It tastes like the inside of an Erlenmeyer flask?

originally posted by Peter Creasey:

One part of all of this that has bothered me since early in this thread (I believe I read it right!?!) is the contention that profit incentive is a negative.

Countless things that have been developed so as to create value or profit have greatly benefited the population.

. . . . Pete
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I believe the argument was that tests done by companies who stand to profit if the tests prove that the products they produce are safe are not necessarily unbiased. That's not quite the same as arguing that the profit incentive is a negative per se. And thus your second sentence misses the point.
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
If it is independent safety studies that you're looking for, Genera over on Biology Fortified has a database on safety studies. They currently have 400+ of the 1200 studies dealing with safety up and c. half of them are completely independent. There is plenty of studies on safety that aren't funded by Monsanto & al. If you want peer-reviewed papers: http://genera.biofortified.org/wp/genera-announces-beta-test-launch
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biofortified.org = the epitome of astroturfing

Otto, clearly you are a shill/apologist for big AgriTech, but are you employed by them as well?
 
Jeff and Claude,

Would you make the same argument regarding the (relatively new) vaccine schedule?
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No. If you don't like what happens you just stop giving shots. The world is not irrevocably changed.

ETA: If you meant about giving time to see what happens, yes. In the case of vaccinations, the results are clear (and, as I answered first, it doesn't change the world, only those people so inoculated).
 
originally posted by mark e:

Otto, clearly you are a shill/apologist for big AgriTech?
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It may appear that way, but Otto's one of the good guys. If he is mistaken, and it is not entirely clear that he is, he is sincerely and honestly mistaken.
 
originally posted by mark e:

biofortified.org = the epitome of astroturfing

Otto, clearly you are a shill/apologist for big AgriTech, but are you employed by them as well?
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Astroturfing? What's your proof for that? It isn't funded by any of the big companies. And even if it were, you still have the links to the original papers.

Ah yes, the infamous shill argument. Sadly, my shill-check still hasn't come in the mail. I wonder what's taking them so long to get it to me. Seriously? Calling me a shill is the best critique you can give?
 
Back to the very first post about arctic apples since this is actually a very interesting thing. The very same gene had actually been silenced in the Sultana grape naturally in the '60s. It took some 30 years to figure out what exactly had happened but no one seemed to care: the product worked and didn't spread uncontrollably or cause any problems. So at least with this particular gene silencing you have now the 50 years you wanted! :) http://kfolta.blogspot.fi/2012/07/arctic-grape-sneaks-through-public.html
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
Back to the very first post about arctic apples since this is actually a very interesting thing. The very same gene had actually been silenced in the Sultana grape naturally in the '60s. It took some 30 years to figure out what exactly had happened but no one seemed to care: the product worked and didn't spread uncontrollably or cause any problems. So at least with this particular gene silencing you have now the 50 years you wanted! :) http://kfolta.blogspot.fi/2012/07/arctic-grape-sneaks-through-public.html
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As long as it is the same gene, I'm fine with it. Mankind is very good at copying nature, on a case by case basis. :^)

(FWIW, I think Folta's language is a little snarky.)

ETA: Now that I've read the technical goods, I think your language is a little snarky, too: there is no reason for a public outcry about a natural variation. (Remember, I don't buy into your dull/sharp paradigm.)
 
Finally found some really technical goods on this apple: an article from Chemical and Engineering News, and better still, Okanagan's original application (pdf).

ETA: Upon reading the technical goods, I now see that the Arctic trees are resistant to the antibiotic kanamycin. Gee, I hope they don't need to be treated with that someday because, gosh, that would be a problem and we can't say the P word around Otto.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
I'm just going to weigh in that I'm with Otto on this. There are no studies that haven't been debunked showing any health risks to GMO food. The risks being raised with regard to affect on the environment have no evidential basis that I can see and the bars set for showing those risks don't exist are so high as to simply disallow based on not knowing. And moreover there is really no reason to single out GMOs for such high bars. Cross-polination outside laboratories does genuinely modify genes and could, conceivably, create (and probably has created) varieties that are highly destructive to their environments.
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and I'm with Jonathon.

While the problems of monoculture are a legitimate concern they are certainly not limited to GMO (see bananas) and there has never been a single shred of evidence concerning any health issues to eating GMO food.
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen

I didn't make claims of plants somehow propagating in new ways. I just said that crop plants don't spread as widely nor so easily as you seem to think. One doesn't tend to see our usual crops growing completely wild in the vicinity of fields taking over pristine land.
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Bullshit. Crop plants spread by growing in proximity to other crop plants. We're not talking about wild plants here. Were talking about fucking corn and its spreading like crazy through corn genetics, so no, there is no going back to non GMO cultivars if shit goes wrong because they're fucking genetically contaminated.

I grow corn myself and contract for others to grow corn seed for my business and have had all lots tested for GMO contamination from a third party lab for years. We've had several lots, grown on small organic farms in the middle of nowhere come back positive. We use a qualitative yes/no analysis for ours because we maintain a 0% contamination threshold of acceptability, but what I hear from the lab is that virtually no one does that anymore, because its no longer a matter of whether contamination is present but to what extent. I'd say conservatively that 80% of "non GMO" corn lots grown in the US at this point have some degree of contamination. Corn lots tested from fucking rural Oaxaca, the breadbasket of corn biodiversity have tested positive for christ's sake.

Soy is not really an issue in that it is mostly a self pollinating crop, but beets are next. Wind pollinated, tiny pollen that blows for miles, and surprise! one of the epicenters of your shiny sparkly new Roundup Ready sugar beet production happens to be also the one of the beet and chard (same species) seed production capitals of the west coast. Squash is coming up next in the pipeline and is also notoriously promiscuous, though insect pollinated and thus limited to about a mile of crosspollination.

You can go on about your "better living through bio-tech" crap but get your facts straight about your "you don't have to worry, gmo plants don't really behave like that".
 
Ok, so we're no longer talking about these spreading uncontrollably in the world but of contamination on fields. Now this is a good topic and one that I agree should be researched well - especially with corn and canola and such crops where trace contamination is practically impossible to avoid. Generally speaking it has been considered enough to have a buffer zone between GM and non-GM fields. Even without a buffer zone the contaminated area of nearby fields is only about 1% of the area. Or that is at least what's usually cited. But how much contamination have you witnessed in your field? At least in the US you can however still get organic certification if there are trace levels of GM corn in what you're selling. Or do you have other reasons than organic certification for why you demand absolutely no contamination?

The Nature paper by Quist & Chapela that you're referring to with Oaxacan maize was heavily criticized and there was lots of drama over on Nature resulting in this criticism: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v416/n6881/full/nature738.html Despite the criticisms all anti-GMO arguments continue to only cite the original paper by Quist & Chapela and never mention the problems with the paper nor that other studies have found no evidence for contamination on Oaxaca. E.g. this: "No transgenic sequences were detected with highly sensitive PCR-based markers, appropriate positive and negative controls, and duplicate samples for DNA extraction. We conclude that transgenic maize seeds were absent or extremely rare in the sampled fields. This study provides a much-needed preliminary baseline for understanding the biological, socioeconomic, and ethical implications of the inadvertent dispersal of transgenes from the United States and elsewhere to local landraces of maize in Mexico." http://www.pnas.org/content/102/35/12338.long
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
Generally speaking it has been considered enough to have a buffer zone between GM and non-GM fields. Even without a buffer zone the contaminated area of nearby fields is only about 1% of the area. Or that is at least what's usually cited. But how much contamination have you witnessed in your field? At least in the US you can however still get organic certification if there are trace levels of GM corn in what you're selling. Or do you have other reasons than organic certification for why you demand absolutely no contamination?
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Why 1%? Where did that number come from? How big are the fields we are talking about? What is the predominant wind direction? Is contamination in 1 in 100 kernels of corn acceptable? and since we are usually talking about large lots that means contamination in some ears near the "buffer" is quite high?
The kicker is that the burden of preventing undesired cross pollination falls squarely on the grower that want to prevent it. There is no legal recourse for the a grower who loses a market crop because contamination is an issue for them.

Like I said earlier I hate it when the discussion of the biotech industry is reduced to a discussion about GMO's as the hot button topic of the moment. It is simply a tool of an aggressive profit and control strategy that is having devastating impacts worldwide.

As far as GMOs go, they have not brought us better yielding plants, hardier plants, more adaptable plants, disease resistant plants (with possibly the one exception of the papaya), nor more nutritious plants other than the golden rice biotech PR stunt. For the most part they have brought us plants that wont die when you hit them with heavier doses of pesticides or that produce their own in every cell of their plant. They are used to market a style of agriculture that fosters dependency on the chemicals and seeds that the companies themselves produce at the expense of environmental degradation, health risks, and devastating loss of biodiversity in our food systems.
 
originally posted by Brian C:
... nor more nutritious plants other than the golden rice biotech PR stunt.
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Come on, Brian. In your righteous indignation you're now tarring a very important scientific advance as a "biotech PR stunt"? Do you think that either of the two developers, Prof. Ingo Potrykus or Prof. Peter Beyer was motivated by trying to improve Monsanto's image?

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by Brian C:
As far as GMOs go, they have not brought us better yielding plants, hardier plants, more adaptable plants, disease resistant plants (with possibly the one exception of the papaya), nor more nutritious plants other than the golden rice biotech PR stunt. For the most part they have brought us plants that wont die when you hit them with heavier doses of pesticides or that produce their own in every cell of their plant. They are used to market a style of agriculture that fosters dependency on the chemicals and seeds that the companies themselves produce at the expense of environmental degradation, health risks, and devastating loss of biodiversity in our food systems.
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Yields are up on average 22% according to a recent meta-analysis. Hardier and more adaptable plants are being researched at the moment, e.g. drought resistant varieties of wheat and rice that is able to survive submerged in a flood for longer periods. There are all sorts of projects going on in addition to the most famous, Golden Rice. IIRC disease resistant plants are being researched at least with bananas and citrusfruits. But it takes on average 10 years to get a product out into the fields. The cost of testing and bureaucracy, however, is so high that universities rarely can do these products so if falls to big companies. That's why most of the applications of the technology aren't "humanitarian" in nature but are intended to make money. To me this says that we somehow have to make it less expensive to go through the regulatory process if we want the full potential of the technology. Which obviously many here don't want.

"On average, GM technology adoption has reduced chemical pesticide use by 37%, increased crop yields by 22%, and increased farmer profits by 68%. Yield gains and pesticide reductions are larger for insect-resistant crops than for herbicide-tolerant crops. Yield and profit gains are higher in developing countries than in developed countries." http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0111629
 
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