie Ray-guns. Of course he had Nancy to help him pick out the wardrobe.
Google WyldPirate, guys.
trud, dat, brudda, but dat’s still twenty (20) months off…plenty of time to start a genetic catastrophe, like, at a time of climatic uncertainty, reducing the capacity of staple crops to adapt?
talk abnout reducin your planetary population…
but hey, it just occurred to me:
mebbe that’s mother nature’s plan after all– encourage enough folks to fuck around with the life-stuff, screw up the human food source, then keep putting misanthroipic aristocrats in power, and pretty soon (in geological terms) people will just kill themselves back to a sensible, sustainable level…
brilliant!
mom’s always so wise,,..
TeddySanFran @ 71
Thanks, Teddy.
The crops on the Bush Brush Ranch benefit from the decades of pig poop spilled around the place creating a fertile haven for the cultivation of high quality brush.
Blub @ 67
I stand corrected
The 1% doctrine, if seriously adopted, would lead to spending one’s resources running about willy nilly chasing phantoms with tanks and guns and pissing away the country.
Yep.
Rob in Toronto -
Thanks for your constructive observations – and your prescience. :)
In retrospect, stressing that these results are not from peer-reviewed publications would have been much better.
On a broader level, the results are so alarming that they meet my test for the sort of inifor I pass onto lay people (Case reports) of toxicty all the time – even when the statisitical significance isn’t clear.
[In med literature, “case reports” are letters to medical jurnal editors: “I gave Mary Jones Drug X. She became puple and luminescent, then returned to her normal state. Despire marked familial enthusiasm, the patient was refractory to the idea of a medication rechallenge”]
A this stage I would not use the results of the soy toxicity study as the sole basis for a legislative strategy, but for the reasons above I think telling the public is better than my withholding the data.
However, I respect your point and its intrinsic validity.
We should require labels on food “No gooper has ever touched the food in this here container”.
seepeesate @ 94
Again, the ag supply chain doesn’t work like this..and such would be neither practical nor enforceable (I don’t think even greenhouses work the way you imply that they do… short of isotope-tagging seed and restricting it to another planet, you’re going to have commingling). At the end of the day we can only trust in benevolent and diligent regulatory oversight to prevent the really bad problems…. and work through preventative planning around the problems that fall through the cracks and cause problems. Such a program to isolate seed lifecycles would conceivably be greater than the gargantuan task of weaning America off oil.
I’m sorry.. but this really isn’t about black and white solutions, IMO. It’s about making government do what it is supposed to do, instead of what the rethugs envision it to be.
Blub @ 93
Well, and we are waiting for the USDA to give us hard science? And WRT immune systems, there is this:
Antibody production is an immune system response.
Blub @ 93
This is an interesting topic that plays directly into pitfalls in manipulating genes, particularly in ways that decrease genetic diversity. One thought is that the bee die offs could be related to a certain fungus that has been ravaging them. To the extent you have intervened in the natural process of selection to create heterogenous bee populations with desireable traits for business, you might expose the whole lot of them to death when a bug they are susceptible to appears. With a naturally heterogenous population, some will die, but there is a greater likelihood more of them will survive an re-populate quickly due to some favorable genetic difference.
It cuts both ways with antibiotics/antifungals to kill the bee offending fungi. Sooner or later, a fungus will appear that is resistant. The natural selective forces in a massive bee population can be altered by the presence of chemical antifungals which can expose a far greater number of them to death when a resistant strain appears than would otherwise occur without chemical antifungals.
We use antibiotics in medicine daily but there is a major risk in using them inproperly that is well known. It is an ever emerging battle. Probably moreso than agro advancement, the advent of vaccines and antibiotics likely triggered a greater growth in sustainable world population.
rwcole @ 107
I second that emotion
Blub @ 92
I agree that it is speculative, but the hypothesis is plausible and supported by preliminary experiments – which I believe should be enough to at least warrant caution. I see no reason to entirely disregard it without future investigation, which will certainly be necessary. Alternative hypotheses as you mention are out there, but any potential mechanism will have to account for the observations of both wide-spread occurance across the Northern Hemisphere and fairly recent and dramatic onset – I am uncertain that the effects of climate change can account for the later.
wgg: tokin lib’rul @ 90
I’ve heard about that from a neighbor. She plays old Carter family songs on a ukelele on her front porch (she’s in her 80s) and is a sweetheart, but she truly believes that either God “seeded” the earth with dino bones, or dinosaurs lived at the same time people did. And the world was created in 6 days, etc.
Genetically-modified organism apologists define human arrogance.
The height of human arrogance is to ignore, deride, and destroy the ways of nature.
First, do no harm.
If you will not follow that simple precautionary principle, just who do you think you are? On what basis do you claim the right to dictate wholesale, potentially destructive changes to the natural order? Changes that may well kill others prematurely and painfully, if not your own.
The world’s most widely-used insecticide [Bayer’s Imidacloprid] is very likely the main culprit behind the disappearance of the honey bees. France discovered this in the late 1990s, and banned it as a result. Yet America has to re-invent the wheel to unearth the cause after our own massive honey-bee losses, because we were too arrogant to learn from others’ hard-earned wisdom.
It’s one thing to recklessly endanger your own life. It’s quite another to recklessly endanger that of the planet itself and all those on it, whether in the name of so-called “progress,” or simply for more profit.
Thanks for fighting the good fight, Kirk.
http://www.mlive.com/printer/p…..amp;coll=7
rwcole @ 95
rwcole -
Nope. That’s the Burston-Marsteller result talking.
Just as with global climate change, pesticide-induced carcinogenisis/learning disorders, and tobacco = cancer, we’re in the industry’s stalling phase.
The fact there are NO lon-term safety studies on GMOS is incontravertable.
The fact that numerous specific studies of GMOs show unanticipated toxic effects is also indisputable.
The data and science are already there – but a lot of people have bet a lot of money on this failed market plan.
Toxic Sludge is Good For Us.
Thank you for the thoughtful post Dr. Murphy. Investigate the growing of food. You can get a lot off of a patio with pots. It’s fun and healthy to garden. Don’t forget the thousands of pigs and chickens that are on the market now that have been fed the same stuff as killer pet foods.WE are mulling whether to import chickens from China now. The FDA wants to bann over the counter vitamins and herbs. Don’t think they can pull that one off, but you never know.Big Pharma wants to make vitamins prescription only because because they know best how to make money off of sick people.
It is going to take time to change the problems with the FDA but there is one thing that we can now: BUY LOCAL, BUY ORGANIC, AND ONLY BUY FOOD IN SEASON.
Most importantly, support your local farmers markets. Many cater to small organic family farmers whose livelihood is based on selling directly to the customer and local resaturants. I realize that we are spoiled in California but our local farmers market also sell produce, meat, fish, eggs and cheeses that are far superior to what is available in store.
Maybe we need multiple food chains- at least one chain fer goopers and another fer the rest of us.
The gooper chain can be filled with chemicals and pig shit- but Rev. Robertson will pray over it before it’s packaged and sold.
The progressive food chain will all come from small organic farmers who pay $20 per hour for field hands and supply medical benefits.
You’d get Gooperchow at Walmart– you’d get progressivechow at Whole Foods.
May the better team live- er win.
wgg: tokin lib’rul @ 101
I still don’t think there is any real risk that there would be a suddent catastrophe. Any damage from GMO crops to US ag (due most likely to diversity reduction) would occur over decades…. plenty of time for President Gore to reverse our present disastrous policies… ‘course, if you choose if you choose to believe in some type of sudden-death scenario instead, you can also have hope that it’ll select against the rethug gene :)
Blub @ 108
I was being tongue-in-cheek about the greenhouses. You’re right, complete (or even reasonable) isolation cannot be achieved. That’s exactly the point I’m trying to make.
My concern is not the ag supply chain. In terms of risk, the risk of foods with adverse health effects entering the human food chain isn’t my main concern. Reversibility is. If a grain were developed that turned out to cause cancer in 90% of people who eat it for five years or more, that would be a disaster. However, if it were impossible to remove the bad grain from the ecosphere because of pollen contamination, that would be potentially an unrecoverable disaster. That’s my point — the risks in developing and growing this stuff are so large that we don’t even have to get to whether or not the food is generally safe to eat in the near or even medium term.
But really, we’re both on the same page here. We’re just dickering about sentence order. :)
At least the president has saved us from bird flu.
Pow Wow–In other words, don’t fool with Mother Nature?
masaccio @ 96
Yep. GMO genetic sequences incorporate into human gut bacteria.
Bummer.
Frankenfoods are the scariest thing in the world. And that comes from a trained biochemist. It’s very disheartening to work so damn hard on postgraduate studies only to realize that most employers would use your talents to cause irreparable damage to the global wildlife’s gene pool. Makes me read FDL instead of working on my thesis.
There are sources of non-gmo seed such as Native Seed/SEARCH, Seed of Change, and others. These are small quantity seed suppliers. On Hopi, the traditional planting of corn in dry fields should for a while help protect the traditional varieties because irrigated corn is not grown.
Blub @ 80
We can’t do that as long as corporate dollars are allowed to flow into government. The system has changed from one man, one vote to one dollar = one vote. In this system they can outvote us every time.
I am trying to wean myself of oil, electricity and corporate foods. It’s hard now but as local growers networks and food coops strengthen it will get easier. Here we have the Good Food Box program.
If the United States had something similar to the Japanese tea ceremony or French cuisine, would we be so violent to our food and food production?
Another great food post! I’m just driving through but thought I would throw out 2 good books – though you’ve probably mentioned them Dr. Murphy. Anything by Jeffrey Smith (Seeds of Deception is a a great one) and The World Is Not For Sale – Farmers Against Junk Food (this is the french farmer who drove his tractor through a mcdonalds – great read) by Jose Bove & Francois Dufour.
One look at how they conduct GM studies will give you nightmares – goes almost double for Canada.
We need labels, labels, labels so people can make informed choices.
Thanks again for a great post!!
Muzzy @ 110
Muzzy, you can just pop “wheat” or “corn” or “chieken” for “bee” in there…
You laid out the genesis of this whole mess! artificially large homogeneous populations, be they bee-winged or be-leaved, or be-hooved.
P @ 112
I thihk the argument is that gradual changes in environmental conditions have resulted in damaged bee immune systems over broad areas, increased the prevalence of opportunistic diseases… and that we are now seeing such a disease spread conventionally across the northern hemisphere over several years. As I understand it (and I am NOT an expert in this), the current hive failure spread pattern pretty much follows epidemiological models for contagion, which would seem to support the disease hypothesis. It’s unlikely, I believe the scientists are arguing, that GMO crops (which are still irregularly distributed) could’ve already caused a reducton in diversity to create an opportunity for such a disease to spread so broadly… more likely, bee immune systems are rendered more susceptable to such disease by environmental changes. Again, I’m way out of my depth here.
Pach has a new post up!!!
despairing @ 127
Put me in the siesta camp !
I already schedule my work day around the concept.
Personally- I blame the communists for this.
Eureka Springs @ 78
As consumers, we can
1) buy organic
2) defend organic labelling standards. Organics are only 2-3% of the food market, but growth is 20-30% per year.
Chemical food and Ag tried to include toxic sewage sludge and irradiated foods as organic. We fought them off. They’re back – we have to fight them again. This will be a long fight, but our kids are worth it.
3) where possible, buy local foods in season
4) where possible, use farmers’ markets and CSAs
FYI, new thread
jeebus Dr Murphy – thank gaia there are so many brilliant legal minds here at the Lake to, um, defend you
found this while googling on a related subject – and forgive me if covered in a previous post
look at the date !
link
HotFlash @ 126
Yep.. somebody needs to (constantly) remind Reid and Pelosi about their promises to continue with the next step of lobby reform and to get rid of secret earmarks. As far as I’m concerned, they’re way behind their campaign rhetoric and I want results. Fast. (dump Steny)
despairing @ 121
Or perhaps more precisely, work to understand and utilize the ways of nature. I don’t think there’s much of anything chemicals and engineered food “let” us do, that we can’t do, and do far better and far more safely, by working within the laws of nature itself. Though that may not often include a corporate “profit motive.” But yes, we ignore those laws at our peril.
Despairing @ 126
I think the French aren’t too interested in changing their food systems. And it makes for better food and a beautiful countryside.
HotFlash @ 100
Most elucidating exercise. Thanks for the heads up.
rwcole @ 133
I blame them for everything, especially Ronnie
Blub @ 118
Blub, our margin of safety is zero.
GMOS are self-replicating pollutants.
Each season’s crop spreads the pollution – and the GM traits are often genetically dominant.
TeddySanFran @ 71
Look, I apologized to him for the use of “moronic” in my original post. It was a poor choice of wording on my part.
I will not apologize, however, for the needless hyperbole Dr. Murphy relayed to his audience about the rat study. It’s an irresponsible act for a scientist to emphasize a VERY preliminary study without disclosing it to his readers straight up. Those were my thoughts when I included “Dr” in my response because he misused his scientific credibility in my opinion.
If you don’t like that, then lump it….
[RBG Note; we really don’t take kindly to insulting other commenters at FDL.]
Thanks Kirk, another great post!
I think we all agree that something needs to be done, that rules should be tightened and not relaxed, and that government oversight has to be independent, diligent, pervasive and integral. An I assume that we also agree that lobbyist money needs to be taken out of the system. We may however have to agree to disagree on our feelings about the urgency of the situation and over the real risks of GMO food. I guess I’ve been around ag enough hat I just take a more conservative view on this than most here.
Blub @ 119
No one could have predicted the Black Death, DES or thalidomide. Or could they?
But part of the point here is that no matter how you feel about GMO’s, it doesn’t matter a flying fig if you can’t avoid them because the label legally can not say so.
janine @ 127
Thanks janine – and thanks for these resources. Another great book on GMOS by Jeffrey Smith is Genetic Roulette.
Fatal Harvest is one of the best books I know of on US Agriculture.
despairing @ 127
Maybe, maybe not. The Japanese also have a lovely ceremony for ritual suicide, you know. Just sayin’
RBG @ 140
Some of you are pretty petty as what I’ve posted in the past has absolutely nothing to do with anything I’ve said here today.
If you want to attack me, fine, attack me for the content of my posts in this thread.
However, if you simply want to have a string of hundreds of posts bowing with fealty to the author without questioning, that’s fine as well. Perhaps, it was my mistake to think that FDL wasn’t the liberal version of Free Republic.
[RBG Note; if I had wanted to attack you, I would have quoted some of the comments that you now admit to writing on other blogs. Perhaps some of those sites are more amenable to your personal style but here, we approach our fellow commenters with a little more respect.]
Pach is upstairs talking about immigration policies, if you like.
Kirk, thank you for this post and thank you guys for the discussion. This is something that affects everyone. I was thinking just yesterday how easily we can be controlled by witholding or otherwise manipulating our food. We all need to eat and every day or two — it’s such a short leash to jerk us around by.
Yes, thanks. Good and timely discussion.
GMO is the reason i think for the obesity we’re seeing today – the growth stimulants given to animals finds its way into our diet. dont know if this is a correlation but i think so. it makes it all more important to try to eat organically if at possible.
fake name @ 151
Growth stimulants are not the same as GMO (genetically modified organism)
Firepups, when I’m disussing biomedical topics I try and stick to the facts, so I ignore troll spoor as much as possible.
The Burston-Marsteller diversion strategy around corporate criminals is to repeat irrelevant false “facts” over and over to obscure product liablity.
With pesticides, Big Bug Spray’s current diversion is DDT impregnated mosquito nets against malaria. [Yep - the nets work. But other long-acting agents also work the same way.] Big Bug Spray twists the issue to say enviros in the developed world are so racist they want Africans to die of malaria.
And then Big Bug Spray / BigAgChem spills more poisons on the largely black residents around their Cancer Alley chemical plants.
‘Cause they care so much about Environmental Justice.
Our troll claimed:
1) A favorite pesticide/chem industry talking point. Utterly irrelevant to industry’s deliberate choice to contaminate existing foods with a greater level of toxin.
2) A matter of acute debate. By no means the setled matter our troll implied.
3) The unspoken cultural subtext of the Green Revolution strikes me as “Science helps Brown People grow their food”.
Living in California – where brown people mostly grow the food the scientists eat – this assertion has always seemed a bit off.
Aruhndati Roy and many others who look at global access to food refute this. The claim has been around since well before the first US Biodevastation protest (San Diego, 2001), so I expect it will keep gettig trundled out.
Time to break the Green Revolution frame.
The picture was a fraud.
Yes, Kirk. To me the moral is do things small. Lots of thigs work small but They always want big. We culd have solar panels on all our roofs and little tiny windmills generalting a few watts or just recharging our batteries, but no. Instead we have windfarms and projects that require administrators and engineers and government grants.
PS — Mr HotFlash’s current inspiration is a wind-up cell phone, so he can make crank calls.
Kirk,
I missed you post. : (
I am going back up to read the comments. Thanks for this. As you know this is my nightmare that I live with every day I have EMS. Something really bad has to happen before they will ever stop this madness.
lolo
lolo, is your EMS associated with Showa-Denko L-tryptophan?
Here’s some more detail about Imidacloprid, in an excerpt from a helpful article that highlights a potential reason for the massive losses in conventional honeybee hives vs. apparently mostly-unaffected organic honeybee hives. The conventional hives would be treating fungus outbreaks with fungicide, no doubt. With that context, note this information:
http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/577
[Link courtesy of Dems Will Win at DU]
Bit NOLA, egregious, fallenmonk, Loo Hoo, ES, pow wow, molly, janine, cbl, Elliott, HotFlash, Blub, lolo -
Thank you all for your very kind appreciation of this post.
Thanks to all who came to share concerns and share ideas, resources, and solutions.
I’m hoping these ongoing discussions at the Lake can draw on all of our very real expertise about our respective bioregions – the living systems around us – as well as our collective expertise in caring for the places and people and creatures we love.
Big Ag, Big Ag Chem, and Big Industrial Food spend billions each year to drown out our local discussions with the monologue of advertising – even then, demand for organic solutions grows 20-30% per year.
We have the momentum, the solutions, and the high ground. Together, we can reshape America’s food policy to favor farmers and families, not Cargill and Monsanto.
Thanks to those who helped to shake off our troll. I’m expecting more and more trolls as our discussions continue, and that help will really allow us to keep focused.
Oh – and an apology for very slow responses today and seemingly curt, brief replies – I fear the time pressure caused me to be quite brief….and I think that comes off as rude.
Not my intention, and I do apologize.
Thanks to all the Lake who care about their health and their families’ health.
Bon appetit!
Oh – one more resource on the “Green Revolution” and the false promise that GMOs will relieve hunger.
lolo @ 155
lolo, thanks for sharing your story here. I so wish you had never had cause to learn that GMO products can have permanent poisonous effects.
Could this be the reason for the autism epidemic where something like 1 in 180 boys born in the U.S. is autistic? I’m 3mths pregnant and am doing my best to eat healthy but what good is that if the fruits and vegetables I’m consuming are harming my fetus? This is beyond reprehensible and I feel like crying.
Dr. Murphy,
This just drives me crazy because I know the people who develop these things don’t have humanity in mind, If I am wrong please tell me. It is a bean counter mentality, and the law of unintended consequences invariably appears at some point in time. Just the mere fact that that they skewed data should be a red flag.
When you combine this with the uncaring Hubris of this administration and the philosophical intent of the republican party it becomes overwhelming.
I call at least four or five congressman, or senators every week but the list of things that do nothing but harm to humanity in one form or another is so great, what I am trying not very well to say is that the immensity of the problems we face are staggering in size and import, and to communicate that to a politician seems like pissing in the wind sometimes.
So I tell myself that wonderful quote of Mao’s:
A journey of a thousands miles begins with one step.
Or, in the words of Bill Murray in the movie What About Bob..Baby steps.
Thanks for the great post and all the comments, or most of the comments. And sorry to be so long winded if anyone even reads what I have to say.
Whack-a-troll is far more satisfying and constructive than whack-a-mole. Almost as tasty as Guacamole. And lo, with trolls comes some compelling debate. Brings me out from under the bridge to see the commotion… Great thread!
Muzzy @ 68
The underlying assumption here, that “Mother Nature” knows best is more appropriate for a butter commercial than a discussion of GMO, evolution, and food safety.
True, random mutation is always occurring, but any given mutation only improves fitness for a given set of environmental conditions that cause a given “selection event” to occur. Not all changes “drift” away, and many are in fact so closely linked to essential genes that they become embedded in our Genome.
We have, in fact, a raft of mutations carried through time that may have offered benefit at one time or another, but are merely benign or are outright harmful now that the selective pressure is gone.
The same applies to the concept of “organic” foods. True, there are benefits to local farming and sales of foodstuffs, and insofar as Organic farmers keep us free from factory farms and their hideous impact on the environment, I’m not going to complain. But as someone with more than a bit of knowledge of toxicology, Organic foods are no safer than factory farmed food.
In many ways, Organic foods may even be more toxic. Look up publications by Bruce Ames, the inventor of the most widely used toxicollogy test in the food and drug world. Organic foods do not require man-made pesticides for a damned good reason. They’ve been bred to resist pests without them. And how might that happen? Bingo, naturally occurring pesticides. Just as toxic as those made by man, often moreso, and present in unknown quantities. Given the choice, I’ll take a tomato raised with a known amount of a well-defined pesticide than a grab bag of evolution’s armamentarium.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not categorically saying that GMO are safe, but I firmly believe that it’s worth the chance that GM beets that resist blight, bananas that offer vaccinnations against parasites and microbes, pigs woth omega-3 fatty acids, and food modifieded to offer complete nutrition when no iother viable crops are available are worth the risk in an ethical sense.
I find that most opponents to GMO, even those with the oh-so-impressive MD after their names, are living in the lap of relative luxury, and would readily impose their eco-ethics on the majority of the world. A starving, disease-ridden majority who live a life of suffering.
I welcome your comments.
C.L., B.S., (ecology) M.S., (industrial microbiology), Ph.D. (Pharmacology/Toxicology).
Anastasia, you are making a great choice to consume fruits and vegetables. If you have the opportunity to but organic produce, you have greater protection agaist GMO produce and food derivatives.
I’m not an autism expert, but the rapid increase in valid autism diagnoses appears not to be the result of better screening and diagnosis.
As our genome (collectively) is the same as it was a century ago, environmental variables are the other logical causal factor.
Avoiding synthetic chemicals to the greatest extent possible is the most logical way I know to protect fetal brains and the people who grow up using them.
And Maddy, thank you for your comment.
All available evidence about the consequences of the GMO labs behavior supports your hypothesis.
Bean counters with deadly beans.
Kirk James Murphy, M.D. @ 168
Thank you Kirk. Your post is most enlightening. Thank you FDL! I don’t know what I’d do without this place.
Anastasia Beaverhausen @ 166
Thanks for your concern about the next generation and for your contribution here.
When the pregnant moms and cancer survivors come together on our toxic food, Big Ag Chem dies.
(Because of that, troll forecast is: frequent, with poor logical skills.)
Doctor:
A previous commentator asked the question as to why you claim GM foods are “toxic”. I eat mostly organic myself (for reasons of health and taste), but I have to agree with the commentator that it seems like an overhyped claim.
You offer as evidence of this claim a link to the Organic Consumer’s Association website with a review of “Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods” by Jeffery Smith. This can hardly be said to be an impartial source, or impartial author.
the only citation in the review is to “a team of international scientists many of whom helped consumers fight back against this practice in Europe”, and again, this is not an impartial source.
Not that I think Bush’s FDA is any paragon of impartiality by any stretch, but were the studies in Smith’s book subject to peer review, or been replicated by scientists who do *not* have a personal stake in the outcome?
Like the previous commentator indicated, if you wish to convince the unconvinced, instead of merely preaching to the choir, you need to sound less like a prejudiced activist with an axe to grind, and offer some independent studies by researchers who are not part of the anti-GMO movement.
Dr. Murphy, thank you for this series. I’m getting ready to move to a rural area, and I’m more determined than ever to grow as much as I can for my family. Even if we can’t avoid everything, avoiding as much as possible is a good thing.
Anastasia Beaverhausen @ 161
Anastasia,
here’s additional info on chemicals and developing
brinsbrains (see yesterday’s thread – linky at top)thanks again, kirk, for an excellent post and your thoughtful responses.
P @ 81
Interesting, except that this same type of collapse has happened many times in the past century, and, as you admit, nobody has a clue what the cause is. See Science magazine this week for a more objective assessment. Blaming GMO is a faith-based presumption of guilt.
Anastasia,
here’s additional info on chemicals and developing
brinsbrains (see yesterday’s thread – linky at top)None of which has been linked to autism in a scientifically valid way. As they say: “True, true, unrelated.”
HotFlash @ 159
Yes it is.
Dr Murphy
I have been in the trenches of Organics both in farming and regulations for more than 20 years. Some how our paths have not crossed.
First your headline is more than misleading. This proposed rule, if your reporting is correct, had NO impact of the existing USDA Organic regulations. More over your comments on GMO’s are suspect at best.
In the 1990’s I chaired the Organic Trade Associations GMO Task Force, and just recently I was added to the Technical Advisory Board of the Non-GMO Project.
You need to step back and spend some time doing better research on Organics and GMO’s
I am no fan of GMO’s but I am less of a fan of histrionics. You have really stepped over the line with this post and I hope that the monitors at the Lake will not allow this type of uninformed post on Organics and GMO’s again.
You are here under what appears to be a pseudonym.
Last week the identified peer reviewers at Cancer published:
Hmmm.
You offer the assertion “organic foods are no safer than factory foods” .
When epidemiologists present academic, rigorous trials comparing intake of current chemical food vs current organic food – and follow the eaters over years – we’ll then have a testable hypothesis.
Your general assertion simply obscures the very real fact that multiple (hundreds) of specific synthetic toxins used in Industrial Ag are associated with very specific diseases.
[Oddly enough, your assertion draws attention away from the discussion of the toxic effects of specific industrial products - GMOs
Of course, industry toxicologists who are good at rhetorical diversions can live very well paid lives lobbying for industry.
When their PR strategies are unrecognized, activists can be diverted into hours of refutation of hypotheses and positions which were never theirs in the first place.
Just an FYI, of course.]
Lots of other named folks with knowledge in toxicology – and many other relevant disciplines – seem to have reached different conclusions about risks of breast cancer and to developing brains from the chemicals added to industrial food.
Of course, these are academic studies.
On the occupational and environmental medical list, academic docs discuss occupational illness from chlorinated hydrocarbons (the stuff of most pesticides).
Years after the pernicious effects of dioxin and other contaminants are known, one industry flack on the list keeps trying to tell us chlorinated hydrocrabons, vinyl chloride and PVC really aren’t chronic toxins.
Gotta give an A for effort.
No doubt we’ll keep hearing from him as long as he’s on the company payroll.
Enjoy your chemical fruit.
I’ll stick to organic produce and products.
And – given the choice between the opinions you assert and the consensus opinion in the Faroes – I’ll be listening to the consensus.
Elliott @ 141
It’s good old American Corporate Capitalism.
How long before people begin to question whether corporate leaders should perhaps be held responsible for the destruction they leave in their wake?
How long before the legal definition of a corporation’s purpose and legal responsibilities change?
How long until the proper balance is restored to American commerce, so that no corporation can harm people with impunity.
Anybody who wants to see a good movie about all this should watch Erin Brockovich, starring Julia Roberts. Of course, it is a Hollywood production, so don’t expect a documentary or Glen Greenwald or Michael Moore type of show.
——-
From “V is for Vendetta” (probably not an exactly quoted dialogue)
Evil Woman Doctor: Is it going to hurt?
V: (holding up a hypodermic needle) I killed you 10 minutes ago, while you slept.
Woman: Thank you.
Now just imagine the same conversation with V holding up a grain of corn! That’s the GM foods issue in a nutshell. Have we already been killed and don’t realize it yet?
What IS the matter with these corporate idiots who have to make money even if it means their own death?
Dr. Murphy,
To put it delicately, you are a charlatan when it comes to genetics. There was nothing thoughtful about your post.
As someone trained in genetics who constructs transgenic mice, I wonder why if you are so concerned about mutations in crops, you couldn’t be bothered to look into the well-documented history of the crops you don’t claim are dangerous.
Perhaps you could estimate the difference (in orders of magnitude) of the numbers of mutations caused by radiation mutagenesis in a common organic crop that you do not demonize vs. the occasional insertional mutation caused by a transgene.
And after you do that, please explain why you are so much more concerned about the crop that has fewer human-induced mutations, as well as your apparent belief that humans are capable of constructing more deadly poisons than nature does through evolution (some of which are approved for organic farming). Are you some sort of Intelligent Design antievolutionist?
Or, perhaps you could admit the truth, which is that this is really about your desire to demonize people, not any concern for human health.
I googled Kirk James Murphy MD. and it seems you are a shrink. And other than this post you don’t seem to have a history of writing on Organics and GMO’s
(Note to moderator: I’ve read this board quite a bit, but rarely read the comments and have never, to my recollection, posted before, thus, I’m a little unclear as to board etiquette. If you find anything offensive in this reply, let me know, and I will try to modify it to an acceptable level of vitriol. I don’t, however, think it is fair for Dr. Murphy to label me as troll because I am not fawning over him andd buying some of his bullshit without question.–WP
What’s really funny about this is that I have a 1200 sq. ft garden in my backyard that is totally organic. The organic farming is not my concern, though, as I will make clear.
Tell me something Dr. Murphy, why do you imply over and over that any GM food is going to produce a toxin that is going to kill us all? I know better and I’m going to make a monkey out of you because you are using hyperbole and spouting a load of completed and utter bullshit with a lot of your scare tactics in your post and comments.
In post 155, you had the following criticisms of some of my comments. Here’s the relative portion of the post:
.
Your first comment is most egregious. First off, it is a cold, hard fact that natural components of foods are carcinogenic and/or mutagenic. Moreover, it is rather irresponsible for someone that is supposedly a “trained” scientist to throw out a small preliminary study thathas not been peer reviewed and emphasize it as one of the scary points of their post without informing his/her readers. You likely have absolutely ZERO idea of how the study was conducted or if the results are even valid.
Yet you have the stones to refer to me as a troll when it is clear to any scientist reading your tripe that you are being irresponsible–particularly since this is a lay audience.
Let’s move on to an example of Roundup (glyphosphate) resistant GM crops. My guess is that you haven’t a clue as to how it works given your spouting of the scare word “toxin” like a broken record.
Glyphosphate works as an herbicide because it blocks the production of aromatic amino acid biosynthesis in certain plant species (ref). These Roundup-resitant GM crops are made resistant to glyphosphate by a single amino acid change in the EPSP synthase active site that prevents the binding of glyphosphate while still allowing the binding of phosphoenolpyruvate, the natural cofactor of the ESPS synthase.
It stretches credulity that a single amino acid change in this enzyme–an enzyme that still performs its natural function–will magically turn the genetically modified enzyme into a toxin that will “kill us all” (your favorite implied scare tactic). Now I’m open to the possibility that changing the ESPS synthase might slow the rate of production of aromatic amino acids and hence effect the level of certain protein synthesis, but turning it into a toxin producer–umm no.
Let’s move on to your criticisms 2 and 3. Do you have any earthly conception of how much crop yields have increased in the last century? Bet you are as clueless as a newborn.
Let’s take corn production in the US. Just in the last 70 years, US average corn yields have increased by 5.7-fold. (ref.). Please explain to me why, over the thousands of years of “organic” corn cultivation, these sorts of yield increases were not realized? Also explain how, given similar yield increases in other crops, the US is going to export tens of millions of bushels to the “brown people” you refer to who can’t grow enough food in their country.
Regarding the “brown people” (and it was pretty goddamn slimy of you to obliquely imply that I’m a racist in the way you did in your comment 155, BTW), I’m sure you are quite happy eating the fruits of the labor of brown or white organic farmers, but it is far more labor intensive means of producing foods and, in general, the yields are not as good. That’s the reason organically grown food is more expensive. Furthermore, I doubt that most Americans want to go back to the “good old days” when it took 50% of our population to produce the farm products the nation consumed. Nor do I think that Americans would be thrilled by the prospect of millions of “brown” workers that would be required as additional labor if US agriculture went totally organic.
What is most offensive about your “brown people” comments is that you seem to imply that the “green revolution” is causing them huge problems and that they should not use modern agricultural practices. Were they to do this in order to fulfill your seeming wish to make all food production organic, then that would likely doom the country to develop in other ways because of the manpower required to grow food. In other words, you are advocating (perhaps unconsciously) that those nations stay undeveloped and agrarian.
I don’t want be misconstrued as being opposed to tight regulation of GM crops. I think that they should be thoroughly investigated prior to market release. I also think that there should be long-term monitoring of the environmental effects of GM-crops and organisms. What I am opposed to here is nothing more than irresponsible fear-mongering by someone that should know better. Fear-mongering is no more attractive when a liberal does it than when it’s a conservative doing it.
[RBG Note; edited to remove insulting references that do nothing to further the conversation.]
Joe Max @ 168
Joe Max, thanks much for your concern with the effectiveness of my written expression.
I hope your vision is OK.
By some odd trick of attenuation, your statement omits the other sources cited in my statement. Perhaps you did not see the links.
Please let me help.
First, my statement
Now let me help with the citations.
Corn. Mmmm. Kidney toxicity.
potatoes.
Guess I’ll just have to try harder.
Hope the above links help – sorry if the links I included in the quoted sentence were not sufficiently available.
Kirk wrote:
“Guess I’ll just have to try harder.”
I’d say so. Have you considered linking to any actual data, if your goal is to inform instead of demonize?
How about answering my questions fully and honestly?
In addition, how about explaining how your MD is relevant to anything you’ve spewed here? Most lay people don’t realize that real scientific training is optional for MDs.
I find almost everything else on this blog to be informative, but this is pure hooey.
TRUTHOUT is NOT a scientific journal.
I am familiar with the study that they allude to.
I look forward to the peer reviewed papers on this report, but in the mean time serious students of GMO are holding their opinions until there is more data.
And no not all those doing reviews are associated with pro-GMO companies.
John Mercer, I’m always curious when people who claim to have a scientific background respond to very specific findings questioning the safety of major corporate investments by an ad hominem attack.
You stated:
Having seen the GOP use the same Burston-Marsteller PR technique over an over, it’s a bit tedious, and rather ineffective.
Questions about the inherent genetic variability of GMO crops go back to the FDA’s staff scientists.
I stated:
Despite your work in murine genetics, you have not addressed these core mechanisms underlying toxicity in GMO plant organisms.
The toxicity of GMO organisms is the topic of the post.
Without directly addressing the topic, you do provide ad hominem attacks and go on to demand answers to questions you have constructed about various tangents.
Nice distraction.
When you have prepared refutations to the specific concerns about GMO safety raised by John Fagan Ph.D., I’ll be willing to address the tangents you brought up.
John Fagan presents very specific mechanisms and a very lengthy plan for assessment of GMO safety – the subject of the post.
GMOs are released onto the US market without the thorough safety testing Dr. Fagan describes. Please explain to the Lake’s readers why Dr. Fagan’s specific and detailed program is actually not required, and help us understand why the review process created aththe behest of industry is superior.
Oh yes – who is paying for the transgenic mouse?
How do their business plans relate to transgenic organisms?
Could tanking consumer demand for GMO products hurt their wallets?
Could tanking consumer demand for GMO products hurt your salary?
Don’t worry – you can answer those after refuting Dr Fagan.
Bon appetit.
Organic George @ 182
Great work, Organic George –
I’ll notify Romenesko immediately.
Vision at the Lake seems poor this afternoon.
The TO citation is to an article in Le Monde.
Before you go looking for the caps lock, I’ll break it to you: Le Monde is not a scientific journal, either.
Hope you’re sitting down – I don’t want to shock you.
And the wait may be a long one.
In the meantime, if you want to serve MON 863, a transgenic corn invented by Monsanto to your family, that’s up to you.
I’m not signing up to be a test subject for Monsanto, but to each their own.
Instead, I’ll use the precautionary principle the EU has already adopted.
Until the absence of toxicity is repeatedly demonstrated in long-term testing, I won’t eat the stuff.
Looks like toxic crap to me.
Bon appetit!
Gee, Kirk, why are you avoiding my questions?
1) Why if you are so concerned about mutations in crops, couldn’t you be bothered to look into the well-documented history of the crops you don’t claim are dangerous?
2) Perhaps you could estimate the difference (in orders of magnitude) of the numbers of mutations caused by radiation mutagenesis in a common organic crop that you do not demonize vs. the occasional insertional mutation caused by a transgene?
3) Please explain why you are so much more concerned about the crop that has fewer human-induced mutations, as well as your apparent belief that humans are capable of constructing more deadly poisons than nature does through evolution (some of which are approved for organic farming). Are you some sort of Intelligent Design antievolutionist?
4) Have you considered linking to any actual data, if your goal is to inform instead of demonize?
5) How about explaining how your MD is relevant to anything you’ve spewed here? Most lay people don’t realize that real scientific training is optional for MDs.
Since I’m far more forthcoming than you are, I’ll answer your questions despite the fact that you are sleazily avoiding mine:
1) Oh yes – who is paying for the transgenic mouse?
The NIH. There are many transgenic mice, BTW. I do biomedical research.
2) How do their business plans relate to transgenic organisms?
The NIH doesn’t have a business plan.
3) Could tanking consumer demand for GMO products hurt their wallets?
No.
4) Could tanking consumer demand for GMO products hurt your salary?
Not at all.
Why, when I challenge your implied claims of genetic expertise, do you resort to appeal to authority, instead of an appeal to data?
So, are you a charlatan, or will you answer my questions, Kirk? here are a couple more:
1) Can you even name an incredibly common crop that was subjected to massive, random radiation mutagenesis?
2) How long is our track record for safety with that crop?
Nice diversion, John.
The topic I’m addressing is the toxicity in our food supply arising from the deliberate introduction of GMO’s.
GMOs are – of course – elective technology.
Mutations from radiation arise from natural factors (or nuclear technology).
I’ll leave the control of nuclear technology to PSR.
If you have a proposal to control other causes of radiation, good on ‘ya.
So we’re back to manmade causes of genetic changes with toxic effects: GMOs.
Which just happened to be the topic of the post.
A topic very unwelcome to the GMO inidustry and their supporters.
Dr Fagan’s discussion of the genetic mechanisms for toxicity in GMOs is untainted by your diversions.
When you demonstrate the reproducible findings that refute the mechanisms Dr. Fagan describes,, you’ll have demonstrated the concerns are invalid.
When you’ve presented the data on each GM organism. In each species.
Don’t stay up too late.
ANd thanks for working at the NIH. When I worked with transplant and oncology teams, the products of transgenic organisms confined to laboratories were lifesavers.
Sleep well, John.
My best to your mice.
Kirk,
In addition to your spectacular ignorance of the massive mutagenesis involved in producing a crop that you eat readily if it is grown organically, another reason why you are a charlatan is that you are pushing the profoundly ignorant idea that mutations are bad things.
Here are some more questions that I predict you will avoid:
1) Does any evolution occur without mutation?
2) Is mutation a normal phenomenon? How many mutations occur on average, in the absence of any external mutagens or carcinogens, every time a cell in your very own organic-fed body divides?
3) Are most of the mutations underlying carcinogenesis spontaneous, induced, or inherited? If you believe that it is a combination, what are the relative contributions?
4) Can you name two deadly types of human cancer that are caused primarily by carcinogens?
5) Can you name the carcinogen responsible for each type from #4?
6) Are those carcinogens from #5 synthetic or natural?
Kirk, you wrote:
“The topic I’m addressing is the toxicity in our food supply arising from the deliberate introduction of GMO’s.”
But you haven’t presented any evidence to support your claim that they are toxic. Your appeals to authority are specious. Science is about the data, which you avoid like the plague.
Also, let’s get one particularly idiotic point out of the way right now. If I introduce a transgene that produces botulinum toxin (name a synthetic compound that exceeds its toxicity) it will be toxic. We’re talking about your totally unsupported claim that transgenic crops (”GMO” is a term designed to deceive, as radiation-mutagenized organisms are far more massively genetically modified) are CATEGORICALLY dangerous.
“GMOs are – of course – elective technology.”
Of course they are! So is radiation mutagenesis, the products of which you eat eagerly. So why are you so spectacularly hypocritical?
“Mutations from radiation arise from natural factors (or nuclear technology).”
Yes, and as applied to crops, they represent elective technology. So why is one elective technology not a problem, and another an evil plot, especially when the former causes far more mutations than the latter?
“I’ll leave the control of nuclear technology to PSR.”
We’re not talking about the control of nuclear technology, Kirk. We are talking about your flaming hypocrisy/dishonesty in claiming that one class of mutations is bad and the other is not a problem, without any rational basis for doing so.
“So we’re back to manmade causes of genetic changes with toxic effects: GMOs.”
We’re discussing your hypocrisy and/or ignorance wrt manmade causes of much more massive mutations with toxic effects to the organisms being mutagenized.
Why can’t you name the crop to which I refer? Your repeated failure to do so demonstrates that you are a charlatan.
“Which just happened to be the topic of the post.”
And I am pointing out your hypocrisy and/or ignorance wrt the topic of the post.
“A topic very unwelcome to the GMO inidustry and their supporters.”
I am neither a supporter nor a member of any GMO industry. I am an honest, liberal scientist who is offended by your dishonesty and ignorance.
“Dr Fagan’s discussion of the genetic mechanisms for toxicity in GMOs is untainted by your diversions.”
You haven’t shown any evidence that Fagan is a geneticist. I am. Do you not realize that everything I have pointed out about the radiation-mutagenized crop that you eat (but are too ignorant to name) applies to Fagan’s statements that are bolded, except that the mutations humans produced using radiation are orders of magnitude more numerous and severe?
Where is your concern, Kirk?
“When you demonstrate the reproducible findings that refute the mechanisms Dr. Fagan describes,, you’ll have demonstrated the concerns are invalid.”
People have been eating this crop for years, Kirk, and this fact refutes every one of the mechanisms he describes!
BTW, why do you present descriptions instead of findings? Why do you demand findings of me, when you present no findings at all?
“When you’ve presented the data on each GM organism. In each species.”
Why, when we’ve already done the turbocharged experiment a long time ago?
“ANd thanks for working at the NIH.”
I don’t work at the NIH, Kirk. Can’t you read? Where does most of NIH’s money go?
“When I worked with transplant and oncology teams, the products of transgenic organisms confined to laboratories were lifesavers.”
Sorry, but none of the transgenic experiments I’ve done relate to transplantation or oncology. However, I did experiments involving genetics and carcinogenesis as a Leukemia Society of America Fellow. Did you do any scientific fellowships, Kirk?
I’ve answered all of your questions, while you’ve answered none of mine. Which one of us is more forthcoming?
I’ve often wondered how the Anti Abortion crowd could overlook Frankenfood. But I guess that would be like asking too much from them I guess.
MR/Ms Moderator, this Dr. Murphy person has ZERO BUSINESS being a frontpager posting on the subject of genetically modified organisms.
Why? Because it is clear to anyone with the most rudimentary education in disciplines related to the subject that he doesn’t know what in the hell he is talking about and that he is posting references that are complete and utter bullshit.. It is unconscionable for his post to even remain on the board as it is so error-filled. It is even worse to let him snow people with the MD moniker and for the moderators to protect him by not allowing comments that are critical of this complete and utter fraudlent charlatan who is getting away with using outrageous scare tactics to snow gullible lay people.
And I’m not the only one complaining about it either.
Here are more examples of bullshit Dr. Murphy is spewing in post 187:
.
Where to begin given that a three sentence paragraph has three totally bogus sentences that demonstrate total ignorance of the subject of Mendalian and molecular genetics?
Sentence one is horseshit because “Dr” Murphy (and yes, it’s an insult because at the very least he didn’t learn anything squat about genetics in med school) emphatically states that all GMs contain alien DNA forced into the organisms. This is nonsense because we have had the ability to remove native DNA, modify it and insert it back into the same organism for a couple of decades in the case of some organisms and at least 10-15 years in plants. Moreover, even if an “alien” sequence (most scientists would probably use exogenous instead of alien, or, perhaps foreign when talking to a lay audience) was used, the “alein” sequence encoding the SAME ENZYMATIC or STRUCTURAL FUNCTION as the intended target insertion site in the transgenic recipient would be the best choice in most circumstances. This is the case of the EPSP synthase gene in Roundup resistant soybeans. A less optimal choice would be to insert the exogenous DNA into the chromosome in a non-coding region of DNA that does not interrupt an open reading frame of native genes. Why? Because one wouldn’t want to inactivate a native gene needlessly and then have to figure out the deleterious effects of an unknown gene and then have to determine the effect on the physiology of the plant or animal (although this is a classic method of determining the function of an unknown gene that has been used for over 50 years).
Sentence two in Murphy’s hackitude of post 187 is equally abominable. Here it is in all of its glory yet again:P
This sentence shows complete ignorance of Mendelian genetics. Conventional breeding techniques most CERTAINLY result in offspring that are genetically unstable. Look at different breeds of dogs that have chronic conditions because of “conventional breeding”–Dalmatians with high rates of deafness, Labrador retrievers and German Shepherds with hip dysplasia problems. One could literally find dozens of examples of “genetically unstable” products of “conventional breeding techniques with relative ease. On top of that, seed breeders have used “conventional breeding techniques” to produce hybrids that are genetically unstable in the F2 generation for decades. Many of the resulting F2 products of marketed hybrid seeds are either sterile or lack vigor in the F2 generation which, by definition, would make them unstable. That’s how they got farmers to purchase seed year after year. Hello, “Dr”. Murphy—haven’t you heard of Gregor Mendel, fer crissakes?!?!
Sentence three is perhaps the most hacktackular of “Dr” Murphy’s paragraph. Here it is again:
This third sentence is astounding given its total and complete scientific ignorance. Claiming that a transgenic plant can produce completely new genes, which produce completely different protein products with completely different functions after one generation, much less “each successive generation”, in vivo has never been shown to my knowledge. To do so flies against all of the tenets of evolution. Moreover, anyone that could demonstrate what “Dr”. Murphy claims would be a shoe-in for a Nobel prize. The most likely outcome of what “Dr” Murphy describes would be a mutation resulting in reversion to wild-type (in the case of the reinsertion of an engineered native gene) or deletion of the engineered sequence (in the case of the insertion of exogenous DNA from another species). What categorically would not happen is what “Dr” Murphy describes because the engineered sequence is most certainly not going to magically evolve to encode different structural and functional domains in generation after generation.
In closing, I cannot reemphasize what a gross disservice to FDL readers is to let “Dr” Murphy continue to be a “frontpager” on the subject of GM crops or food products. It would be clear to anyone with any graduate training in biology that “Dr” Murphy is a complete charlatan when it comes to the subject of genetically modified foods or organisms. On top of that, he is hiding behind his MD to deflect criticism and accusing anyone that dares question him of being a troll or trying to employ “distractions”. He is perpetrating an enormous fraud upon the readership of FDL because he clearly doesn’t even understand the basic biology behind the subject that he is posting on. In the world of science, “Dr” Murphy is committing the equivalent of malpractice. That is why myself and John Mercer–both of whom are PhD-trained scientists that understand the biology in question–are raising so much hell.
WyldPirate can wax lyrical in support for GM crops but (s)he(?) forgets that the consumers in Europe, Japan, Australia and many other countries do not want their supermarket shelves stocked with unlabelled GM food.
In this context, to fight further corporate takeover bids for agriculture on a global scale, we also need to focus on the role the WTO is currently playing. It has recently ruled EEC’s limits on GM food imports as being anti free trade. A similar ruling has already forced Japan to relax its rules on GM food imports. WTO has already ruled against Indian farmers’ campaign against GM seeds even though that makes them totally dependent on annual seed purchases driving many out of farming and suicides as they lose their plots that have been in the family for generations.
Further to despairing’s comment @ #39, Mahathir Mohammed, the ex PM of Malaysia, labelled such theft of patents as corporate skullduggery that steals the earth’s bounty from the mouths of the poorest – not exact words but reflects the sentiment.
This whole recent fad of globalisation is really Orwellian speak for unbridled and unregulated multinational corporatism that bows to no sovereign government, many democratically elected, and that has neither any legitimacy nor any ethical/moral authority to dictate what consumers the world over would rather consume.
User Loser wrote:
“I’ve often wondered how the Anti Abortion crowd could overlook Frankenfood. But I guess that would be like asking too much from them I guess.”
Since you notice their hypocrisy, perhaps you could explain Kirk’s blatant dishonesty and hypocrisy in taking a clear (albeit idiotic) position that mutations in the crops we eat are somehow dangerous for those who eat them, while neither knowing nor caring that one of the crops virtually all of us eats every day is the product of massive radiation mutagenesis.
sona wrote:
“WyldPirate can wax lyrical in support for GM crops…”
This is a straw man. I think I can safely speak for WyldPirate in noting that our only concern with transgenic crops is the safety of the protein being expressed from the particular transgene, not the piddling number of mutations caused by the transgene’s insertion.
What we are objecting to is Kirk’s ignorance, falsehoods (particularly lies of omission), and hypocrisy, topped with his pathetic attempt to claim expertise by advertising his MD.
There are attorneys who write excellent posts about the law here. Are any of them so vain and insecure that they have to append “JD” to their bylines?
I like FDL, but every once in a while something like this slips through. I strongly believe that on average, liberals are much more reality-based than conservatives. That’s a big generalization, and sometimes it doesn’t work. I see an anti-science bias in this article and in many of the comments. I also see an attempt to squash discussion.
I stand with science. How about you?
“GMO corn, soy, and potatoes show toxic effects on living animals. The GMO soy (Monsanto’s Roundup-Ready soy) we grow and eat in the US is so toxic that more than half of baby rats fed with the stuff die in just three weeks.”
I didn’t chase the links, but, you know, this strikes me as black helicopter territory.
What’s the definition of “science,” fessway @ 197?
It’s trying to understand the world around us, for its own sake, and the betterment of mankind, isn’t it? Should that understanding and those discussions be reserved for the labs of universities and corporations, or does the rest of (condemned-as-uninformed-by-the-credentialed) humanity deserve to be in on the important discoveries of “science?”
The hubris and arrogance of those above who tout – while banking on the ignorance of their readers – the wonders of the modern “yield” of the commodity corn crop in the United States as proof that the world would be starving today without post-World War II industrial agriculture is appalling. Especially when those like the extremely hostile and self-proclaimed highly educated John Mercer, WyldPirate, Joe Buck (and even Organic George) treat their audience with contempt and disdain, in the worst tradition of vicious academic politics, because they disagree with all or part of Kirk’s earnest and good faith presentation to his lay audience.
Many of us here have read The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, which gives an outstanding and detailed description of the unsustainable hydrocarbon-fed source of the modern yields of American commodity corn, in terms all readers, whatever their education level, can understand. To pretend that such an obscenely wasteful, and fundamentally distorted, government-subsidized system of agriculture is one of the modern wonders of the scientific world is to reveal one’s arrogance and disdain for the wider world we live in. Force-feeding ruminants like cattle corngrain in CAFOs, where the animals need to be medicated just to keep them alive until slaughter on that thoroughly unnatural diet: Is that a modern scientific wonder? How does that side “benefit” of modern corn yields benefit mankind?
But fundamentally, I guess it comes down to whom you trust. The natural world that produced you, and created the brain you now use to accuse that world of threatening your existence with its random (and forever present) mutations?? Or “man” – and his superior to the ways of nature intellect (”superior” in particular during the last couple of centuries of his long existence) – who can outreason nature at every turn, and can safely mock those who defend it, because there’s no “proof” (beyond our own existence) that nature knows what’s best for us, even though we may never know and understand every subtle nuance of nature’s ways.
I’ll proudly defend the wisdom of nature, against every arrogant PhD and MD and multiple-credentialed “expert” who cares to taunt my “ignorance” – and I’ll do it using nothing but the common sense we were all born with, and my own ability to observe the ways of the world we live in.