This is truly the stuff of nightmares. As someone who lived through years of infertility and miscarriage misery, I can’t imagine being in the shoes of a desperate-to-be-mother who found out that an ingredient in our food — unmarked because of government bowing to the lobbying interests of farming giants like Monsanto who don’t want you knowing that there is frankenfood in your meal — was the cause?
…Yet none of our regulatory agencies required long-term animal feeding studies before allowing all that test-tube corn to enter our food supply, according to the Center for Food Safety, and much of the short-term research that has been done was sponsored by the biotech companies that stood to profit from GE crops.
Which is why it was particularly chilling late last week to read the results of an experiment that was both long term and not conducted under the auspices of a big chemical company.
Dr. Jurgen Zentek, a professor at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, reported that he fed one group of laboratory mice traditional corn and another group GE corn made by the Monsanto Company. The GE crop is bred to survive being sprayed by herbicide and to produce its own insecticide. The mice maintained their diets for 20 weeks, long enough to produce four litters of offspring.
Zentek found that the mice who dined on modified corn had fewer litters, fewer offspring, and more instances of complete infertility than those receiving a conventional diet. Not only that, but the infertility of the GM-corn-fed rodents became more pronounced with each passing litter.
Zentek said that further studies to corroborate his results were “urgently needed.”
Suddenly that "not nice to fool Mother Nature" commercial from my childhood has sprung to life. (Oh, the irony.)
Worse, because fertility issues are intrinsically linked with hormonal fluctuations, it makes me wonder whether this could also impact issues of breast and cervical cancer for women whose cancers are hormone-sensitive? As one of those people, suddenly organic produce is looking even more important. And it isn’t just cancer that could see applicability. Oh joy.
We finally achieved our miracle when we had The Peanut. As such, I try my hardest to feed her healthy, whole foods whenever possible at home. But now I have to worry about what she’s eating wherever it may be — and how it may cause problems for generations to come.
This corn has already been shown to harm aquatic ecosystems. Additional questions have been raised about threats to monarch butterfly populations, among other species. The Center For Food Safety is calling for a moratorium on use of GE corn in food products until more extensive testing can be done.
Are we engineering our own extinction? Shouldn’t we ascertain that before we feed more GE corn to our children?
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Whoa. Scary stuff.
Hope the Peanut is feeling better.
She’s feeling a bit better — antibiotics are helping, and her fever is down. Looks like we stopped at bronchitis and didn’t turn the corner toward pneumonia. Major relief for momma and dad, let me tell you.
And yes, this is really scary stuff.
Thanks Christy.
Thanks to PhilPerspective for the digg
Starlink corn. You’ll want to look that up if you want more details on Bt-engineered corn.
Note the references on this subject in an article on this issue The Science Creative Quarterly on this issue as well for more background.
Personally, I do not want any plant products which have been grown as a result of combining genetic material from non-plant/animals with plants; there’s a fundamental reason why plants and animals diverged, and we’re simply not smart enough to know why. Until we understand why, we don’t have any business combining them.
I think we will learn that a lot of autoimmune disorders, like autism and autism spectrum disorders, not to mention lupus, and on an on are also related to these chemicals and Franken-food production.
Wow, what have we done to our world?
Wow, my best to Peanut for a quick recovery.
This is crazy, I didn’t know there were recent studies about the infertility. All the more reason to ban it.
I know — I read this and it just hit me like a ton of bricks. After everything we went through to get The Peanut, I cannot imagine having a food that was genetically engineered — that I didn’t even know I was eating — be the cause of my fertility issues. Or worse, her fertility issues down the road — because the research shows that this got successively worse generations later. We need way more research on this.
The fact that this was a non-industry sponsored study ought to be a huge red flag that we need more, not less, independent research on these issues.
Christy -
Don’t mean this to sound snarky but I’ve just been hanging out over at Nate’s reading about that twit who commissioned the Zogby poll so I’m kinda in the Q&A mode.
The answer is “yes“….. but that’s only if you’re laboring under the assumption that the people responsible for making the decision are:
a. Ethical
b. Caring
c. Intelligent
d. All of the above
:-((( This GMS business is scaring the living spit outta me and it must be doubly terrifying for a parent with young children.
And, btw, imagine how many foods we eat these days with corn syrup in them. Or corn by-products. Or how many farm animals are fed with corn-based feed. And then ask yourself if that has the same consequences. The answer? We have no freaking clue…
Something has to explain the cancer spike and clusters we see nowadays in our world.
It would be nice to make industry rule out their GE corn.
new twist on not spilling seed. go figure.
btw, all, thanks mucho for all the diggs. This is a bit of information I’d like to see go far and wide. This seriously freaked me out in the reading…
Christy, I so appreciate your posting on this.
In addition to the recent Austrian study, multiple prior studies showed infertility in animals fed GM crops.
Now that we’ve had GMO plants in our food for years, I can’t help wondering how much of the rising rates of infertility found throughout North America result from GM toxicty.
GLad you brought up the topic; and glad the Peanut is better.
The world is a better place when Christy Hardin Smiths heart and words are on the front page of FDL.
Sending good thoughts to the little (((peanut))).
This study was really a freaky one, kirk — the data looked so substantial because it was a long-term study. This wasn’t a tiny sample and a quick hit — this was really, solid science. And it was something that none of the industry studies have shown. Go figure. *g*
There have been rising rates of infertility worldwide, especially among westernized food cultures. I really do wonder if we aren’t going to find a huge connection on this. I’m telling you one thing — I’ll be growing my own, heirloom seed kitchen garden next summer for The Peanut to eat. And canning as much of it as I can for the winter.
This seriously creeped me out. Can you tell?
Oops: forgot linky/ quote
Suddenly the Secretary of Agriculture pick looms a little larger
and good on Gourmet
Evenin’ Christy and Firedogs
Holy crap — aren’t pigs another human-weathervane for animal study in terms of comparison and red flags? This stuff has always freaked me out in terms of not wanting to eat fake food or wacky combination food — but jeebus…
It may be found in one of your links but if there are questions wrt monarch butterflies, there is also a very likely tie to the deaths occurring in the bee population.
I’m wondering if it’s a factor in the growing number of women with endometriosis which is a hormone linked disorder in women too. It can lead to outright barren, difficulty conceiving and turning outright barren in the extreme cases.
I dunno if the foods would be it entirely in my case, but i also had a few other heavy factors. Like growing up within 30 miles of a major set oil refinery district. But it would explain the cases in a lot of women who developed it and the growing number.
I remember reading about a bee link at some point, but I couldn’t find the article to link it up. If you find a good one, leave me a link here, please!
Creeps me out, too. I’ve pretty much stopped eating anything but organic to avoid exposure to GM: I wish all moms were as careful to protect their kids from GM stuff as you are with the Peanut. She’s lucky in her choice of moms.
ANd yep, isn’t it amazing the industry-funded studies never seem to find toxicty?
Guess I’m not surprised Monsanto refused to cooperate with the study:
I kept thinking about that frankfood apple-frog pix you used…and how true it may turn out to be once all this crap finishes filtering through all of our ecosystems. Ugh.
Hi Christy, and Thank You.
I was about to indulge myself and add that same quote.
Scientists know some of this stuff. They suspect other stuff. And the developers of these magical, helpful/supposedly non-threatening gene-manipulations are probably largely awaiting results that mean a lot to the rest of us.
After all, in today’s world, it’s possible to come up with fancy new designer genes MUCH faster than it is to await a human generation’s reactions to same.
Not to mention “lesser” beings like Monarch Butterflies – what are they good for – declining possibly due to combo of broad-spectrum pesticides as well as crop gene manipulation carrying broad-based caterpillar-killing capacity in each corn plant they dare to visit.
We have to decide what we care about most, and put the brakes on wide use of possible “advances” that are so quick in development that they cannot be tested in time to determine what effect they will ultimately have on our biosphere.
Brave(?) or Reckless(?) new world ?!
I’m shopping more and more at organic foods stores, after having to give up decades of growing our own.
One suggestion I’ve seen, by way of fighting back: find LOCAL sources of your produce that can be trusted. Let your local grocer know that’s what you prefer. It’s often a bit more expensive, but it might be worth the price.
Christy — WOOHOO!! for The Peanut. (cue soaring music)
as another Mom, I’ve got to tell you that the whole “corn everywhere in the diet” thing drives me crazy..even crazy enough to make my own ketchup this fall and bottle it because corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup is in a whole lot of stuff that you would not even think about: salad dressings, condiments of all kinds, bakery products, cereals – even stuff like Raisin Bran Cereal(I’m not joking about that – just try to find a box of bran flakes with raisins in it on the regular store shelves that does not have corn syrup or HFCS as the sweetener). Archer Daniels Midland is another ‘villain’ in the piece here since so much of their business is in corn, so their focus is to find more ways to push corn into the diet.
Okay — bedtime for Peanuts. Be back in a sec…
Will do.
We’ve been organic veggie eating for years. You can’t ever know what you are getting, but we feel that it reduces the danger somewhat. Several years ago I saw on C-SPAN some political scientist talking about the advantages of monsanto GE corn. The presentation was for a group of young rethugs so no questions of consequence were asked, but he left so many gaps and made so many misleading statements that I would have felt intellectually insulted had I been in the audience. The young people seemed to eat it up, however.
I was lucky #14 for the DIGG, let’s get this up over the MAGIC 30 …
Hugs and love to you and your family, Christy.
Thn ks so much for posting this.
I remember some time ago- several or more years, I read about Monsanto (I think) engineering seeds that will not reproduce so that farmers would have to purchase all their seed the next year instead of having some of the seed from the previous crop.
I was horrified about that, wondering what effect could it have on our health, it is depriving the living being of the plant the ability it needs to thrive.
Every time I read about the bees disappearing I think pack to that story and wonder if there is a connection somehow. Now bats are dying as well.
aiyeeee.
extinction?
I am beginning to not doubt it anymore.
sigh.
I’ve been having computer issues with this, so I didn’t click on the above links. Pardon me if I repeat anything–
A nun had done her own “experiment” several years’ running and came up with the same results. Every. Time. The mice who were fed GE food were hyper and generally did much worse than the mice fed regular food.
There also have been cases cited in other countries, such as India, where workers were increasingly suffering from allergies brought on by GE products. It’s so bad that they must use antihistamines in order to work.
Monsanto, et al, would have us believe that GE foods are the answer to drought, food production, et cetera, but the facts speak differently. When compared with organically grown soybeans, GE soybeans didn’t produce as much crop. And organically grown food has been shown to be superb during droughts because the composted material used to build the soil up holds moisture better, so they are more able to withstand long periods without rain. They are also better able to fight off disease because the composted material hosts beneficial organisms that feed on pests. This is also notable with the recent scares of salmonella. In organically grown soil, the beneficial organisms can easily devour the bacteria E.Coli.
Pigs have been known to have “false” pregnancies where their abdomens held nothing but water after being fed GE crops.
I’m not sure, but I think sheep have shown these symptoms, too.
And corn has been modified–get this–to be genetically engineered with pharmaceuticals. And this started in 1998. While Bill Clinton was still President.
So, not only are they messing with organisms but also with introducing drugs via food.
Goodness gracious Christy….what an important post. And to think I’ve been obsessed with high fructose corn syrup as a food issue. (It’s my guess that its addition to food is largely responsible for the increase in childhood obesity and the resulting onset of adult diabetes in children.)
Mother Nature is really trying to send us a message isn’t she?
lol
another edition of a picture is worth…
Very scary ’stuff’.
Some years ago, while living near Ithaca, NY, I watched Monarch butterfly pupae, who had been unwise enough to eat plant material around the edges of GE cornfields FAIL to emerge from their crysalises …
Apparently, the loss of human fertility and other possible hormonal consequences, simply must take a back seat to short-term ‘profit’ (long-term effects, we simply ‘ignore’, being ‘boring’, unpleasant, or someone else’s ‘problem’).
In this new, post-partisan era, the postprandial (burp!) sense of bloated (although false) well-being enjoyed by those who ‘benefit’ from this new technology, may (or may not) be of some interest to the Political Class and its good buds, America’s Own Ari$tocracy.
Regardless, Old Mother Nature can be quite a bitch, and one supposes there may be some irony ar play were America to become an impotent joke, owing to its greedy and short-sighted appetites.
Out with a bang, out with a whimper, or out with a senile old shuffle, we’re doing our best, here in the Homeland, to embrace an idiot’s ker-fluffel …
Thanks, Christy, for bringing it ‘home’.
Such things SHOULD ‘get’ to those who would perpetrate such insanity, for such it is, ‘right’ where they ‘live’, even if it is in gated communities, far from the ‘madding crowd’ …
I’m eating some homemade zucchini bread, yes, with a dab of cream cheese, that my momma bought me at the Holiday Boutique we went to together.
Let’s all focus on what matters.
Si?
Hi Christy, nice post that needs to be brought to the attention of all people everywhere! But ya know this is just what Dr. Murphy has been posting about for what seems for ever and here is now demonstrable proof the GE food has no place in our food chain! Thanks for bringing it to out collective attention Christy!!
The European response to Frankenfoods proven correct?
Yes! This led to a spike in suicides by farmers in India because the seed was so expensive that they found they couldn’t make a living at it and they ended up poorer than when they began using GE.
I wouldn’t be too scared, yet–there are a lot of results in this type of work that turn out not to be replicable.
Heya — haven’t seen you for ages. What’s shakin’?
yes mam
Christy -
Check out teh google with “bee deaths & genetically modified foods”…….lots of listings but not sure if there’s a specific ref. for which you were looking.
Because it doesn’t help the bottom line! What the hell else! They need to make all that research pay off don’t they! ?s
Funny how that EU push against this sort of frankenfood and the popularity of oldways foodstuffs doesn’t seem so backward as the Bush Administration was trying to make us think back when we were all supposed to mock the French for their snobby hand-made cheeses and such. Isn’t it? *G*
Quick, babe, before it’s a goner.
Cream cheese is gone, but, there’s still buttah…
:)
Not bad for a friday nite..
OMG — how horrible!
You ever feel like the moreinformation you find out about everything around you, the more you think getting away from everything other people touch or control might be best? I’ve been having that feeling a lot lately…and it’s beginning to seriously creep me out. But, honestly, genetically engineering corn?!? As it turns out, the bugs they are trying to repel just adjust to the engineering, rendering it moot after a while for the most part…heckuva job…
organic consumers organization is a great resource for anyone wanting more info on this–web addy: organiconsumers.org
btw, all — just in time to creep everyone out about food…tomorrow’s PUAC will be recipe sharing for the Thanksgiving feast. You’ll be happy to note there is an organic menu from Nell Newman among the mix. *g*
Yes, I’m with you on that. I don’t know *why* some EGOs think that they can improve on Nature. Nature can take care of itself, thankyouverymuch.
Speaking of which, there was also a study where they noted deer would cross the road to organically raised corn if they had a choice between GE corn and organic. Interesting that they would detect the biological difference. Smart.
On India’s Farms, a Plague of Suicide
For what it is worth, and since there is very little here bucking the trend, I agree with raven333. One study does not make science. It might not even be a source for concern. A post on Gourmet’s website (or is it a blog? I could not tell) is not the best source of science reporting.
One little experience of ours that might or might not be instructive:
After many years prepping our own super-soil for veggie garden et al, we actually bought a mix of topsoil/compost, which SHOULD have been perfect for our needs.
Luckily, we didn’t put the stuff in our veg. garden, which has shrunk in respect for our aging muscles & joints.
We DID put it on low spots in the lawn, and in new flower beds. The results were mixed. This new stuff seemed to STIFLE the growth of EVERYTHING BUT an odd assortment of plants, and resulted in “sick” areas in our lawn.
Recently I read about persistence of pesticides and weed-killers. I honestly think that was our problem. The “compost” we bought was laced with manure from dairy cattle which, probably, had been fed marvelous-looking alfalfa hay grown in fields which I STRONGLY suspect were treated with “weed”-killing chemicals. I mentioned our problem to an ecologist friend of ours and he simply replied, “ah yes, persistent pesticides.”
The weedkiller applied to the alfalfa field permeates the leaves, which are eaten by the cows after the hay is cut, dried and stored, and which travels through the cow to the manure, which is then composted with topsoil, yet remains strong enough to stunt or prevent the growth of crops susceptible to its power to prevent anything predetermined as a “weed” in that alfalfa field.
Furious? no. with reservations. It takes time to determine these things, and our own experience is only anecdotal in nature.
Concerned? YES! BIG TIME! We in today’s world are galloping ahead with technology without a chance to test for consequences of all these “wonderful” new developments.
One last, admittedly perhaps unfair comment: I will always wonder what caused the rash of autism among certain populations of youngsters receiving injections supposedly providing safe immunity to diseases, not too long ago, in CA and elsewhere.
Brave new world? Makes me properly nervous.
Um…yeah. A post from Gourmet’s website with a number of links to scientific sites backing up the science and raising even more questions. Had it only been Gourmet, I wouldn’t have flagged this. Do click through more than one link — they are there for a reason.
Malignant companies……no FDA worth the name, and this is what we get. Not so worried about the HUMAN POPULATION issue which has become burdensome upon the earth, but the health ramifications are hideous. Look at China with it’s melamine catastrophe. Disaster capitalism indeed! The whole economic model has turned cancerous.
Anybody here ever read Stephen King’s “The Wastelands”??? It’s part of the Dark tower series, and tells of a similar catastrophe from corporations gone wild and taken over an alternate Universe….and destroyed it. Arguably, King’s Opus Magnum.
Good, scary stuff.
This isn’t.
Didn’t Monsanto invent Agent Orange too for Vietnam? This is incredible. MAN always thinks if he can do it, he will and then “fix” it if it gets out of hand. Good luck to us all.
This is why Europe wants nothing to do with Frankenfoods.
Even more vile: The Big Ag folk don’t want farmers saving any seed for next year’s crop, so they devise all sorts of ways to circumvent this.
Hey, a reason to be thankful.
Cue the recent tape of Sarah burbling away about turkey-stuffing while, in the backtround, the birds, including that which she “pardoned”, were being be-headed.
I do think we’ve elected an administration with a tad more sensitivity in front of the kiddies. More and more, sarah appears to be an island of bizarre chirpy unto herself, touched by nothing, touching nothing.
I’ll pass.
Actually, I’ve wondered about the link between GE-foods and other conditions.
Like autism.
Why the rather explosive growth? One study I ran across showed an 18% increase each year over a handful of years in one locale.
And what happens if we have multiple exposures, combined with other non-food environmental risks at the same time? I’m personally wigged out at how overused ultrasound is these days, for example.
I’m grateful that my kids have never been prone to illness.
And, I live in Sin City – Los Angeles.
Really, you just never why people get sick.
Apologies to all of Kirk’s (lengthy) posts.
Maybe it’s more than staying on top of just the Food Stuff.
Everything affects us humans.
Just sayin’
Toxic is toxic.
Supposedly, it has been traced to Thimersol a mercury based preservative. When I get my flu shots, I always ask for the Thimersol free stuff.
Mercury is very neurotoxic and it’s in all those “silver fillings” which are only safe to be stored in a person’s mouth.
Don’t ever let a dentist put that stuff in your mouth again.
I thought there was a lot of conflicting info on Thimerisol — scientific studies showing it had no impact whatsoever, including some long-term ones, while some parents are still claiming a link. Not sure there is a definitive yes on Thimerisol as a cause — at least not that I’ve heard. If you’ve got links on that, feel free to link them up, though.
I wish it was that simple…why are they worried about the bottom line?
Because shareholders demand a return on investment every single quarter.
Just had this same argument elsewhere about the car industry with somebody who actually thought the corporations were supposed to build products and make people like them. It simply doesn’t work that way given our American model.
Corporations exist to make a profit, and their shareholders demand them, quarter after quarter. Until this entire equation changes — and those of use who own stock or mutual funds are actively involved in that change — corporations are only going to change behavior only if legislated to do so.
And the problem we are talking about is a lack of testing for ecosystem impact over some period of time and over lifecycle. Are we prepared to talk about what that model ecosystem looks like, how long of a lifecycle this should be, and how much we are willing to pay for this to happen? Because if it’s about food, it will come down to whether we’re willing to pay for it.
I know I could do without glow-in-the-dark fish, but maybe somebody can’t give up toxin-free peanut butter?
Hey! A handy escape hatch for home gardeners.
Don’t forget your local gourmet food store. They probably have several varieties of things suitable for sprouting in the home.
If it sprouts, it should grow. These stores usually specialize in naturally grown produce and seeds.
Try growing from their seed. Then allow a few plants in each bunch to mature and save that seed for next year’s garden. All you need do is let them mature on the plant, collect and dry thoroughly, package with a label, and use them in next year’s garden.
VICTORY garden!!! HAH!
Not only do shareholders demand it. But corporations are also required by law to maximize shareholder profitability.
Thanks for the tip Cassie!
Other cheerful corporate food are “trans fatty acids”, such as margarines. These should be called “artifical corporate poison fats”. Natural fats are cis-fatty acids.
My fourth grade health teacher told us never to eat anything with “partially hydrogenated” oils in it — way back when I was a kid, it had been flagged by the center for science in the public interest folks and she told us about it. When I went home and started trying to weed that stuff out of our house, I drove my mom nuts — but I wouldn’t let her buy margarine any more.
Looks like Miss Lilly was right all along, eh?
This is like GM with the Corvair, “It’s safe!”
A book as gripping and popular as Ralph Nader’s Unsafe At Any Speed is needed. By the time enough people realize they can’t have babies, and why, the execs at Monsanto will be living in Dubai or some other offshore materialistic paradise.
Rod
ah, I need that bit of code — any chance you have a citation on that?
I just know this argument isn’t going to go away.
Eating organic produce and grass-fed, free-range meat.
Remember it from my law school business law days. Will see if I can dig up a citation on it…
I do draw the line there with the Corvair, Rod. My folks still have the 1963 Monza they bought way back. That car was awesome, small, light-weight, fuel efficient, great commuter vehicle, the kind of vehicle we should have had but instead killed for bigger, so-called “safer” vehicles.
I’ve never trusted Nader that much because of that disconnect between my family’s experience with that car and that book.
Here are a couple of quickie discussion links on the business judgment rule versus fiduciary obligations to maximize shareholder profitability:
– On Posner
– Why Posner is wrong
– Posner himself
Speaking from my own experience with mercury poisoning, I can tell you that it can manifest in autistic symptoms, such as diminished IQ, anger symptoms, inability to express oneself, timidity, depression, anxiety, and the list goes on.
Thanks, never recall running into that during business school. I do remember that there was considerable difference between what I learned in my business ethics class from my prof, and what I see in the business world.
The prof was a retired judge, a good old-fashioned moderate Republican, whose rather odd choice of text book was one written and published in England. The definition of good business ethics was decisions made to achieve long-term shareholder value, with reasonable decency and distributive justice.
The very idea of failing to test product for long-term impact is by that definition bad business ethics.
But that’s the kind of decision-making I don’t see in American business.
It’s more than just that.
Free range is too expensive.
I can’t afford it.
Free range ideas and mind sets are free.
I’d suggest you add that.
One problem is, research is galloping along on crops, introducing wondrous new things, so-labeled by those with an interest in the enterprise.
Compare the time it takes to perfect a quickly-grown crop, versus the time required to pin down and correctly identify serious concerns about related human safety concerns, given our long life expectancy, when even the scientists directing research also have their own life expectancy as a limitation to research. Then add in the effects of a Bushco administration’s efforts tending/designed to quash such research amidships, and… Houston, we have a problem.
This sort of thing was a problem decades ago, (centuries?), and persists today.
eating less meat.
Um…yeah. A bunch of links to newspapers about corn and mice (a NY Times article form 2003 about food exports and modified food, and article about labeling modified food, a Mother Jones article from 2000 about ownership and food, another article about labeling, and a link back to firedoglake) are not “a number of links to scientific sites.” The links from Gourmet were to a Yahoo article about Hawaii banning genetically modified coffee, an article form the Daily Mail, the USDA about the rate of adoption of engineered crops, the Center for Food Safety about the same study, and a link to the abstract of the study. Again, not a “number of links to scientific sites.”
So…it all adds up to one study and a bunch of articles about that study. So it is still one study. I stand by what I said. One study is not science. The Gourmet article even says “Zentek said that further studies to corroborate his results were “urgently needed.” The person who did the study even want his results corroborated. That is how science works.
I again say, it might not be a source for concern.
And another noted tragedy of GE crops is that they don’t stay put–the pollen from GE crops have been shown to contaminate non-GM crops. This was particularly tragic for organic farmers whose crops were ruined by GE pollination.
linky?
i’m not so sure about the autism / thimersol link. although mercury is most certainly a neurotoxin and imo something to avoid, especially given the amounts that are now present in our environment.
Must leave, folks. I’m so glad to see such subject matter getting a good airing.
No, there’s no easy answer, but there are some things we all can do to try to cope with uncertainties of the day.
Had the nicest couple of zucchinis with stewed tomatoes and a little shredded cheese on top for dinner.
It was delicious.
No meat.
Yum.
In places where crop spraying by airplanes is practiced, (TX comes to mind, big time, spraying their peppers as we drove through one time).
Organic farmers have no defence against wind-borne pesticides sprayed on nearby crops.
I have no printable answer for this.
Here’s a link to a documentary on Monsanto.
Agh. Thanks for those links. Posner is bullshit.
Jeebus.
He simply doesn’t understand “goodwill,” nor does he realize that risk management has been really crappy in the U.S., with risk being put off to others instead of being fully addressed as a cost-of-goods-sold in a nasty sleight of hand that’s really the evil reciprocal of goodwill.
While directors and managers have fiduciary responsibilities to maximize profits, it also means they have an obligation to mitigate risk and improve goodwill. Those are not separate from the ultimate function of creating value for shareholders; failing to mitigate risk could undermine all profits, for example, or failing to protect against brand damage could also undermine sales which in turn reduces profits.
Posner suffers from the inability to see successful businesses as integral systems and not discrete operations or functions.
My one autistic kid (albeit, very functional) didn’t have anything different than his siblings.
I’ve read a lot and I’ve never read anything linked to this.
Oh yeah. we too are turning that direction. There is NOTHing that can’t be used to make stuffed squash, heh.
Try to pair legumes (beans, peas) and grains (corn, barley, rice), fill out with leftovers, top with a little cheese gratings if you want, sit back and tell ‘em, oh, it was just a little thot. heh.
Eli’s up
Center-Right Nation
Yep.Yep.Yep. Nor do we, that is we who don’t wish to be poisoned, have any defense against sprayed pesticides.
CHS — this comment at Posner’s site is spot on.
The problem with the current American business model is that corporations strive for short-term value creation for shareholders — instead of long-term value for STAKEHOLDERS.
Great book on how EVERYTHING is made of corn these days: “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.”
I really like the way you think.
We eat meat too. Just not every meal.
My peoples eat anything I put on the table.
They do.
CHS — of course you noted the irony that the legal underpinning for Posner’s comments is Dodge v. Ford.
Doesn’t get much more ironic than that.
Population Control has been on the agenda for quite some time now.
BT and BT-Genetically Modified food produce create their own hazards as they kill pest by generating huge levels of internal Free Radicals.
At one time I was the typical good organic gardener and sprayed my plants with BT spray. My rabbits escaped from their cages and consumed the sprayed produce and all died.
Population Control means more than quantity, it also means having a depressed population that does not question official control and official edicts.
http://www.independent.co.uk/l…..36673.html
Mercury is undoubtedly bad for you.
But Thimomseral as a cause of autism has a good, solid amount of scientific evidence refuting it. The only connection is probably that vaccinations and onset of autism happen at the same age.
Mercury in vaccines has not been 110% exonerated, but it’s very unlikely to be causing autism in the increase rates we’ve seen. It’s still bad and should be avoided.
Monsanto wants to own the world’s food supply. People in India and Iraq are starving because they cannot afford to buy seeds and fertilizer every year. Brenner brought that to Irag when he was in charge. The world knows how bad GMO is and are fighting to stop it. In England, they are growing test crops in buildings because activists kept destroying the fields. In France recently there was a battle that the environmentalists won..ie no GMO corn to be grown.
I had posted on this a couple of months ago. It took so long for me to get the link correct, most people probably missed it. Here again, is the Monsanto video and many more good articles. On the page with the video, read the Open letter to Hillary Clinton from a Wellesley College Alumna. It was the Rose Law firm that got Monsanto ‘passed’ when she worked there.
If Monsanto is not stopped, the whole food supply of the world will be destroyed by their seeds cross pollinating. The poor farmers of the world are dying by the 1′000s; suicides and starvation. This situation is far more serious than a business model. This is the striving to control the world’s food supply. Just think of that seed vault that Gates etc are filling with the world’ seeds. There is a lot going on below the radar, I think.
http://www.celsias.com/article…..-monsanto/
And corn is not the only food you need eliminate from your diet. Soy and Cotton are also genetically engineered and are found in all kinds of processed foods. Cotton seed oil is in many products and soy is used as a filler in countless food items.
And then there’s potatoes, canola, and dairy products from cows that have been injected with rBGH.
The only answer is to grow your own, buy from your community farmer’s market, your neighbors who raise their own grass fed beef, etc.
The whole food “industry” has destroyed this country’s food supply.
Here’s a pdf of the original study in English
Christy, GM foods didn’t enter food chain until early 90’s. I’m thinking maybe you didn’t grow up with those foods but then I don’t know what you were eating when you were trying to become pregnant and what effect they could have had on you in the early 90’s if you were eating corn products..which truly are in everything.
I understand what you gone through having both a daughter and SIL who are infertile and no one can figure out why. There is a problem and it might go beyond GM foods for those of your age. There might have been other things like use of plastics and stuff in our personal products that could also be contributing.
BTW..we’ve had some infertility problems here and there in both our sides of the family and it could just be a “genetic thingy” and so not to get upset about it…if it wasn’t something you ate it just could be you or hubby got a miscreant gene.
I’m so glad you have your “Peanut” and she is all the more precious to you…but it might not be “your fault” for something you ate, either. It just could be genetic in some way. Just didn’t want you feeling there was something you “should have known about” that you didn’t do. We all have too much of that on our shoulders these days.
Link to WIKI article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G…..ified_food
Population control was on Henry Kissinger’s agenda back in 1974. He drew up a 124 page…National Security Study Memorandum NSSM 200.
Some of the places where ‘war’ is now going on, is accomplishing population control. In Gaza,too, as the people are cut off from food, medicine, and clean water.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, the cancer and birth defect rate is rising. The land is being destroyed by the depleted uranium.
Remember the animals raised in this country eat that corn too.
So how long before the cows, chickens and pigs are infertile too?
Have you seen the movie “Children of Men”?
Crasy Frankenfood companies! This makes me so angry.
I am not defending GMF or Monsanto but this “study” needs to be taken with a huge grain of salt. This “study” has not been peer reviewed or published. The data is not even available for review by unbiased scientists. In the world of science claims are not valid unless they have been peer reviewed.
No one outside of the laboratory of Jengen Zentek has looked at the study. We do not know if the experiments were properly designed and if the accumulated data was correctly analyzed. Without publication we have only the opinion of the Zentek, who has a vested interested in the results, that his study says what he says it does.
His model, reproduction assessment by continuous breeding, is notoriously unreliable. I have been using mice in research models for over 30 years and have bred thousands of research mice. Female mice produce litters on a curve, with litter size and body weight of pups first increasing and then decreasing as the animal ages and the number of litters increase. In addiditon, breading success and litter size are highly dependent on nutrition and environment.
You are probably saying, “but the study adressed the nutition of the mice.” Yes, but perhaps in a slanted way. Since a peer reviewed paper would include a section on methods and materials we would know the details of the food the animals consumed but it wasn’t published so we have to guess. Zentek says this about the food the mice ate: “The parents were fed either with a diet containing 33per cent of GM maize, a hybrid of Monsanto’s MON 810 and another variety, and a normal feed mix.” Does “normal feed mix” mean a proven mouse breeding feed or does it mean that it was breeding feed diluted with 33% non-GM corn, making in comparable to the feed containing 33% GM corn? We aren’t told, but if the non-GM animals were fed a good commerical mouse breeding feed undiluted with 33% corn or any type, that alone would cause breeding problems.
Our mice produce less litters an smaller litters when fed regular mouse feed and produce more litters and larger litters just but substituting breeding feed for regular feed.
Reproduction in mice is also impacted by strain, by the age of both the male and female, by the experience level of the male, by how often the male is bred, by the type of caging, by the light/dark cycle, by how often the cages are cleaned, by how they are handled during cage cleaning, by how often animal handlers enter the mouse room, by perfumes or cosmetics worn by mouse handlers, and by many other factors too numerous to list here. Unless all of these factors are controlled for the study means nothing, and without published results we have no way of knowing what was done.
Finally, it appears that the Austrian government has been trying to ban GM foods for years and has been involved in promoting bogus research before. If the Austrians want to ban these foods it may or may not be a good thing, but if they are going to try and use science to make their case it should be good science.
Here is a link to a very intersting article on this subject:
http://www.gmobelus.com/news.php?viewStory=276
Also, the study addressing GM corn and corn pollen on aquatic ecosystems has also not been published as far as I can tell. An abstract is not a peer reviewed article, it is a statement of work the scientist has done that may or may not ultimately be published.
Sorry, I checked a bit more and the aquatic ecosystem has been published, in PNAS, a very good journal.
I understand the desire to make sense of infertility. I was infertile myself and have one child by adoption and one miracle baby born to us. In our case the cause for our infertility was never determined and I understand the sorrow and frustration of not only not being able to conceive but not knowing why.
My children are in their 20s, though, and with current technology the cause of our infertility may well have been diagnosed. Perhaps we will discover some day that GM foods contribute to infertility but right now that is far from proven.
(sorry for delay: commuted home)
You’re absolutely right about the pigs: as a rule chemicals that injure (or help) them do the same in us.
The fact so many different studies using multiple species (rodents, pigs) show GMO consumption kills and injures really scares me.
The fact almost all of us eat the stuff scares me even more:
Yikes.
I get the distinct impression that you guys don’t understand that adding a gene to corn by artificial means is not fundamentally different than adding one by conventional plant breeding. There is a kind of mysticism about genetic engineering. You do know, don’t you, that a chemical is a chemical no matter how it is produced?
GM methods could certainly produce problems, but there is no special reason to think they are more of a menace than natural methods. Indeed, the more basic problem is the prevalence of monoculture in world agriculture. For example, almost all bananas are grown from slips and have next to no genetic diversity, which is why they are currently menaced by a single plant disease to which each and every banana plant has no resistance.
The heck with hippy mysticism. Let us evaluate biological dangers by their probabilities, not by some woo about not messing with nature. Agribusiness do have too much influence over regulatory agencies, but that isn’t a reason to embrace voodoo botany. Similarly, the drug companies are also too powerful, but mercury in vaccines just isn’t the cause of autism.
Handy shopping guide
http://tinyurl.com/NoGmo
~~~ModNote: PDF warning.~~~
Seriously? With world population increasing 80 million per year. With humans burning themselves toward extition we are to worry about a snippet of genetic code taken from a fellow living organism Bacillus thuringiensis. Alarmed? We ought to be hopeful.
The above study citing the effects of GM soy on rats has the same flaws as the mouse study. It was not peer reviewed and published. According to the article, the scientist ran our of money and presented data marked as preliminary. The data has no scientific validity at this point. I am surprised that Dr. Murphy accepts this study so uncritically.
Explain Monsanto’s Terminator gene, then. That’s the self-infertile gene added so that seed must be bought each year and cannot be saved. No studies, of course, as to whether or not it might escape to the wild…
And don’t forget peak oil. The green Revolution and current farming is dependent on oil, for machinery and for pesticide and for herbicide. As acessible oil begins to taper off, and it likely already has, farming will either revert to widespread traditional methods or there will be a die-off of humans. Take your pick.
Hippie-dippy my heinie.
Respectfully, we DO understand that selection is a form of genetic modification which humans have engaged in since they could first select the choicer fruit from a number of trees.
But insertion of a NON-PLANT gene into a PLANT is not at all the same thing, and the Bt modifications are just that.
Can you tell me with a degree of specificity why plants and animals diverged and why they never converged again? When you can, you can call us “hippy-dippy”, and not before then.
Well, Google it. Mercury is a well known neurotoxin. Do some research.
And, as we all know the Bush Regime has been suppressing the scientific community’s findings for the last 8 years. the Republicans…..god KNOWS how long.
There is a lot of interesting information on how the European countries have banned mercury fillings sometimes completely, sometimes in pregnant women or kids under 12. There are some kick ass alternatives to mercury fillings these days because the controversy MADE the dental companies develop them. There’s no good reason to have this stuff put in your mouth ( or your vaccines) when it’s regarded, and stored as hazardous waste, once it’s out of your mouth.
I’ve been following this issue for years as I developed a genetic neuro muscular disorder about 20 years ago…but, as my neurologist said “something had to trigger it”
We’ll all agree that mercury is a known neurotoxin and that we should be avoiding it and removing it where possible.
But I also think it’s really premature for people to make the association between thimersol and autism because we haven’t seen either a sufficiency of solid studies, nor any casual (don’t mean causal here) correlation between changes in environmental exposures and autism.
There may be more than one cause, too, that exacerbates findings.
Look at this article: Study: Counties with more rainfall have higher autism rates — there appears to be no correlation with population density, I’ll point out, which generally goes hand in hand with some forms of pollution like acid rain.
Then look at the EPA’s maps of environmental mercury exposure.
And then look at the national maps of autism incidence.
What stands out is that there may be a couple of likely contributors to autism rates that are environmental, but they do not explain why the dramatic increase in autism rates since 1992.
States with higher pollution like Minnesota clearly have increased rates of autism, for example, but there’s no obvious drop off as thimersol is removed from products or as parents refuse vaccinations.
States have had consistent rates of vaccination using the same vaccine producers for years; shouldn’t there be a fairly uniform pattern of incidence that reflects the vaccines used if thimersol preservation was the issue?
What about thimersol in contact solution — was there any correlation with that product and autism rates? if contact solutions are now generally free of thimersol, shouldn’t there be a decrease as well in autism rather than the increase of autism approaching 20% a year right now, even though use of thimersol has been decreasing over that period?
The question we are not asking ourselves is what changed over the last 15-16 years?
Use of BPA is one of those things I can think of right off the top of my head; there were not many large-scale production facilities in the U.S. in 1988 (I was working on project related to installing one of the first big ones at that time).
Another one is ultrasound; in 1993 I remember it still being used only occasionally, and now it’s used frequently during pregnancies.
What other things changed in our culture during that time frame? What might also mirror the incidence maps? And since we’re possibly looking at multiple causes, are we so sure that we haven’t seen some sort of biological agent in play as well — like those implicated in MS or other neurological disorders as triggers?
Several months ago I posted on Empty WHeel about the infertlity issue connected to these “terminator seeds”. Didn’t seem like too many folks were interested. Here’s some links to one of the BEST books on the subject. Seeds of Destruction, The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation”Jan 2, 2008 … Engdahl’s newest book is just out from Global Research: “Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation” and subject of …
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.ph…..8;aid=7716 – 57k – Cached – Amazon.com: Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic …Amazon.com: Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation: William F. Engdahl: Books.
http://www.amazon.com/Seeds-Destructi…..0973714727 – 303k – Cached – Similar pages
I guess I’m late to the party-story of my life-but I just stopped reading “Our Stolen Future” mentioned here a while ago. I stopped because it is just too damned depressing. It’s about how synthetic chemicals are treated as estrogen by hormone receptors and screw up reproduction in animals of all sorts and humans also. The effects of the thousands of chemicals we released into the environment remain unknown, but they are everywhere. We may have killed ourselves and are too dumb to lie down.
Which brings me to George Bush. His parting shot is a big F**k You to all of us. Why should this be? He did far more to us than we did to him, yet he attacks clean air, contamination etc. and does his best to make his acts irreversible. That’s capitalism brought to its illogical conclusion.
So what to do? The liberal blogosphere gets its head handed to it because the powers that be are unpersuaded we represent anyone but ourselves. We’d like to prove otherwise. Here’s the assignment. I have no right answer or any answer at all. Let’s try for a movieless Saturday night. It means attracting people of all persuasions and convincing them to join in sending a meaningful message to Washington. The far right may take it to be an opportunity to go to the movies. It means trusting each other sight unseen to take an action we agree on. The more the very much merrier. Its way past time to begin thinking about doing something to change the way public business is done. Maybe there’s another way. Maybe we can adopt Face Book or My Space to the job. Maybe Google with its ability to count hits can do something. It’s something we should talk about.
For those who are interested in a compendium of articles,dating back several years,yet continuously updated on this GMO and nona tech subject,click on to this link. The Global Research site[linked upthread] is an excellent source for these issues——Monsanto Whistleblower Says Genetically Engineered Crops May Cause Disease
- by Jeffrey M. Smith – 2006-11-19
“I also think it’s really premature for people to make the association between thimersol and autism”
It’s not premature, it’s wrong. The work that made the connection has been discredited. There was, among other things, a substantial conflict of interest.
Rayne, responding to my post, wrote:
But insertion of a NON-PLANT gene into a PLANT is not at all the same thing, and the Bt modifications are just that.
Can you tell me with a degree of specificity why plants and animals diverged and why they never converged again? When you can, you can call us “hippy-dippy”, and not before then.
Genes move from one kingdom to another by natural as well as artificial means. There are loads of viral genes in us, for example, and in some cases, the viruses picked up the genes from plants before they transferred them to us. Thing is, it doesn’t matter where a gene that specifies a protein comes from. It will specify the same protein where ever it lands. I guess the upper-case panic about the insertion of a NON-PLANT gene into a PLANT is analogous to the bit from Ghost Busters about dogs messing with cats. It reflects an ancient view of nature that was revived by the Romantics and lives on in alternative medicine but is simply irrelevant to understanding what’s going on in the real world.
Once again, I’m not saying that GM genes can’t cause trouble. If they to, however, it won’t be because they are engineered.
One irony here is that irrational fear of the technology has the practical effect of guaranteeing that only big agribusiness will have the clout to overcome the opposition of the environmentalists while smaller efforts by non-profits to introduce genetically altered products that would actually help people are likely to be squelched. So we get altered corn that farmers have to buy every season so that corporate profits will be increased but golden rice, which has been engineered to overcome third-world vitamin deficiencies, is effectively blocked.
You can make your case by citing an example of PLANT material crossing without human intervention to NON-PLANT material and vice-versa, one in which the NON-PLANT survived intact for several generations.
There’s a reason I capped those words. It’s because you pointedly missed this differentiation in your first comment. It’s bad enough that scientists have been careless and imprudent with insertion of plant-to-plant materials, inducing peanut allergy responses for example by inserting nut genes into other non-nut plants without thinking through the consequences. Why should we simply roll over on more complex gene transfers?
Get specific for this audience, not snotty. You would do well to keep in mind this is a far more diverse and fairly well-educated readership at this site; you aren’t dealing with idiots.
By the way, you were off the mark with your comment, “a chemical is a chemical no matter how it is produced.” Quite a number of regular readers at this site — particularly those who’ve experience with estrogen-sensitive cancers — know that you’re painting with a very, very broad brush. Xenoestrogens, for example, are in no way as harmless to humans as phytoestrogens; estrogens are clearly not all the same.
raven333 — I still believe it’s premature, because thimersol and other forms of mercury in combination with other environmental exposures has not been ruled out. By itself alone, your point is taken on thimersol; the continuing increase of autism in spite of thimersol’s removal from childhood vaccines says much about thimersol’s role.